This transcript appears to be from a **Cottage Grove Public Service and Public Safety Commission** meeting. I have identified the speakers based on the context provided, their self-introductions, and their roles within the city. **Note:** Since the original text did not include timestamps, I have used sequential markers to denote the passage of time and speaker changes. *** **[00:00] Ron Kath (Vice Chair):** My name is Ron Kath, I'm the vice chair of the Public Service and Public Safety Commission. I'd like to first welcome everybody in the audience this evening. This meeting is being held at our city offices within our council chambers. Tonight is November 18th. We are starting at 7:00 PM. Our first item on our agenda is call to order. Can I have the roll taken, please? It's been done, thank you. Thank you. Our second item on our agenda is the Pledge of Allegiance. Please join me with the Pledge of Allegiance. **[00:30] All:** 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. **[00:45] Ron Kath (Vice Chair):** Thank you. We got roll call taken. With that, then I'll entertain a motion to approve our agenda this evening. **[00:50] Tracy (Commissioner):** I'll move to approve the agenda. **[00:52] Ron Kath (Vice Chair):** Okay, thank you Tracy. A second? **[00:54] Kelsey (Commissioner):** I'll second. **[00:55] Ron Kath (Vice Chair):** Kelsey. All those in favor of approving our agenda this evening signify by saying "Aye." **[00:58] Commission:** Aye. **[01:00] Ron Kath (Vice Chair):** Those opposed? Motion passes. Moving on to our next item is our approval of our minutes from our October 21st meeting. Could I have a motion to accept those minutes? **[01:05] Nate (Commissioner):** Accept. **[01:06] Ron Kath (Vice Chair):** Okay, Nate is the motion and Kelsey is the second. All those in favor of approving our October 21st meeting minutes signify by saying "Aye." **[01:10] Commission:** Aye. **[01:12] Ron Kath (Vice Chair):** Those opposed? Motion passes. Our next item on our agenda is Open Forum, and that is open for anybody in the audience that would like to speak before this commission. You’re normally allowed up to three minutes. This evening we do have two presentations: one is our snowmobile club update and our Granada Park parking restrictions. So if you were going to speak on any one of those two subjects, I'd ask that you'd wait and then we'll take your comments after those two agenda items. Is there anybody that would like to address this Commission on any other open forum item this evening? Okay, not hearing any, then we'll move into presentations. This evening our first one is our snowmobile club update. **[01:45] Ryan Burfeind (Public Works Director):** Thank you, Mr. Chair, members of the commission. So like we do each year before the winter season, we like to meet with our snowmobile club, just hear from them on how things are going, take a look at the snowmobile club trail map, and then also Public Safety will usually report if there's been any issues in the last season. Obviously, there wasn't much snow last season, unfortunately, so not a lot of opportunities for snowmobiling. Hoping this year will be different. One thing I will say is there is no changes with Jeremy, the president, to the trail map this year, so we're not looking for any formal recommendation to approve a new map at this time. And from the city standpoint, you know, I think over the past couple years there's been a lot of effort on the south part of Cottage Grove over there. There’s a snowmobile trail along 100th Street where we've had 100th Street redone, some realignment on the west end, so we wanted to make sure we could keep that trail open and not have it closed once those road improvements are done. And I think we've done a good job of that. That project is complete and the trail is still able to operate on that south side of 100th Street. So at this point, not anticipating any coming changes right now that would affect the snowmobile map. But that's something we're always going to keep discussion with the snowmobile club on; we don't want to be in a situation where development moves into an area and all of a sudden is forcing the snowmobile trail out because those are great connections to have. So with that, Jeremy Goble is here tonight, the president of the snowmobile club, if he wants to give an update as well from their side. **[03:10] Jeremy Goble (Snowmobile Club President):** Good evening. I'm Jeremy Goble, the president of East Cottage Grove Scramblers. We mark and maintain everything south of Valley Creek up in Woodbury along 95 down to Anderson Windows and down to Highway 10 and 61 by the County Point gas station. Our club does everything; we mark it, we groom it, we bush hog it, all that stuff. We also put on the East Cottage Grove Dust Off vintage snowmobile show in our field—that'll be January 4th. That is a great event that we brought to the community; we're happy with that. Over the last four years of having it, we've raised over $10,000 and given back to the community and charities, so we're very proud of that. We just donated to the food shelf here at our past meeting, so that was very cool. This year we added a radar run to it, so hopefully it'll bring out more people to the event and be a good turnout. But as far as the trail, everything—we've been starting to mark stuff and we haven't seen any issues. If you guys have any concerns or want to see something changed or done, let me know and I'll make it happen, because I definitely don't want to lose what we have because we like to ride around here. Other than that, have you got any questions? **[04:20] Ron Kath (Vice Chair):** All right, well thank you Jeremy. With that, Commissioners, any questions this evening or comments? No? Well, you know I'm going to have a comment because I'm an avid snowmobiler. So I always like to remind the community and volunteers like yourself—it is a volunteer [effort] to put all those trail markers up there. And so for the young people that get on their sleds and like to run around all over the place: let's stay on the trails because it is a privilege to be on these trails, it's not our right to be on these trails. I like to remind people of that all the time. So thank you to you and your club. I enjoyed even last year without the snow coming out to the event that you had out there; you guys still had a really nice turnout, and thank you for doing that for the community. I appreciate it. **[04:55] Kelsey (Commissioner):** I also want to say thank you for what you guys do for the community, too. That's really awesome to hear. **[05:00] Jeremy Goble:** Thank you. Awesome. **[05:02] Ron Kath (Vice Chair):** Anybody else? No? With that, thank you. All right, we need a snow. I know for some people they don't want the snow, but for there are a few of us that do like it. All right, our next business item is the Granada Park parking restriction update. That'll be presented by Zac, our director of our Parks. **[05:25] Zac Dockter (Parks and Recreation Director):** Thank you, Chair, members of the commission. I will start the process. So obviously there's a lot that comes into play here with concerns on parking on Granada Avenue, but it relates to Granada Park. So I think it's appropriate to start with a little bit of history of Granada Park. It's actually got a really unique history. It's one of our smaller parks at only 1.8 acres, but it was acquired in the early '60s from a company called David Realty. They actually dedicated, I think it was three or four lots there when they couldn't sell them. This was before Orrin Thompson came in and built thousands of homes in the '60s, '70s, and '80s. So it was a small park with a playground and maybe some picnicking and that was about it. In 1973, residents passed a referendum and improved parks and added the ice arena, and this is one of the parks that got improved. That actually added a new playground, picnic shelter, and then it added two tennis courts. So it was a pretty popular park in the '70s, '80s, and '90s. And then later '90s, early 2000s, it became an underused park as the community demographics had changed over, maybe an older neighborhood, whatever it might be. And we started getting a lot of complaints and police calls for loitering and vandalism and graffiti and things of that nature. So in 2010, the playground was to be replaced and we did a survey of the community of what they wanted to see in the park. Picnicking, pickleball or a sport court, and a new playground were some of the top items, and then some additional landscaping and some additional green space. So we reconfigured the park again, I think it was in 2014. So we got rid of the two tennis courts that were from 1973 and just needed to be replaced one way or the other. We converted to three pickleball courts, which were the first three dedicated pickleball courts in Cottage Grove. I don't think I have to explain how popular pickleball has become since then; it's really taken off. So we were glad to have that. It really did kind of hold its own for a while; the club played out of there and it managed itself pretty well. But then it's just exploded in the last five, six, seven years. So we knew that Granada couldn't hold up that park in the way it's located with no parking and with just the three courts and just the proximity to the neighborhood and everything else. We needed to find a new location. So we did build six new pickleball courts last year that opened up at Glacial Valley Park; they opened up this spring. So we have six additional courts there and then we have two other courts around the community, and then we actually have five more pickleball courts that are programmed to go into Woodridge Park next year. So when we redo the hockey rink next year, we're going to put them inside the pickleball court—or inside the hockey rink—at Woodridge to make those rinks a little more multi-use. That's a great opportunity to do that. I think we talked about it at Capital Improvements the last time I was here with you guys. But in the meantime, we did get some complaints starting, I believe it was this year, maybe even into last year, of some of the parking issues. A resident had called us with concerns about parking in front of the fire hydrant, blocking mailboxes, using driveways as turnarounds, and just generally creating unsafe conditions for the youth that use the streets for bicycling or walking or whatever it might be, and then just also the sheer traffic volume from the cars on both sides of the road. Those are the concerns I heard. Given the complaint, I coordinated with Public Works and the Police Department and said, "What do we want to do?" I know they sent out a community service officer to talk with one of the residents. I personally have drove by many, many times—it's kind of our routine. I mean, I've seen busy parking, but I can't say I've seen all the issues because I don't live there, right? And the resident did show me pictures, so I can't disagree that there's some of these issues going on. So it's different when you drive by than when you actually live in the neighborhood, I'm sure. So I can't necessarily say I can personally vouch for what happens or doesn't happen, but certainly there is a lot of parking at certain times of the day depending on the situation. A lot of on-road parking there that could create frustration for residents. I'm not an engineer, I'm not a law enforcement officer, so at some point I'll let those folks over there answer some of those questions you might have. But we did look at a potential parking lot option because there is some green space on the north side. If you look at the image there on the north side of the park... but I will say that, just for reference, the parking lot would have to be considerably bigger than the size of those pickleball courts on the bottom. So you can see it would take up almost all that green space which is meant to be an open turf area to throw frisbee, play catch, whatever it might be. And it's going to be probably a six-figure investment with curb and gutter and pavement and everything else that goes into a parking lot. So it's a significant investment. So that's why we thought a public process is probably a good way to start this. Let's get some feedback from the community, let's have the Public Services Commission talk about it and see where that might take us. So with that, I think I will answer any questions you might have or, if I don't know if we need additional staff comment from our Public Works Director or Police Department, I'll leave it up to your discretion if there's anything else to add. If not, we can start asking questions. **[11:05] Ryan Burfeind (Public Works Director):** Mr. Chair, I think I've got a little more I could add and then I'll turn over to Brad as well, maybe just to kind of give the full context. Because like Zac did, from an engineering standpoint it was also looked at. Because sometimes there might be things like a sightline—maybe there's a crosswalk. A good example is we've got the bike park up at West Draw Park, right? Where there's a trail corridor that actually runs and continues across Metrass Avenue. And to be closer to the bike park, people were parking pretty heavily on Metrass when there is a dedicated parking lot for that park. And because of that, they were blocking the sightline of a pretty busy trail corridor of people coming and going. So there was a pretty strong need to do something. We didn't actually get rid of all the parking, we just kind of eliminated [parking] approaching the crosswalk so we could have the sightlines. And then also there was a better place to park, right? There was a dedicated parking lot for that park that we wanted folks to use. In this area, like Zac mentioned, there's not a dedicated parking lot. So I guess one thing to consider with a parking restriction is we're not going to eliminate the use of that park. So if we put a parking restriction here, people who want to use that park just have to park a little farther away, but still on a street without a sidewalk, right? So that was a consideration—if they're parking somewhere else, so they have a sidewalk to walk to that park, they would be walking in the road, right? So it doesn't necessarily allow them or force them to park in a better or safer location. There's not a specific crosswalk here; there is a point where kind of a little bit of a trail from the park enters into the road and there's a pedestrian ramp just to allow folks who are parking in the road to get onto the park property, but not necessarily a true crosswalk. So from that standpoint, there wasn't necessarily a hard engineering standard or guideline to follow to enforce this restriction. So like Zac mentioned, we thought it'd be a great way just to really have some feedback, introduce this to the commission tonight, and get your feedback on it because it's more of an impact of the neighborhood, right? You've got that parking, but if there's a "No Parking," does that push the issue somewhere else? I think another consideration was the more pickleball courts that are being built. So is that going to kind of spread out the use a little bit, change how heavily [the park is] used here? I think that's something we wanted to see as well. So that's some of the engineering background. I don't know if, Brad, you have anything to add? **[13:10] Brad Petersen (Acting Director of Public Safety):** I can add a little bit of context. So it is true we have had a handful of complaints regarding the parking situation. The exact extent or number of complaints is a little bit hard to determine because most of them haven't come in through the normal route through dispatch where there's a documented incident number. A lot of these concerns have been voiced informally through emails or phone calls or whatever, so we've lost kind of the ability to track exactly how many problems or incidents have been reported to us. But we did begin to investigate the concerns. We sent some members of our community service division and our community impact team out to observe the neighborhood during the day and evening hours, so they spent some hours out there just monitoring the situation. They went door-to-door, talked to some of the residents—not all, but some of the residents that were available and willing to talk—so we started to assess the situation. We don't feel like at this moment there's any traffic management or safety concerns that would make this an imminent matter that needs to be addressed. And I don't say that to minimize the citizen's concerns or negate the fact that there is a neighborhood impact that needs to be assessed, but at this point Public Safety doesn't necessarily have a position or recommendation, but we're 100% willing to participate in the process and see where that leads us. **[14:30] Ron Kath (Vice Chair):** Okay, thank you. So at this point, there's no formal recommendation; this is kind of the first hearing of the proposals of concern? **[14:35] Ryan Burfeind (Public Works Director):** That would be correct. **[14:38] Ron Kath (Vice Chair):** Okay, well with that then I'll open it to the commission for any questions first and then we'll open it up... well, maybe we'll take a pause. Anybody in the audience that would like to address this commission on this subject this evening? If you would just come up and state your name, please? Yes, and your address too, if you could give us your name and your address. **[15:00] Jeff Huberty (Resident):** Yes, good afternoon. My name is Jeff Huberty. I live at 8398 Granada Avenue, which is directly across from the park. I've done a lot of the complaints; I've emailed Zac, I've emailed the Mayor. I do have a letter that I’ll just kind of go over some stuff here that you've said. Some of the stuff that you have said is stuff that I have on my paperwork here. What we've experienced is an extraordinary [situation] and it's not every day, so you can't drive on Tuesday morning and see the impacts of the park that we see. We live there and it's constant. When they did first open it, it was probably a lot busier. But now what happens is you have these people that come in constantly using our parking in front of my house. My house is, if you look at this picture, directly across. Three cars parked in front of my house constantly during the summer. No, I'm not saying every night, but two, three nights a week. There's nights at the park where the whole park is full of people; there's 30, 40 cars parked along the roads and these cars are bumper-to-bumper, they're squeezing in space to try and get there. And there's a large group of people that make it a—I don't know if it's some kind of tournament—that come there weekly and take over the whole park from the north open field there all the way down. But the issues that we have seen is... I virtually had one lady, it was a big van, like a mobility—not a mobility van, it was a large van for transporting children. And there were four or five children in this van on one of the hottest days during the summer, and it was running with the air conditioning on while the lady was over playing pickleball. I walked up to the van to check on it and there was an infant in the van. So I did call the police on that one and they came out and they talked to the lady. I don't know what the results were, but she's constantly been parking trying to antagonize with their parking and going forward here. Like I said, there's times I feel that I'm not getting the use out of my property that I paid for. I have a large boat that I pull in and out of my drive; there's times when I come home from being out of town, I have to call ahead to see if I can even get in my driveway. There's times I can't leave my driveway because I got to wait till these cars are moved. And again, what they do is they park bumper-to-bumper across the park. And the dangerous part—I have my own selfish reasons why I don't like it; I think it invades our privacy. The safety of the kids—this used to be a nice quiet little park and it was always kids that used it. There were always kids over there. I mean, there's different generations that have gone through there. My kids grew up there, different other neighborhood kids. There used to be a pool down the end of the road on Granada in 85th, I believe it was, and it was always used by kids and it was always a nice park when it was always quiet. And we're not opposed to, I guess I'm not opposed to the pickleball. What I'm opposed to is the invasion of privacy that we get from the pickleball. I can't look out my window at night—my front window is probably 50 feet from the street, 40 to 50 feet from the street—and I can't even open my windows. These people are in the driveway. I had kids skateboarding down my driveway because their parents were all over at the park playing pickleball. I feel like I'm going on and on about this, but I feel there's a real safety hazard that's been caused by this. The bumper-to-bumper traffic—when you watch the little kids that go into that park... we were there all day, me and my wife, and these little kids have to go into the park in between cars. Now there's a path at the park where they're supposed to access it, but the cars park bumper-to-bumper to it. And we've called about parking there, and I'm not trying to—I'm not saying anything bad, I'm just saying it's not a high priority parking. I've called about the hydrant, people parking in front of the hydrant. But the issue becomes the safety of the kids now. And my grandkids when they come out of my house, they have to go in between two cars, walk out in the middle of the street and look both ways to try and watch for traffic. Now, you know all little kids don't do that, right? They run in between, and there's times where it's been pretty close to some bad results. I just think, you know, the parking on the one side of the street that... I agree, does it move down, does it move traffic elsewhere and park in front of other people's houses? Well, if that's the concern, there should be concern about people parking in front of my house too. So my thought has always been, since I've talked, is the parking on one side of the street. If you go around most parks in Cottage Grove, the residential sides of those streets, there's no parking all along the parks. Otherwise, there's off-the-road parking provided for those parks. So something needs to be done. I like the thought of a parking spot in the park to go ahead and just put a parking lot there, but there needs to be restrictions also because the park is getting overcrowded. And you can't just have a parking lot with 12 cars there and then people parking on the street again because it's just going to bring more traffic in. So my thoughts again—personally, I feel like we've really lost our... we don't have the privacy of our home that we used to have anymore. I've asked people, politely asked people to move their cars—it turns into a confrontation. People don't... there's not a lot of respect from people out there these days. If you ask them to move their car, they take it as an offense. **[20:10] Ron Kath (Vice Chair):** Well thank you, Mr. Huberty. H-u-b-e-r-t-y, okay. Well thank you again for coming forward and sharing your thoughts with us. Again, there will be no recommendation from the Council or from our commission this evening moving forward. This is only the first step in my mind of moving forward, so there'll be plenty of opportunity to bring this forward to other commissions, and obviously someday it'll... if it does make it all the way to the Council or a final decision, we wouldn't be the folks that make the final decision at that point. But thank you for coming this evening. **[20:40] Jeff Huberty:** So is there... well, I need to wrap it up, it's technically for 3 minutes and went past... we're almost into 10 minutes, so I don't want to belittle... why don't you ask me a question then, it'll keep me... **[20:45] Ron Kath (Vice Chair):** Well again, we'll let the commission ask some questions and if anything comes up, I'm certainly... if we have time, we can certainly answer any other questions for you, too. Okay, thank you for your... you bet. So with that, I guess I'll open it up to our commission now for any questions or comments that we would have. And again, Ryan, we're not looking to make any recommendation this evening, or were you looking for a recommendation? **[21:10] Ryan Burfeind (Public Works Director):** I think we'd want, Mr. Chairman, this commission to hear what the Commissioners—if you do have input or opinions on this matter, I think we'd want to hear them so we can kind of take that into the consideration process. But it is the City Council that ultimately would have to approve or not approve a parking restriction. I think it is a real challenge just because it's an impact that it's not a situation, just I guess to be clear, where we can do like "Resident Parking Only," right? That's not really an enforceable signage to really use. There’s places where it's around the community, but you can't really enforce it because just the residents at that address should really be parking there. If you have visitors over, they're going to have a different address and that's something that can be looked up. So it is an impact. I think if we were going to move ahead, we'd want to get some more formal feedback from anyone who would have that impact because you now can't park in front of your home anymore, and people who are visitors can also not park in front of your home. So that's kind of why we weigh all options. But this commission looking at the public safety and public works side of it—and any input and opinions that you know may have on the matter—is what we're looking for. **[22:20] Ron Kath (Vice Chair):** Okay, and probably even any other information that we think maybe should be looked at. I think that's the one thing I learned when we looked at the Hillside sidewalk issue that was brought forward; you know, we came back and said, "Well, we think we need there's a couple other things that we need to look at first before we even move the process forward." So that might come out of tonight's discussion, too. **[22:40] Ryan Burfeind (Public Works Director):** That is a good example, Mr. Chair. You know, in that Hillside case, we'll be bringing that back likely in January for a final consideration with the information we've gathered. And that's something we could do here as well. Obviously, we're in the winter season now where I assume I have to believe the park use isn't as high, so we want to kind of address it over this winter season. **[23:00] Ron Kath (Vice Chair):** Okay, perfect. Well, then I'll open it up to Commissioners for comments. Should we [go] left or right? **[23:05] Nate (Commissioner):** Kind of a comment or question as well, but just looking at an aerial view of the park, it does seem particularly challenging just because it feels like we're forcing everything onto Granada. There really aren't any good side streets on the east side of the park that rights are really concentrating all that traffic on Granada. And then not having a parking lot, I can see where the issues are arising. So I'm hit to take park land away, but it seems like without a lot of other good options, it might be something that has to be considered with the parking lot. **[23:40] Lisa (Commissioner):** Yes, couple questions. So has it only started getting busy since the implementation of the pickleball courts, or has it been busy like this back-to-back for years and years? **[23:55] Jeff Huberty (from audience):** The pickleball courts have—it’s an attraction. Like you said, it's a very, very popular sport. And we're not opposed to the pickleball, it's the invasion of privacy, right, in the neighborhood. **[24:05] Lisa (Commissioner):** Okay... put my glasses back on here. So yeah, I didn't know if it was a trending up just because of the attraction or if it's always that way. If a parking lot is on the table, are you thinking—I’m asking these guys—like a six-car parking lot or 12 or 50? Because I also know that there's a desire to keep green space, which is part of the parkland, and you don't want to encroach too much on that. But I don't even see sidewalks on either side of the street here. So if somebody was to park on the street, you'd have to walk on the street versus, you know, if you can't get to the grass because cars are bumped up against each other, it makes it a challenge. So I'm curious, if a parking lot is an option, what size parking lot are you thinking, Zac? **[24:50] Zac Dockter (Parks and Recreation Director):** Commissioner Risky, we would have anticipated a 10-to-14 stall type parking lot. But then you need to have a handicap stall as well, which takes up some additional space there. So but that's what we had anticipated to actually cover the service needs of what's happening in that park today. **[25:10] Lisa (Commissioner):** But and then that leads me to my next follow-up question to that is: if it's 10-to-14, but let's say it's like 8-to-12 spaces or something, it seems like you'd still have that same issue on the street. **[25:20] Zac Dockter (Parks and Recreation Director):** Yeah, I think you would during peak times. You’re still going to have on-street parking. And I don't know, it's hard to know, right? I mean again, we're opening up more pickleball courts. I don't know if pickleball keeps trending up or if it becomes like tennis and it trends down eventually. Those are all really hard questions to answer. But there's going to be times given the way the park is used today, I have to imagine there's still going to be times where there's going to be on-street parking regardless of if a parking lot's there or not. **[25:45] Lisa (Commissioner):** I've seen on some locations where they put little stripes where this car can be in this spot and this car can be in this spot, and so it kind of prevents the bumper-to-bumper. I don't know if that would actually make a difference, but it's an idea. **[25:55] Zac Dockter (Parks and Recreation Director):** I would have to defer to our Public Works Director on that. **[25:58] Ryan Burfeind (Public Works Director):** That is a good question, Commissioner and members of the commission. I think that that can help, right? A lot of our parks, we don't have that striping, but I can think of a few that we do. Because certainly, while there's some parks that have dedicated parking lots, I'd say most of them don't. Thinking about Cedarhurst Meadows Park, that's up in East Ridge Woods kind of north of 70th Street, that has striped parking. The future Denzer Park, which is going to be down off kind of the realigned Hadley Avenue there, we do have some striped parking. So that is something we could look into, which obviously would be a lower cost, but it would help. You know, I think people should obey that, right? Be within your parking lines. Is it foolproof? No, but I think that definitely can help manage the bumper-to-bumper situation. **[26:50] Lisa (Commissioner):** Okay, thank you. That's all I have for right now. **[26:52] Ron Kath (Vice Chair):** All right. Kelsey? **[26:54] Kelsey (Commissioner):** Is this the only entrance? I see like this little sidewalk into this white square... is that like the only entrance into the park that we have? **[27:00] Zac Dockter (Parks and Recreation Director):** Yes, Commissioner, that's the only paved entrance into the park. **[27:03] Kelsey (Commissioner):** Okay. And then just wondering, if there was to be a parking lot there, where would the funding come from and how would we be able to provide that? **[27:10] Zac Dockter (Parks and Recreation Director):** Commissioner, members of the commission, there is currently no funding source dedicated for this, so we would have to, through the Capital Improvements planning process, reallocate or reprioritize to fund a parking lot. **[27:25] Kelsey (Commissioner):** That's all, thank you. **[27:26] Ron Kath (Vice Chair):** Okay. Nate, any questions or comments? **[27:28] Nate (Commissioner):** You know I always got questions. Okay, so in previous places I've visited, I've seen reminder signs, if you will, for parking distances [from] driveways. Is that something that we actually have a city ordinance for, like you can't park within, I think it's 5 feet of a driveway and was it 20 feet of a stop sign, something like that? Do we have that policy or that city ordinance statute? **[27:55] Brad Petersen (Acting Director of Public Safety):** There's statute that addresses parking, and there's also some ordinance too, but to be completely honest it's been a minute since I've looked at that and I can't say with certainty whether there is or is not ordinance that would address parking in that situation. **[28:10] Nate (Commissioner):** Okay, yeah because I just know that that's a fantastic reminder, at least for myself, because I sometimes will park too close to what I think is too close to a driveway. So I'll actually drive down the block and park somewhere else because I see the sign posted like "Don't park within 5 feet of this driveway" or whatever. And then yeah, I actually was typing notes... and then parking on one side of the road—do you think that if we did, if that was the option, do you think that's sufficient to enough parking or would it just essentially overflow down further down the block? I've never driven past this park, so I don't know how busy it is. **[28:45] Zac Dockter (Parks and Recreation Director):** Commissioner, maybe I can answer. I mean, there's again days where there's just so much volume that I think it's going to be double loaded on both sides probably the length of the park. But there's also, you know, a large majority of the time where that's not the case, where I think if you do single-loaded parking... you can see the size of the cars on the map, you can fit quite a few cars on the park side. Of course, people take the easiest route, right? So they'll park, you know, in this gentleman's front yard versus parking, you know, 50 feet down the road on the park side. I believe now there's some cases, again, where it's just busy enough in those particular situations where they're going to park on both sides. But single-sided parking would certainly hopefully push people to stack up on the other side on the east side, according to this image. I'm not sure if that's north-south alignment there. **[29:35] Nate (Commissioner):** Yeah, I don't know. I think my first question would be about the ordinance of parking within driveways, like distance to driveways, if that's a thing or if it's not. I'm not sure. And then that would obviously kind of help me make a decision, but obviously we're not here to make a decision tonight, but this just kind of a question I had. **[29:50] Ryan Burfeind (Public Works Director):** And one thing I would add, Commissioner, just because you did ask about pushing that further away. I should maybe clarify when I mentioned that there's a concern it would push it away: I don't think that's ever to say, "Well, we'd rather have them park in front of these homes or these homes." It's just more cars are still parking on the street, right? And is there an overall public benefit? And the issue is they're just walking a further distance on a street without a sidewalk to get to the park. So I definitely never want to make it sound like we're in favor of having different homes have the parking; it's just purely from the standpoint of [if] they're using Granada Park, there's just a general safety perspective to be parking closer to the park. **[30:30] Ron Kath (Vice Chair):** One of the questions I [have]—there's no lights at this park, so after dark there's no issue, right? **[30:35] Zac Dockter (Parks and Recreation Director):** Correct. **[30:37] Ron Kath (Vice Chair):** Okay. And is it heavy heavily on weekdays versus weekends? Is there any difference between a weekday versus a weekend? **[30:42] Jeff Huberty (from audience):** I believe there's a little bit of both. It's pretty consistent. Yeah. You know, if I could... I would like to ask two questions... **[30:50] Ron Kath (Vice Chair):** Sure, but please, please come to the podium then. **[30:55] Jeff Huberty (Resident):** So my one question is: the size of the park is 1.6 acres. The amount of facilities that are there to accommodate large crowds is not there. There's a satellite—a one-person satellite—for at times 100 people in the park. 40 cars in the road, 100 people in the park. The facilities aren't there to support that many people. The other question... I think I may have misspoken previously about having only residents park on their side. My issue was on most parks in Cottage Grove, on the residential sides of the street—not "residents," the residential sides of the streets—it's "No Parking." You can drive around all the parks in Cottage Grove, and in front of their homes there's "No Parking" signs. So my question is, what's the parameter that allows "No Parking" in front of those parks but allows that kind of parking in front of this park? **[31:55] Ron Kath (Vice Chair):** So I don't know if anybody on staff can answer those questions for us. **[32:00] Ryan Burfeind (Public Works Director):** I don't think we'd have it at our fingertips, but we could certainly I think just research our different parks. I know Belden Park, which is right down the road, does have "No Parking" on the residential side of the street, I believe. So that one I know, but I think as staff we could look at that. And coming back to a future meeting, we could have that data specifically, the number of kind of neighborhood parks and if there's a "No Parking" restriction adjacent to it. **[32:25] Ron Kath (Vice Chair):** Yeah, that to me would be a big one, because you want to be consistent throughout the city at that point then. So I think that would be a good takeaway for sure. And then the other question about the facilities—I guess maybe Zac you can answer—what's the parameter for porta-potties and that kind of amenity within a park structure? **[32:45] Zac Dockter (Parks and Recreation Director):** Yeah, Mr. Chair, members of the commission. Again, that's a hard one. But I guess I'll just say we've had one satellite, one portable restroom out there and to my knowledge we haven't had any complaints with it being underserviced or anything like that. So it seems like it must be keeping up, and we do check them and then obviously the vendor who services those tells us if they're being over-utilized. So I'm not too concerned about that at this point. But obviously, if that's something where it happens, then we would have to add another unit there. One thing to consider with the one-sided parking, too, which we I don't think we've talked about tonight, but one of our concerns as staff is just that when we do the public process, that the other residents are aware that if there's "No Parking" on that side of the street, there's no parking for anybody. So if you have visitors over or guests over, they would have to park on the other side of the street too. So that's one thing I think I forgot to mention. It's just important to know. That doesn't influence the decision other than we want to make sure that other residents understand if there's a "No Parking" sign in front of their house, that that applies to them, too. **[33:55] Ron Kath (Vice Chair):** Sure, yep. **[33:58] Jeff Huberty (Resident):** I'd like to address the one thing about the restroom in the park. Again, do I need to come up here? **[34:02] Ron Kath (Vice Chair):** Yes. Okay, but again, I'd like to stay focused on the issue at hand, which is the parking issue, not the restrooms. **[34:08] Jeff Huberty (Resident):** I'm just trying to get my point across so that you can understand where I'm coming from. It's not that the restroom is not being maintained; it's from a public health standpoint. There’s a picnic pavilion there. People come, large families come and they have picnics in this park. There's nothing there safety-wise, health safety-wise, that would allow that kind of traffic and have no place to wash your hands, no place to go to the—well, one place to go to the restroom for that many people. And I know that there's standards for that, and that's what I'm getting at. That park is too small for the amount of people that use it. It's a health hazard and it's a safety hazard. **[34:50] Ron Kath (Vice Chair):** Okay, appreciate the comment. **[34:52] Lisa (Commissioner):** I have a question. So this may not be a popular opinion, but I'm trying to like grasp what's going on here. So it sounds like increased traffic, you know, and picnics and lots of people there based on the attraction of the pickleball courts. Have there been discussions about removing the pickleball courts? You know, if the courts are going to be placed at other places like Glacial Valley and other areas, is there a desire to have those removed? **[35:15] Zac Dockter (Parks and Recreation Director):** Commissioner Risky, members of the commission. No, we have not discussed that at this point. Obviously, when facilities are getting used, we usually see that as a positive thing. **[35:25] Lisa (Commissioner):** Yeah, I know that's... might not always be the norm. New waters for it and for me as well. You know, I like that people are using the facilities, but it's also nice when our facilities can accommodate the number of people. So if it's only a once-in-a-blue-moon and you're having a tournament and you're like getting a lot of people there, that would be different. I don't know how they plan this out; I don't know if there's leagues or groups that get together. And if there are, could they like reserve that—group reserve extra porta-potties to handle that? Make sure they have hand sanitizer in there? I don't know. And I agree this is a parking conversation, not a porta-potty conversation. But you know, I would be interested to hear from more residents. What are your thoughts on the pickleball courts? Do you want to keep them? Do you want to remove them? Would that fix the parking issue? I don't know. And then my only one other comment, a little separate—this is for the sidewalk that goes into the park. Could we put up signs that say "No Parking Between Signs," which would then allow that open space for the sidewalk to allow kids and traffic, human traffic, to walk through there? **[36:25] Ryan Burfeind (Public Works Director):** That's a good question. That's something we could do, and that's something that we have done in other areas. Just because even though it's not a crosswalk, obviously people are coming and going from that location, and if you have some separation you can see the cars more. And that's something we could definitely do. We usually do it either 25 or 50 feet in each direction. We'd want to be cognizant of not taking away too much parking next to the park, but I think we could definitely look at that. **[36:55] Lisa (Commissioner):** Okay. **[36:56] Ron Kath (Vice Chair):** Yeah, I think that's where my head was. It's usually the other thing—we're not using the facilities, and we have the opposite thing. But to use it, now we have this other issue. And I can appreciate having people park in their yard. I’d probably argue a little bit that I have the same problem in my neighborhood and there is no park; it's just my neighbors like to park on the street in front of my house all the time, which is... I have a boat too, so I can appreciate backing boats in. So I can hear where you're coming from there. I think, Ryan, what I heard this evening, and Zac, is that we want to definitely look at the stripe painting, get some options probably that the Parks Commission would want to look at. And obviously Public Service—we want to look at the ordinance, make sure we're consistent with the ordinance moving forward. Looking at our other parks, staying somewhat in compliance so we don't have it one way and another one the other way, because then as a resident you're like, "Well, just because I live here, you know, it doesn't make sense to me." So I think a lot of those questions are going to have to be answered before it ever comes to Council. So I think you guys still have a lot of homework to do is my feeling at this point. To me this seems like a really good start. Obviously, as a resident, you've been probably bringing this all summer is what my opinion... or has this been going on for a year, two years, or is it just kind of recent? **[38:10] Jeff Huberty (from audience):** It's really been getting [busy] this summer. **[38:12] Ron Kath (Vice Chair):** So this summer it's been more prevalent than it has been in the past, then. And you know, and again, we don't know what's going to happen when the other courts start opening up, too. And again, from my point tonight for our commission, I think we've asked some good questions. We've got a lot of dialogue going. We took some feedback from the person that's really affected by it, which I think is really good in a public format. And we have two Council people here this evening that are hearing this too, so I think that is really good. And I welcome it to come back to us again. I'll go back to the sidewalk conversation; we brought up a lot of these different questions for you guys to do a little bit more homework before to bring it back to the two commissions. So I guess as far as I'm concerned, Commissioners, I think we're at a good spot unless you feel we need to bring any other dialogue or questions at this point. All right. And as our residents, I definitely stay involved with the process, and again we'll get the other residents involved too as we move forward. So with that then, is there any other comments from staff before I move the agenda? **[39:15] Ryan Burfeind (Public Works Director):** Just thank you for good discussion tonight on this commission. I know it's hard when it's such a direct impact to specific residents. And speaking of that, I think we could as staff I think get maybe some more formal response just in case folks aren't able to come to these public meetings, just to hear their direct feedback on if they're for or against that restriction. Because that's really who's impacted here; it's specific residences. And by putting that in place, it's a direct impact to their property in the other way. So I think we can also get that feedback and have that the next time we discuss this if you'd like that. **[39:50] Ron Kath (Vice Chair):** Okay. And then Ryan, you had mentioned before the meeting that the communication that'll go out both... it's email normally to the residents, or letters that get sent out? **[39:58] Ryan Burfeind (Public Works Director):** It would be a letter. Yeah, be letters to all the residents and they would know when the next public kind of hearing or format like this would be, and they could give feedback at that point, whether it's Parks Commission or this commission again. **[40:12] Ron Kath (Vice Chair):** Okay, great. Well thank you staff, thank you to our resident that came out this evening. I thought it was a really good discussion this evening. So with that, we'll move into our next item on our agenda and that's our Commissioner comments. I guess I'll start to my left again and start with Tracy. **[40:30] Tracy (Commissioner):** Just kudos to Public Works. I tried the work order for a street light that was out and when I came to out to leave tonight, it was on. So not sure if it was a coincidence or it worked, so thank you. Nice, appreciate that. It was an easy process and nice to be able to submit it electronically. Thanks. **[40:48] Lisa (Commissioner):** I don't have anything. **[40:50] Kelsey (Commissioner):** No. **[40:51] Nate (Commissioner):** Happy to be here. **[40:52] Ron Kath (Vice Chair):** I have a just a quick question for Ryan, more for the public knowledge. You know, we've had a lot of work being done kind of on the corner of Jamaica and 80th Street. And 80th Street, they've been putting a lot of utilities in there, digging up the road and putting pipes underneath stuff—which is amazing to me how they do all that. But it seems like the last couple weeks now there's no work being done out there, but we still got one lanes going in couple different directions. Can you speak to that this evening? **[41:20] Ryan Burfeind (Public Works Director):** Yep, Mr. Chair, members of the commission. So you're 100% right that that project was wrapping up. They were still working down on the far west end by Park High School and they kind of had to leave a lot of those pits open just to... there's a final kind of tie-in and charging up with the line. But it's our understanding that that work is all done and they were intending to have the traffic control gone by last Friday. It clearly is not. So we—our engineer—I know was reaching out to Excel today to figure out what's going on with that because clearly Public Works will be plowing soon and then that stuff will be definitely right in our way and we'll be kind of flinging it off to the side of the road. So we do need to get that out of there, and since it didn't happen by last Friday, I'm hoping we can get it out of there this week. **[42:10] Ron Kath (Vice Chair):** Okay, perfect. So that was the only question I had. With that then, that takes care of our commission comments. So we'll move into staff reports and materials. **[42:20] Ryan Burfeind (Public Works Director):** Yeah, I can go first, Chair, members of the commission. And I'll let Gary, as we always do, cover more of the street part of the Public Works update. Maybe from an engineering standpoint, first: we do have the River Oaks R-cut that's completely open to traffic now in all the different directions. There was some delays; that's that new U-turn intersection that I spoke about at my project update this summer. There were some delays just getting the lighting operational and that's kind of a MnDOT standard to be that fully open and complete, so that is done. And I think we've gotten great feedback specifically from the school because with the busing, they see that as a major safety improvement. We heard from them right away that they appreciate that improvement. You know, for the general use of the golf course, I think it takes some getting used to. But you know, I think it really is—it is all about a safety improvement and really just cutting down the number of traffic movements when you're leaving there. When you have that median that's open, as I spoke about this summer, right, it can really just be too enticing to be looking both directions; you're trying to make it across the entire road in one shot, and that's how major injuries can happen. And when you do install these reduced conflict U-turn intersections, there still can be incidents of course and bad decisions on a driver, but it changes them from like a sideswipe crash to a rear crash, which statistically is a much lower severity crash. So we are excited to have that open and operational and see how it operates into the future. Any other projects... I think those were pretty well wrapped up at the last meeting. I think the final one that's new is we had kind of a realignment of Hadley and 100th Street on the east end of 100th Street down south part of Cottage Grove, and then down the hill under the railroad track or the railroad bridge, the realignment of Grey Cloud Trail and 100th. Those are all fully open. So if you haven't been down that way this summer, you should check it out because there's major changes in those areas with those two roads realigning. I don't think you see that very often in Cottage Grove—projects of that nature to have two in such a close area. It's a definitely a big change but a huge safety improvement. Got rid of a lot of T-intersections, really poor functioning intersections, and made more of a through-road design which follows a County plan, actually, because that's going to be a future County Road going down to Lower Grey Cloud Island. So happy to have those improvements done as well. And then kind of thinking from our Water Department, we did take bids on a new water tower which I know I talked about at our project update this summer, and that was awarded by the City Council. So we have a new water tower that's going to go along Highway 61 kind of just south of the park-and-ride. So that'll start construction next spring and be kind of up and running... it'll be pretty much built by next fall, but all the painting and getting it in operation will be in the spring of 2026. So it's a long process to build that water tower, but it kind of changes the skyline down there along the highway, I like to say. And it's a composite water tower, so it has a concrete column instead of a steel painted column like you'd see up at like Metrass and 70th, which saves us a lot of money because it's an amazing expense to paint those water towers. If it's, let's say, $5 million to build it, it's $2 million to paint it. And we can cut that in half by not having to paint that column every, you know, 15 years or so. So excited to get that project underway next year as well. **[45:45] Ron Kath (Vice Chair):** Awesome. Is it just me... when 100th Street got done, did the speed limits change a little bit? Because if my memory serves me right, I was 50 all the way, and now it seems like I've seen where like half of it down to Anderson Windows—that's where the 50 and 40... there's a 40 mph speed limit there now, too? **[46:05] Ryan Burfeind (Public Works Director):** Yeah, that's a good question. So it is still 50 all the way where it is a straight road, and then with those curves... so we had to build the curves kind of realign it with 103rd. Right before you enter the curves, it's a 40 mph speed limit, which is more consistent with Hadley. So Hadley and 103rd were always 40, so it's more consistent with that. And we just weren't able to build—and this was part of the plan, the County's plan—we weren't able to build 50 mph curves. It really would have made that entire property really undevelopable. And knowing we had to eventually go down to that 40 mph before it went down the hill, that was the point where that new speed limit was put place. **[46:45] Ron Kath (Vice Chair):** Okay, yeah I didn't know if it was just me that at least I saw it, so I'm not hoping I get a ticket of you know going 50 miles an hour in a 40. That’s probably not really good in that neighbor getting into that area. But I have to admit, I've driven through there and it is really nice. That is well done, thank you. **[47:02] Ryan Burfeind (Public Works Director):** I'll turn over to Gary. **[47:04] Gary (Public Works Staff):** No, Gary... good evening. So down in Public Works today, we finished calibration of all our plow trucks. So hopefully the snow stays away a little bit, we still got some more work to get done. But weather permitting, we pretty much are done sweeping the town, but we still want to go back through the more mature areas again if we can. So temperatures got to stay above freezing and stop raining. The guys were out staking—see all them orange stakes put out—so they went out, staked their routes. Any kind of high iron, manholes, catch basins, any obstructions, we fixed. We finished up pothole patching. And that's one thing to remind residents: they can come down to Public Works if they need a few of them stakes for their front yard if they got some areas that may constantly get hit. They can come down to Public Works and we can hand them out. They're also finishing up tree trimming, anything that's going to be hitting our dump trucks or sidewalk machines. So pretty much everybody's gone through the routes; we're all ready for the winter to begin and start a new season and probably another week of any potholes that may pop up before the plant shut down. **[48:10] Ron Kath (Vice Chair):** Are we using that chemical that we used before that you had explained to us? **[48:15] Gary (Public Works Staff):** Yep. So on our cold temperatures, we actually are using a treated chemical. We already had 600 tons treated. Yep, we're having it actually treated at Public Works. **[48:22] Ron Kath (Vice Chair):** Okay, great. Any other questions? Anything else? No? Right, awesome. Thanks. Thank you. With that, Brad, anything from the police? **[48:32] Brad Petersen (Acting Director of Public Safety):** Yeah, I've got a few things. It's been a few months since I've had the opportunity to provide some updates to the commission. So as you know, at the beginning of the year we implemented a new 5-year Strategic Plan with the help and guidance of the commission. And after that was approved, we went hard at work at implementing many of those strategies and plans. And I'm happy to report that we've made remarkable progress on a lot of that plan. We're way ahead of where we thought we'd be. We thought many of these things would take a number of years to implement, and there's probably 90% of that plan that's complete within one year's time, which is remarkable. And that is only possible through the support of the commission, Community Council, and the rest of our leadership. We're making remarkable progress by nearly every metric. One of those metrics I like to bring up is our community satisfaction survey, which we call our Police Services survey. In a number of different categories that it measures... but in every one of those categories, we're achieving over 90% customer satisfaction. In some cases—in fact, most cases—it's in excess of 95% satisfied with our services. So that's really exciting, because we can judge ourselves against whatever arbitrary criteria that we want, or we think is important to the community, but it's most valuable to hear what the community wants and how they think we're doing. So that's probably the metric that I'm most proud of, is to hear that the community is that pleased with our service. So that's going on. As you may know, we got a grant to add a traffic safety position, so that's 100% dedicated to traffic safety. And that's Louden Rynel—he started on October 1st and he's doing an incredible job. I think at this point he's got 19 DWIs and countless traffic stops and speed citations and a lot of public education as well. And I know that's going to make a measurable impact on traffic safety by the end of this time next year. We're working on an annual report right now, so to gauge our success on our strategic plan and evaluate success of a lot of the different things that we've done, we're implementing an annual report that will be available for public review here soon. So that's something to look forward to. Our website is going under revision just starting now; that'll be kind of a lengthy process, but we've started that. So we're really going to be engaging the public here in the next couple months to figure out what they want and need from our website, and we're eager to make those changes. We're implementing and evaluating a lot of different technologies, and one of those such technologies is an online crime report that went live about a month ago. So if the citizens don't know, they now have the opportunity to go to a Facebook or website, find the link, and submit police reports for—I would call them—minor crimes and nuisances and ordinance issues and those lower level of concerns and problems. Obviously, we don't want people reporting assaults and arson and vehicle thefts and things like that, but property damage, ordinance concerns, neighbor complaints, things like that... welcome them to go to that link, submit the online crime report. It gives them the opportunity to talk about the incident in a narrative format, bunch of dropdowns that are very efficient to describe the nature of the incident that helps us track and trend those problems, but they can also attach things like documents, videos, bank statements, anything that supplements their case that can be attached directly to it. So it's super efficient. And then at the conclusion of that report, they hit submit and they'll get updates periodically as that tracks through the investigative and documentation process. And at the very end, they get an email where they can get a copy of that report or things like that. So it's been very successful, looking for that to grow. And I guess that's about it. There's a lot going on, probably too much to share in this venue, but yeah. **[52:45] Ron Kath (Vice Chair):** All right, well thank you Brad. Any questions for staff? **[52:48] Lisa (Commissioner):** I had a couple questions. The online crime report... I'm just hearing about it for the first time right now, so it sounds interesting. I understand it's for lower-level reporting, but who follows up on that and then has it been used yet? **[53:05] Brad Petersen (Acting Director of Public Safety):** It has been used to a limited extent since it's pretty new, but we've fielded probably 25 or 30 crime reports at this point. It just went live within the last month. So as the reports come in, they're screened by the on-duty Sergeant, and the Sergeant decides on the most appropriate place for it to get routed, whether it's a Community Service Officer or a certain officer with certain specialties. And from that point, the officer takes a look at it; if they have all the information that they need, they can go ahead, file the report, do whatever needs to be done from there. If they need more information, they'll contact the citizen or do an investigation. And then once it's all done, it goes back to the Sergeant for approval. And [the citizen] is kept apprised throughout that process as well. **[53:50] Lisa (Commissioner):** Okay, thank you. So it's another avenue for people to report stuff if they're not comfortable calling a number. It's kind of like the non-emergency number, but online? **[54:00] Brad Petersen (Acting Director of Public Safety):** Yeah, it's along those lines. We're noticing and hearing that people want other options for reporting. It's not meant to replace our in-person reporting or the non-emergency or telephone reporting; it's just another option. Some people like to do things from their phone and their computers now. **[54:15] Lisa (Commissioner):** Sure. Okay. So one, I'd like to know where you market that, because I didn't know anything about it until today, so that's kind of cool. And then earlier when you started, you mentioned about a grant... you received a grant, but I didn't follow what the grant was for? **[54:30] Brad Petersen (Acting Director of Public Safety):** Sure. So the online crime report was advertised on Facebook and our website, mentioned in a Council meeting I believe, probably a couple other places too. So it's been out there, but by the limited usage, you know, we can do a better job of getting it out there. **[54:45] Lisa (Commissioner):** No, that I'm interested to learn more. Yeah. **[54:48] Brad Petersen (Acting Director of Public Safety):** And so the grant was offered through the state's Traffic Safety grant office—or traffic... I forget the actual name. **[54:55] Lisa (Commissioner):** That's fine. **[54:56] Brad Petersen (Acting Director of Public Safety):** It's the same office that "Toward Zero Deaths" and all the overtime monies come from. But it's a grant to fully fund one officer for one year—all his salary, wages, training—and that's his sole job is to go do traffic. **[55:10] Lisa (Commissioner):** For Louden? Yes. Okay, I'm following you now. Thank you. That's all I have. **[55:15] Ron Kath (Vice Chair):** Any other... you guys have any questions for staff? **[55:18] Nate (Commissioner):** I just one... maybe a favor. If you could email out our 2025 meeting dates. I think that... I was just checking my calendar, I don't have it, at least mine. So if we could email it out to all the Commissioners, then we can get all of our dates—they're pretty consistent but obviously they move one day, right, as a new year comes out. **[55:35] Ryan Burfeind (Public Works Director):** So if we could do that, that would be great. **[55:40] Ron Kath (Vice Chair):** With that, then we'll move into our Council comments, and I'll turn it over to our council person Dave Thiede this evening. **[55:50] Dave Thiede (Councilmember):** All right, well certain things were covered in that that we did in Council. I might mention that all the labor contracts have been signed and resolved. I believe all have, right? Yeah. And so that's that's always good to have done. And a couple other things: we did approve an updated ambulance purchase authorization that we're kind of going back to the van front instead of the truck—the more of the truck front and so forth. I guess we got a pretty good deal and everything on that, so that's good. We also approved a new fire tender which needed to be ordered now—there's long lead times on those things, so it's probably not until next year sometime I believe that that fire tender would come in. I don't know if there was anything you remember, anything else Justin that we talked about that these guys be interested in that we approved in Council? **[56:55] Justin Olsen (Councilmember):** Have you guys discussed the budget? You know where the budget’s at? We do our final budget approvals here coming up. So if you haven't talked about that, you can certainly share where we're at with the budget. But we're we're at the end of the process now. **[57:10] Dave Thiede (Councilmember):** Sure, yeah. And we—and again, you know, it's... I don't necessarily have it, I'm not going to go into all those numbers for you tonight, but that information is available. And as always, we try to hold the budget down as much as... the increases down as much as possible. And such, but I think it's looking pretty good. There's some different things that we got to talk about this week and in some workshops and such, but the final approval is actually in December—first meeting [in] December, I believe. So that's probably it. Do you guys got any other questions for me? **[57:55] Nate (Commissioner):** Any questions? I certainly appreciate how forward-thinking you guys are, like ordering fire tenders a year—you know, the lead time’s super long. Like, it's very refreshing. Like Brad had mentioned, the Strategic Plan and how fast you're burning through it, that's amazing to hear as a citizen. Like I said, super refreshing. So thank you. **[58:15] Dave Thiede (Councilmember):** You're welcome. Yeah, we've always... I've always appreciated our planning efforts and taking a look at different plans and trying to anticipate what could happen in the future. Because a lot of times you get to a certain point in time and, even though something's not going to happen immediately, you think, "Well, if we make this decision versus this decision, and then if this happens up here, this would be the better decision to make." You know, and keeping that plan, so when things kind of mesh together in the future, it's not necessarily always by accident. So thank you for that. **[58:55] Ron Kath (Vice Chair):** And so Dave, the only question I had is maybe... it's probably more of a Parks Commission session, but with the three questions that we just had on the ballot that didn't get passed, is there any discussion now at Council what our next steps will be to try to move forward? Will it ever be brought back, or is it too early in the process to... I mean, that just happened a week or two ago. **[59:15] Dave Thiede (Councilmember):** Well again, like we were talking about planning, you know, those are kind of some of the things that we feel have some importance in terms of future planning and future benefit for the community. Obviously, it... personally, even though I tend to be a little bit more tight on the money than some others—and I imagine people know that—but actually the sales tax would have been a good way to have not just the residents of the city pay for some of those improvements. But I don't think a lot of people recognize that. So we're actually, you know, we'll be going over a lot of that saying, "Well, you know, why didn't we... why weren't we able to communicate some of that to the public a little bit better?" But it is... this probably is a plan, you know, in terms of besides the other things we're looking at for different parks and so forth, of some of the major things that we'd like to be able to do in the future. You know, it just may take longer to get some of it done now, you know. **[1:00:15] Ron Kath (Vice Chair):** All right, thank you. Well, if there's no other questions then, thanks again for the update. And if my colleagues would give me one little pass here: I do want to make one more commission report for you guys that I completely forgot. We probably should have said something at our last meeting, but Kelsey and I both did the public service filming here. Each commission was asked to get a couple volunteers and they had a little production out here in council chambers, and we got interviewed. Haven't seen any final product yet, but pretty, pretty excited about it. So other Commissioners should be coming hopefully. Obviously staff will get to to look at it first and then we'll get to [see it]. But I certainly [am] humbled that you know, being able to represent our [commission]. So if you watch it and you have some feedback for me, I got broad shoulders and I'll take the feedback. Okay, thanks for representing us. Okay, thanks. Well with that then, we're to the adjournment part of the agenda. If I could have a motion to adjourn our meeting this evening? **[1:01:15] Lisa (Commissioner):** Lisa moves it. **[1:01:16] Ron Kath (Vice Chair):** A second? **[1:01:17] Tracy (Commissioner):** Second. **[1:01:18] Ron Kath (Vice Chair):** And Tracy second. With that then, all those in favor of adjournment signify by saying "Aye." **[1:01:22] Commission:** Aye. **[1:01:24] Ron Kath (Vice Chair):** And those opposed? Motion passes. We are adjourned this evening. Thank you everybody. Thank you.