e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e evening everyone my name is Ron Kath I'm the vice chair of the Public Services Commission I'm filling in and helping out our our chair Lisa with a little bit of fighting or cold right now so I'm more than happy to step in this meeting is being held uh tonight it is um I think the 17th St Patrick's Day and we all showed up and not too many people in green uh the meeting is starting at 7:00 we're at council chambers with that I'd like to um call this meeting to order our first item on our agenda this evening is the Pledge of Allegiance please join me for the pledge 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 liy and justice for all thank you uh the next item on our agenda is our roll call thank you okay it's taken thanks uh our next item on our agenda is the approval of the agenda do I have a motion to approve the agenda I'll make a motion to approve the agenda okay and seconded all those in favor signify by saying I I I I those opposed motion passes moving on to the next item and that's the approval of our minutes from our January 27th meeting again I'll ask for a motion to accept those meeting that meeting minutes I move okay there's a motion I'll second it in a second all those in favor signify by saying I I those opposed motion passes with that we'll move into open Forum right now open forum is a situ or a process within our commission that folks can come forward on any different issue I know we have some presentation and folks are going to talk to us we'll wait till we call you at that point is there any I don't see anybody else in the audience that might want to come forward all right then we'll move past open forum and we'll move into our agend seven our agenda item number seven and it's a presentation this evening of the Girl Scouts uh pedestrian safety presentation Ryan are you going to kick it off or yep I can introduce it uh the topic here so we do have uh Girl Scout Troop 57 482 here to talk about pedestrian safety um in cage Grove they have a short presentation that they're going to give which I believe they also gave recently to the school board as well so if they want to come up uh everything should be set for them to give their [Applause] presentation hello we are troop 5748 2 my name is Kinsley um that's Natalie that's Julia and that's Nix unfortunately one of our members Genevie could make it tonight um we have a Take Action project that we are going to be talking about tonight uh our goals are to create safer walking routes for pedestrians make it easier for kids who don't have rights and inform and Ed address the community of hazardous walking patterns among Walkers what a Take Action project is a project that helps us with the silver award a problem we have noticed within the community our Take Action project is focused on kids who walk to and from school and is meant to improve safety for children and pedestrians our main proposal our main proposal is to add shortcut Trails which will benefit Walkers who are looking to cut their time while traveling to school we would also like to inform the community and drivers of unsafe walking patterns to and from school so they can be aware that kids may be Crossing at unsafe intersections we would also like to enforce a lower speed limit in school zones to decrease the chance of injury in pedestrians and walkers and we would like to specifically add crosswalks and flashing CL crosswalk signs as well as Trails for short cuts that kids have been using and we would like we the main reason we are doing this is because around College Grove we have many schools and we would like to mention that our plan is specific to Codge Grove in a way that we have a wide variety of Ages and grades um our plan is made to benefit all these ages with a spef with a special note to keep school walk ERS in mind I have some stop sign info that we researched a 24x 24in stop sign is $37.75 a 30in by 30in stop sign is $542 a 12 in by 36 in crossing sign is $522 and a 24 in x 24 in crossing sign is $44.95 we have some upcoming maps in the presentation and I would like to note that we have we would like to um put two stop signs around ultman middle school and one crosswalk around ultman Middle School we would also like to put six to nine stop signs around Cottage Grove Middle School and at least three crosswalks around Cottage Grove Middle School uh this is important because we need to plan the roots with the students in mind and not who we want them to be for around half of the school year in Minnesota the weather and accessibility is harder for students the weather being cold and unsafe gear can lead to hypothermia and Frostbite kids also have to walk through bad weather longer than needed which can interfere with their sleep schedules and how late they are to school because of the seasons uh it's a lot darker in the morning and when kids need to cross it's harder for cars and other uh vehicles to see them which can increase the risk of crashes and injury walkers in our troop have experienced people that we know getting into crashes um when they are trying to get to school busing zones are being expanded kindergarteners through sixth graders is for more than 1 mile sixth graders and eighth graders for more than 1.5 miles and nth grade to 12 more than 2 miles I personally can't imagine a kindergartener having to walk less than a mile to school well like a mile to school because they don't have a bus on these Maps we have the two general areas where we want to put either signs or crosswalks for the students to cross at ultman Middle School one of the uh places we would like to put a sign or better visible areas for people to cross is because there is a hill over there and it is a lot harder to see them when you're especially coming up on that Hill uh I know I have encountered a few close calls trying to make sure that drivers could see me when I was trying to get my way to school at Cottage Grove Middle School map near Park High School there's a big hill surrounding the area and it is a lot harder for kids to get to school when they have to deal with those Hills on our next slide we have a few pictures of the Oatman intersection the second picture being the hill coming up to the place where students want to walk and on the last picture is where we want to put a crosswalk for students to cross we do need to keep in mind that kids have to walk more than a mile to school when following roads and other paths instead of just the mile radius of the school walking Zone uh these are our sources where we found the uh stop signs and everything else all right well girls if you could stay please stay up there we might have a question or two for you but as we get started first of all I just want to thank you girls for coming forward thought you did a really nice job I I love the PowerPoint that you put together too so um it gives us an opportunity to have a discussion now and talk about your proposal and then if we feel that we'll give staff some guidance at that point but if you wouldn't mind please stay and then we'll if we have any questions commissioners before we kind of talk any questions that you might have for the troop yeah I have a question um first of all again thank you for being here um and being involved in making the community safer so really appreciate your presentation um just wanted to understand could you talk a little bit about how you picked the locations Did You observe situations the locations based on places we know it's unsafe where Walkers do need to cross and places that students most often cross in order to get to school on time okay thank you any other questions okay no I don't have any questions but thank you so much nice job nice presentation uh fantastic meme by the way the the Frozen Frozen one yeah that was fantastic uh I would also like to mention one other thing on 65th Street the speed limit is around like 50 m an hour and they don't consider that area school zone but could still have to pass through there yep that's a great point no actually um being a school bus driver I drive that road a lot so you guys have picked some really good intersections to have us at least deliberate and talk about so I I commend you that you put a lot of time and effort in this even researching uh the cost of the signs where we could actually put um some signage at least to identify some safer zones cuz I think the other thing that maybe I thought about too when you talk about safety and especially during the school year it's a lot darker too you know we don't have a lot of daylight once fall kind of gets late and fall and in Winter and our our kids are walking at that time and you were totally correct on the Walking distances I you know for for a mile for a kindergarteners too far you know and even you know the the the middle school it is it's a mile and a half right now and you probably learned at the school board too you know they have the the different types of roads where if it's a certain speed limit then the kids we don't want them Crossing and they will be bust at that point so I know they at least the school district has put those type of of gu guard rails out there to help and from a safety perspective one of that's actually used to serve on the school board it was always Our concern of our Walkers out there um at that point so I guess what what I'd like to do is maybe open it up a little bit to Ryan and say if if staff has taken any type of a look at this and seen what you know cuz some of them seem realistic and I don't know why we couldn't put a sign up because especially the Oatman one right away coming up 65th you know you've got the walking path that comes out of the park there's kind of that walking path on the I'll get my directions the wrong way you come out of the subdivision there's a path you go across 65th and then we on a sidewalk so to me I don't it seems like PE I see a lot of people crossing there not only kids going to school but even people out walking in the afternoon just going for a part or for a walk yep certainly so Commissioners a lot of good information here and I I want to thank the the Girl Scout Troop as well for being here tonight and giving a great presentation um it's definitely something that we will uh look at and there could be a few different things there could be ones that are maybe more obvious you know kind of things that we could Implement and don't really need a lot of study um you know something like 65th Street is always a little harder because it is a County Road um and the and and obviously the county is just as concerned about pedestrian safety um one of the challenges because the speed limit was mentioned that is a 50 mph Road and when you're talking about those kind of speed limits if it's something like a crosswalk at an intersection it's always a legal place to cross but most studies show that you know just adding a sign or crosswalk bars can actually increase accidents because it can maybe give a little false sense of security so those are things we want to really closely at and work with the county on to make sure what we're doing is is really the the safest approach we also kind of want to look holistically I think there's a lot of good information here for both middle schools um and like I said we'll we'll probably look at all of it first see if there's easier things to implement certainly by Cottage Grove Middle School you're talking lower speed roads with Indian Boulevard where it can be very appropriate to have additional crosswalk signage um crosswalk markings things like that um the other thing I want to mention is the city was successful in getting what's called an 4 a grant so it's safe streets um Safe Streets and roads for all something along that line so it's a Federal grant that we got of $352,000 and then we got a matching State Grant um for the remaining 20% to get us up to $440,000 um to look at kind of pedestrian safety holistically in our city um the only unfortunate thing is with the with some of the federal funding freezes right now um we've been told to pause all work on that and not move ahead but we're confident that'll get worked out will be able to implement that Grant so this would be I think great information um that'll actually result in there'll be kind of like a technical committee at the city from all the different departments so from Public Safety um Public Works engineering you know even Community Development we'll all be involved in this in this committee um there'll probably be a lot of presentations at a commission like this on the work so I think taking this information and incorporating into that that study what's also nice is there was money for like pilot projects so it wasn't just about a study we could actually Implement some real work right if there's new crosswalks things like that there is actually a portion of the funding that we can actually do real projects with as well um assuming that that Grant can move ahead we would start that work here in the summer and do those do the study part of it summer fall and winter and we could Implement some pilot projects as well in that same time frame so that'd be kind of our approach like I said twofold look at the easier stuff and then the more challenging ones work with the county and look with the with that Grant if if the commission sees that as a good option so one quick question Ryan do you think you would have looked at these locations without the girls coming forward I would say a lot of our what we take is public input so I I I wouldn't say that we would necessarily have targeted these right because it's such a big city with so much going on a lot of what we take is public input whether it be sign requests or something like this presentation so it is really helpful um to have these because no one knows the issues like the people using them right as staff you know we know the city you know really well but the um the residents and the students using our infrastructure know it better than anyone and they can bring those issues to us in a way that we can't um probably as effectively do so I think this actually is really helpful to target areas like this yeah I'm glad you said that because I just wanted them to feel like this is actually it's not just me coming in in presentation just to do something there there might be some action that'll come out of this and I think you girls should be very proud of that bringing your voices forward I have one quick question so you mentioned that you would get a silver this is for a silver badge or a project how do you know at the conclusion you mentioned something earlier in the PowerPoint there was a purpose behind this or no am I did I miss uh this contributes to our silver award project is in it's helping us push towards our goal like is into focus on our silver award project when we finish up our Take Action project uh this is the goal for this is to make sure that pedestrians and students can go through the crosswalks without having to feel uh like they're always at risk of getting into a crash so then are you tracking this project or will we stay in touch with them so as we move forward they can yep so a good question so at a staff level we would stay in touch uh with the Girl Scout Troop um our engineering division uh specifically one of our project Engineers has been communicating so far um it may transition to our graduate Engineers she's going to be more involved with the ss4a project so we would stay in communication with them just to kind of let them know where we're at um because we always want to give feedback and and not feel like it's you know going into a a hole and and what what's coming out of it so yeah we would definitely communicate throughout the process awesome perfect and we can give you Ryan's number if he doesn't get back to you too okay we won't tell you where where he lives but at least give it give you that stuff okay no worries I'm right on the website so I'm easy to track down C's not that big yeah are there any other questions no well again girls thank you so much for bringing this forward okay and enjoy the rest of your school year I heard number of them are eighth graders so they'll be moving on to high school here pretty quick so good luck to you girls the rest of the school year okay thank you thank you with that then we'll move into uh agenda item eight which is our business item this evening and it's a Granada Park parking update all right well just a quick update on this project we had uh a good uh lot of discussion uh back in the fall I think it was probably at the November um commission meeting where we had the public invited to talk about at that time a potential parking restriction related to some issues going on at Granada Park um this was the slide and what we talked about you know back then um you've got Granada Avenue and there was a request from the public to look at a No Parking Zone um on the west side of Granada Avenue um a lot of good discussion at that time um with some direction to kind of go back and and maybe revisit some other parking enhancement ideas um it also went back to the Parks Commission as well uh to look at this so they had a lot of good discussion at their at a previous meeting um if you recall you know I think the direction wasn't necessarily to do the parking restriction right away only because that's not necessarily solving the issue of right there's a lot of extra parking with all the pickle ball use it was just kind of moving the issue right is it just moving it outside of the parking restriction um there was discussion about like a dedicated parking lot however that was going to take up a lot of that open Green Space which is really nice to have at konata Park so at a staff level what we looked at was doing um kind of like we have on Indian Boulevard for Pine Tree Valley Park um and doing just dedicated perpendicular parking that we can construct pretty cost effectively um and right now we showed nine stalls we can kind of we'll fit that um to what makes the most sense to try and not impact all the boulevard trees and things like that um this was the direction that the Parks Commission felt best you know for the park to provide some dedicated parking but not impact the park in a major way um and really when we're looking at the cost here we would have to hire contractor to do like the curbing gutter work but the paving we would do in house with our public works department so a very you know lowcost approach here to provide some good additional dedicated parking um so right now just want to give an update to the commission on that's kind of the direction um that we're proposing to go and then we'll continue to monitor the issue the parks department will see is this sufficient do we need to add more of this there's plenty of room to add this dedicated perpendicular parking with not having that big impact to the park so um no specific uh recommendation needed from the commission and I just want to give the update but I'm happy to answer any questions that you might have kind of where we are at in this situation okay thanks Ryan open it up to my fellow colleagues here any questions or no I thought it was a great solution um versus cutting in and taking a big chunk of the park so nice job I think kind of trying to accommodate the parking without losing a lot of green space so thank you yeah it looks good yeah it's almost like you guys have done this before that's fantastic seriously fantastic soltion I think it's a good middle ground right it doesn't provide quite the number of spaces that a dedicated parking lot does but um this work we can really easily do mostly in house and work well with that Park budget and you know obviously limited budgets we want to spread that across the city as best we can so so the the the park on Indian Boulevard that has the same kind of parking stalls that one has a hockey rank with it so it those stalls get plowed all winter would these be plowed in the in the winter since that part I don't know if it gets used in the in the winter time I don't believe like the pickle ball are you're right we wouldn't have there wouldn't be a lot of use I think having that there just to make sure drainage and everything is working properly we probably would continue to plow them all winter um just because the way the they're Gutter and everything will work once we do this it's best for us to make sure we're plowing it all winter okay good I too felt that it was a nice compromise on what was originally proposed and um you know be excited when the council gets to bring it when you bring it forward to them and see what they think too so and I maybe that's a good reminder for the public too right it'll before it's ever approved it'll go before Council for an open dialogue correct me if I'm wrong so there will be some work that Council would see this is it's pretty minor so it's not like like a big quilt project that the council would see um but you know I think we would probably just mention it when we're talking about budgeting and things like that I think we would like to implement it this year but uh the parks department feels pretty comfortable that they have the funds to implement it this year um so it'd be more of something in our Council updates and such to let them know that this is the direction we're going okay and what about the residents especially the ones that came before us are they in um been notif obviously through our commission if they're watching tonight um before the agendas and stuff but how are we going to go back and try to let those folks know on that street yep I think what our plan would be is now that this commission's seen it we kind of close the loop on everything there would be another mailing that we'd go out just to update them on this is the direction we're going right now we're not looking at the parking restriction and let them know we'll continue to monitor the situation okay I think this would also be a fantastic solution to their uh their concerns too right the the parking in front of the driveways or close to the driveways like You' said you're going to plow it in the winter time it can it can still act as uh parking for you know holidays and that type of stuff wherever parking would be densest in that area rather than having to restrict parking by their driveways they can have people park there Y and another nice thing I think when you have this dedicated perpendicular parking people are more inclined to use it I think when you're parking on a street anyways depending on the direction they come from they're going to park on that side of the street so even if it's not busy they might have still parked against those residents driveways but now that you have dedicated parking I think the idea is people be more inclined to use that first before they're parking on the roadway feeli the dream style exactly and Ryan my last question was with um regards because it was one resident that came before us at the commission I I remember you guys were going to go back and talk to more people in the neighborhood did we get any more feedback there was uh no never any more feedback or or or responses from the letter uh that we had sent so I think it was it was mostly the one resident who had the the biggest concern okay and he's the one who initially brought it up um we had sent the letter to a bigger group just to try and see if there's any other questions or concerns but nothing at this time so when we send out the additional letter we'd still have contact info so if people have questions they can still reach out on this solution so awesome okay well thank you again any other last departing questions or comments all right well thanks you thank you Ryan with that we can move into to uh agenda item nine that's our commissioner comments anybody have any comments they'd like to share this evening I'm seeing shakes of heads no okay we'll move on to our staff reports uh this evening Ryan or John first or I'll mention one thing uh first my name is Dave CL hello I'm new to city government I've just been elected uh this year and I'm trying to meet with all the commissions or least attend all the meetings to uh show my face say hello um Dave the is the official representation so consider me Dave 2.0 I guess Dave wasn't able to make it tonight um um if you have any questions I'm easy to get a hold on the city website I also want to thank the uh Girl Scouts for coming what a great presentation so after the idea leaves the commission it comes to the city council in most cases to make sure that the city of course has the has the money to spend that's a item but it sounds like we do um I also want to uh give you kudos for doing the research on the cost of signs I think your costs are probably better than what we can make them for anyway thank you so much all right thanks thank you David yeah and I can I can keep going here with uh with my talking for the night so as usual I'll let Olof talk more about some of the street stuff but um a few other project related things um we have projects out to bid right now so we have our payment management project for 2025 that's going to be the Hidden Valley neighborhood which is council member clawson's neighborhood uh along with council member the so um so that'll be a a good project for this year the bids came in quite favorable so they were about $400,000 under Engineers estimate so so that's a good start to the project and and what's nice is when you're talking about a project like that you asphalt paving you know some of these concerns about tariffs and such are not really all that applicable so you know we're not seeing issues with that and oil prices are still at a good spot right now so um so that was good our Mill and overlay project for 2025 is also I'm going to is out to bid or will be out to bid here shortly um that one is it's kind of a combination we have neighborhoods in the Timber Ridge Neighborhood kind of north of 70th Street as you go north on hardwood um that area then also hardwood Avenue will we Mill overlay as well that's a road that definitely needs some pavement maintenance to keep it in good drivable conditions so we would do 70th Street to 80th Street um the other thing that is happening is a signal um being installed at hardwood court and hardwood Avenue um with that project that intersection was specifically designed for Signal um we can just basically put the poles right in we have to do some pedestrian ramp up updates because since the road was built the standards are different now but otherwise it was set up perfectly for a signal um and there's been a lot of talk on that I had some additional information um for the council when that went out to bid just because you know obviously making sure we aren't creating a new East Point in Jamaica that hardwood Court feels really close to 80th Street um but it actually is about twice the distance that the old signals by Target used to be um with about half the traffic so it's a much more appropriate situation with that signal spacing so kind of following the plan that was implemented 20 years ago when that road was first built um so you will see that installed summer as well but not a great impact during construction because like I said it's mostly just directing the signal poles on the side of the road so can I just ask is that the intersection by like Goodwill and Kohl's okay that's correct Comm so yep so going into Kohl's the one way and Goodwill the other um we did look at a roundabout as well um obviously when we can roundabouts can be a great solution but there um the traffic is really not balanced very well at all there's still a lot more traffic on hardwood so the signal has some benefit there the other part is just we would have need to have required a very large amount of RightWay to do a roundabout because that wasn't contemplated 20 years ago and there is only one way in and out for those business areas and we would there's there's is no way to build that roundabout without at least Closing one side so it really it was just not a feasible solution to do a roundabout but the signal was always planned and and it'll work well um another project that we have out for bid it's called the high Zone raw water main kind of an interesting name but what we're doing is we have the new treatment plant being built by the fire station we have two City Wells well 11 is in Highlands Park and well 12 is in Sunny Hill Park we have to connect that by a dedicated water main to the treatment plant so it's about a $7 million project to snake a very large diameter 2 and a half mile long water M from those Wells um to the new treatment PL so very challenging project but we have a good plan in place and that's out to bid right now um to do that work this summer and that's fully funded by the 3M settlement so no cost to the city at all um so that's probably the big project up Ates I would say for this year um you know in terms of our different divisions like I said Gary will cover streets one thing I do want to mention is plowing because we had the big wet snowstorm two weeks ago and now they're starting to hint at maybe snow on Wednesday um just reminding folks it those big wet snowstorms are a challenge so this time of year everyone has removed all their plow stakes and when you have a fresh 11 inches of snow or 6 Ines of snow our drivers it's really hard to know where's the curb if you're on a sidewalk where's the edge of the sidewalk so they do their best they really try they know the routes really well but there was still a lot of called plow damage right at during that storm and it's just inevitable um there's no way around it and none of it is intentional um and it's amazing you know we had all those little one-inch snow storms this winter that we we can clean those up in six hours well this one I still think we did an amazing job by noon roughly we had basically two passes in every direction all the roads passable but we were still getting calls at 10:11 when are you going to plow my road why is it not done and I know from personal from other friends you know other cities it was 3 four 5:00 before they even saw the first plow so um people just need a little more patience on these days these big wet snowstorms take a long time to remove um and if we get this on Wednesday again we just look for everyone's patience as well as we as we manage it so with that I'll turn over to Gary put those Stakes back in the ground mine are still there it's warm enough the ground is th up optimistic but I'm not that optimistic those things are still in the ground well good evening so one thing with Ryan if always talking about the plow damage they can call Public Works 651 458 2808 or go on the website and Report plow damage uh third week of May we typically get out and put black dirt out seed and hydro mulch it so just report it we'll take care of it we damaged it we'll fix it let's hope the storm misses us because we're already out sweeping we started last Wednesday we got out sweeping the main roads uh our big Sweep with MC philli sweeping which received the contract this year will be April 14th weather permitting uh we're still are out tree trimming inhouse this 8 in and under trees um our contractor is still south of 90th uh hopefully be finishing up by the middle of April uh potholes we already started filling potholes um pretty minor season for us in cage Grover roads are pretty good shape they actually opened up a hot mix plant in St Paul so we'll be switching from cold mix to hot mix so if anyone else any residents anybody driving sees any kind of potholes reported to Public Works and we'll get out there and fix them um that's about all I have for right now let fingers cross that storm stays south of us so thanks any questions any questions no I have one quick one for Ryan I I know we had some disruptions with um the make uh East Point Douglas intersections and all that do we foresee any more disruption or is that sewer work all done now or that's a good question that that should be all done and what that was is is um after the contractor was done they installed a lot of new concrete pipe we do Post construction televising so we have a contractor run a camera through there and look at all of it and they had identified some crack sections of pipe so the contractor had to install a special liner inside of it so that was the work that had to be done and and that should be all wrapped up um some people asked on Facebook why don't you do this during the project well it was work that they already did and they had to repair so we're really holding the contractor accountable um a lot of agencies don't do that televising afterwards it's installed and they're done so we do that extra step and those would have been pipes if we didn't do this work instead of lasting 50 years they might last 10 20 years before they start failing so um so it's important work to do but I know it was it was a a headache for those handful of days to have that probably some bad memories from the previous two years so um so it was quick in and out as good as much as they could and we should be wrapped up okay thanks and then one last one is there any pressure we can put on the state with the roundabout there um to get the lines painted when spring gets here and because I know they did a little bit of work but it seemed like they didn't finish the job is there anything we can put pressure on state so I actually have already connected with them and they will be back out as soon as the conditions are appropriate to finish um there was some confusion on there and they did what they felt was all the mindat striping um if you if you look at what was left it was like the crosswalks going on to Jamaica on West Point they thought that was City but that is actually all men owned striping so um so they did not finish it last year so they will be out and finishing that um as soon as the weather allows this year awesome okay thank you any other questions yeah I was going to actually ask about that water main uh it's 2 miles he said is that I think we discussed this I want to say I asked a question like November um is that taking place on all city-owned property slash uh like I think you mentioned the power lines uh right away there yep so that is I would say 99% All City rightaway or city park property and actually like those power lines the city owns the underlying property and the power Lin just have an easement over it uh there's one section we have to cross uh from the power lines under pin Tree Valley Park by Indian Boulevard there we do have a city Outlaw with a trail but it's not quite wide enough there's some other there's a sewer running through there some other utilities already so um we did have to acquire a small easement uh from a homeowner we're actually directionally drilling under their property so there won't be any actual impact um and they are being compensated there's kind of a standard process to do an appraisal for that easement and they're being compensated for that easement and that's all uh most L trenched uh pipe inlay but that you have to do some directional yep that's correct so anywhere we're in the park or like just in a city street we do open trench because we do um ductal iron pipe and with our soils with all the big boulders it actually is can be challenging to directionally drill and Cottage Grove but we will drill it under that uh that that single family property it's not under the home it's right on the edge of their yard and then under pine tree Valley Park so we're not impacting the park as well fantastic thank you all right thanks Ryan move over to John yes thank you Commissioners uh we got two things for you tonight first of all um we ended February February not as quite as busy as January but we still are up about 18% in our call volumes for the year so despite January being closer to 25% compared to last year we so we're still incredibly busy which actually is a great uh segue into some exciting news uh as uh I may have mentioned at uh J January's meeting and it was also in our strategic plan that one of our goals within the 5year census plan was to do something called the standard standards of cover and Community risk assessment which brings an an outside firm to do like a comprehensive study of how we deliver fire and Emergency Services um EMS services in our community so um in December we put it out for request for proposals um we got over six um proposals came back to us and then we went through the process of uh evaluating them we did interviews in beginning of March and we've chosen a finalist to do that so right now we're just um drafting a contract a professional service contract with them and that should go to the council first council meeting um in April which would be April 2nd uh once that is finalized uh it's about a six-month process in which he'll come in evaluate everything about us and um give us some recommendations on kind of the best steps forward to provide comprehens of fire and emergency services to our city and that includes what to do with station 4 as that is not really a staff station anymore and what we can do to be more efficient and effective and how we deliver services so that's a really exciting development for us many other communities have done these studies um in terms of communities are size this is definitely a time when you kind of eclipse at 40,000 Mark where you really got to evaluate how you deliver services and such so I think there's a great timing for us and really um thankful to our Council for allowing us to budget for this this year and then look forward to their um approval or remarks on it when we bring it to council for them so um so hopefully see that finalized in early April so thank you awesome thank thanks John with that then we can move back over to uh uh council person clawen if there's any updates from the council you'd like to share with the commission this evening not that I can think of right now all right pry good job [Music] thanks no oh sure yeah I should have added uh with C Captain Peterson not here tonight we got Sergeant Hensler here that can uh give an update as well quick oh thanks so thank you commission I know I've been to a couple meetings now so your faces look familiar I might be familiar too with my suit that I wear Mondays and Tuesdays normally um I'm detective Sergeant Justin henser at the C gr Police Department been here for about 12 year 11 years now um currently assigned to the investigative unit but I wanted to cover a couple things on the police side one thank you again for coming in and presenting on that um I was an SRO at Cottage Grove Middle as well as opman middle school so I know exactly what problems you guys are talking about so that's a it's a great hit um on the police side we have six new hires um three were laterals that were coming from the county or other agencies the other three um three started immediately the other three are starting in waves once they finish their post license so six total hires for this year um two of them are active csos and then one is in our CSO Cadet program and that's where we'll help pay for their schooling to become a police officer for the city of Cottage Grove uh tomorrow night or is today Monday Wednesday night swearing in for therapy can9 rigs for Cottage Grove Police Department he's a cutie a little golden lab or Golden Retriever mix um so if you guys are attending that meeting you will to see Mr rigs uh we also have our social worker that we have embedded within our Police Department I'm not sure if Jen is coming and talk to you guys as commissioner the city council I know she's going to make some appearances here pretty soon fantastic to have a social worker embedded with our Police Department working with our person in crisis calls and mental health uh services that she brings from the county so that's staffed from Washington County and we help um pay for that and then employ her here at Cottage Grove and then for new equipment updates for the Department we have new tasers which are called the taser 7s that are coming in it's a new updated version of what we current currently carry as a a less lethal device on our belts so I'll open it up to say thank you to the commission and everybody in attendance if you have any questions any questions I saw a picture of Rigs and he's got to be your most popular member of the force right now yeah our Facebook posts go up a lot for yeah good we got to put him up there about every two weeks so we get some more likes Google analytics it's F also well thanks for filling in this evening for us then thank you all right well that takes care of all of our staff and Council comments that leaves us our last item on our agenda and that's we're adjourned thank you all e e e