This transcript has been formatted with speaker names based on the context provided and the phonetic cues in the text. *Note: The phonetic name "Kada" in the transcript corresponds to Councilmember David Clausen based on the provided list, and "Thei" corresponds to Councilmember Dave Thiede.* [00:00] **Mayor Myron Bailey:** All right, good evening. This is the May 1st, 2024, Cottage Grove City Council meeting which I'm calling to order. The first order of business is the Pledge of Allegiance. If you please rise. 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. Will the Clerk please do the roll? [00:35] **City Clerk Tammy Anderson:** Councilmember Clausen? [00:36] **Councilmember David Clausen:** Here. [00:37] **City Clerk Tammy Anderson:** Councilmember Olsen? [00:38] **Councilmember Justin Olsen:** Here. [00:39] **City Clerk Tammy Anderson:** Councilmember Thiede? [00:40] **Councilmember Dave Thiede:** Here. [00:41] **City Clerk Tammy Anderson:** Councilmember Garza? [00:42] **Councilmember Monique Garza:** Here. [00:43] **City Clerk Tammy Anderson:** Mayor Bailey? [00:44] **Mayor Myron Bailey:** Here. The next item on our agenda is Open Forum. This is the opportunity for anybody that wants to speak on something that's not on tonight's agenda; they are welcome to do so at this time. When she was out there, I didn't see anybody sign up, so is there anybody that made it in that wants to speak? All right, seeing none, I will go ahead and close Open Forum. We'll move to number five, which is adoption of the agenda. [01:05] **Councilmember Justin Olsen:** Move the agenda. [01:06] **Councilmember Dave Thiede:** Second. [01:07] **Mayor Myron Bailey:** We have a motion by Councilmember Olsen, second by Councilmember Thiede. All those in favor signify by saying aye. [01:12] **City Council:** Aye. [01:13] **Mayor Myron Bailey:** Opposed? Motion carries. Next is presentations. We have quite a few this evening and a really exciting one for the very first one, actually, which is a presentation from Acacia Lodge donation. I've been seeing it out on social media and a couple of our surrounding cities, so we're excited to have you here this evening. So, our Director of Public Safety, Pete Kerner, is going to start us on this one and then, Council, why don't we join down in the front? [01:45] **Director of Public Safety Pete Kerner:** Well, good evening Mayor and Council. I don't have a long prepared speech here. I'm glad, Mayor, that you asked because I had to ask about nine times how to pronounce the Acacia Masonic Lodge 51. So with that, I have many of the members here, and Lloyd is the one through the Lodge that I've been working with. But if you could come up and give a little bit and then we'll get some pictures with the members. [02:15] **Lloyd (Acacia Lodge Member):** Sure, thanks Chief. I'm used to doing this. I will introduce first—this is our Master for the current year here, Worshipful Master Adam Martin. I am currently sitting as a Senior Warden. And with us tonight, we have our Junior Warden Dave Martin, Stephen Miller (he's our Lodge Education Officer), a Past Master Jerry Johnson, and another Past Master Neil Climer. We also have from a neighboring Newport Lodge, Steve Ingram, and last but certainly not least, our District Representative Bill Silberg; he's from St. John's in Stillwater, that's his mother lodge. Anyway, I'll turn it over to Adam for just a brief moment. [03:10] **Adam Martin (Acacia Lodge Master):** Yeah, thank you, Lloyd. On behalf of Acacia Lodge Number 51 in Cottage Grove, Minnesota, it is our honor to donate these fire suppression tools to the city of Cottage Grove and its first responders. And now I'm going to turn it over to Lloyd for some talking points. [03:30] **Lloyd (Acacia Lodge Member):** So, people who don't know history about Cottage Grove or Old Cottage Grove—Acacia Lodge Number 51 is actually the 51st Lodge that was established in Minnesota. That doesn't necessarily mean that we have numbers that go up past the 300s, but we were founded in 1865. So next year it'll be 160 years that this Lodge has been in existence. Our lodge building itself was the first Congregational Church built in 1865, and if you drive past it in Old Cottage Grove, you'll see that we have done much work on that building and continue to do so. We thank the help that we got from the city and certainly the County Historical Preservation Society. But we also do this: does anybody know what a fire suppression tool is? Yes, Brother Steve does. A fire suppression tool is kind of like—you see a fire, one of our squad cars driving through the city, "Oh, there's smoke." With this, that officer can grab this, pull the pin, and throw it in. Within 35 seconds, it'll deploy. It's not a toxic substance; it’s an aerosol. The biggest thing on it is that it does not take the oxygen out of the room. We recently had a save in Newport with this device—a Washington County Deputy deployed and saved some dogs in the house and actually saved the structure from fire. Within 35 seconds, it'll reduce the temperature in a building by over 1,000 degrees and it'll put out the fire or at least get it to where the fire department can come and continue putting out the fire of the building. With this, we have six devices right now that we're donating to your squad vehicles. How many vehicles do you have currently? [05:25] **Director of Public Safety Pete Kerner:** We have over 18. [05:26] **Lloyd (Acacia Lodge Member):** So, it is our mission to get to the point before next year to have all your vehicles with this device in it. It's a good program. Wonderful tool for our first responders. I dropped some papers, so I'll pick them up. Well, just one thing: pancake breakfast this Sunday at Acacia Lodge. We start at 8:00, end at noon, so come get your pancakes. If you have kids in Park High School or Woodbury High School or high schools around the area, we are giving out three $1,000 scholarships. I have some flyers that you can take, or you can go onto our website. We also have a Flag Day celebration where we're going to be putting up a flag. The flag was an Eagle Scouts project put on by our Brother Steve over here. The flag itself actually flew and was carried on the USS Minnesota submarine. I guess that's it, Mr. Mayor. [06:30] **Mayor Myron Bailey:** Well, first of all, I just want to say thank you immensely. Thank you to all of you for this amazing donation and the fact that you're committing already to putting them in every one of our squad cars is truly inspiring. I want to say that right off the bat. And then, the other thing is, you know, it's groups like yourself that really truly do make our communities an awesome place because we would not have—well frankly, I didn't even know that there was this option available until I started seeing it out on some of the social media posts on our surrounding cities. To find out that we were going to get this opportunity from you in your group here to do that, I just want to say thank you. [07:15] **Lloyd (Acacia Lodge Member):** You're welcome, Mr. Mayor. I would also say that we could not do this without the help of Minnesota Masonic Charities. They are subsidizing these units and along with the Lodges we're working in partnership with them. This idea was really orchestrated by our Past Grand Master Dayton B. and it's being continued by our current Grand Master. [07:40] **Mayor Myron Bailey:** Fantastic. And you mentioned the pancake breakfast this Sunday. I just have to mention the spaghetti dinner is amazing so—and so are those, I don't know who makes them out there for you guys, but the peanut butter cookies are to die for too, by the way. I'll just say that. We always enjoy heading out there as a group. I just want to say thank you for doing that too, and it's obviously good giving back to the community. With that, can we get the rest of you to come up to do a picture? [08:15] [Photo session and applause] [08:45] **Mayor Myron Bailey:** Perfect, thank you. Pancake breakfast on Sunday morning, 8:00 to noon. That's pretty amazing. Thank you to them and the group for these amazing donations. We'll move on to B, which is a proclamation. This Proclamation—we have quite a few for the month of May, and so I've asked our various council members to take each one of these proclamations as we go, and then we'll make a motion and a second right after to accept those proclamations. So the first one is Mental Health Awareness Month and Councilmember Garza is going to read the proclamation. [09:20] **Councilmember Monique Garza:** Thank you, Mayor. This is the proclamation: May 2024, Mental Health Awareness Month. Whereas mental health includes our emotional, psychological, and social well-being and affects how we think, feel, and act; and whereas all Americans experience times of difficulty and stress in their lives; and whereas we recognize that mental health challenges can affect anyone regardless of age, gender, background, or circumstances; and whereas mental health awareness is critical to the well-being of our families, communities, schools, and businesses; and whereas it's important for us to support friends, family, and community members facing mental health challenges, showing them they are not alone; and whereas promoting understanding, raising awareness, and reducing stigma around mental health are key to fostering a supportive community; and whereas there are steps we can all take to improve our mental health, and with early and effective treatment, people with mental illness can recover; and whereas each business, school, government agency, healthcare provider, organization, and human shares the burden of mental health problems and has a responsibility to promote mental health wellness and support preventive efforts. Now, therefore, the Mayor and the City Council of the city of Cottage Grove, County of Washington, State of Minnesota, hereby proclaim the month of May 2024 to be designated as Mental Health Awareness Month. Passed this Wednesday, the first day of May 2024. Signed by the Mayor, Myron Bailey. Thank you, Mayor. [11:05] **Mayor Myron Bailey:** Thank you, Councilmember Garza. We appreciate that. So, would you like to make the motion? [11:10] **Councilmember Monique Garza:** I would like to make a motion to accept May 2024 as Mental Health Awareness Month. [11:13] **Councilmember Dave Thiede:** Second. [11:14] **Mayor Myron Bailey:** We have a motion by Councilmember Garza, second by Councilmember Thiede. All those in favor signify by saying aye. [11:18] **City Council:** Aye. [11:19] **Mayor Myron Bailey:** Opposed? Motion carries. Thank you. Now we'll move to C, which is another proclamation as I mentioned, which is EMS Week. I did ask Councilmember Clausen to walk us through this one. [11:30] **Councilmember David Clausen:** Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Whereas Emergency Medical Services is a vital public service; and whereas the members of the Emergency Medical Services teams are ready to provide life-saving care to those in need 24 hours a day, 7 days a week; and whereas access to quality emergency care dramatically improves the survival and recovery rate for those who experience sudden illness or injury; and whereas Emergency Medical Services has grown to fill a gap by providing important out-of-hospital care including preventative medicine, follow-up care, and access to telemedicine; and whereas the Emergency Medical Services system consists of first responders, emergency medical technicians, paramedics, emergency medical dispatchers, firefighters, police officers, educators, administrators, pre-hospital nurses, emergency nurses, emergency physicians, trained members of the public, and other out-of-hospital medical care providers; and whereas the members of Emergency Medical Services teams, whether career or volunteer, engage in thousands of hours of specialized training and continuing education to enhance their life-saving skills; and whereas it is appropriate to recognize the value and the accomplishments of Emergency Medical Services providers by designating Emergency Medical Services Week. Now, therefore, the Mayor, City Council, and City of Cottage Grove, County of Washington, State of Minnesota, hereby proclaim the week of May 19th to May 25th, 2024, as Emergency Medical Services Week in the City of Cottage Grove, with this being the 50th anniversary of EMS Week and the theme "EMS Week: Honoring Our Past, Forging Our Future." [13:10] **Mayor Myron Bailey:** All right, thank you. And thank you, Councilmember Clausen. So again, would you like to make the motion? [13:15] **Councilmember David Clausen:** I would like to make the motion to adopt EMS Services week. [13:17] **Councilmember Justin Olsen:** Second. [13:18] **Mayor Myron Bailey:** Motion by Councilmember Clausen, second by Councilmember Olsen. All those in favor signify by saying aye. [13:22] **City Council:** Aye. [13:23] **Mayor Myron Bailey:** Opposed? Motion carries. Thank you. And now we'll move to the next proclamation, which is Police Officers Memorial Day 2024. Councilmember Olsen, you will walk us through this one. [13:35] **Councilmember Justin Olsen:** Thank you, Mr. Mayor and my Council colleagues. It's an honor and a privilege to be able to read this proclamation proclaiming National Police Week, which will be May 12th through May 18th, 2024, and Peace Officers Memorial Day, which is scheduled for May 15th, 2024. Whereas there are over approximately 900,000 law enforcement officers serving in communities across the United States, including the dedicated members of the Cottage Grove Police Department; and whereas some 60,000 assaults against law enforcement officers are reported each year resulting in over 16,000 injuries; and whereas since the first recorded death in 1791, over 25,000 law enforcement officers in the United States have made the ultimate sacrifice and been killed in the line of duty; and whereas the names of these dedicated public servants are engraved on the walls of the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial in Washington DC; whereas this year one police officer's name from Minnesota will be added to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial from 2023, in addition to the national number of 282 officers who died in 2023; and whereas the service and sacrifice of all officers killed in the line of duty will be honored during the National Law Enforcement Memorials Fund 36th annual Candlelight Vigil in Washington DC on the evening of Monday, May 13, 2024; and whereas we are honoring the two Minnesota officers that have already died in the line of duty this year; whereas May 15th is designated as Peace Officers Memorial Day in honor of all fallen and their families; whereas the first recognition of Police Week and Peace Officers Memorial Day was signed by President John F. Kennedy in 1961, it was resolved in Congress that May 15th be designated Peace Officer Memorial Day and the week in which that date falls designated as Police Week. The purpose of Peace Officers Memorial Day is to honor the police officers at all levels of government who have been killed or disabled in the line of duty. Staff from Cottage Grove's Police Department will attend the peace officer's memorial service held at the Minnesota Peace Officers Memorial in St. Paul, Minnesota, on Wednesday, May 15th, 2024, as well as attending the law enforcement memorial day service at the historic courthouse in Stillwater, Minnesota. Now, therefore, the Mayor and City Council of the city of Cottage Grove, County of Washington, State of Minnesota, hereby proclaim the week of May 12th through 18th, 2024, as National Police Week and Wednesday, May 15, 2024, as Peace Officers Memorial Day in the city of Cottage Grove and urge Cottage Grove residents and civic organizations to salute our dedicated law enforcement officers in our community and in communities across the nation. Passed this, the first day of May 2024. Signed by Myron Bailey, Mayor. [16:40] **Mayor Myron Bailey:** All right, thank you, Councilmember Olsen. I'm assuming you want to make that motion? [16:43] **Councilmember Justin Olsen:** I do, Mayor. But before I do, I want to mention that in 2024, we've already lost 55 police officers across the country, and that includes the two we lost in Burnsville, Minnesota. And it's only May 1st. It's a pretty staggering number to me. So, it means an awful lot to me that you gave me the opportunity to read this, and I would move that we pass this as a city council. [17:05] **Councilmember Dave Thiede:** Second. [17:06] **Mayor Myron Bailey:** Second by Councilmember Thiede. All those in favor signify by saying aye. [17:09] **City Council:** Aye. [17:10] **Mayor Myron Bailey:** Opposed? Motion carries. Thank you, Councilmember Olsen. E is not a—it's a presentation, but it's not a proclamation. We have one more in a minute here, but our Public Works Director, Ryan Burfeind, is going to walk us through what's coming up this coming Saturday in Cottage Grove, which is always a well-attended event every year. So, I'll turn it over to you. [17:35] **Public Works Director Ryan Burfeind:** Yeah, thank you Mayor, members of the Council. Yeah, take a little break from the proclamations for a minute. I'll talk about Spring Cleanup. So like you mentioned, every year, the first Saturday in May, we have our annual spring cleanup event down in Public Works from 7:00 a.m. to 3 p.m. It is rain or shine. The weather's looking pretty good—there was a lot of rain forecast for Saturday, but now we're down to just some light rain in the morning, so we will be there, accepting all kind of the usual goods that I have on the screen here before you. We've got our pricing, you know, very similar to other years, and really our goal is just to have a very convenient, low-cost way for folks in town to clean things out and bring them down. We take care of that and also recycle a lot of it, right? We're trying to recycle every bit of it that we can. So, that'll be very similar to other years. In terms of our location, if you're a first-time person coming, we're right off the Jamaica Avenue interchange, kind of across from Target is where Public Works is at, across Highway 61. One thing I always want to mention because it was a change—it's been three years now—but I like to say that in 2021 the county did stop accepting hazardous materials at a cleanup day like ours. They're really looking for folks just to go to the Environmental Center up in Woodbury. It's very convenient. I've got the hours and the days that that's open. So, that's available still for folks who have more of those hazardous materials that they would like to drop off. So, with that, I can answer any questions you have. [19:10] **Mayor Myron Bailey:** Any questions by Council at this point for Ryan? Other than thank you—this is very well-attended every year and it's nice to clean out yards and garages and houses. [19:20] **Public Works Director Ryan Burfeind:** One thing actually I should add, I forgot to say, is a lot of people like to come in the morning, but if you want to have a lot shorter line, by the afternoon you can be through there in probably five minutes. I should have added that as well. [19:33] **Councilmember David Clausen:** Somebody asked me if there's a limit to the size of the objects that can be dropped off? [19:36] **Public Works Director Ryan Burfeind:** I mean, I should be careful how I answer that, Councilmember, but I mean I think if you can bring it in a box truck—you know, some people get a big U-Haul truck—if that thing's loaded down, we take it. [19:50] **Councilmember David Clausen:** I think it was related to old furniture, but they were trying to ask me and I'm like, I don't exactly know. [19:55] **Public Works Director Ryan Burfeind:** Shouldn't be an issue if you can legally haul it down the road. I imagine we can take it. [19:59] **Mayor Myron Bailey:** All right, good to know. Thank you, Ryan. All right, and then our last proclamation this evening was for the Asian-American and Pacific Islanders Heritage Month. I asked Councilmember Thiede to read this proclamation, please. [20:20] **Councilmember Dave Thiede:** All right. Asian-American and Pacific Islander Heritage was first celebrated in the United States in 1978 and was made into a month-long event in 1992. During Asian-American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, our community recognizes the innumerable contributions, vibrant cultures, and rich heritage of Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders. And whereas the Asian-American and Pacific Islander community represents a wide tapestry of languages, ethnicities, and cultural traditions contributing to the social, economic, and political fabric of the nation; and whereas the celebration of this month provides an opportunity to reflect on the collective resilience and achievements of the Asian-American and Pacific Islander communities; and whereas we acknowledge Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders have thrived and worked in Cottage Grove for generations and that Asian-Americans represent the largest minority group in the city and that Pacific Islanders represent a small but strong portion that illustrates the city's welcome diversity. Now, therefore, the Mayor and City Council of the city of Cottage Grove, County of Washington, State of Minnesota, hereby proclaim the month of May 2024 to be designated as Asian-American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. Hopefully to be passed this Wednesday, the 1st day of May 2024. So I would like, with this, to go ahead and make the motion that we designate May 2024 as Asian-American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. [21:55] **Mayor Myron Bailey:** Fantastic. Thank you, Councilmember Thiede. Do I have a second? [21:57] **Councilmember David Clausen:** I'll second that. [22:00] **Mayor Myron Bailey:** Second by Councilmember Clausen. All those in favor please signify by saying aye. [22:05] **City Council:** Aye. [22:06] **Mayor Myron Bailey:** Opposed? Motion carries. Thank you all Council for each taking one of those proclamations. All right, now we'll move to number seven on our agenda, which is Consent. Is there anything Council wants to pull from Consent? [22:20] **Councilmember Justin Olsen:** Move Consent. [22:21] **Mayor Myron Bailey:** Motion by Councilmember Olsen. Do I have a second? [22:22] **Councilmember Monique Garza:** Second. [22:23] **Mayor Myron Bailey:** Second by Councilmember Garza. Any further discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye. [22:27] **City Council:** Aye. [22:28] **Mayor Myron Bailey:** Opposed? Motion carries. So if you're here for anything that's on tonight's consent calendar, all of those items have been approved. Eight is approved disbursement. 8a is to pay the bills. [22:40] **Councilmember Justin Olsen:** Move the bills. [22:41] **Mayor Myron Bailey:** Motion by Councilmember Olsen. Do I have a second? [22:42] **Councilmember David Clausen:** Second. [22:43] **Mayor Myron Bailey:** Second by Councilmember Clausen. All those in favor signify by saying aye. [22:46] **City Council:** Aye. [22:47] **Mayor Myron Bailey:** Opposed? Motion carries. Nine is public hearings; there are none this evening. 10 is Bid Awards. We do have one bid award this evening and it is the Utility Engineering Building and Low Zone Water Treatment Plant Fiber Optic Cable Project bid award. It looks like Ryan Burfeind, our Public Works Director, is going to take this. [23:10] **Public Works Director Ryan Burfeind:** Thank you Mayor, members of the Council. So we did accept bids on April 18th for this project. Quite a long name because this is a fiber optic that is going to serve both of those new facilities down there in Cottage Grove. We're going to get it there from our Public Works facility. This will be a directional drilling type project to get that fiber down Jamaica, 100th, and Ideal Avenue to really serve from an internet connectivity perspective, but also our SCADA system that runs our entire water system and sewer system is also going to be housed in that new treatment plant. This will provide that good city-owned fiber connectivity for that system. With the bids, we did have six bids that we received. You can see the low bid by Castrejon Incorporated; that was under our engineers' estimate of $210,000. In terms of this contract and past performance working with them—because we don't do a lot of directional drilling fiber utility projects like this, they haven't been a prime contractor, but in terms of a lot of our bigger projects with street lighting, they've done a lot of work in town as a subcontractor on those larger projects. So, there is a lot of familiarity with this contractor in the past. With that, I have the recommendation for award and I stand for any questions. [24:35] **Councilmember David Clausen:** I see a couple of erroneous outliers in the bidding schedule. Can you make any interpretations of those? [24:45] **Public Works Director Ryan Burfeind:** Yeah, looking at those, Councilmember, we talked to our designer who really has more experience with this industry. There is a lot of work in this industry right now because of all the grants for fiber—not this type of fiber, but like citywide fiber for internet connectivity in rural areas. My understanding is this industry is just very swamped and there's a lot of contractors whose workloads are extremely full. They still are bidding on projects, I think, just because if maybe there's not a lot of bidders or not a lot of competition, they might get a project with a really high bid. We are very comfortable with our price and where our engineers' estimate was and happy that we had a contractor that had availability to fit this project in. [25:35] **Councilmember David Clausen:** Thank you. [25:36] **Mayor Myron Bailey:** Fantastic. Any other Council comments? All right, seeing none, Council, there is a resolution for recommendation on the screen if somebody would like to take that. [25:45] **Councilmember Justin Olsen:** I would move that we adopt Resolution 2024-069 awarding the Utility Engineering Building and Low Zone Treatment Plant Fiber Optic Cable Project to Castrejon Incorporated in the amount of $200,671.20. [26:05] **Councilmember David Clausen:** Second. [26:06] **Mayor Myron Bailey:** Second by Councilmember Clausen. Any other discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye. [26:11] **City Council:** Aye. [26:12] **Mayor Myron Bailey:** Opposed? Motion carries. Thank you, Ryan. All right, we'll move to 11, which is our regular agenda item, and we do have one, which is the Independent School District 833 Transportation Facility Preliminary Plat, Final Plat, and Site Plan Review. Connor Jakes is going to take us through this. Welcome, Connor. [26:35] **Connor Jakes (Staff Planner):** Good evening Mr. Mayor, members of the Council. Excited to be with you. The three applications before you this evening are a preliminary plat, final plat, and site plan review. The subject site is located along West Point Douglas Road South. To the west of the subject site, I'll just note, is the CAP Industries-owned parcel; they currently have one building constructed. To the south is the CP Rail and then to the northeast is the Glen Grove Business Center, which currently houses the bulletin license center. Little background on the subject site: it does consist of two lots, both zoned P-B (Planned Business). I'll walk through the history of 8585 first. That site was originally constructed in the 1970s, which was prior to a lot of the current development standards that we see in code today—thinking impervious surface coverage, open space setbacks, allowed uses, and the like. That's why from an aerial image it appears that that site doesn't meet a lot of current day standards. Other thing I wanted to note is that the legal description for that property is currently metes and bounds, which will come into play when we talk about the preliminary and final plat. The site on the east, 8587, was constructed in 2001 and met the standards of approval at that time. That expansion in 2001 did receive approvals of a site plan review and conditional use permit to expand that non-conforming use. That brings us to present day. The applicant is proposing a preliminary and final plat to combine those two lots into one. The applicant went to Washington County to submit a lot merger application, which the applicant can do without Council approval since it's a simple combination of two lots, but in this case, the county noted the western lot is currently metes and bounds and then the eastern lot is platted. In order to combine those lots, they have to submit a new plat that shows them combined, and that's the reason for the preliminary and final plat that's before you. The second proposal before you this evening is a site plan review to remove the two existing below-ground fuel tanks and to install one new above-ground fuel tank. An image of the proposed fuel tank is on screen. Again, I just want to make note that fuel tank would be at grade, not raised up or anything, and there is sufficient screening from West Point Douglas to really negate any visual impact. That screening comes from a storm water pond here and the applicant is proposing additional landscaping. There's also an existing office building that would fully block that fuel tank as the height of the fuel tank is less than the existing office building. Site access is off West Point Douglas Road. There's currently three access points. Two are secured with a rolling gate to deter any unauthorized access to the bus garage parking area. The easternmost access is for employee parking. There's no additional accesses proposed. Currently on site, there's 203 parking stalls; the applicant's proposing a total of 166 stalls, which is a removal of 37. However, in conversations with the applicant, they believe the 166 stalls proposed would be sufficient as there's currently 125 staff members. That would provide 41 extra stalls for potential future growth. The applicant's also taking this opportunity to beautify the site and bring it up to current day standards with the trash enclosure. Currently, the receptacles are not within an enclosure. The applicant also did submit a detailed landscape plan that meets all city standards. With that, I leave the recommendation on screen before you. The applicant unfortunately was not able to make it, but staff is here for any questions. [30:50] **Mayor Myron Bailey:** Council, do you have questions? Councilmember Olsen. [30:53] **Councilmember Justin Olsen:** Thank you, Connor. Nice presentation there, and this looks like a fairly straightforward project. I'm going to ask a question that you might not know the answer to; I was really hoping the applicant would be here. Having worked in the fuel business for many years, one of the things I learned was that sometimes those underground tanks aren't as sturdy as we'd like them to be. Do you happen to know how old these tanks are that are underground? [31:25] **Connor Jakes (Staff Planner):** Councilmember Olsen, I don't know that. [31:27] **Councilmember Justin Olsen:** That's okay, I wasn't sure you would know. Maybe that's something we can find out from the applicant. But the big challenge is fuel tank monitoring underground is kind of a tough thing to do. As tank technology has gotten better, underground leakage has been really mitigated to almost 100%. But if these are older tanks, then they may not have the new technology, hence the reason I asked. But I assume there's a plan in place for any sort of environmental mitigation that would be related to the removal of these tanks? Have you guys talked about that with the District? [32:05] **Connor Jakes (Staff Planner):** So that's actually in their contingency plan, and they have funds set aside. So if they do run into contamination when they remove those tanks, they would dip into that plan and then follow the MPCA standards. [32:18] **Councilmember Justin Olsen:** Usually when it happens with these older tanks, it's contained to a pretty small area and it doesn't perk into the groundwater or anything like that, but it does require some mitigation. So that's why I asked. Thanks very much for that. [32:30] **Mayor Myron Bailey:** All right, Council, any other questions for Connor? Seeing none, there are two separate motions that are on the screen. I'll look for who would like to do number one. [32:45] **Councilmember David Clausen:** I'd like to adopt Resolution 2024-071 to approve the preliminary and final plat to combine the properties of 8585 West Point Douglas Road South and 8587 West Point Douglas Road South into one platted lot. [32:55] **Councilmember Monique Garza:** Second. [32:56] **Mayor Myron Bailey:** Motion by Councilmember Clausen, second by Councilmember Garza. Any other discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye. [33:00] **City Council:** Aye. [33:01] **Mayor Myron Bailey:** Opposed? Motion carries. And then we have number two. [33:05] **Councilmember Dave Thiede:** I'd move that we adopt Resolution 2024-072 to approve the site plan review to install one new 20,000-gallon above-ground fuel tank and associated pumps. [33:10] **Councilmember David Clausen:** I'll second that. [33:12] **Mayor Myron Bailey:** Second by Councilmember Clausen. Any other discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye. [33:15] **City Council:** Aye. [33:16] **Mayor Myron Bailey:** Opposed? Motion carries. All right, we're all the way down to Council comments or requests. I'll start down with Councilmember Clausen. [33:25] **Councilmember David Clausen:** Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I just wanted to again thank staff and our Public Safety for all their hard work and dedication. I also wanted to highlight for anyone who's watching: River Oaks has several events coming up that might be of note, and we're getting into the time of year where the Cottage Grove Recreation department is going to start filling softball leagues and some other summer activities. Anybody who's interested can go to the city's website at cottagegrovemn.gov or River Oaks' website at riveroaksgolf.com and check out some of our upcoming events. [34:10] **Councilmember Justin Olsen:** Thank you, Mayor. Three things here for the public today. First, if you did not have the opportunity to attend this year's Community Showcase, you definitely missed out. It was a fantastic day, great crowd. Several of us were able to be there talking to people, answering lots of questions about the local option sales tax proposal for this year, and we also had lots of questions on various road projects, etc. I just wanted to take a moment to thank Lori Levine and all of the members of the Chamber who put so much hard work and effort into putting on the Community Showcase this year. Second thing is we are in the month of May, and as you heard earlier from the various proclamations, there's a lot going on. May 27th is Memorial Day; here at City Hall in front of the Veterans Memorial at 10:00 a.m., our Mississippi River Valley Beyond the Yellow Ribbon team will be putting on our Memorial Day event. This year's theme will be a salute to our Vietnam veterans. We're starting to lose some of those folks and we want to make sure they are honored appropriately for their service and sacrifice. Please join us May 27th, 10:00. We have some great speakers lined up. And on the topic of Beyond the Yellow Ribbon, we have a fundraiser set up for this coming Saturday, May the 4th, at noon. This will be at Junction 70 and we're going to be playing designer purse Bingo. Please join us on Saturday. You actually pay a flat fee and when you pay that fee you're able to play all the games. It certainly would help us out so that we can continue to support our veterans, our service members, and their families. With that, Mayor, I'll turn it back to you. [36:20] **Councilmember Dave Thiede:** Yeah, the one thing that I was going to mention here is that I think it's now about seven or eight weeks till Strawberry Fest. It's the 20th, 21st, 22nd of June. We usually have our meetings the first and third Mondays of the month—we're not having one this coming Monday, but on May 20th we'll have another meeting at Carboni's in the back room there. Everybody's welcome to come. We still need volunteers for Manning the info booth or helping with different activities. By all means, I'd love to have you come by and participate. I guess that's all I got. [37:10] **Councilmember Monique Garza:** Thank you, Mayor. I will just piggyback off of Councilmember Thiede. They are looking for more candidates for the Strawberry Fest Ambassadors, so please, if you know of anyone that would be a good candidate starting at age eight. There is a scholarship for the teenagers. It's a really awesome program and the kids really learn a lot throughout the year. If you know anyone, please spread the word; we really need candidates for our ambassadors, boys or girls. [37:45] **Councilmember Dave Thiede:** And just to make a comment on that, they really do represent the city of Cottage Grove as ambassadors. They take the float to different cities, and so it is a very good time for a lot of them. It is very important for the city of Cottage Grove to get out there and let everybody know how good we are. [38:10] **Councilmember Monique Garza:** And I was glad you added it—the boys can be part of it; it's new as of last year, so we want to make sure it's for both male and female. [38:20] **Mayor Myron Bailey:** Perfect. Couple things real quick for you. First of all, at the last council meeting, we did do a closed session to do a performance evaluation check-in with our City Administrator, Jennifer Levitt. Everything went very well; we were very happy with the conversations and the review, so thank you for that. Councilmember Olsen mentioned the Community Showcase—a lot of people there. The only other thing I can tell you that I heard a lot about was, "When is Kwik Trip opening?" That was one of the big ones. The last thing I'll mention: we've got Strawberry Fest and then we have the Fourth of July fireworks at Kingston Park. I am very pleased to state that we do have $20,000 of the $25,000 goal currently set in stone. I want to personally thank Tennis Sanitation, NorthPoint (the new development company), 3M, and Renewal by Andersen—all have pledged $5,000 towards the fireworks. Hopefully by the next council meeting, we'll have it all set and I'll tell you who the fifth one is. With that, no other comments. We do have two workshops this evening for the public: one is the Intermediate Zone Water Treatment Plant updates, and then we have our starting of our budget workshop for next year. There are no workshops closed to the public this evening, so we will join our staff in the training room. Everybody have a great evening.