e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e all right uh good evening and it's a great evening we have a very full house uh tonight uh I am calling the February 5th 2025 kesg city council meeting to order our first order of business is the Pledge of Allegiance so 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 there we go I love that out there they know what they're doing sou Dakota all right a next item is roll call so we'll let our clerk boot do the roll council member Olsen council member Clawson here council member thei here council member Garza here mayor Bailey here uh next on our agenda this evening is open Forum uh this is the opportunity for somebody to speak that on something that's not on tonight's agenda and we did have a signup sheet out in the entryway but no one did sign up so in the event that somebody made it in here and wants to speak to us if you just raise your hand or let me know all right seeing none I will go ahead and close open form move to number five which is adoption of the agenda I move to adopt the agenda second well we have a motion by council member clawen a second by council member thei all those in favor signify by saying I I I opposed motion carries now we come to the fun stuff uh pre number six is presentations our first presentation this evening is aaia Acasia thank you Acasia is I I was just going to say Masonic Lodge accasia uh Masonic lodge number uh 51 donation and presentation uh and our director Public Safety Pete ker is going to kind of start us through this and then Council if you want to join me down in in front of the council Dan the last grab one of these to have just all right all right well good evening mayor councel um yeah it's an honor to be up here to accept a donation I'm glad you butchered their name first so I'm just going to say Masonic Lodge 51 because I've asked like 19 times how to pronounce it so um but we're we're happy to have them back they're here a year ago and they had donated uh last year six of the fire um suppression devices um kind of their goal was to get them in all the squads so now we're going to be up to um 12 12 of them and so there's six more tonight they're valued at $1,000 a piece um and I can tell you right after the first donation came in uh to the the sheriff's office I know one of the deputies uh went to a a house fire we talked about it last year and we're able to deploy it and CAU I mean way less damage to the fire department was able to put it out so we really appreciate this donation I'm not going to babble on and on because they have a a brief um introduction on it too and what their clubs or the lodge is about so go ahead there you go I'll hand it off to you thank you uh Chief and Mr Mayor um Lloyd Cheney I'm the uh current Master uh of uh qua lodge number 51 uh Masonic lodge and a little bit about Acacia Lodge we've been in Old Cottage Grove since 1865 so it was founded by a lot of the farmers in the area and a lot of uh veterans that came home right after the the Civil War so the first and second Minnesota guys um were Founders within our lodge so lots of history in our lodge if you go past it um we've done a lot of renovations to that old building it was uh the First Congregational Church from 1865 until 1965 and our lodge was down oh about half mile down the road and off tucked away down there but uh when uh the members of that church some of the guys were in the lodge they purchased the building and the the the church built a new uh structure in a new church and we have been there ever since so it's been around for this is our 160th year and we're in a 160 year old building which is pretty darn cool and so without further Ado um uh we have uh brother Mitch borne Brother Rich brel and brother Jenner je Jeff leonardson and myself we'd have more guys here but this is a Scottish right night so a lot of our guys are in degrees over in St Paul tonight the FST so this is the device itself and it comes in the case and can be deployed so uh a police officer will come or uh first responder will come see maybe a smoke in a structure a fire or whatever and uh there's a pin device here uh you clip it pull a pin and you toss it into the structure uh in the fire and it will go from basically a th000 degrees down to uh below the flash point in a matter of seconds um that is not CO2 it's safe for all uh humans and animals in the building in fact uh it was uh was it St Paul Park or the house was in St Paul Park the house was in St Paul Park I think it was last February okay um and uh there was a save and it saved the animals in the building so um and uh we'll of course the structure itself will not burn down the fire department will buy the time to get there to remain or extinguish the remaining fire so um this program was first started uh and by Minnesota Grand Lodge um and Minnesota m Sonic Charities they're they're right around $1,000 each the lodge uh puts forth a portion of that money Minnesota Masonic charities in Grand Lodge puts the rest and then we donate to our local city fire and police so with that we have this will make it 12 and we'll uh try to get your all your squad cars out fitted uh going forward um and we'll do one more final donation I think if we can by the end of the year that would be great um we'll see where our fundraising is but we do a lot of fundraising throughout the year so um and that not only goes to me our events the spaghetti dinner which you guys come to our pancake breakfasts which are wonderful and we also do um a raffle every year Sportsman in more raffle where we take a bunch of stuff raffle it off and that contributes to our funds and also we raise money for our scholarships so there are scholarships that are available for um uh local students in the high schools and also Minnesota Masonic Charities puts out scholarships not only for new postsecondary options but other other education as well so if you're looking if you're a young person or you have young people at home or people looking for scholarships um ask city council I'll leave some my cards you can contact me and I will point you in the right direction so um I think I covered all that I think I covered this I will uh make the presentation and uh maybe we can get a a photo there I'll hide the microphone thank you super and uh we all we thank you we we love the community we love being here and if you uh looking for a good pancake breakfast um Easter Saturday Saturday before Easter um come out we're also doing an Easter egg hunt for the kids and if it's not nice weather we'll have it inside the lodge our picnic is August 19th I believe you're all welcome to come to our picnic and our spaghetti dinner in the fall so fantastic so let's give them a round of Applause for this amazing [Applause] donation and as he just mentioned uh their spaghetti dinner is absolutely amazing I don't know what it is in the recipe but it is very very good so um have I think basically all of us maybe well we have our new council member so that'll be coming so we'll do that but again on behalf of all of us our citizens and everybody I mean it's groups like yourself that make this community an amazing place to live and work and play uh and the fact is is that if we didn't have some of these types of devices um obviously we'd have homes that could like you referenced the one in St Paul Park uh that could in essence burn to the ground or injure people these are some neat new devices that uh we'll obviously get in all of our squads at some point uh and I just again just want to thank you from all of us in the city of Cottage Grove and our Public Safety teams uh both police Fire EMS and of course the council sounds good thank you [Applause] you do a great job that I don't have to exp anything oh let's stay down okay we're staying down Council Council y we're staying down here perfect thank you there we go um so before we move to the second item which is why a bunch of these people are here tonight I to make it official I do need somebody to make a motion to accept the donations from the the Sonic and he did it right lot 512 51 51 yeah see we didn't have our sheets in front of us we're doing it down here so we have a motion by council member the second by council member Garza all those in favor signify by saying I I opposed motion carries made that official then so next on our agenda this evening is an amazing evening is we're going to be uh swearing in some police officers and so we'll stay up in the front here I know uh our director Public Safety Pete Kerner is going to kick this off and then obviously our city administrator will be administering the oath mayor and Council if you could shift this way I'm GNA have the officers kind of the four they can shift down just a little bit more so when we just be a moment thank you going [Applause] Patrick I do want to also uh acknowledge that our uh County Commissioner Carla bingham's here and I know some of the different uh uh Sheriff star and his group are here this evening too so we want to welcome them to Cottage Grove all right well we'll kick this off um I actually wrote a couple notes this time because this is just a Monumental thing for us to bring on four new officers and when I say new they're not brand new um it's been a years coming to get them to this point so um but I'm really proud to just stand in front of you to introduce our four officers here and when I said newest um last week we have three additional ones that started last week in the academy and three CSO candidates so um these four here they went through their field training they went through their um the officer Academy um Sergeant lindine was going to come up and talk but she just said in the interest of time that she asked me just to mention that so um but each of these four officers were sworn in on their first day um however this is our time to celebrate them successfully completing our police academy and field training each of these officers is already out on their own and making contributions to the organization um as their family members tonight pin their badge I just want to take this moment remind each of us what this badge represents this badge represents our vision of the cage police department and our core values this badge represents the trust that the public has in US it represents our commitment to the profession and our community each of these officers up here display our core values of Integrity humility respect courage honor professionalism initiative and wellness and this badge is just more of a reminder of that as police officers you also represent the public safety department our entire profession our city organization and most importantly the community with that I'm going to do one introduction at a time we'll get each of up and then have family come up and and pin the badge so we'll start with um officer Lowden renzel if you want to come over by the city administrator and I I do have to admit I did play around with your bios um some of you were short officer Freeman so he he did a Trooper report for me so but um but no I just do a brief introductions but um especially proud of this one Lowden grew up in cage Grove and tenant Park High School where he met his wife Jasmine Lon grew up in our law enforcement family as well his father Greg has served over 30 years and currently our deputy director I can tell you Lowden earned this position um his dad actually has taken another role so he didn't supervise him um so that that's it's pretty neat but lden started his career as a Reserve officer for Cottage Grove then he also transitioned to being a community service officer with us and while doing that he also worked um part-time with Woodburry Public Safety as a as a CSO um while he attended his law enforcement School Lon was hired as a deputy with Washington County about five years ago he worked in Patrol he was a swap member in a field training officer um had a great experience there but he returned home so we're grateful for that um Lowden is currently our traffic enforcement officer so I'm sure you've seen him out on some of the social media posts um Lon has his two children here and his wife Jasmine will pin his badge after City administrator administers the he so all right loud I keep spelling repeat after me and raise your right hand I say your name i l g rnel do solemnly swear do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States that I will support the Constitution of the United States and of the state of Minnesota and of the state of Minnesota and Faithfully discharge the duties and Faithfully discharge the duties of the position of police officer of the position of police officer for the city of Cottage Grove for the city of Cottage Grove in the county of Washington in the county of Washington and state of Minnesota and state of Minnesota to the best of my judgment and ability to the best of my judgment and ability so help me God so help me God congratulations no now we can put your I will hold that to you all right next we have officer Anna Weiss um another officer that grew up in a law enforcement family Anna grew up in Forest Lake and graduated from Forest Lake High School After High School Anna knew what her passion I think even during High School you knew your passion uh she went on to attend Alexandria Technical and Community College while she was there at school um she was hired here as a community service officer um so she made the commute many many weekends to work as a CSO with us and when she completed her school um she continued as a CSO um she went through our process was selected and you began last year on February 5th I believe so we year out um Anna also enjoys spending time with her family being active and traveling so congratulations in a moment we'll have your dad retired Captain Greg Weiss come up so all right raise your right hand rep I I Anna L Weiss do solemnly swear do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States that I will support the Constitution of the United States and of the state of Minnesota and of the state of Minnesota and Faithfully discharge the duties and Faithfully discharge the duties of the position of police officer of the position of police officer for the city of Cottage Grove for the city of Cottage Grove in the county of Washington in the county of Washington and state of Minnesota and state of Minnesota to the best of my judgment to the best of my judgment and ability so help me that help me that congratulations remember how to do this vag bagly we have paramedics the I will get a picture before you leave all right I'm GNA have to go off script a little bit because like I said is when I asked him for a bio it was like bacop air let's do this so um all right like I said man a few words but um Marshall is also local he grew up in St Paul Park where he later graduated from Park High School after school Marshall joined the United States Air Force and did eight years of activ Duty I think part of that time you're a k9 Handler as well um after that he came back to Cottage Grove um Marshall is currently a member of the Air National Guard um prior to coming to us he worked for three years with the Minnesota state um State Patrol and he worked in the East Metro I know the poor guy every call he went on or coffee breaks he was heavily re recruited and even even a neighbor I think pressured him to to to come on board so um again like I said Marshall man a few words but when I talked about our core values the one was the humility and just a quick story um as a member of the Lions Club I had someone track me down one of the coaches from um he was at Kingston he said hey one of your cops showed up I'm like oh gosh what did we do you know I that was my first thought and then they just they gave me the you know one your officers and turned out to be Marshall stopped and there was a soccer practice with like 12-year-olds and he played with them for about 15 minutes I think they scored quite a few times on you but they they they definitely they they wanted to pass it along and when I saw Marshall in the hallway I was like hey I got this nice and he's like yeah that's why I came here Chief you know he wants to do that Community engagement so uh we're really excited to have you um I hope I get this right because I said who's he's like yeah the wife and kids will be here too but Marshall's wife Olivia will be pinning your badge and your children will be coming up as well so with that I'll turn over to the city administrator all right Marshall raise your right hand and repeat after me I state your name hi Marshall D Freeman who solemly swear who solemly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States that I will support the Constitution of the United States and of the state of Minnesota and of the state of Minnesota and Faithfully discharge the duties and Faithfully discharge the duties of the position of police officer of the position of police officer for the city of Cottage Grove for the city of Cottage Grove and the county of Washington and the county of Washington and state of Minnesota in state of Minnesota to the best of my judgment and ability to the best of my judgment and ability so help me go so else got there congratulations oh I love the [Music] shirts his brother's it works yeah love the last but not least I'll tell you if we could uh contain his energy or we we'd solve the energy crisis right Tyler so um next proud to introduce um officer Tyler Harris um Tyler was raised in New Richmond Wisconsin and is graduate of New Richmond High School he began his career in law enforcement as a police explorer with the Washington County Sheriff's Office his commitment to Public Service continued when he enlisted in the United States Marine Corps where he currently serves as a military police officer and the Marine Corps Reserves in May of 2022 Tyler joined the city of Cottage Grove as a community service officer while pursuing his education at centry College um where he earned an associate degree in law enforcement during his studies he also served as a firefighter for the City of New Richmond as a community service officer of the Washington County Sheriff's Office and he further Advanced his training by completing his skills program at rasmuson University in June of last year he began his role as a police officer with our department so he is one of those unique candidates that we wanted him so bad we we hired him when he was finishing his training he started with the academy right away and then once he became post eligible he started as a as a police officer so he's another one that didn't listen to his family his dad's a proud Commander with Washington County so we have we have three that didn't listen to their parents tonight but with that I'll turn it over to Jennifer Lov all right Tyler please raise your right hand and repeat after me I state your name I Tyler T Harris do solemnly swear do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States that I will support the Constitution of the United States and of the state of Minnesota and of the state of Minnesota and Faithfully discharge the duties and Faithfully discharge the duties of the position of police officer of the position of police officer for the city of Cottage Grove for the city of kage Grove in the county of Washington in the county of Washington and state of Minnesota and state of of Minnesota to the best of my judgment and ability to the best of my judgment and ability so help me God so help me God congratulations with that Tyler is your mom coming up to yes Tom's Tyler's mother Heather and Father Tim his father Tim not father I just promoted you right there so oh yeah [Applause] wrong and we would love to have a chance with all the families to come up here with the officers that were just sworn in with the offic in the backdrop too so families families you want to come on up then we'll do a big group picture here leave that leave that Shield back there I'll Stand more in the back officers if you want to kind of scratch up behind them as get two rolls up there maybe or I know [Music] wow sh so quiet all right let's do one more round of applause for our new officer here in thank you years 6 months now I heard her M what she was saying trying I know she was going to leave the staff meting I love it yeah you see it thank you yeah I love that oh nice the cutest thank you just wait a minute as they're uh moving their way out a lot of uh proud parents this evening and family members we'll see if we can maybe get those door shut there we go one there goes the other okay right all righty uh then our final item under presentations this evening is uh February 20225 which is Black History Month and uh before I ask for a motion in a second I did ask council member uh Clawson to uh read the proclamation this evening so I'll let you kick it off the proclamation whereas Black History Month is a time to reflect upon honor and celebrate the invaluable contributions of African-Americans throughout history and the ongoing effort to promote equality Justice and freedom whereas in 1926 Dr Carter G Woodson a Harvard scholar established the observance of African History Month excuse me of African-American history to reveal the contributions achievements and involvement of African-American people and the development of our American democracy whereas African-Americans have played a vital role in shaping the culture economic and social fabric of the United States enriching our communities with their resilience strength and achievements in every field whereas Minnesota is home to many prominent black Trailblazers including uh Dr Robert S brown the first black doctor in Minnesota uh Lena Smith Minnesota's first black woman lawyer Neva Walker the first black woman elected to the Minnesota legislator uh the proclamation continues whereas the city of kidis Grove remains committed to acknowledging the generations of African Americans who struggled against adversity Injustice and discrimination in order to achieve equal right rights in American society and whereas Black History Month calls our attention to the continued need to battle racism and build a society that lives up to the democratic ideals we must reflect upon our Collective past reveal its impact on present conditions and Implement Equitable solutions for more for a more just future and whereas the city of cotage Grove is proud to honor the history and contributions of African-Americans in our community throughout the state and Nation now therefore the mayor and City Council of Cottage Grove County of Washington state of Minnesota hereby proclaim the month of February 2025 to be designated as Black History Month all right thank you uh council member Clon um so with that reading I'll take a motion and a second to uh make it official I'll make a motion to um Proclaim February 2025 as Black History Month second all right so I have a motion by council member Garza second by council member thei all those in favor say by saying I I I opposed motion carries thank you for reading that awesome uh next on our agenda is consent um is there anything Council wants to pull from consent for separate discussion this evening no okay seeing none I guess at this point I'll look consent all right there we go we have a motion by council member the do I have a second second second by council member Clon any further discussion all those in favor signify by saying I I I opposed motion carries so if anybody was is here for anything on tonight's consent agenda all of those items have been approved uh next on our agenda moving right along is eight is approved dispersement which is uh paying the bills we'll make a motion to pay the bills all right uh motion by made made by uh council member Garza do I have a second oh second second by council member Clawson all those in favor signify by saying I I I opposed motion carries nine is public hearings we have none this evening 10 is Bid Wars we have none this evening 11 is regular agenda nothing on our regular agenda this evening so we're all the way down to council comments request and I'll still stay with my normal and I'll start with council member Garza down here anything you want to add oh let's see I don't have anything but I do see that we're having a fish fish fry at Royal Oaks on February 28th so I think everybody should get down there and enjoy some great fish other than that you guys have a wonderful um week there you go all right uh counc member theti well let's see I guess uh sticking with with my general theme of uh Strawberry Fest and so forth there uh there is a purse Bingo um fundraiser in that at River Oaks on February 22nd at 11:00 a.m. I'm going and uh uh other information is available at uh online at strawberry fest.com and uh other than that I'm good all right I was just going to real quick say that I've seen the picture of the button uh for this year looks amazing by the way I know you talked about it in the past but I've seen it out on social media now so it's a whoever uh uh designed it did a really good job so fun button for this year fantastic uh and then uh council member Clawson everybody loves software upgrades right um we all look forward to those well over the last week or several months our um finance department and utility billion people have been working diligently to get a new uh utility Software System up and running I know that takes a lot of people it takes Finance um it um uh the utility people and to get everything working on time um and throughout the change I know the uh staff has been receiving like upwards of uh L last week 500 phone calls from citizens asking about having just questions on how to navigate the new system but anyway it's a lot of time it's a lot to ask the staff to do and it seems to be going pretty well from what I hear so shout out to the staff and everyone that worked so hard on that thank you fantastic yep and uh that is true and what the great news about that is it's more the questions were more about um do I need to reset up my account which obviously the answer was yes so if you're watching that is the answer but a nice job in the transition I say that setting up your account it's extremely fast and easy it takes a couple of minutes not a problem pay your bill set it on automatic payment and forget about it you know it's funny because that's what my I asked my wife the same question I said oh by the way did you know you have to do this she said of course I knew like okay as long as it's done I didn't care so um I don't have anything else to add for this evening uh at this point so we'll just move oh I'm sorry con guess I guess I we can mention uh I guess there is a the blizzard bash oh go ahead down at uh Ravine Park and uh that's on February 15th uh so that's week not this weekend the weekend after right and uh and we might even have if if everything comes uh uh down from the sky on Saturday and so forth we might even have some some snow to take advantage of uh their their free use of snow shoes and sleds and and you strap on the skis and things like that so uh that's on February 15th from 11:00 a.m to 400 p.m. at uh the Ravine Park awesome thank you uh so uh the next item on our agenda is is workshops which are open to the public which we'll end up going into I'm assuming the training room correct uh we do have three items on our um our uh Workshop this evening one is the Minnesota law enforcement support uh office which is the lesal participation the second one is the annual use of force update or report uh for the police and then the third one is the police and fire uh 5year strategic Plan update uh we do not have any workshops closed to the public this evening so we won't be adjourning in here we'll adjourn uh in the in the training room so everybody have a great evening and we'll see if we get that snow this weekend so take care everyone e e