Based on the context provided for the City of Cottage Grove, here is the transcribed and speaker-identified transcript. Since the original text did not include timestamps, I have provided them in a sequential format to denote speaker changes. [00:00] **Chairperson (Public Services Commission):** Foreign. So, I am gonna go ahead and call the Cottage Grove Public Services Commission meeting to order. Please stand for the pledge. [Pledge of Allegiance]. Roll call has been taken? Yeah, fantastic. Thank you. And approval of the agenda—everyone had a chance to look at the agenda? [00:20] **Commissioner Ron Nath:** I'll move the agenda. [00:22] **Chairperson:** Okay, Commissioner Ron Nath will move the agenda. Do we have a second? [00:25] **Commissioner Tracy Jensen:** Second. [00:27] **Chairperson:** We have multiple seconds, so I'm just going ahead with Tracy Jensen's second. The agenda and approval of the minutes—I'm sorry, all in favor say aye. [Ayes]. So moved. Thank you, Justin. And approval of the minutes? Do I have everyone... [00:40] **Commissioner Tracy Jensen:** Moved. [00:41] **Commissioner Ron Nath:** Second. [00:42] **Chairperson:** All in favor say aye. [Ayes]. So moved. All right, and let's move into Open Forum. Are there any questions? Seeing no questions, this is going to be a fast meeting. We're going to move on into presentations and we'll start with our construction update. And I see Ryan getting up, so are you sounds good. Thanks, Ryan. [01:01] **Ryan Burfeind (Public Works Director):** Thank you, Chair and Commissioners. So a lot of times in the summer we'll do an actual construction tour. Last year I think we had a lot of new developments, right, that we were looking at. Right now actually we only have one development that even really started yet this year and one big project I think everyone sees quite a bit of is Jamaica and East Point. So to be a little different this year I'm going to talk about those projects, talk about where they're going, what the phasing is going to be, but I'm also going to have an update on water treatment, which is always a very important topic for us. I'm also going to talk about some projects that were in more of the planning stages for just so you're kind of aware of what our plans are for the future for road construction. First, I'll talk about the 2023 pavement management project. This is south of 80th Street, kind of along and west of Hyde Avenue just south of the high school. This project started earlier this summer; it's been going really well. Obviously, it hasn't rained a lot, which is not good for many reasons, but one thing is for construction it keeps moving pretty steadily without weather delays. This project was broken up into three phases and you can see on the screen here, a pretty straightforward pavement management project. We replaced a full pavement section, did spot curb replacement, and spot utility repairs—so a pretty typical project for our roadway rehabs. Phase one is actually completely paved with the base course of pavement, just waiting for the wear course. Phase two is getting ready to pave, and then phase three they're just starting to get into, so making good progress through this project and hope to see that wrap up here in late summer or early fall. The big one, of course, is East Point Douglas and Jamaica Avenue. Very, very tricky, very challenging, very complex project that's actually going to be broken up over two years. As you drive through there, a lot of times you might wonder what's going on there—some days there's a lot going on, some days there's not. You know, we had the big paving of the new northbound section in Jamaica, so that was really nice to see a few weeks ago, but then we might be laying new curb and then it takes all these days to cure and you don't see a lot of action. So I thought I'd step through kind of where we are, what we've done, and what's upcoming for that project. Our current phase—you can see everything in red is under construction, everything in yellow is complete, and everything in gray is kind of the existing condition we haven't done any work in that yet. Still trying to wrap up these northbound legs and kind of the north side of East Point Douglas Road, and that's actually pretty much done today. Then we're getting into a very quick two-day closure—it was 100% necessary but it's going to be a challenge. It's a two-day closure of the east side of that intersection at Jamaica and East Point. For two days, if you're going north or south on Jamaica, you won't be able to turn towards Target. The reason for that is that actual pavement in the intersection—we had to have it closed because it's such a huge intersection, you have to have it graded just right and paved just right, otherwise it's not going to drain properly over time. [03:40] **Commissioner:** Has that been posted anywhere? [03:42] **Ryan Burfeind (Public Works Director):** Yep, yep, so that's a good question. So that has been on our website and I believe there was a Facebook message as well. Two days was about as tight as we could get it; we pushed every hour we could out of that and they'll be doing night work and just trying to get that work done. Once that is done, they'll actually switch traffic over and then traffic will be on the new pavement that they've paved, and then they'll work on those southbound lanes that we've all been driving on, which is none too soon because with all the work going on I know those southbound lanes are pretty rough to drive through. So that will be good. And then they'll also continue some work on East Point Douglas Road. This phase you see here will be going on for, you know, quite a few weeks. [04:20] **Commissioner:** And which days are the two-day closure? [04:22] **Ryan Burfeind (Public Works Director):** Tomorrow and Wednesday is what we're looking at. [04:25] **Commissioner:** I have a question. Has there been any concern with cars um using the Cub parking lot as a Raceway? For cutting through, I mean. Shifting those lanes over will probably put an end to that, but I know they can't close that one entrance. I've watched it and it's an issue with pedestrians. [04:45] **Ryan Burfeind (Public Works Director):** Yep, exactly. You're talking—if they come off up on the screen here—I think there has been some things that we've dealt with coming from 90th. They have those speed bumps in their parking lot which really helps. Ever since we opened that, some cars do tend to find their own way whether they should or not to get around. I will say it's probably cut down a little bit now that the main signalized intersection going into Cub is closed, but that period of time before it there was a little bit of a challenge. Once we get this work done, we're going to kind of continue and you'll see these little bits where we open a new entrance, like we did for Culver's—we reopened that entrance off Jamaica. The reason for that is we really have to be careful to make sure you can always get to all these businesses during construction. Before we could close that signalized entrance by Holiday going to Cub, we had to open the other one. A little bit of Swiss cheese type of work trying to keep entrances open, which I will say there's a lot of effort our team put weeks and weeks of effort into this phasing plan because we really had to make sure we could maintain as much traffic and access as we could through our construction. When we get to the west side of Jamaica and we have that same type of intersection closure, this is going to be more towards that end of October time frame in the second phase. That one is a one-week closure. There's a couple reasons for that: the work is a little more intense, but also there's a really good detour on Inwood and 90th Street. On the east side there is no detour—when we close that, you're going all the way down to East Point at Keats Avenue. Here, there's a very convenient detour to kind of get around that closure. So for like I said, there's a little more work to do in that area, but also because there's a detour option. When we force that two-day closure, we really pay for it; there's a lot of cost to making a contractor throw that many crews and that much overtime into it. So that one will be a little lengthier but traffic should still be able to get around. Then the last little bit will just be kind of finishing up the medians late this fall, and then everything in yellow will be done. We'll have the new signal in at Jamaica, we'll have all the widened lanes, extra turn lanes on Jamaica and East Point will be kind of complete from where the signal was by Holiday over to Burger King in that area. Then it'll stay like that for the winter, and then next year is when we actually get into the roundabout. That's the area in gray and that will actually be closed during construction. Where that roundabout is on the screen, next year that'll be fully closed because there's really no way to build half a roundabout in this tight of an area at a time. You see sometimes the County will do it out in a farm field and they can put a big bypass road around—well, there's no options to do bypass roads in a commercial area like this, so that roundabout area will be closed for the duration. Any questions? [08:05] **Commissioner:** I was just thinking about like school bus routes because you said in the fall. So this is going to be during school? [08:10] **Ryan Burfeind (Public Works Director):** Yep, that's a good question. We do work really closely with the school district, so we let them know what our project looks like and what the phasing looks like. As we get closer to the school year, we let them know exactly how things are going and what they can expect. Same thing for next year with that roundabout and that closure—they're always important to work with as well. Then the last little bit that'll be next year is also a mill and overlay in front of Menards and the townhomes there just to kind of complete the new pavement section for that entire duration. That didn't need the total reconstruct like the area behind Target does, but it will get a mill and overlay. So you'll really have very new pavement from Jamaica all the way down to Keats Avenue with the work that we've done over the past 10 years. And here's the finished layout that it'll look like when everything is wrapped up next year. If you haven't seen it on the project website, there's actually like a 3D model that was created just to help people visualize what it's going to look like and function like. Another project that we got going on this year that's another two-year project is what we call the South District Street Utility. This is down by Hunter Street and Hadley Avenue. This is tied to some development work that's happening in that area. It's all the roadways kind of highlighted in the lighter yellow—pastel yellow, maybe I'd call it. This is all new roadways. Part of it is following that County's Southwest Arterial study. The County has this long-term vision for a County roadway in this area; a big part of that is realigning 103rd Street and Hunter so there's a nice continuous route. Right now you have to get to Hadley, stop at a T-intersection, take a left, and then there's a really hard right corner to get back on 103rd. This kind of 'X' through that 40-acre parcel will make those roads flow very nicely and be set up well in the future for whatever Hadley and Hunter Street needs to be in the future, if it's a roundabout or signal. This year they did all the utility work and all the grading, and then next year the street construction is planned. The area highlighted in red was actually some work that we're just wrapping up to get some sanitary sewer across the Settlers Bluff development. There was actually kind of a gravel bypass road for the past two weeks, but Hadley is repaved and they're just doing some shouldering work and getting ready to reopen that. This is tied to some development which I'll talk about in just a minute. We also have the 100th, 105th, and Ideal Avenue projects. This is in the brighter yellow. This started last year—another huge project, about 13 million. It's actually completed by North Point. The City did all the plans, we do all the inspection, we do all the administration, but North Point—that development down there that's all the large industrial—they actually, as part of their development agreement, have to complete the work. But it's still a very large project. A lot of 105th was really done last year. Ideal Avenue was just recently paved, and then Hunter Street is under construction right now. That area highlighted in blue between Hemingway and Ideal is closed right now; that's the area that they're working on. Once that's done, they'll do a mill and overlay between Ideal Avenue and Jamaica Avenue. 100th will really be a brand-new road from Jamaica all the way to Hayward Avenue, which will be a good improvement. Down in that area, it really was just a two-lane road with no turn lanes; now it's going to have left turn lanes, right turn lanes, and trails on both sides. Ideal Avenue will be the same. From a development perspective, the Hawthorne development is still moving along pretty good. We did tour this one last year when we did our bus tour. The next phase that was ongoing this year—one thing I want to call out—there's that kind of light blue oval. Geneva used to just be that gravel road which is still there, that went straight north-south into Newport and Woodbury, but at the intersection of 65th, it's a really unsafe intersection. It's a pretty steep hill going down 65th Street with not good visibility. Actually, this Goodview Avenue that you can see going through development is a collector road that was built that's wider than a normal residential street, and that will actually be the main route into Woodbury and that gravel road will kind of T into it. So we're going to take that traffic, put it on a much safer road, and tie it into that roundabout there. It's just a much better improvement for traffic in that area. That construction is wrapping up at that connection, so that area has been closed for the past several weeks, but that'll be wrapping up here in the near future. [12:35] **Commissioner:** Can I ask on that? Is the plan there to try to divert some of that traffic off 65th and funnel it north? [12:42] **Ryan Burfeind (Public Works Director):** Part of the plan—I think long-term as Woodbury develops—it is just a gravel road to the north as well, but I think as Woodbury and Newport develop in that area, you'll see more traffic taking that route up to Glen Road, and you can get on Glen Road at Highway 61 as well. Greymont Village—this is highlighted in blue. This is a new development down that Ideal Avenue/100th Street area. This is one of the reasons for that South District Street Utility project, because right now Ideal is the only way in and out of that entire area of the city. That's how things were for many years, but really with new standards and new access, you want two ways in and out. These new roads that we're going to build with Hadley Avenue is going to allow for that. That project just started grading; you really won't see homes occupied until next year. We'll have those new roadways being built and have another route out from that area of the city. The last development I'll talk about is Ravine Crossing. This is actually right across the road at 90th Street and Keats Avenue, highlighted in red. This was recently approved, so I think grading work, if it hasn't already started there, they got the silt fence and they're ready to start. This is a development that'll ultimately be homes built by D.R. Horton, which is a common builder in the city. You'll see that grading work and street utility get done this year, and they'll probably get some of their model homes constructed this fall as well. Thinking about future projects—2024 Pavement Management. The Council just recently authorized the feasibility report for next year's project. We like to be one year in advance with the planning efforts. The feasibility report was authorized for quite a few streets; we had to figure out what's the real condition, what's the utilities, and what's the cost. We may not do all of these streets next year, but these are the ones that we're evaluating. You've got the area just south of this year's project, kind of along Hillside between East Point Douglas Road. We're also looking at East Point Douglas from Hyde kind up to that cul-de-sac on the north end, and then Jamaica Avenue from 80th to 90th, which I think everyone knows is desperately in need of a reconstruction. And then also kind of the Jenner-Jocelyn loop in that upper right corner of this image off of 80th Street. These are the ones we're going to evaluate and see what's the real timing. Can we get Jamaica done next year? How does that fit with Hillside because they're both bigger roads and more expensive to deal with? But Jamaica is definitely a challenge—our drivers can't even plow it that well in the winter because the ruts are so deep it leaves so much snow behind. What's nice is the curb is in really good shape and the sidewalk is in good shape, so if we can just replace that pavement, we'd be doing really good in that area. The last one I'll talk about is our big one. This is a joint project with the County to provide that new straight arterial road from Jamaica and 100th Street over to Highway 61. Official name is the County 19A and Hunter Street realignment, but really it's just making that continuous Hunter Street connection. This is the preliminary design that the County recently completed that looks at that nice route pretty much all across 3M land, an overpass bridge over the railroad tracks. Right now down by the 3M entrance you got to cross at that at-grade crossing—it'll be a full bridge over the railroad tracks, trails on both sides, really well-built County arterial road. But it's about 35 million dollars. So we're really actively going for funding, and we actually recently, working with the County, acquired seven million dollars of what's called 'PROTECT' funding, a type of federal funding bucket. Then there's another three million dollars working with our federal delegation for some federal money that way. That would get us about 10 million, and then we've been going for larger grants—RAISE grants (Rebuilding America's Infrastructure Sustainably) and the Rural Surface Grant. Hopefully with one of those two federal grants... we're just about to submit to that Rural Grant in August. It takes about three-four months to get through the review process. Right now the County shows 2026 for construction, but very dependent on those grants. The last thing I'll mention is you can see on the north side here, that one leg that comes in is actually West Point Douglas Road. Where Public Works is right now, we only have one way in and out into that roundabout, which is a real challenge at certain times of the day. Having this other connection to that whole Langdon area will be a good improvement if we can get this built. That's what I have for road construction before I touch on water treatment. Any other questions? [18:05] **Councilmember Justin Olsen:** Actually, I was going to ask about the potential for adding turn lanes on Keats Avenue by Ravine Crossing. That development right now obviously has nothing there. Is that the intent—to add turn lanes into that development once it starts actually being built? [18:25] **Ryan Burfeind (Public Works Director):** So, turn lanes off of Keats Avenue? The County does have that in what they call their intersection control ranking system. They keep an eye every year on the traffic amounts. Right now it doesn't quite rise to that level, but they watch it actually every single year and they bring out a new report that kind of shows where it stands in the county and where they need to plan that funding. Something like Ravine Crossing will start to increase that traffic and drive the need for that. [18:55] **Councilmember Justin Olsen:** Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. [19:00] **Ryan Burfeind (Public Works Director):** For water treatment, this is an overall map of the city. The first thing I'll talk about is our two new temporary water treatment plants. While we plan and design and build these permanent treatment plants, every year we keep building temporary treatment plants. The reason for that is the values are always changing—the state and federal government come out with new rules. Permanent plants take years and years to build, and in the meantime, we want to provide safe drinking water that meets all those standards. In yellow at Well 2 and Well 7, we built two new temporary plants. I was kind of proud of the way we did them because we actually were able to design the actual treatment vessels to move into the permanent plants. We basically just built a metal shed around them, and the actual vessels that do the real work and cost the real money—those aren't going to waste. We'll actually move those in the wintertime to the permanent plants. The two in red are the locations of our permanent water treatment plants. The one on the bottom is by Ideal Avenue and 110th Street—that's the one that we actually are bidding out right now. The one to the north will go right behind Central Fire Station; that'll be bid out next year. These are the interim water treatment plants. They're still built well to meet all the correct standards; it's just we try and build them in a cost-effective way knowing they'll only be there for a handful of years. These are the Well 2 and Well 7 plants, very similar to the ones that we built previously—we now have five. These two are up and running and we're using them pretty heavily with another drought this year. The real key was those treatment vessels; we actually bought and contracted ahead of time. We didn't wait for a general contractor to do it. The Council authorized staff to move ahead on those, and they have such a long build time that if we wouldn't have done that, we wouldn't have got them in time. We got them done and operational this past June. Unfortunately, when this is all done they'll get taken down, but those tanks will get loaded on semis and moved to the new treatment plants. The first of those is this Low Zone Water Treatment Plant. This is a permanent one. We have three kind of different zones in town because we have so much elevation. South of Highway 61 is kind of its own water system with some connections through valves. From Highway 61 to the hill by Hillside is another one, and then from 80th Street on up is a third one. That intermediate and high zone north of 61 can kind of act together, so they'll share a water treatment plant. But south of Highway 61, it really works all on its own. It'll have its own water treatment plant highlighted in yellow. This is an actual rendering of the plant, which I think turned out really good. I think there was always some thought of it being a big simple "box," but with all the things we're doing in there with the PFAS treatment and iron and manganese removal... when we flush the water mains twice a year and the water turns brown, that'll really be mostly a thing of the past. We found through pilot studies that iron or manganese in our water really affects the vessels that treat for PFAS; it reduces the life expectancy of that treatment. Rather than lasting for four or five years, it'll last like one year. By taking out the iron and manganese, we can now make that last for four or five years and save a lot of money. That right side of the page is where that iron and manganese removal is going to happen in that lower building. The real tall one—those are just really tall, 26-foot-tall cylinder vessels that are filled with carbon, and that's what does the PFAS treatment. Like I said, this one's bidding out right now, looking to start construction this fall. The last one is our Intermediate Zone plant; this will actually be a bigger one. It's going to change the view of Rick's team just a little bit behind his building—we'll still make it look nice, Rick, with big pine trees! You can kind of see with that yellow box, it's kind of down in a hole there. That's where all of our seven wells in that area go to one spot, so the plant had to go here. It'll sit down below the big ground storage tank. This one will bid out next year and be operational summer of 2026. That's really key because ultimate federal regulations are going to say you don't want any PFAS in your water, and you need to meet that rule by 2027—that's what we're thinking. Until then, our temporary plants are going to keep doing what they do. They remove PFAS just like these plants will. So any questions on that aspect of it? [24:10] **Commissioner:** So is the thought that the three plants then will be enough to cover the city? [24:15] **Ryan Burfeind (Public Works Director):** That's the long-term plan for probably the next 15 to 20 years. We're pretty sure as we develop east of this ravine, we'll probably need a new plant as we grow really long-term, but for now, these are designed to serve us through about 2040 to 2043. [24:40] **Commissioner:** When the two plants get completed, they don't share at all? So you can't like turn one off when you're doing maintenance? [24:48] **Ryan Burfeind (Public Works Director):** Good question. We do have some connection between those two zones; we can let water flow through pressure reducing valves. But actually, the way these are designed, there's so many "treatment trains." We can actually section off parts of the plant and shut it down in different parts. We could shut down 25% or 50% and do maintenance on it and keep it going. Over the winter, we average about 3 million gallons of water a day; right now we're pumping like 11 million gallons a day. So these are designed to meet that full summer demand, and then in the winter, you can shut down most of the plant and do maintenance. [25:35] **Councilmember Justin Olsen:** Hypothetically, you'd mentioned the manganese and iron removal before treatment, which is really cool. When you start removing that, with the likelihood that the end user will need a water softener decrease? [25:52] **Ryan Burfeind (Public Works Director):** That's a good question. While that can play a little bit into hardness, it's really minor. Our water is very hard, coming from the sedimentary aquifers—that'll really continue. We did look at whether we could do water softening—we're doing this PFAS treatment paid for by the state, but water softening was about 100 million dollars for the city, so really just not a feasible thing at this point. In the future, they want to cut down the chlorides going in the river, so as that becomes more of an issue, you're going to start seeing federal and state funding for centralized city softening. But that cost would have been 100% paid for by City residents now, so it wasn't a feasible thing. [26:45] **Commissioner:** What is the difference between the low, intermediate, and high zones? [26:50] **Ryan Burfeind (Public Works Director):** These are the three different pressure zones. It's not that the low pressure zone has low pressure; it's more about elevation. If we had one pressure zone, because we have so much elevation, you might have 50 psi in the north end, but you'd have 150 psi down by the river and it would be blowing up everyone's pipes. So we actually have three kind of separated water systems in this town. The green south of 61 is the Low Zone, the Intermediate Zone is in orange, and the High Zone is in blue. The red is the River Zone—we don't have City water down there yet, but someday long-term, we'd have a fourth zone as well. It makes it a lot more complicated than Woodbury, which is very even and has one pressure zone. We try to range from about 40 pounds to 75 pounds. [27:45] **Councilmember Justin Olsen:** Hey Ryan, since you're talking about water zones and you mentioned how we operate versus Woodbury, could you maybe share a little bit with the Commission with respect to the blending process that we can enjoy that our friends to the north can't? [28:05] **Ryan Burfeind (Public Works Director):** Yep, that's a good thought, Councilmember Olsen. We have a lot of wells that are in one spot—they go to one pipe. So we can have fully treated water, and then we can kind of blend it with some wells that have a little bit, and you still have very good compliant water. That was a way of doing things in the 60s and 70s—put the wells close together so it's easier to treat. Newer towns like Woodbury have wells all over the city. That's a good thing to prevent drawing down the aquifer, but now that we have to treat the water, having those seven wells in one spot works really well for us. [28:45] **Councilmember Justin Olsen:** That's why you see in the news some communities can only water twice a week like Woodbury can, whereas we have the ability to blend our water in order to meet all of the standards. We don't have to put those limitations on in our community; our system enables us to blend at all times so that we're consistently delivering clean water. If you have a place where you can't do that, and they use too much water, what's going to happen is what starts coming through that pipe is going to have a higher parts-per-billion than they're allowed to have. Did I say that accurately? [29:15] **Ryan Burfeind (Public Works Director):** That's correct. It's a real challenge. The worst thing you can do is run out of water because that creates a whole slew of issues, so you have to turn on wells that maybe you wouldn't want to use. Let's say there's a big fire and the fire department needs a ton of water—that's something we want to protect against as well. [29:40] **Councilmember Justin Olsen:** Similar to Lake Elmo—that's actually why I brought it up. I have some friends in Lake Elmo and they were telling me about how Lake Elmo is pretty panicked right now because they don't have a situation like we do. To fix it is going to be much more expensive than what we're doing because their system doesn't work the same way. They are currently adhering to manual enforcement—if you water your lawn on even or odd days and you're not on the correct side of the road, they hand out a warning or a ticket. Ours was a double-edged sword: back in 2017 when the first big change happened, eight of our 11 wells were over, so we had to jump on it. Now we're ahead of that game. It was painful in 2017, but it forced us to get a plan in place. I absolutely applaud you guys's strategic planning with this—it seems incredible. Nice job to you and your team. [30:45] **Ryan Burfeind (Public Works Director):** No, thank you. The real key in all of it is everyone always asks: we have safe, clean drinking water that meets all the standards. [31:00] **Chairperson:** Thank you. Next on the agenda is a presentation about the 3M settlement update. [Pause]. Perfect, thank you. That was the PFAS. Then we are going to move on to—is there any old business that needs to be discussed? Hearing none, we will move forward. Is there any new business? Hearing none, we will move forward. Commission comments or requests? [31:35] **Commissioner:** Well, maybe just a personal example to share: thank you to our Police Department. I had a situation—I'm a trustee at Christ the Lord Lutheran Church here on 90th and Keats—and one of the construction companies left one of their trucks in our parking lot leaking oil. No communication to us. Finally, I thought, well, I'm going to talk to the police and see what legal rights I have. I didn't do 9-1-1, but I was responded to very quickly with one of our community officers who gave me really good advice. It was addressed within 24 hours and our service went off without a hitch. So kudos to those guys. [32:15] **Commissioner:** From my neighborhood, thank you for what you guys did in the Public Works department getting all of those yards and sprinklers taken care of for all those guys. A lot of them had been waiting a very long time for communication back, so what you guys did was greatly appreciated. [32:35] **Ryan Burfeind (Public Works Director):** Thank you, and I'll pass that along to our Planning department. There's a development where we keep escrows to make sure yards are sodded, and we had to actually use those. Our planners were a big help in that. [32:55] **Chairperson:** Excellent. And now we will move on to staff updates and reports. [33:00] **Ryan Burfeind (Public Works Director):** I'll just say one thing—I hit on all my construction, but I'll mention for planning, the September meeting we're looking at doing a joint meeting with the Parks and Natural Resources Commission to have a discussion on all things electric: electric bikes, electric scooters, even go-karts. They really want to be out ahead of that, and they'd like to have our Commission be part of that. So we're looking to have a workshop in September. [33:30] **Commissioner:** Are they talking in terms of safety? Potentially implementing a policy within Cottage Grove? [33:35] **Ryan Burfeind (Public Works Director):** That's the long-term goal, correct. Because you think e-bikes are great, but certain e-bikes can go 30 miles an hour and have a throttle. Is that safe on a bike trail? So that's what we want to dig into in September. [33:55] **Chairperson:** Excellent. And I'll pass it over—I don't know if Gary wants to go next on some street updates. [34:05] **Gary Reuter (Public Works Staff):** Well, good evening. For starters, we just finished road patching last week. We started our paving process, which is putting down a half-inch thin overlay. We started that on Harkness between Hardwood. This year we're looking to put down about 2,300 tons of that thin overlay. From there we'll be going to Inwood and then into some neighborhoods. With the dry season, we've had to put bags on all our young trees and have been watering them weekly. They also finished treating about 550 ash trees—they're all injected already. We got the big mower out and we're mowing one pass on our rural roads. After August 15th, we can start mowing all the way back in our ponds. I'm sure everybody's seen—because it kind of interferes with traffic—but they've been out stenciling crosswalks and turn arrows. Our goal is by the time school starts to have all the crosswalks stenciled. Stormwater crew has been tuck-pointing catch basins. That prevents future failures which are pretty expensive. And then in the ponds, we're in there cleaning up volunteer trees and spraying weeds. That's pretty much where we are. [35:45] **Commissioner:** Actually, is there a process to request a crosswalk installation? I was going to request a crosswalk between Keats and Jamaica on 70th. A lot of kids that live in that development try to go to school and there's no roundabout there—it's like a game of Frogger in the morning trying to cross 70th. [36:10] **Gary Reuter (Public Works Staff):** Yes, through our Engineering department; they would be the ones to look at that for any signage or crosswalks. [36:18] **Ryan Burfeind (Public Works Director):** Yep, the County is aware of that stretch. From Hinton to Jamaica, the challenge of a 50-mile-an-hour road really requires them to look at a crossing signal. The next priority would be down on that Hinton-to-Jamaica stretch, which potentially would have to be a tunnel because crossing a main highway like that, there's really no amount of signs or paint you can do to make it safe. But we can talk more at a different time. [37:05] **Chairperson:** All right, thank you. Thank you, Chief. [37:10] **Jon Pritchard (Fire Chief):** Good evening Commission members. Just a few things from the Fire division. Under personnel, we've been going through our hiring process to replace a full-time member. We're down now to just the psych eval for that person this week; hopefully, they can start the first week of August. That'll bring us back up to a dozen in our full-time ranks. This person is an internal candidate, so training should be rather quick. Calls for service in June: EMS we had 293, Fire and Rescue we had 90. Around 300 for EMS a month is what we average. Our public education events have been really busy—daycares, tours, and Cub Scout troops coming for their first aid badges. Strawberry Fest and the Fourth of July kept us busy. We did the radiological preparedness drill and passed the FEMA rated drill on June 28th. We are starting to get ready for Night to Unite on August 1st. We had our first budget meeting with Council and proposed our 2024 and 2025 budget and a staffing plan. Finally, unfortunately, a few weeks ago one of our fire engines caught fire while driving back to the station on Jamaica Avenue. No one was hurt, but the truck is out of commission. It was an electrical fire in the engine compartment. This truck is a 1996 GMC Volvo water tender—it carries 2,000 gallons of water for our non-hydranted areas. Our surrounding agencies are aware and have no problem responding if we have a call in those areas. That is all I have. [39:45] **Commissioner:** I have a question—I wanted to see how the CPR numbers are looking? [39:52] **Jon Pritchard (Fire Chief):** I believe our HeartSafe City designation is on track. I think the last numbers I heard, we were up in the 800 range for being trained; we're probably at least a couple hundred over that. We did quite a few people at Strawberry Fest and plan to do as many parties as we can on Night to Unite. We also received another certificate for our CPR program—a service excellence award from the American Heart Association. [40:40] **Chairperson:** Thank you. We will move on to Council comments. [40:45] **Councilmember Justin Olsen:** Thank you. I’ll try to keep it under an hour! I want to start with—as you listen to all of the different staff reports, I want people to recognize how lucky we are as a community to have such an amazing staff of professionals. Public Works, for example, dealt with a really ugly snowstorm in early April that caused a lot of damage with trees down and power lines. Gary, you’ll have to correct me, but I think they're still chopping up trees in some parts of the city. What they've been doing for the entire summer is double duty. One of the things we're discovering in our budget process is with a growing community and increased demand for service, we really have to thread the needle in terms of budget dollars for equipment and head count. We added a person in Parks this year, and we may have to add another in the next year or two. Rick mentioned Night to Unite—I'll just say that parties can be registered until July 25th. When you register, it gives you the opportunity to pick and choose—do I want a police officer to come, or a firefighter? Do I want Gary to come? Or Rick to show up with that awesome mustache? If you're interested in signing up, you can call 651-458-2850. Those parties take place on August 1st. I also wanted to mention that July 29th at River Oaks is this year's Public Safety Board golf tournament. It’s a really nice way to support our Public Safety professionals. One thing the board coordinates is our Craig Woolery scholarship for young people wanting to go into law enforcement or fire service. Lastly, you may have read about Mississippi Dunes. The City Council approved the Mississippi Landing final plat and conservation easement, which will be 19.1 acres of park space. Moving forward, because of partnerships with Washington County and the DNR, we'll be able to provide access to the river, which is something we’ve talked about since I was a little kid. We have more river frontage in Cottage Grove than any other community in the metro area, but you just can't get to it! Well, now you'll be able to. And finally, we’re very grateful to resident Christine Stewart. When the Humane Society had to close recently due to a virus, she volunteered her space for stray animals at no cost to the city. I am happy to answer any questions. [45:10] **Commissioner:** What does the timing look like for that access to the river? [45:15] **Councilmember Justin Olsen:** I wish Zach Dockter was here! Ideally, we'd like to have this really put together by the end of next year. We're in the middle of budget conversations and we’ll review the 5- and 10-year Capital Improvement Plan. I’ll have Zach do a presentation on that in September. [45:45] **Commissioner:** When you talk about budgets and how our city is expanding, how is that going to affect Public Works and employees? [46:00] **Councilmember Justin Olsen:** That's an awesome question. This year, we are adding a 14th plow route because of the additional roadways. Our teams are very planful about phasing in relief—our poor Parks department had not added a new body for 20 years! From a Public Safety perspective, we are a department that covers Newport, St. Paul Park, and Grey Cloud. We have three ambulances and plenty of times all three are out. It boils down to: we've got more houses, more people, and aging infrastructure on the other side of the highway. It all comes with costs, so we watch our nickels and pennies. [47:15] **Chairperson:** All right, thank you. With that, I am going to move for adjournment. [47:20] **Commissioner Ron Nath:** I move to adjourn. [47:22] **Commissioner Kelsey Mayer:** Second. [47:24] **Chairperson:** All in favor? [Ayes]. This meeting is adjourned.