[00:00] **Mayor Myron Bailey**: All right, good evening and happy New Year to everyone. This is the first meeting in January, which is January 3rd, 2024, for the Cottage Grove City Council, which I'm calling to order. Um, 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. All right, will the clerk please do the roll? [00:01] **Tammy Anderson (City Clerk)**: Councilmember Clausen? [00:01] **Councilmember David Clausen**: Here. [00:01] **Tammy Anderson (City Clerk)**: Councilmember Olsen? [00:01] **Councilmember Justin Olsen**: Here. [00:01] **Tammy Anderson (City Clerk)**: Councilmember Thiede? [00:01] **Councilmember Dave Thiede**: Here. [00:01] **Tammy Anderson (City Clerk)**: Councilmember Garza? [00:01] **Councilmember Monique Garza**: Here. [00:01] **Tammy Anderson (City Clerk)**: Mayor Bailey? [00:01] **Mayor Myron Bailey**: Here. Uh, the next item on our agenda this evening is open forum. This is the opportunity to—that if somebody wants to speak on anything that's not on tonight's agenda is welcome to do so. However, we do have an item that is on consent and this gentleman wants to talk about it versus consent, and so I'm going to invite up uh Mr. John McClone, who uh is the Cottage Grove Journal newspaper. So uh, John, if you would though, can you state—I don't know which address you want to use but state— [00:02] **John McClone**: Okay, I'm live? Yep. Um, well I'm the publisher of The Cottage Grove Journal. Um, technically our office—um, closest office is in Hastings, 1304 Vermillion Street, Hastings. Um, so go ahead. [00:02] **Mayor Myron Bailey**: Ready to roll? Yep. [00:02] **John McClone**: All right, Mayor Bailey and members of the Cottage Grove City Council, thank you for the opportunity to speak to you tonight. My name is John McClone, I'm publisher of The Cottage Grove Journal. I'd like to talk to you about an item that is on your agenda tonight. It's consent item F: designate St. Paul Pioneer Press as the City of Cottage Grove's newspaper for official publication in 2024. I'm hopeful that you'll reconsider a rubber stamp of staff recommendation. We started our newspaper during the pandemic in 2020. It's a lot of work, but we're dedicated to helping the community any way we can. We work hard to be a good corporate citizen. We donate to and promote local causes. We're an active member of the Cottage Grove Area Chamber of Commerce. We had so much fun at the Cottage Grove Community Showcase the last few years where countless people stopped by our booth and thanked us for bringing a newspaper back to Cottage Grove. My wife was uh actually shocked; she said, "People like you?" We can't do it alone though. We're nothing without the community. We published weekly for generations. The city of Cottage Grove recognized the importance of its weekly newspaper, bestowing it as its official newspaper. This city was built on items that had to be posted in a weekly newspaper, and looking around the community I'd say that didn't pose too many problems or obstacles. All the permitting got done, everything got built, and this town is thriving. The intent—the intent of the statutes governing public notices isn't convenience; they're meant to notify the public in the place they'd be most likely to see them. That undoubtedly is the Cottage Grove Journal. Unlike many newspapers, we're on a steady growth trajectory and I will admit this would certainly be as much of a shot in the arm for us to be designated as the official newspaper as it is a kick in the backside every year to see these notices go to St. Paul. We work hard to serve our communities. We take public notices very seriously. We bend over backwards to help our municipal partners. Deadline for public notices, honestly, is when my paper goes on the press. Um, we—we remade plates in our Hastings paper last week because something came in, you know, 2 hours after we were supposed to actually be on press, but because of the holiday we were able to uh make the change and get their notice in. The city of Cottage Grove is honestly the only municipality I can think of that doesn't designate the local newspaper as its newspaper of record. Can we change that tonight? Please give us a try. As your City Attorney will tell you, if it doesn't work out, you can make a change back at any time during the year. This isn't a one-time thing. I'll admit we don't have an average circulation of 30-some thousand readers in Ramsey, Dakota, Washington, and Anoka counties and Western Wisconsin every day. To me, that doesn't matter. We target Cottage Grove, and we're proud of that. Thank you for your time. [00:05] **Mayor Myron Bailey**: Thank you, John. Did you want to say anything at all? Go. [00:05] **Jennifer Levitt (City Administrator)**: Your Honor, members of the Council, I think um the memo that's in your packet explaining the legal qualifications for your official newspaper are outlined pretty well. And given that you don't have a local newspaper that is in the city of Cottage Grove—that has a residence here, that has an address here—you're able to choose your official newspaper as one that is uh within adjacent county. So you can choose—you could choose uh the Dakota County uh Cottage Grove Journal because their address is in Hastings, but you can also choose the St. Paul Pioneer Press. It's—from a legal standpoint they're equal. So then it becomes from a practical standpoint the advantages that one or the other has. So that's what the Council has to weigh. [00:06] **Mayor Myron Bailey**: Okay. All right, thank you. Um, I know—unless somebody wants to pull it off consent for a separate conversation—I—did Council have any other questions for staff at this point on this one? I know we normally don't do it on this case but—okay. Okay. All right, uh was there anybody else that would like to speak on open forum this evening? Okay, seeing none I will go ahead and close the open forum and um I will move to number five on adoption of the agenda. However, I want to make one quick, quick correction for the public and the Council. Um, one of the items that we were looking at doing in our—our workshop, which is open—the public item A um which is a workshop to discuss Viewpoint project—that has been removed from our agenda this evening for a future meeting date. Um, so otherwise everything else on the agenda sits as is. Um, if somebody wants to make that motion uh with—with the agenda? [00:07] **Councilmember Dave Thiede**: Okay, so— [00:07] **Mayor Myron Bailey**: We have a motion uh by Councilmember Thiede. [00:07] **Councilmember Monique Garza**: I'll second. [00:07] **Mayor Myron Bailey**: Seconded by Councilmember Garza. Um, and again that is with the removal of item 13A in the workshop, correct? [00:07] **Councilmember Dave Thiede**: Yes, yep. [00:07] **Mayor Myron Bailey**: Okay. All those in favor uh signify by saying aye. [00:07] **Council members**: Aye. [00:07] **Mayor Myron Bailey**: Opposed? Motion carries. Uh, next to six is presentations; there are none tonight. Uh, seven is consent uh agenda. Um, is—Council have anything they want to pull on tonight—tonight's consent? Nothing at all? No? Okay. Um, if nothing is being pulled from consent for discussion, I'll look for a motion to approve consent. [00:08] **Councilmember David Clausen**: I motion to approve the consent agenda. [00:08] **Mayor Myron Bailey**: All right, so you have a motion by Councilmember Clausen. Do I have a second? [00:08] **Councilmember Justin Olsen**: Second. [00:08] **Mayor Myron Bailey**: Second by Councilmember Olsen. Any further discussion? See—all seeing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye. [00:08] **Council members**: Aye. [00:08] **Mayor Myron Bailey**: Opposed? Motion carries. So if you're here for anything on this evening's consent agenda, all of those items have been approved. The next item is item 8, which is approved disbursement. 8A is to pay the bills. [00:08] **Councilmember Justin Olsen**: Move the bills. [00:08] **Mayor Myron Bailey**: We have a motion by Councilmember Olsen. [00:08] **Councilmember Monique Garza**: I second. [00:08] **Mayor Myron Bailey**: Second by Councilmember Garza. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye. [00:08] **Council members**: Aye. [00:08] **Mayor Myron Bailey**: Opposed? Motion carries. Nine is public hearings; we have none. 10 are bid awards; we have none. 11 is our regular agenda; we have no items. 12 is Council comments/requests. I will start with Councilmember Clausen. [00:09] **Councilmember David Clausen**: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Um, happy New Year everyone. My—my request, I think, has kind of been answered by—so I can withdraw that, what I was going to ask about. But um, just uh, I hope everyone had a fun and safe holiday. And uh, if you—for the audience, if anyone was able to be at our swearing-in ceremony earlier this evening, uh I just want to congratulate all of our um public safety members who were either um promoted or uh retired, in Gunner's case. Absolutely. [00:09] **Mayor Myron Bailey**: Thank you. Councilmember Olsen? [00:09] **Councilmember Justin Olsen**: Thank you, Mayor. I hope everybody had a wonderful holiday. Unfortunately, I was not able to be present for the meeting right before Christmas, and I know that um it wasn't a really long meeting, but I apologize; I was traveling for work. And uh, my understanding is things went well. But um, I want to first of all say uh, you know, thank you to all of the staff for the hard work that they put forth in 2023. And as we transition into 2024, uh I know that hard work is going to continue. Um, part of that is, you know, all of the various activities that took place over the holiday break. I believe we had several tournaments in town for hockey, uh so Ice Arena staff was definitely busy. Park and Rec staff was definitely busy. Uh, we haven't had a lot of snow, but we did have some slick spots, so I believe that our um—uh Public Works team was out salting roads and doing some different things. And it never fails, it always happens during the holiday season, but uh we're very grateful that all of those folks were so committed to come out, um do the work that needed to be done even during the busy holiday season. I also wanted to mention that the month of January is Firefighter Cancer Awareness Month. And for those of you who aren't aware, um incidents of cancer—uh and very specific types of cancer—are much more prevalent in—in firefighters than in the general public, hence the reason that we have a Firefighter Cancer Awareness Month. And one of the things that um, you know, stands out about that to me is uh we actually have a retired firefighter who is um battling cancer. And it's difficult to tell what particularly um may have caused that, but there's a lot of um research out there about some of the different chemicals that get used in fighting fires and the firefighting foam and all that kind of stuff. So if you know any firefighters in your life, make sure that you uh give them an extra special thanks this month uh for putting themselves on the line um in several different ways uh to help protect our communities. We had the opportunity this evening to uh see the badge pinning ceremony for our new Fire Chief, Jon Pritchard, which was fantastic, along with uh our new Acting Director in the Public Safety department, Brad Petersen, and then uh three new Sergeants—uh one of whom um is pretty familiar to at least somebody on this Council—Sergeant Nick Bailey, Sergeant Dan Shon, and uh we're also very grateful for Sergeant Pat Young. So all three of those got their badges tonight. It was a really special time and uh something that uh as a City Council we take a lot of pride in because those folks all were kind of homegrown; they grew up in our department. So very fun. The last thing I wanted to mention is um in the month of January, of course, a lot of laws change. So if you haven't paid any attention, there's a lot of different legal um information that's out there about some of the laws that our legislature passed in 2023 that have now taken effect in 2024. Uh, some of those are um, you know, paid leave for employees at uh different businesses, um there was also a minimum wage increase, etc. So avail yourself of that information. I know we have a lot of that that comes out um through the State of Minnesota, through their various websites and Twitter and all of those sorts of things. But uh, they're probably some things that apply to you. So if you're not familiar with all the different legal elements that took place in '23 that have now become official in 2024, uh take a few minutes and uh inform yourself, because I think it would be to your benefit. A lot of good stuff happened last year at the Capitol and we're really excited to see more good stuff this year. And with that, I will uh pass it back to you, Mayor. [00:13] **Mayor Myron Bailey**: All right, thank you Councilmember Olsen. Councilmember Thiede? [00:13] **Councilmember Dave Thiede**: I'd like to say happy New Year also, and I'm looking for a great 2024. Uh, also to say congrats to the public uh safety uh uh recipients tonight. Uh, good job. And I'd also like to—to say that the things are definitely starting to pick up with Strawberry Fest for 2024. We're actually going to be—it's—it's going to be the—the um third weekend in—in June this year, the weekend after Father's Day because of some of the way things line up and—and so forth. So uh, uh make sure we make note of that. And we definitely can use the help. We've got our first meeting this year, and like I say, we've been having meetings here for the last three months or so, um but uh the meeting Monday night at six o'clock is here in the St. Croix Room. Uh, and we'd love to get people to come in and—and help. Otherwise, we have also meetings on the third Monday of the—the month uh and uh and such. So uh you could go out to the website and—and—and see, you know, sometimes it'll be here, sometimes they'll be actually over uh at uh at uh—um got a mental block—oh, the Hero Pizza? No, Carboni's. Carboni's, thank you. I almost said Pizza Ranch, mental block. Um, at any rate, so uh we'd love to have people come out and help. We definitely need the help. So that's it. [00:15] **Mayor Myron Bailey**: Okay. Councilmember Garza? [00:15] **Councilmember Monique Garza**: Good evening everyone. I'd like to say happy New Year's to everyone as well. Um, congratulations to all of the recipients of the awards tonight. Our public safety is rocking and rolling, so that's so awesome to see that we have some new people to the team and we were able to shift some stuff around and move people up. So really happy to see all that. And really not much, just looking forward to this 2024, excited for all the things that we have going on in the city of Cottage Grove. So with that, thank you. [00:15] **Mayor Myron Bailey**: All right, there you go. And speaking of, I've got two things for everybody. Uh, speaking of things going on, even though we haven't had really any snow of consequence, um this coming Saturday, January 6th, is what they're calling the Dust Off Vintage uh Snowmobile Show and Swap, which is from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., which is just out on the corner of County Road 19 (or Keats Avenue) and 70th Street. It's in the kind of the farm field that's across from Allaire Village, where the Carboni's and such is out there. Um, I know that there's food and such being—the Lions, I believe, are going to be there too serving food and—and beverages. Um, I didn't get—well, we didn't get a chance to be there, I don't think, last year either because we did—which we're doing again this year—is our uh Council uh strategic planning uh meeting. But uh, from the pictures I've seen, it looks like that's a pretty large crowd that shows up for that event. So um, if you get the opportunity to stop in and check it out, I would—I would encourage you to do so. Um, second item real quick is depending on when you're watching this—if you're watching it now—tomorrow night on Thursday, uh which is the 4th, uh there's actually two hockey games going on up at the Ice Arena. Uh, one is Park, uh the boys uh versus Roseville, and then the other one is East Ridge and Cretin. So it's going to be a crazy event up there and I think it's the kickoff, if I remember right, uh to the 50th anniversary of the Ice Arena. And so if you're a popcorn connoisseur like I am, um the popcorn is going to be back to prices 50 years ago, which is 50—50 cents. So if you want some popcorn uh for 50 cents, and I know there's a variety of things that are going to be happening uh as we move forward through this year, including some free—uh free ice time uh or from a drawing for free ice time, I guess what I would say. Um, disco—I saw disco was out there too. So uh, but if you're interested, I would uh pop in and—whether it's the boys—usually on Thursdays and Saturdays, I know the girls sometimes are on Tuesdays and Friday. Yeah, that's what I thought. So uh, take a look at the screen outside the—or the billboard outside the Ice Arena, and usually it's up there uh if you want to see uh either of them play. And then the last thing is more kind of a funny thing because the number of people that reached out to me today or stopped me when I was getting my coffee—the fenced-in area between Culver's and the US Bank is going to be Chase Bank. So uh, they have just put the fencing around that particular area and so everybody's asking exactly what's going to go there. So I had opportunity to share with that. So I will put that on—on social media too, uh but just to get everybody uh up—up to date. [00:18] **Councilmember Monique Garza**: Can I ask a quick question about that? [00:18] **Mayor Myron Bailey**: Yes. [00:18] **Councilmember Monique Garza**: So that area that they put the fence around—are we not having the car shows or anything anymore? [00:18] **Mayor Myron Bailey**: Actually, uh Councilmember Garza, the car show was moved quite a while ago down to um— [00:19] **Councilmember Justin Olsen**: St. Paul Park. [00:19] **Mayor Myron Bailey**: Park, yeah. Lions Levee Park and St. Paul Park. Yeah, they were having issues because I think um there was some parking challenges and such with Kohl's and all that, and so—and then of course sold the lot or was planning to sell the lot, so they decided to move it in advance. Um, so that is—that is the case there. All right, um next on that—that was it for uh Council uh comments and requests. Um, I will mention that we do have a workshop which is open to the public at this point. There's three items on the workshop, which will be uh taking—I believe down in the conference room—am I correct? [00:19] **Jennifer Levitt (City Administrator)**: St. Croix Room. [00:19] **Mayor Myron Bailey**: I'm sorry, yeah, the St. Croix Room. Uh, one is uh the Dual Puzzle, uh which we're going to be talking about something unique that we're doing in Cottage Grove. Uh, the second item is going to be discussion of the Kingston Park Building design, uh and third is the 2024 Project Bonding Workshop. So those are the three items that we're going to be speaking as a Council in our workshop session. We have nothing that's closed this evening uh from a workshop standpoint uh, so we won't be adjourning in here other than I'll let everybody know. Um, I look forward to seeing you at the next meeting. And Council, I—we're obviously we're going in there, but we'll all meet together on Saturday. All right, take care.