This transcript has been formatted with speaker names and timestamps based on the context of the Cottage Grove City Council meeting held on October 5, 2022. [00:00:00] **Mayor Pro Tem Steve Dennis:** Good evening and welcome to the October 5th, 2022, regular meeting of the Cottage Grove City Council. I'm Mayor Pro Tem Steve Dennis, sitting in for Mayor Bailey, who is not here tonight. I want to take a quick moment to share our condolences on behalf of him and his family on the passing of his father here within the last week. So he's away with his family taking care of those matters, so we will all come together and carry on and do the people's business. The next item for us is the Pledge of Allegiance, so we'll ask everyone at this point to please rise. [00:00:40] **All:** 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. [00:01:00] **Mayor Pro Tem Steve Dennis:** Item number three is roll call, and our City Clerk, Tammy Anderson, will you please help us with that? [00:01:05] **City Clerk Tammy Anderson:** Councilmember Kambata? [00:01:07] **Councilmember Tony Kambata:** Here. [00:01:08] **City Clerk Tammy Anderson:** Councilmember Thiede? [00:01:09] **Councilmember Dave Thiede:** Here. [00:01:10] **City Clerk Tammy Anderson:** Councilmember Olsen? [00:01:11] **Councilmember Justin Olsen:** Here. [00:01:12] **City Clerk Tammy Anderson:** Mayor Bailey? (Absent). [00:01:15] **Mayor Pro Tem Steve Dennis:** All right, next item is number four, which is Open Forum. This is an opportunity for anyone who would like to speak on a topic that's not already on tonight's agenda. This would be your opportunity to do that. We do have some people that signed up tonight—three folks that we’ll invite up. You'll have three minutes to share information with the Council. The first one is Zach Hartfield, and as you approach, if you could please state your address for the record and welcome to the Council. [00:01:45] **Zach Hartfield:** Thank you. Like you said, my name is Zach Hartfield. I live at 8068 Horno Avenue South, and I'm just here to ask for more information on a donation from Pan Central CGC Holdings in the amount of $150,000 for economic development activities. I would just like to know who Pan Central is, why they donated so much money, and what they consider economic development activities. So if you could clarify that for me tonight, that'd be awesome. [00:02:15] **Mayor Pro Tem Steve Dennis:** Okay, so what we do in circumstances like that is we will kindly refer that matter over to our staff, and what they will do is they will reach out to you personally, probably by a letter, with an explanation answering your question in depth. Okay? Anything else? [00:02:30] **Zach Hartfield:** No, just that. [00:02:31] **Mayor Pro Tem Steve Dennis:** All right, thank you, sir. Next on the list is Bonnie Metter. [00:02:35] **Bonnie Metter:** Thank you. Hello, Mayor Pro Tem and Councilmembers. Thank you very much for taking the time for my question. [00:02:40] **Mayor Pro Tem Steve Dennis:** Real quick, could you please state your address? [00:02:42] **Bonnie Metter:** Yeah, I'm sorry. I assume everybody... you're a veteran of this, yeah, that's right. So I'm Bonnie Metter, and it's 6649 Inskip Avenue South. I'm here this evening because I would like to request there's a consent agenda item, it's 7M, it has to do with the golf course. I would like to request that that item be pulled from tonight's consent agenda. I've submitted a public data information request, and I'm sure staff is working on it, but this should be things that are already known before you review it and approve it. And so that's my request. Thank you. [00:03:15] **Mayor Pro Tem Steve Dennis:** Okay, well, I do appreciate that request. I will, however, tell you that that is an item which is on our agenda which has been fully vetted by our staff team, and I don't believe that it would be in our best interest at this moment to pull that. One of the big reasons is us being able to access materials—building materials. As we know, we're still in the COVID economy, and what is happening is we have to get out in front of things, whether it be purchasing... [00:03:40] **Bonnie Metter:** We're not going to... [00:03:41] **Mayor Pro Tem Steve Dennis:** Bonnie, we're not going to discuss it. We're not going to discuss it, but we're not going to be pulling that off tonight's agenda. [00:03:45] **Bonnie Metter:** You won't be doing this in 2023, so there's no rush on this. You'll probably have to push it out to 2024. And that's why I'm asking you, please pull it, look at the questions I submitted in the data request form, and then come back and approve it. Thank you. [00:04:00] **Mayor Pro Tem Steve Dennis:** Thank you. The next person is Jennifer—is it Maurer? Excellent. Welcome to the Council Chambers. [00:04:10] **Jennifer Maurer:** My name is Jennifer Maurer. My address is 7700 74th Street South in Cottage Grove. So I'm here today... I've been a resident of Cottage Grove for the last seven years. I'm a pediatric nurse in St. Paul. I'm a mother of three. I love Cottage Grove. I love the community; I love the parks and the trails, more shopping and coffee shops and all that fun stuff. And in the last seven years being here and raising my children here, I've seen the community really grow with more shopping. Like I said, I really love the shopping, and a lot more residents with the new houses being built. I've also seen my three kids grow up and start going to school. I have a high schooler who's with me today, she goes to Park, and then I have two elementary school kids, one in fourth grade and one in first grade, who go to Crestview Elementary. [00:05:00] So my point with all this is I'm pretty concerned about their safety just with the intersection of Hinton and 80th Street crossing the street to school. I have a little bit of a story: On the morning of May 26, 2022—so the last school year—my six-year-old daughter, who was in kindergarten at the time, she was riding her bike with her brother, who was in third grade at the time, to school like they've done so many days before. Basically, on nice days, they loved to ride their bike and walk to school. Being the mom that I am, I watched them ride their bikes. We live pretty close, we're about a mile away from school. I watched them turn the corner onto Hinton, thought they were safe on the sidewalk. Normally on any other day I would have just went about my business, but that day for whatever reason I felt the need to get in my car and make sure they got to school okay. [00:05:45] So I drove down Hinton, waved at them as they were riding their bikes to school. As I was stopped at the intersection of Hinton and 80th Street waiting to turn right on that street, I kept looking in my rearview mirror thinking that I'd see them behind me coming up so I could wave and make sure they got to school that day. I kept waiting, and once I saw the crossing guard who stands at 80th and Hinton—when her eyes got really big, I knew something was wrong when they weren't coming. When the light turned green, I turned the corner and parked my car on 79th Street. I mean, my heart sank when I saw my six-year-old crying on the grass on the side of the road with a crowd of people around her and my son in third grade standing helpless next to her. [00:06:30] The next few minutes were a blur of other parents coming to see what was wrong, other students, teachers, police, firefighters, first responders—who were all amazing, by the way—just coming to assess the situation. By some miracle, my 30-pound six-year-old kindergartner only had one scratch on her chin from her helmet, and that was the only injury she had. After talking to the police and my son about what had happened, it was deemed that the driver failed to yield at the crossing of Hinton and 79th Street, which is also a busy intersection. There's a lot of townhouses where people turn to go back to that area back there. [00:07:05] I just keep going over in my mind that that could have been so much worse than it was. I think I'm so thankful that she only had one scratch, and I think that she had a guardian angel that somehow that's all that happened. Her bike was totaled; you can't ride it. The handlebars were facing the wrong way, the tire was turned the wrong way, basically can't ride it anymore. Like I said, thankfully she didn't have any other physical injuries. But I'm asking that this City Council or Cottage Grove, that we can be more proactive instead of reactive with the safety of our kids when they cross the street at that school to go across the street to school. I just don't want to see any other tragic accident that happens to anybody else. [00:07:45] My daughter, she carries mental trauma with her. She used to love riding her bike to school; she doesn't want to ride her bike at all. She doesn't want to walk to school. I've been driving her and picking her up every day. I'm really worried about that intersection right there. Hinton and 80th is a busy intersection, and I know there's a crossing guard with the school who's there morning and afternoon. Now they put that drive-through Caribou right in the middle of 80th and 79th Street, which was already a busy area in itself, and I just feel like this is a huge hazard to our kids. Not only our kids, but other community members as well. I mean, or everyone else in the community who walks on the sidewalks and crosses the street. People, you know, kids in elementary school, they're pretty impulsive. They are going to trust that we as adults are going to stop... [00:08:35] **Mayor Pro Tem Steve Dennis:** I hate to cut you off, but that was my three minutes. [00:08:40] **Jennifer Maurer:** Okay... can I sum it up really quick? [00:08:42] **Mayor Pro Tem Steve Dennis:** Well, just here, here's what I'd like to do if I could please. We all have a lot of empathy for hearing the story, and we're very grateful and thankful that your daughter did not have serious injuries. What I'm going to do is, as we did with Zach earlier, is ask our staff to look into this and provide a response for you. Just so you know, when responses come, they do also get put into our Council agendas in the future so that people can see also what those answers were. But as much as we might know about process, we really have to turn that type of thing over to our Public Safety team, who are experts, and our City Engineering, and the folks who really understand those details. But I certainly appreciate you coming in tonight. Thank you for that and for sharing with us, and just know that we're very committed to wanting to make sure that everybody here is safe and secure in the community. [00:09:40] **Jennifer Maurer:** Yeah, thank you. I think Cottage Grove can do better. I mean, like I said, I love Cottage Grove, but I think we can do better for the safety of our kids. Like I said, I don't want to be reactive and have someone else get hurt. We need to be proactive and do something ahead of time. [00:09:55] **Mayor Pro Tem Steve Dennis:** And I also appreciate your initial comments on the growth and the different opportunities that have come to town. We work very hard to try to provide that for the community. So thank you. [00:10:05] **Jennifer Maurer:** All right, thank you. [00:10:07] **Mayor Pro Tem Steve Dennis:** All right, is there anyone else that wishes to speak before I close Open Forum? Not seeing anyone, we'll go ahead and close Open Forum. Then the next item is going to be number five, which is adoption of the agenda. I'll look for a motion to adopt. [00:10:20] **Councilmember Dave Thiede:** Move the agenda. [00:10:22] **Mayor Pro Tem Steve Dennis:** Motion made by Councilmember Thiede. Do you have a second? [00:10:24] **Councilmember Tony Kambata:** I'll second. [00:10:25] **Mayor Pro Tem Steve Dennis:** Second by Councilmember Kambata. Any further discussion on that? All in favor say aye. [00:10:30] **Councilmembers:** Aye. [00:10:32] **Mayor Pro Tem Steve Dennis:** Any opposed? Motion carries 4 to 0. Number six is presentations tonight, and we do have one under item A, which is Fire Prevention Week Proclamation. I've actually asked Councilmember Kambata if he would be willing to read that Proclamation for us. [00:10:50] **Councilmember Tony Kambata:** Absolutely. Whereas fire is a serious public safety concern both locally and nationally, and homes are where people are at greatest risk from fire; and whereas according to the National Fire Protection Association most recent data, U.S. home fires resulted in 2,580 civilian deaths in 2020 and fire departments in the United States responded to 356,500 home fires; and whereas smoke alarms scent smoke well before you can, alerting you to the danger in the event of a fire in which you may have as little as two minutes to escape safely; and whereas working smoke alarms cut the risk of dying in reported home fires in half, and residents should be sure everyone in the home understands the sounds of the alarms and knows how to respond; and whereas residents should listen for the sound of the smoke alarm, and when it sounds, respond by going outside immediately to the designated meeting place; and whereas residents who have planned and practiced a home fire escape plan are more prepared and will therefore be more likely to survive a fire; and whereas Cottage Grove Public Safety Fire Division and the City of Cottage Grove are dedicated to reducing the occurrence of home fires and home fire injuries through prevention and protection education; and whereas the 2022 Fire Prevention Week theme, "Fire Won't Wait. Plan Your Escape," effectively serves to remind us that it is important to have a home fire escape plan. [00:12:15] Now, therefore, the Mayor and City Council for the City of Cottage Grove, County of Washington, State of Minnesota, hereby proclaim the week of October 9th to the 15th, 2022, as Fire Prevention Week with theme "Fire Won't Wait. Plan Your Escape," and encourages all Cottage Grove residents to be aware of their surroundings, look for places fire could start, listen for the sound of the smoke alarm, and learn and practice home fire escape plans in the City of Cottage Grove. Passed this fifth day of October 2022. [00:12:45] **Mayor Pro Tem Steve Dennis:** All right, thank you, Councilmember Kambata. So before we go to Director of Public Safety Pete Kerner, we do have one small bit of business to do on that, and there's a staff recommendation that we proclaim this the week of October 9th through 15th, 2022, as Fire Prevention Week. Do I have a motion for that? [00:13:00] **Councilmember Justin Olsen:** So moved. [00:13:02] **Mayor Pro Tem Steve Dennis:** Motion made by Councilmember Olsen. Do I have a second? [00:13:04] **Councilmember Dave Thiede:** Second. [00:13:05] **Mayor Pro Tem Steve Dennis:** Second by Councilmember Thiede. Any further discussion? All in favor say aye. [00:13:10] **Councilmembers:** Aye. [00:13:12] **Mayor Pro Tem Steve Dennis:** Any opposed? Motion carries 4 to 0. Thank you. And Pete, welcome, how are you today? [00:13:20] **Pete Kerner (Director of Public Safety):** Thank you, I'm doing well. Mayor Pro Tem and Council, thanks for letting me hijack your meeting for a couple of minutes. I actually brought two guests. As you know, public ed community involvement is extremely important to us. I couldn't be prouder in the last couple years, especially with COVID, all the things we still continue to do. We did a lot of the drive-by parades for birthdays, vets, you name it—we're out there doing it. We're doing the neighborhood parties; the Night to Unite was extremely successful. But it's not me that does it, it's the two gentlemen here, and I'm going to have them step up and introduce kind of what they're going to do for this year's open house. Fire Prevention Week has been going for a hundred years, and I'm super excited that we get to open our doors again at the fire station to do some tours. Last year we had a kind of audible and we did it over at the Hero Center out in the back parking lot, which was super successful, but everyone wants to come up to the fire station and check things out. So if I could have Lieutenant Dandel and District Chief Brown come on up, and if you want to explain all the things you guys have planned for Saturday. [00:14:25] **Lieutenant Mike Dandel:** Absolutely, thank you. So like the Director said, I'm Lieutenant Mike Dandel. My role with the department is I'm the public education officer, which is overseen by District Chief Brown. As the Director mentioned, this will be our first open house in three years. In fact, I believe the last one in 2019, it snowed, so fingers crossed that we don't get snowed out next Saturday. We're actually really looking forward to having everybody back. My goal for it has been to be interactive for adults, kids, everybody, including our firefighters interacting with the public. Obviously, the big thing will be the tour of the station. The city should be very proud of the station that was built, opened in 2018, so it still has some newness smell to it. It's always exciting when we get everybody to come in and they're just wowed by what they see. [00:15:15] They'll be able to go in all of our trucks. Obviously, our brand new ladder truck has been a big hit at all events that we've been able to take it to, so that would be a great opportunity for people that haven't seen it or haven't been able to touch it yet. Hopefully, we can get a better experience for Councilmember Kambata and it doesn't get a coolant leak like it did for Night to Unite, but thank God we had him there because we got the truck fixed pretty quick. We're going to do kitchen fire demonstrations; we do have a prop that we can do a burn. I'm hoping to get Captain James Olson to do it; he's kind of one of our big speakers on that and he loves doing it and he's very good at what he does. I'm excited that Regions Hospital will come down; you know, they're kind of our medical direction for our ambulance, so they'll do a lot of EMS and she's going to come up with some other great topics. [00:16:05] Marathon Refinery is hoping to come; they're going to bring their new truck. I also, which is not on here, have gotten some confirmation that 3M's e-squad will be coming out as well. So it'll be cool to have two entities that we do work with if they have anything going on. As far as what you can see up there, we do have a kind of makeshift-looking house that kids can use a fire hose and spray. You know, they like it; adults get a kick out of watching their kids spray the hose. We're getting a car so we'll be able to give people a sledgehammer—in fact, I still have a thank you note from Administrator Levitt for donating for her son to do it a couple years ago. But that's a great time, and safety will be taking helmets, gloves, eye protection, and all that. I'm excited. Also have the Lions coming out doing food. We're also going to have Beyond the Yellow Ribbon coming out. One of our firefighters recently took a youth fire prevention class, so he's going to be talking on youth fire prevention. We'll be handing out hat stickers; just got a whole bunch of new plastic fire hats that actually say Cottage Grove Fire Department on them, so it'd be pretty cool to get all those shelled out and get those going. So again, we're really looking forward to everybody coming up next Saturday, hoping the weather's good, and yeah, should be a good time. [00:17:20] **District Chief Brown:** I got 30 seconds. You had mentioned how important it is to have smoke detectors, and the UL has done studies that are showing that people cannot smell while they're sleeping, and so they're not going to smell the smoke. There's going to be something else that would hopefully wake them up before it's too late, and that's the smoke detector. So that's one thing that I want to share with everybody. The second thing is—and we'll be sharing both these things at the open house—is that "Close Before You Doze" campaign. It's important that the parents and the children close their bedroom doors at bedtime and for slumber because the door is known to give people an additional about 30 minutes worth of protection in the event that they can't get out of their house. Keep their door closed; it prevents the smoke from coming in. The smoke alarms will do their thing, the kids can get up, feel the door. If it's hot, they don't open it; if it's smoky, they close it, keep it closed. A big killer in house fires is bedroom doors being open. Fire alarms go off in the middle of the night—what do we all do? Get up out of bed and stand up. Where's the smoke? Right where we're standing up to. People are mainly found either just steps away from the door going out the way they always come in or right by their bed because they stood up, took a breath or two, and dropped right there. So "Close Before You Doze" and those smoke alarms are very, very important. [00:18:40] **Mayor Pro Tem Steve Dennis:** Okay, well, thank you, gentlemen. Appreciate not only that information but also the great work that your entire team does here on behalf of the community. We're very supportive, as you know, and again, I know Councilmember Olson had stopped down for the "Fill the Boot" that you guys had the other day and I heard you guys did just a fantastic job on it. So nicely done. [00:19:00] **Pete Kerner:** Thank you. [00:19:02] **Mayor Pro Tem Steve Dennis:** Director Kerner, anything else? All right, well, thank you very much, gentlemen. We'll move on to item seven, which is the Consent Agenda. Is there anything that Council wishes to pull? [00:19:15] **Councilmember Justin Olsen:** Item F. [00:19:17] **Mayor Pro Tem Steve Dennis:** Item F, which is "Accept Donations Received Second and Third Quarter." Was there anything else? Okay, Councilmember Olsen. [00:19:25] **Councilmember Justin Olsen:** Thank you very much, Mayor Pro Tem. Item F, as you mentioned, is Resolution 2022-132, which is accepting donations received by the city between April 1 and September 30, 2022. What I like to do when we get notification of these donations is just acknowledge the folks who have taken a little bit of time to give back to the city in some way, shape, or form. I'll start with LSP, who has consistently been a very generous donor—LS Power here in the City of Cottage Grove—to our Economic Development Authority. Once again, they've made a donation in the amount of $150,000 to the EDA to be used for economic development activities through the EDA, like for example, the ICSC conference, those sorts of things. So we are very grateful for their continued support. [00:20:10] Northwood Smokehouse donated $500 for the Fourth of July fireworks this year. Tennis Sanitation also donated $5,000 for the fireworks. Renewal by Andersen: $5,000 for the fireworks. HyVee: $5,000 for the fireworks. And 3M: $5,000 for the fireworks. Speaking on behalf of the Cottage Grove Lions, let me tell you, you know, that is one of our favorite events of the year that we do—the big event down at Kingston Park where we grill hamburgers and hot dogs and brats and we have door prizes for the kids. Lots of families come and spend quality time at the Fourth of July event, and then of course the highlight of the day is the fireworks show, and the more donations we get, the better the show. When these businesses step up, we're definitely very, very grateful. [00:20:55] 3M also donated $5,000 to the Strawberry Fest this year. Our Lions Club donated $500 in gift cards for police and community engagement. Those gift cards were recently used, in fact, to replace a backpack and some belongings for somebody who had a bike accident on their way to school, and the Cottage Grove Public Safety team decided to take those gift cards and put them to good use for that individual. So that was really nice to see. Joe Fischbach donated some exercise equipment to the fire department that totaled about $4,000—Joe is our Human Resources Manager here in the City of Cottage Grove, so we're very excited to get that donation. Linda Roddenberg donated a memorial bench to the playground at Meadow Grass Park, and that was a $1,500 donation. Those memorial benches are really, really nice, and the Public Works team and the Parks team does a great job putting those together. We also want to thank Dennis Brothers Liquors for donating $250 to the Cottage Grove Convention and Visitors Bureau—otherwise known as Discover Cottage Grove—to sponsor a hole, which I was lucky to work at all day this year at the Public Safety golf tournament at River Oaks. Stantec has donated $2,100 in support of our Season of Giving event this year. And then finally, Rumka Excavating: they donated $2,000 to the new landscaping at Oakwood Park, which we all got to see this evening when we did our ribbon cutting at 5:15. So if you haven't seen Oakwood Park yet, get out there and check it out. Rumka and the rest of the team did a great job, and that's all I have. [00:22:30] **Mayor Pro Tem Steve Dennis:** Okay, well thank you, Councilmember Olsen. What I always like to do is just put a little addendum on that, and that is that all donations, no matter how large or small, are always appreciated. It makes a difference and it helps to make your home be a better place. Not having anything else being pulled at this point, we'll look for a motion to approve the consent. [00:22:50] **Councilmember Justin Olsen:** So moved. [00:22:52] **Mayor Pro Tem Steve Dennis:** Motion made by Councilmember Olsen. Do we have a second? [00:22:54] **Councilmember Tony Kambata:** Second. [00:22:55] **Mayor Pro Tem Steve Dennis:** Second by Councilmember Kambata. Any further discussion? Not seeing any, all in favor say aye. [00:23:00] **Councilmembers:** Aye. [00:23:02] **Mayor Pro Tem Steve Dennis:** Any opposed? Motion carries 4 to 0. What that means is that anything that was on here all the way through letter M is approved and we are good to go for the night. Number eight is approved disbursements, and what we're looking for is approving payments for the period of 9/16/2022 through 9/29/2022 in the amount of $5,625,235.34. Do I have a motion to approve this? [00:23:30] **Councilmember Dave Thiede:** Move the bills. [00:23:32] **Mayor Pro Tem Steve Dennis:** Motion made by Councilmember Thiede. Do you have a second? [00:23:34] **Councilmember Justin Olsen:** Second. [00:23:35] **Mayor Pro Tem Steve Dennis:** Second by Councilmember Olsen. Any further discussion? All in favor say aye. [00:23:40] **Councilmembers:** Aye. [00:23:42] **Mayor Pro Tem Steve Dennis:** Any opposed? Motion carries 4-0. Number nine is public hearings; we do not have any tonight. Number 10 is bid awards; same thing, nothing on the agenda. Number 11 for regular agenda, there's nothing, and that'll bring us to number 12, which is Council comments and requests. We'll start down here as we usually do with Councilmember Kambata. [00:24:05] **Councilmember Tony Kambata:** Well, I was a little late to the ribbon cutting today, but the Parks Department is doing fantastic work. I think I visited... I know that you did the "try to see every park in spring," and I think just this last month with the leaves changing, I visited Hamlet Park. Woodridge Park is a favorite of my kids, and I just want to say thank you to City staff for giving my kids someplace safe and fun to play. I appreciate that we continue to invest in our community in that way. [00:24:45] **Mayor Pro Tem Steve Dennis:** Excellent. Thank you very much, Councilmember Kambata. Next will be Councilmember Thiede. [00:24:50] **Councilmember Dave Thiede:** Well, it turns out that Strawberry Fest is throwing a party to show everybody how fun it is to be on the Strawberry Fest committee and how fun it is to work together to bring a fantastic event to the City of Cottage Grove. This party is actually on October 13th at River Oaks at 6:00 PM. That was October 13th at River Oaks at 6:00 PM. We encourage everyone to come down and see how fun it is to help plan all the events and everything else, because the more the merrier. It definitely makes it much easier to ask, and we're just right on the verge. Even though Monster Bash is the parade and that is at the end of the month on the 28th and 29th, we're just starting to get into that planning for Strawberry Fest next year and we need some really good and energetic, smart people. I know there's a ton of smart people out there that like to have fun. Remember when that was? October 13th at River Oaks at 6:00 PM. Be there to have fun. [00:25:55] **Mayor Pro Tem Steve Dennis:** All right, thank you, Councilmember Thiede. And Councilmember Olsen. [00:26:00] **Councilmember Justin Olsen:** It's always a tough act to follow. I'll tell you that. When was it? October 13th? At six o'clock? Yeah, River Oaks. Very good, yeah, thank you, I got it. So I have a couple things here, Mr. Mayor Pro Tem. First of all, for those of you who are not aware, tomorrow night we have our Police Department open house right here at Cottage Grove City Hall and our Public Safety facility from 4:00 PM to 7:00 PM. Yours truly and Mayor Pro Tem Dennis will be working in our yellow shirts tomorrow because we will be representing our Beyond the Yellow Ribbon team for the City of Cottage Grove. Cottage Grove Lions will be there in their black shirts tomorrow and they will be grilling all kinds of goodies; they'll have chips and hot dogs and waters and things for people. [00:26:45] Of course, for anybody who's interested in learning more about the Cottage Grove Police Department or has an interest in a law enforcement career, this will be a great opportunity for you to come and check out the facility, ask some questions of our police officers, of our community service officers, of our police reserves. So stop by and see us—again, 4:00 to 7:00 tomorrow night right here at Cottage Grove City Hall. There will also be some demonstrations; I believe the helicopter from the State Patrol is going to be here and we'll have some other fun and exciting things that will take place just across the way here at the Hero Center, so you'll be able to check out that facility as well. Trust me when I tell you, if you haven't seen it yet, you're going to be very impressed. [00:27:30] I also wanted to just remind people that early voting has started. You can cast your ballot tomorrow if you'd like to; all you need to do is go over to the Washington County South Service Center here in the City of Cottage Grove and you can cast your ballot from 8:00 in the morning until 4:30 in the afternoon. It's real easy to do—you just walk in just like you would on Election Day, you get what's known as an in-person absentee ballot, you fill that ballot out, you put it in a nice little envelope and you hand it to the people there at the service center and away you go. It doesn't take long and it's a really great way to stop getting phone calls and stuff in your mailbox, because as soon as it is known that you have voted, the various candidates are going to stop sending you stuff because they don't want to waste money on you. So if you're sick of getting all those phone calls and you're sick of getting stuff in your mailbox, that's the way you stop it. But whatever, whenever, wherever, please make sure that you do vote in this year's election—it's very important. [00:28:20] The last thing is I just wanted to touch base on the donations again. I know in Open Forum we had a question about some of the things that those donations go to support, and I'm certainly not going to be able to give you all of the information that the staff will be able to give you, but just a few highlights. We do have an Economic Development Authority here in the City of Cottage Grove—that's the EDA. They are a separate branch of government; they are their own entity. The Mayor is the president of the EDA, the vice chair is our Mayor Pro Tem Steve Dennis, and then we have a variety of other residents and business owners who sit on the Economic Development Authority. [00:29:00] The Economic Development Authority does a lot of really neat things for the business community here in the City of Cottage Grove. To give you an idea of what those donated funds go towards, we've had what's called a Facade Improvement Program here in the City of Cottage Grove that gets funded through the EDA where we match grants for businesses where they want to actually improve the look of their building. They may want to change the brick, they may want to change the signage, they may want to do some different graphics or marketing art, and that is part of the Facade Improvement Program and they can apply to get some funds from the city to help them with that. When we were in the very early stretches of the COVID pandemic, I think everybody remembers that a lot of our restaurants and bars were really struggling; many of them were closed by the Governor's decree so that we could stop the spread of COVID-19. Even when they reopened, they had to reopen in a limited basis. [00:29:45] One of the things that our EDA did is we actually opened up some grant opportunities for those businesses here locally who were having a tough time to be able to receive grants that they did not have to pay back for operating their business, keeping up their payroll, keeping people employed, etc. Again, that's what some of those funds go towards. We've also done various land purchases where we may have a business site that is vacant and the EDA will actually purchase that site for redevelopment and then we can sell it to an interested end user at a later time. It's another great way to make sure that our business community here in the city stays vibrant and that we can continue to attract new businesses while retaining the businesses that we have. [00:30:25] So that's just a short snapshot of some of the things that those funds go towards. LSP has been a very generous donor for many years and our EDA is very grateful for the funding that they provide so that we can do the things that we've done and are able to grow the business community here in the City of Cottage Grove. I'm sure that Mayor Pro Tem Dennis can give you some more details because he and the Mayor have done some Facebook Live chats recently about the value of the growth that has been brought to the community through either retail business or other commercial entities in the business park, etc. The city is very healthy as a result of some of those investments that we make; it's definitely worthwhile. And Mr. Mayor, that's all I have—I'll turn it over to you. [00:31:10] **Mayor Pro Tem Steve Dennis:** Okay, thank you, Councilmember Olsen. One last thing that I'll just add—and thank you for providing some of those details to the community—the money that we get for use in the EDA is a donation. I want to be very clear that folks know it's not taxpayer dollars; it's not money coming from residential property taxes, as an example. It's all donated money. So the money is used for great purposes and intends to help us to build a vibrant local economy, to structure a healthy business environment, and to do the types of things that we've been very successful with here over the past eight years, which has resulted—to a fairly substantial degree—when you look at the almost two billion dollars of economic development growth. If you back the housing component out of it, we've had a lot of things happening in our business park and a lot with retail and commercial space as well. We're doing quite well; we've got a great program. I do know that in many instances—whether it was Greater MSP or the Minneapolis-St. Paul Business Journal—we have been the talk of the town for the success that we've had, and it's really extraordinary success. We owe it not only to the commission members and to our great staff team who really do the heavy lifting when it comes to getting the job done. We get to sit up here and look good and smile and say yes when those types of things happen, but it's really a great program. So thank you for bringing that up. [00:32:40] I have a few things for us tonight. The first thing I want to do is go back and just piggyback off of what Councilmember Kambata had mentioned. We talked about the ribbon cutting down in Oakwood Park, and I want to provide an address so people know where the park is: it's 7851 Harkness Avenue South, here in Cottage Grove, 55016. The other thing which I would like to highlight is the fact that through our Convention and Visitor Bureau, we have a fantastic website called DiscoverCottageGrove.com. What you can do is go on that website and it's very user-friendly—you can click on the links, you can go right where you want to go if you want to learn about our parks, if you want to learn about trails, about businesses in the community, or other amenities that we have which are substantial. It's a great place to do that, so DiscoverCottageGrove.com will get you a front-row seat to be able to explore all kinds of neat things that happen here in our city. [00:33:30] The second item I want to talk about—you know, we talked about the Lions and cooking of burgers and brats and those types of things, and the bacon cheeseburger that they do is amazing. I think sometimes you guys even smoke the bacon, right? So it's pretty cool. But there's another event in town that provides a meal opportunity, and Justin, you know where I'm going with this. I'm looking forward to it. Acacia Lodge number 51, which is the Cottage Grove area Masons, is having their annual spaghetti dinner. Now that's going to be this Saturday, October 8th, 2022, from 4:00 to 7:00 PM. Here is the pricing: adults are $10, kids between the ages of 4 and 12 are $5, and if you're three and under, it is free of charge. The address is 11094 70th Street South, Cottage Grove, Minnesota, 55016. I will say it's the biggest event fundraising for the local Masons; they use a lot of that money through donation purposes, especially in the areas of providing local young people with educational scholarships. It's really unique things. The spaghetti is fantastic, it's really a deal at twice the price, it's all you can eat, and it's a great service by a group of fantastic people there. So that's number two. [00:34:50] Number three—I actually have a question I want to bring up here for City Administrator. As those of us on the Council are aware, there has been a bit of a challenge with the contractor company that we use for water billing services, Opus 21. I did have a constituent come in to pay me a visit today who had some questions and wanted to get some feedback and some direction on kind of where we're at in the process with things and what's happening. Jennifer, I would really appreciate if you could maybe provide some key details here for the community. I think this was mostly affecting the rural area, like the Old Cottage Grove area, I believe, but if I'm missing the point, you could fill me in. We're looking just to get details, and then also, I think I could speak for everybody on the Council that we're looking for a good outcome here for our community members who are affected. [00:35:45] **Jennifer Levitt (City Administrator):** Well, Mayor Pro Tem and members of the Council, we did notify you that unfortunately our vendor did not actually mail over 400 bills last year to our rural residential customers, and they only receive a bill once a year. So it's not something that they necessarily expect every month, and some do pay electronically online and some just rely on that bill that comes to them. We became aware of the situation after, unfortunately, we sent over 400 delinquent letters to those residents. I know that our residents take an amazing amount of pride in paying their bills and being responsible citizens, and so we apologized to them in a letter that we sent to them shortly thereafter after we realized the error, because clearly we know our residents take pride in that and we did not mean to insult them in any way. [00:36:30] So we apologized, and then also, they do not need—we are providing an additional grace period to be able to pay that—so they wouldn't need to pay their 2021 bill until January of 2023. There won't be any late charges assessed to them. And then also to help reduce the confusion, because in November they will actually get their 2022 bill, and at that time we will provide individual statements to make sure that there's clarity for those that have paid their '21 bill and those who have not, so they'll know exactly how much to pay. We're working with our provider to provide those very detailed letters, but I can assure you that we are taking action with our vendor to prevent this from happening in the future. Unfortunately, they do some of their printing out of state, and we have asked them to bring that printing back to the state of Minnesota and also asked them to rectify this situation and work with us. So we do extend our apologies to those residents that received those delinquent notices and we are working to correct that. Please accept our apologies for that error. [00:37:35] **Mayor Pro Tem Steve Dennis:** Okay, well thank you very much for that explanation. I believe in good faith the fellow who came in and I talked, and he understands that the city would never seek to create a problem for the residents regarding an issue like that. One of the things that I'd explained to him—and we all know this to be true—we live in a very, very imperfect world right now, and so sometimes there can be room for a little bit of understanding and a little bit of empathy and compassion for those as we all try to bring things together. Thank you very much for that. [00:38:05] **Councilmember Justin Olsen:** Mr. Mayor Pro Tem, may I add something? [00:38:07] **Mayor Pro Tem Steve Dennis:** Yes, sir. [00:38:08] **Councilmember Justin Olsen:** Jennifer, if you would please pass along very positive feedback to Dar. I had some of my friends in Pine Coulee reach out to me about this situation and, to a person, the thing that they all said was as soon as they called Dar, she took care of it. She was wonderful; her patience, her understanding... boy, I tell you what, if you're going to face some people who are a little upset about something that we screwed up on, Dar’s the person you want handling it. So if you would just let her know, having her in the position that she's in doing what she's doing certainly softened the blow a great deal. [00:38:45] **Jennifer Levitt:** Well, thank you, Councilmember, I'll pass that along because you are correct—she's been fielding many, many calls. Taking her time to make sure that we educate and inform and apologize for the mistake. Yeah, she's top-notch, thank you. [00:39:00] **Mayor Pro Tem Steve Dennis:** All right, well thank you, Councilmember Olsen, for that good call on that. The last item that I have is something that I actually requested. You know, being transparent and open and honest to the community is a very, very important thing, and that's something that I know that we all strive to do here on a daily basis as we do our work here on behalf of the city. So some may be aware that there was both an article and a letter to the editor that went into the Cottage Grove Journal newspaper here very recently, and it was talking about the Mississippi Landing court case that we've been involved in. So I have a statement that I want to go through, again to provide some transparent information—factual information that can be put on a timeline as we work our way through the process. [00:39:45] In early 2021, the City of Cottage Grove prepared the Mississippi Dunes Master Plan to help the city determine the highest and best use for the former Mississippi Dunes golf course located south of 103rd Street and north of the Mississippi River. After an extensive visioning, planning, and public engagement process, the Master Plan was reviewed by the Planning Commission and recommended it to the City Council for approval. The Council approved the Master Plan in November of 2021. Following the approval of the Master Plan, Pulte Homes proposed a residential development called Mississippi Landing. The proposed development will include nearly 70 acres of open space, which is double any applicable legal requirement, including a 12-acre increase in the state's Grey Cloud Dunes Scientific and Natural Area, otherwise known as SNA, and then 30 acres for habitat preservation and 25 acres for a river buffer park and open space along the Mississippi River corridor. [00:40:40] These plans were consistent with the city's Master Plan for the land. However, some members of the public, primarily environmental activists outside the city, desired to see the entire parcel taken and preserved as open space. Minnesota law requires that an environmental review be conducted for certain projects that could impact the environment. An Environmental Assessment Worksheet, known as EAW, is the most common method for this environmental review. It is a document designed to lay out the environmental facts of the specific project being proposed and it analyzes and reviews topics such as existing ground cover, zoning, geology, water resources, air quality, noise, ecological resources, hazardous materials, and traffic. The bigger purpose of an EAW is to determine if a more robust analysis called an Environmental Impact Statement, otherwise known as EIS, is required for the project. [00:41:30] As part of its project proposal, Pulte Homes submitted the mandatory EAW as required by law. The draft EAW was published with the Environmental Quality Board for a 30-day public review and comment period as well as published on the city's website. After conclusion of the 30-day comment period, on February 2nd of 2022, the City Council held a hearing and took testimony on the EAW based on all the evidence in the record, including the 371-page report from the consultant which found that the project would have no potential for significant environmental effects. The Council made the determination that an Environmental Impact Statement was not required for the project. [00:42:15] On March 16th of 2022, three individuals called "relators" filed a petition with the Court of Appeals. They requested that the court review the city's determination that an EIS was not required. They sought a declaration that the city's decision was arbitrary and capricious, or in other words, they wanted a declaration that the city's decision was not based on substantial evidence. The Court of Appeals accepted the petition and issued a court order called a Writ of Certiorari on March 17, 2022. The court authorized this to conduct a review of the city's decision. Anyone here at this Council meeting tonight knows that we do things by procedure; the same is true with the court process. There is a strict procedure that must be followed. [00:43:00] When the court issued the Writ, the relators were required to serve the Writ on all required parties within 30 days, and this included the city and Pulte Homes. The relators timely served the city with the Writ within the 30-day timeframe; however, they did not serve Pulte Homes until September 9, 2022, which is about 176 days late and only did so after the court brought the failure of service to its attention. The exciting news is that on September 20th of 2022, the Court of Appeals dismissed their appeal because the relators failed to timely serve Pulte Homes. Therefore, the city's determination that an EIS is not required stands and the matter is concluded. While the city believes the Court of Appeals would have upheld this decision due to substantial evidence and support in the record, the city is pleased to have this matter decided in its favor so that we can move forward. [00:44:00] And so as I close off of this statement—which the staff and our legal team assisted us with—I do want for the record people to know and understand a little bit about how we do our job here at this dais. What I brought in was my swearing-in statement from four years ago, and I want to read this because I think folks need to know that there's a legal process and requirement that we have to follow. I'm just going to read it verbatim: "I, Steve Dennis, do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of Minnesota, and that I will faithfully execute and discharge the duties of the office of Councilmember for the City of Cottage Grove, County of Washington, State of Minnesota, according to the law and the best of my judgment and ability." And we all do that, and we do that every single day. We've taken an oath to do that, and it is at the heart of the very business that we serve here for the people of our community. So because these articles were put out, the letters were put out into that paper, I felt it was important that members of our community who had a few questions of me—that we could provide a little bit more clarity and detail for the historic record on exactly what happened. Based upon the circumstances, we are now in a position to move forward. [00:45:10] So we'll do that by moving on to item number 14—which is actually 13, Workshops Open to the Public—we have none tonight. Item 14 is Workshops Closed to the Public; we don't have any. And number 15, we'll seek a motion to adjourn. [00:45:25] **Councilmember Dave Thiede:** Move to adjourn. [00:45:26] **Mayor Pro Tem Steve Dennis:** Motion made by Councilmember Thiede. Do I have a second? [00:45:28] **Councilmember Tony Kambata:** Second. [00:45:29] **Mayor Pro Tem Steve Dennis:** Second by Councilmember Kambata. All in favor say aye. [00:45:32] **Councilmembers:** Aye. [00:45:34] **Mayor Pro Tem Steve Dennis:** Any opposed? Motion carries 4 to 0. Thank you very much everyone, have a great night.