[00:00] Mayor Pro Tem Steve Dennis: All right, okay. Good evening and welcome to the September 20th, 2023, regular meeting for the Cottage Grove City Council. I'm Mayor Pro Tem Steve Dennis, sitting in for Mayor Myron Bailey, who's away on business. And the first item tonight on our agenda is the Pledge of Allegiance, so please rise and join me. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America... [00:45] Mayor Pro Tem Steve Dennis: Thank you. Next is roll call, and we'll ask our City Clerk, Tammy Anderson, to help us with that. [00:50] City Clerk Tammy Anderson: Councilmember Rick Combata? [00:52] Councilmember Rick Combata: Here. [00:53] City Clerk Tammy Anderson: Councilmember Thiede? [00:54] Councilmember Dave Thiede: Here. [00:55] City Clerk Tammy Anderson: Councilmember Olson? [00:56] Councilmember Justin Olsen: Here. [00:57] City Clerk Tammy Anderson: Mayor Bailey? (Absent) Mayor Pro Tem Dennis? [01:00] Mayor Pro Tem Steve Dennis: I am here, thank you. We do have a quorum. Number four is Open Forum, and tonight we did not have anyone sign up. If there's anyone in our audience who would like to speak on something that's not already on tonight's agenda, this would be your opportunity to do so. Is there anyone who would like a chance to speak? Okay, not seeing any, I open and closed, and we will move on to item number five, which is adoption of the agenda. Do I have a motion? [01:38] Councilmember Justin Olsen: Moved. [01:39] Mayor Pro Tem Steve Dennis: Motion made by Councilmember Olsen. Do I have a second? [01:41] Councilmember Dave Thiede: Second. [01:42] Mayor Pro Tem Steve Dennis: Second by Councilmember Thiede. All in favor say aye. (Aye) Any opposed? Motion carries 4 to 0. Item number six is presentations. We actually have three presentations tonight. The very first one, we're having two representatives from South Washington County School District join us tonight for an informational update. Joining us is Julie Nielsen, who is Superintendent, and also Dan Pyan, who is the Director of Finance and Operations. Would like to welcome you here to the chambers for the city of Cottage Grove. [02:25] Julie Nielsen: Thank you. Good evening and thank you for the invitation to share our presentation. I feel like it was about a year ago I think we were here, so we return. Our slogan for our campaign for November 7th is "Securing Our Future and Supporting Our Students." And as I share that information, I want the Cottage Grove City Council to know that we spent a good six to eight months going out and talking with community members, engaging with them. Postcards were sent, meetings were held. And so as we share this plan this evening, we really consider this to be our community's plan. While there were a lot of priorities on the table—some that perhaps individuals would have liked to have seen on the ballot—some did not rise to that level just based on the feedback from our community. [03:15] Julie Nielsen: To give you just a high-level overview of our questions, we will have two bond questions. The first one, Question 1, deals with what our communities shared were their highest priorities, and that across the board is the message of safety and security. And so in there you'll see safety and security enhancements, expansions, and renovations at our secondary school. Those items packaged together—and we'll talk a little bit more about what that means—were the highest priorities, so they fit into our Question 1: the "we must have." Question 2 addresses elementary school space at those schools that are expected to be overcrowded, along with those 1960s schools that continue to have just one set of restrooms for boys and for girls—it's that bathroom at that corner of an intersection of two hallways. And so that is Question 2. And then Question 3, Dan will share a little more information, but it's a capital projects levy, and that focus—while it says technology—is more so about the software, the firewalls, everything behind the scenes that keeps our data safe and secure. [04:20] Julie Nielsen: This is just a real quick graphic to take a look at South Washington County Schools. According to our demographer, Hazel Reinhardt, currently to date our student count is at about 18,900. We are approaching a 15-day period where if students who enroll don't show up in our schools, we do have to drop them, but at our latest count we were approximately 18,900 students. So based on this, this was our projection; based on our actual numbers, you can see we're slightly ahead as of today. [04:55] Julie Nielsen: So again, Question 1—if we just looked at the amounts now for the questions—Bond Question 1 will cost $160 million, and Bond Question 2, $40 million, for a total of Question 1 and 2 of $200 million. When we take a look at Question 1 and 2 and the impact on the median home value, our median home value across South Washington County Schools is $409,000. And for both Question 1 and 2, that would be $6 or $75 annually. And then we have our technology levy. That is obviously a levy; it's levied over 10 years. We are actually revoking what we have and asking to increase, and that additional dollar would be $2.2 million to bring South Washington County Schools up to a total of $5 million. And that would cost our taxpayers an additional $3. So you can see Question 1 and 2, a total of $6, and then Question 3, our capital projects levy, an additional $3, for a total of $9. And the slides basically share that. [06:05] Julie Nielsen: Now, bonds for building... a bond referendum gives our voters the opportunity to authorize our district to raise construction funding through the sale of bonds. People sometimes wonder, "Why don't you just use your general fund and don't you have money in your general fund?" Yes, we have money in our general fund, but general fund dollars are really for operations, and we are not holding onto $200 million even in our general fund. And so this is the way that school districts authorize large amounts of money for building. [06:40] Julie Nielsen: This is just for those of you on the Council and those of you viewing—these are actually what the Question 1 and Question 2 ballots will look like. And we talk about what they look like with those amounts because what we know at the bottom of each of those ballots is "By voting yes on this ballot question, you are voting for a property tax increase." And we understand that by asking our community for additional dollars, it does mean that they're voting for a property tax increase. [07:10] Julie Nielsen: So if we looked at just Question 1, which I shared with you as the highest priority, we would construct new secured entryways at Park and Woodbury High Schools, and then Cottage Grove, Lake, and Woodbury Middle Schools. Those five schools currently do not have the highest secured entryway, which means when you enter those schools now and when a visitor comes in and they're buzzed in, they actually enter the space where learning occurs, whereas in our higher secured schools, they actually enter the office space where they check in there and then they're sent to the location they need to. [07:45] Julie Nielsen: In addition, Question 1 would do what we're calling our planned additions. Both East Ridge and Oltman had planned locations where additions were to occur once we received additional dollars. So: planned additions at East Ridge, renovations at Park and Woodbury High School, and actually the third bullet point addresses the Oltman addition, which was the planned addition along with a small renovation at Woodbury Middle School, filling in the pool and making that usable space. And so there on the side, you can see the totals for each of those areas in Question 1. And again, Question 1 total is $5 per month on that median-valued home. [08:25] Julie Nielsen: What if Bond Question 1 passes? Obviously, on the left-hand side, you're going to see the things that I just shared would occur. Bond Question 2—if the bond Question 1 does not pass, Bond Question 2 also fails because Bond Question 2 is contingent on Bond Question 1. And someone asked, "Why is that?" It's because Bond Question 1 is the district's highest priority, and so we needed to just say that Question 2 is contingent on the passage of Question 1. If Question 2 fails—actually, if Question 1 fails—attendance boundary changes at the elementary level would be implemented for 2024-25, and then considering at that time, we would be considering alternative scheduling and course delivery options and reviewing grade configurations. Because, as you're aware, our three high schools—East Ridge High School is at about 130-plus percent capacity; Woodbury and Park are very close to that. And by changing high school attendance boundaries, we would not really get any different results except overcrowding another school even more so. [09:40] Julie Nielsen: As I said, Question 2 is contingent on the passage of Question 1. As we look at Question 2, you will see that the first item for $31 million is our elementary school additions. And those additions would be in those areas where we are most growing: our Pine Hill, our Red Rock, our Bailey, and Gray Cloud would all get additions. And then there's the construction of those additional bathrooms. I believe it was on the ballot in 2015—it may have been on a ballot even earlier than that—but those are 1960s schools: Crestview, Hillside, Pine Hill, Pullman, and Royal Oaks. And it would be $9 million to construct those bathrooms at those elementary schools for a total of $40 million, or $1 a month. If Question 2 passes, great, you'll see what we just talked about in terms of additions. But if you look to the right-hand column: what if Bond Question 2 fails? And this is the level of transparency that our board asked for, and that is that we would share with our school board what those attendance boundaries would be for the elementary school. So if Question 2 is not successful, we have a drafted plan all ready to go to implement elementary attendance boundary changes. And Dan will talk a little bit about that. And then again, the Crestview, Hillside, Pine Hill, Pullman, and Royal Oaks schools would continue with just one set of restrooms in those schools. [11:10] Dan Pyan: Good evening, thank you for the opportunity to be here. As we talk about bonds and boundary changes... so if both Question 1 and Question 2 pass, there will not be any elementary school boundary changes for the '24-'25 school year. If One passes and Two fails, then we will implement these attendance boundary changes at the elementary schools for the '24-'25 school year. Some middle school boundaries will be adjusted to keep elementary school cohorts together as much as possible. And at this time, as Julie said, there'll be no changes to high school boundaries. [11:45] Dan Pyan: As we looked at it—we'll talk about the principles of our boundary changes—but we wanted to really know, you know, how many students will this affect? When these boundary changes... if they had to be made, they're using current students, but students of last year because those are the numbers that we know are pretty good. We won't have really good numbers of our students this year, like Julie said, until the withdrawal period ends. But just using it as a sample base, it would affect about 427 students; it's about 310 to 320 families. We have maps online and we also have what's called a boundary change indicator, so that anybody who wants to know where their child will attend elementary school next year if Question 2 does not pass can simply go in there, type in their address, and it will show the schools they go to: the elementary school, their middle school, and their high school. And that is on our website under Facility Planning. [12:45] Dan Pyan: Question 3 is a capital projects levy. So this is a levy and not a bond. This one is not contingent on either one or two. It's simply asking the voters if we can levy more for capital projects related solely to technology. This will provide funds for improved instructional technology support staffing, maintenance support for students, staff devices, and of course, enhanced technology infrastructure and enhanced technology security. The question on the ballot will just say, "Shall the revocation of the existing capital project levy authorization and the replacement of the new capital project levy authorization proposed by the board be approved?" And that will change it from $2 million to $5 million. And once again, it says by voting yes on this, you're voting for a property tax increase. [13:35] Dan Pyan: As we connect with community members for feedback about the upcoming bond referendum, safety and security rose to the top of all the priorities. This levy will address safety and security related to technology. We know that seems like almost every week now, another school district has been compromised with their technology, held ransom by ransomware and various things. We use these dollars to beef up our cybersecurity. Right now, we collect about $2.8 million for this levy. It was approved for $2 million back in 2017. It raises because the levy is based on a tax rate—as property values go up, it raises more money. If this is approved, it's a tax impact of about $3 per month on a median-valued home in our district. [14:25] Dan Pyan: Other districts—about 100 other districts use the capital projects levy. Some districts in the state are going out for the first time. As we said, right now we levy about $137 per student. Wayzata, Minneapolis, Robbinsdale, Osseo, some of our neighbors, comparable districts like Rosemount-Apple Valley—they all levy more per student. Wayzata is at least $700 per student. Even if this passes, our number will probably go up to about $270 per student. So what if it passes? Well, obviously we'll enhance our cybersecurity, we'll maintain our infrastructure, we'll be working on all our software programs—not only our instructional software but our back-end software for finance, for human resources, for student information, for transportation, for maintenance. If it doesn't pass, these costs are going to have to come from somewhere else; they'll have to come from the general fund, and that will divert money that we could be using in other places, especially in the classroom. It would also be delaying our upgrade cycle for devices. [15:45] Julie Nielsen: In summary, the two bond questions: Number 1 is about safety and security; it's about expanding planned expansions—expansions that were planned back when they were built—at East Ridge High School and Oltman Middle School, and beefing up secured entrances at three middle schools and two high schools. Question 2 is addressing elementary school space issues in the neighborhoods that are getting overcrowded at Bailey, Gray Cloud, Pine Hill, and also addresses the question that we've been asking for years to increase the restroom capacity at our 1960s elementary schools. Question 3, which is not contingent on the other two questions, is a technology projects levy. If all three ballot questions pass, it would be about a $9 per month tax increase on a valued home in this district of $409,000. [16:45] Julie Nielsen: I would just add that for anyone watching or for council members, on our website, www.sowashco.org/facilityplanning, there is a tax calculator, there is a boundary calculator, and all of the important information can be found out there—polling locations, etc. So thank you so much for your time. We really appreciate you taking time each year to hear our presentation and our ask of our community. [17:15] Mayor Pro Tem Steve Dennis: I appreciate both of you coming down tonight. Did anyone on the Council have any questions that they would like to ask? Mr. Olsen? [17:22] Councilmember Justin Olsen: Thank you. Julie and Dan, thanks for being here tonight. It does seem like it was just a year ago we had the same conversation, but we had a conversation about a much bigger number. So I applaud that you went back to the drawing board and really engaged in a lot of community outreach to try to better understand the pulse of the community. And I think you've captured, at least what I hear from my friends and neighbors, what seems to be most important to them. My question is this: We talked a little bit about this last year, but my question is, how do you differentiate for the voter that you're trying to educate between what you're attempting to accomplish here and then just regular old general funding of the schools? Because I guarantee there's somebody out there who's going to say, "Well, the legislature passed this awesome education bill, why do they need more money?" Right? How do you educate that person and help them understand the differences between the two? [18:15] Julie Nielsen: I'll let Dan go into the details on finance because that's his role, but what I would say we have tried to do over time, Justin, is we have tried to once a month have updates on finances and to talk about different funding streams, to talk about how it comes in, including the point in time around the ESSER dollars—the COVID dollars that school districts got. Some were one-time dollars, so anything you had to be careful about what you spent it on because otherwise it continues in your general fund. But you are correct, and we have heard this: "You got so much from the state." I think that we also have to consider the legislative expectations that came out of the legislature and the impact of those individual items that were approved and what those items are going to cost us. Because implementing law does come at a cost. So if we look at one example around the READ Act—which we 100% support students being literate—but part of it is professional development for our staff, and that's going to take a day each month to implement and to make sure our staff is trained. And so you're right, while the state on the formula gave four and two and there were some other additional dollars out there, it does feel like it was a landslide, but I can tell you in the implementation portion of it, that's not what we see when we look at our overall budget. I'll let Dan address the specifics. [19:40] Councilmember Justin Olsen: Well, as I mentioned last year, there's this thing called unfunded mandates, and I think the state just made some long-overdue corrections, to be frank, on some of the mandates they've placed upon you in the past. But let's hear from the expert. [19:52] Dan Pyan: Well, I don't know if I can get into a lot of details. We always go back to helping people remember that bonds are for building and levies are for learning. And our operations are all concentrated on learning. If you look at our dollar bill, about 85% of our expenses go directly into the classroom or go to cleaning the classroom or go to bringing kids to the classroom. It's just the way that buildings are funded in the state for school districts—and I don't have all the expertise on how cities do it, but I know you run into the same issues. We are not part of the state bonding bill. And so they've said if you want to build a building, you're going to have to ask the taxpayers to borrow a bunch of money; it's the only way we can do it. So hopefully they just remember that: oh, it's a bond, they're building something; it's tangible, they'll see it go up, they'll see some kind of improvement. If it's a levy, then it's day-to-day operations. And that's always something to keep telling them. [20:45] Dan Pyan: And as we look at the money we got from the state, it was very good news, but if you look at the special education cross-subsidy, the difference of what we take out of general fund operations to fund what's not funded by the state for special ed—for us, it was about a $22 million difference. While they put a bunch of money towards it, they only put so much; they cut into like half of it. So we're still looking at $11 million deficits. So it's just a matter of explaining kind of where the money came from and where it's going. [21:15] Councilmember Justin Olsen: Well, thanks for mentioning that. I asked the same question to some degree last year and it really focused on special ed. You know, I have a son with autism and he had a wonderful educational experience all the way through his time in 833 schools, but it was very clear that there was expense that was associated with that, and the state is famous for unfunded mandates. So I appreciate your explanation. They did make some big changes, but they were just correcting perhaps what should have been dealt with previously. Thanks again, you guys, appreciate it. [21:50] Mayor Pro Tem Steve Dennis: Thank you, Councilman Olsen. Dave, do you have anything? [21:52] Councilmember Dave Thiede: No. [21:53] Mayor Pro Tem Steve Dennis: Okay. Well, thank you. From what I remember from the bond and levy questions last year, the people that I communicated with on a personal level... I always get some feedback that they're frustrated that we keep going back and asking for more money. And then I reminded them that, again, bonds are for building, levies are for learning. And they're like, "Oh, I didn't realize that." And so I think for a lot of people, they don't really understand the nuance of how schools operate or how they're funded, any more than when we need to raise taxes—"Well, why do you need to raise taxes?" and it's like, "Well, we have to pay for certain things that are required by the city." Schools have to pay for certain things that are required in order for our kids to get a proper education. So what I'd like to do is just have you say the website again and kind of what some of those links are, so that in the future when I get asked these same questions, I can direct them back to what I thought was a pretty good explanation of where the money goes and what it does. I think that was lacking—a lot of people that I talked to last year either hadn't taken any initiative to go and find that information out or didn't think it was readily available. [23:00] Julie Nielsen: And you know, what we heard through our community sessions... because there's not local newspapers, it's really difficult because regular residents in our communities aren't searching out our website looking for information like "is the school district going to do something?" And so we were intentional about having cards that got mailed out. And as a result of our failed election last August, our Communications Department is now doing a quarterly mailing. And so all residents should have gotten one as we open the school year, and now in the middle of October we will be doing another one that will go out to all of our taxpayers again. We want to talk about the school district, but we also want to make sure that individuals who don't have kids in school are informed on what's happening. We have great systems for our families who have children in schools and in programming, but for other people within our communities, our outreach now will be through that quarterly mailing. [23:55] Mayor Pro Tem Steve Dennis: I appreciate that, and that's really all I had. [24:00] Julie Nielsen: And our website's easy to remember: sowashco.org/facilityplanning. [24:05] Mayor Pro Tem Steve Dennis: Perfect. Thank you. All right, well, there we are. Thank you so much. Have a wonderful night. Appreciate you coming down. Next we'll move on to Item B, and we have Public Works Director Ryan Burfeind joining us. He's been kind of a traveler today, I understand, from Washington D.C. back here to Cottage Grove. He's going to provide a little bit of an overview for us on the Public Works and Parks Open House. Welcome, Ryan. [24:35] Public Works Director Ryan Burfeind: Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem and Council. So I'm here tonight to talk about our Public Works and Parks Open House. It's tomorrow night, September 21st, from 3:00 to 7:00 PM down in our Public Works facility right off West Point Douglas Road and the Jamaica Avenue roundabouts on the south side of Highway 61. This is something we do every other year—so in the odd-numbered years—where we invite the whole community down. We open up our facility, we have all of our different pieces of equipment out. You can see loaders and dump trucks and our paver, our graders, all of our neat equipment, mowers—you name it, we've got it down there. We also allow folks to get in a loader and, you know, their kids can, with the assistance of our staff, can actually drive a loader and scoop into the big seal-coat rock pile. And lots of other fun things with vendors and our big truck bay. And we have face painting, balloons, should be a bounce house I believe, and we also do hayrides around the property. So just a really good time. The weather is going to be great tomorrow night. I think it's going to be more like early August than late September, but it's going to be sunny and nice. And I do want to say a big thank you to all of our staff. It's just a huge amount of work from Public Works and Parks and Rec to plan this event and get everything cleaned up. It's actually really great because it gives us a good excuse to clean all the equipment, clean all of our wash bays and everything else and the different equipment bays we have. So that's a really good thing to see all of this week. So yeah, everyone should come on down, you can get a hot dog with the family and have a good time. [26:10] Mayor Pro Tem Steve Dennis: All right. Well, I know you guys always do a great job and I've attended that a few times over the years and it's very well attended. And I think with tomorrow's weather especially, it'll be good. And the hot dogs are amazing too. So thank you and everyone down there for all that hard work. Is there any feedback for the Director? All right, not seeing any. Thank you very much, appreciate it, and go get some rest. All right. Next is Item C, which is the HERO Center Open House overview, and we have Director of Public Safety Pete Turner joining us tonight. Hi, Pete. [26:50] Acting Director of Public Safety Pete Turner: Good evening, yeah, thanks for having me. Yeah, obviously we're going to try to outdo the Public Works and Parks—no, I'm just kidding, they have a phenomenal open house tomorrow. But next week on Monday, we are doing an open house, and this is a joint one with the City of Woodbury because we're co-owners of the HERO Center. Last year we did both—we did our Public Safety Department in the HERO Center—and it really stretched people thin. So this year we're putting all efforts on the HERO Center and just kind of listed a few of these events on our flyer here. But it's really... what I think is really cool about our open house is our community engagement officer has been working with a lot of our partners. And you know, for us to have the BCA crime lab coming, Washington County Mounted Patrol, our partners in Woodbury, even the State Patrol helicopter—last year we had that come in—and it's just, I think it shows the community all the different partnerships. So yeah, next Monday night, September 25th, from 4:00 to 7:00 PM, we're having our open house at the HERO Center. We'd love to see you guys there and a lot of the community members, and I hope for good weather just like Public Works and Parks is going to have tomorrow night. So thank you. [28:15] Mayor Pro Tem Steve Dennis: Well, hopefully the weather gods will smile on us with that. I sure hope so. You know, we had a little swearing-in earlier this evening of some new police officers and firefighters and, you know, not only our organization but Woodbury does a fantastic job of providing excellent service to all communities. We have mutual aid as well, but having the HERO Center be here and the advantages that that's brought to our community has been absolutely amazing. And I know it's saved us a lot of money in travel expense and other things, and it's great to have all that training opportunity right here in our backyard. So we'll be looking forward to that. Any feedback for Director Turner? All right, well Pete, thank you. Appreciate it and see you all there. Keep up the good work. [29:05] Mayor Pro Tem Steve Dennis: All right. So next we're going to move on to item seven, which is the consent agenda. And before we do that, I just want to make a quick note that item P, which actually deals with the Kwik Trip development escrow agreement... we usually go through as a matter of business and authorize a consent agenda, we usually don't open that up. But in this particular instance, we have a special guest who is with us tonight, and her name is Lisa Watson, and she is a real estate manager for Kwik Trip. And Kwik Trip actually serves business in six different states, and they're looking to bring an investment here to the city of Cottage Grove. So we have our Economic Development representative, Gretchen Larson, up at the podium right now. Did you want to do a little intro or are you going to pass right over? [29:55] Gretchen Larson: No sir, I'm just going to pass it over to Lisa. I just want to make sure we get the picture up there, the concept. [30:05] Mayor Pro Tem Steve Dennis: Actual fantastic. Well, welcome here to the city of Cottage Grove. [30:08] Lisa Watson: Well, thank you. Thank you for having me, Council and Cottage Grove team. I've been anxiously working this opportunity since I came aboard to Kwik Trip in April, and we are very excited to come to this community. It's the first Kwik Trip in this community, and as you are aware, we have continued expansion throughout the Twin Cities and the six states. And so this opportunity came up and have been fortunate enough to work with the Cottage Grove team. [30:35] Lisa Watson: And what you see here is actually a prototype rendering of what your location will look like. This is what we call a Gen 3 store. The Gen 3 store is 9,200 square feet. It has an expanded grocer area with an island for fruit and veggies; it has an expanded refrigerated section; it has an expanded pop/water walk-in cooler so you can actually buy 12-packs or larger that are actually already chilled for your own special events. It also has a nice seating high-top area, so for those people who want to be able to walk in and have a cool place to sit and eat their lunch, there's actually 10 to 12 high-top and low-top seating areas in the store. So it provides an additional spot. We also do, as you guys can see on the left-hand side of the drawing, there is nice seating outside that we provide. [31:25] Lisa Watson: And in this drawing, which your location will also have, we have what we call a side diesel canopy. That canopy provides opportunities for larger trucks, recreational vehicles, people who need recreational fuel to be able to pull behind the building. Ours will actually be located behind our building at the location and gives the opportunity from those businesses to not interrupt the traffic flow under the gas canopies. This is what we call a five-MPD station, so there's dual stations on the five aisles, and so we can handle a lot of traffic. Your location also will have a two-bay car wash, so we will have the opportunity so that there's no backup of car wash lines at the facility. [31:55] Lisa Watson: We are very excited to bring this to Cottage Grove. We take a lot of care and effort in our landscape plan, our design plan, to ensure that we have technically a LEED-certified building. We really do a good job of controlling light pollution on our site—we keep it on the site—and it's a building that I think far surpasses any other C-store that you guys will see in the community. So thank you for the opportunity. We are excited to be a part of this community, and you will see that we give back to the community significantly. At grand openings, we typically pick two organizations to give donations to during the grand opening process, so that will be a part of our grand opening, and we will be reaching out as to what those two organizations will be—whether it'll be police, fire, someone who is of significance in the community. So we welcome this opportunity and we're excited to be here. So thank you for having us. [32:45] Mayor Pro Tem Steve Dennis: All right, well thank you, Lisa. We're very much looking forward. We've been anticipating a partnership for years with Kwik Trip, and we know that you guys will be a great corporate partner here in the community and do a lot of excellent things here for the city of Cottage Grove. I do have Councilmember Thiede that would like to ask a quick question. [33:05] Councilmember Dave Thiede: Yeah, just so there's no confusion... this must be Iowa or something like that, because this will be a Kwik Trip, because the "Kwik Star" is what you use in Iowa. [33:15] Lisa Watson: Yes, that's what you use in Iowa. This was a rendering done for another state. And for everyone's clarification, the reason there is Kwik Star is because Quick Trip with the "Q" already has the naming rights in some of those other states, and so that's why it is a Kwik Trip but it's named Kwik Star in Iowa. So yes, this is from there, but it will be a Kwik Trip. And this will be a great Gen 3. We hope to have one of the biggest grand openings, so I would ask your community to come out and support us when that happens, because we'd love to be able to put you down in the books as one of the best grand openings we've had. [33:50] Mayor Pro Tem Steve Dennis: Councilman Thiede, that's a great eye on that, by the way. You picked that up. Any other feedback or questions? Okay, well please tell the executives and your colleagues back in La Crosse that we look forward to the partnership of working together. [34:05] Lisa Watson: Great, I will. Thank you. Thank you very much. [34:10] Mayor Pro Tem Steve Dennis: All right. So as we look at our consent agenda, is there any items that the Council would like to pull tonight? Not seeing any, what I'll seek is a motion to approve. [34:20] Councilmember Rick Combata: Motion to approve the consent agenda. [34:22] Mayor Pro Tem Steve Dennis: Motion made by Councilmember Combata. Do I have a second? [34:24] Councilmember Justin Olsen: Second. [34:25] Mayor Pro Tem Steve Dennis: Second by Councilmember Olsen. Any further discussion? Seeing none, all in favor say aye. (Aye) Any opposed? Motion carries 4 to 0. So that means that anything and everything that we had on our consent agenda tonight has been approved. Item number eight is looking for a motion to approve disbursements. Do I have a motion? [34:55] Councilmember Justin Olsen: Move the bills. [34:57] Mayor Pro Tem Steve Dennis: Motion made by Councilmember Olsen. Do I have a second? [34:59] Councilmember Rick Combata: Second. [35:00] Mayor Pro Tem Steve Dennis: Second by Councilmember Combata. Any further discussion? All in favor say aye. (Aye) Any opposed? Motion carries 4 to 0. Number nine is public hearings; we do not have any tonight. Number 10 is bid awards; we do not have any. Number 11 is regular agenda; nothing there. And we'll move on quickly to number 12, which is Council comments and requests. We'll start over here with Councilmember Combata. [35:30] Councilmember Rick Combata: Thank you, sir. I just want to commend all of the fire and police personnel that we were able to swear in earlier this evening on their hard work and dedication, and give them a warm and official welcome to Cottage Grove. [35:42] Mayor Pro Tem Steve Dennis: Fantastic, thank you. Councilmember Thiede? [35:45] Councilmember Dave Thiede: I would ditto what Councilmember Combata said. Welcome to the family. And otherwise, I don't think I have anything else necessarily tonight. [35:55] Mayor Pro Tem Steve Dennis: Excellent. Councilmember Olsen? [36:00] Councilmember Justin Olsen: Thank you. I have a couple of things here this evening. For those of you who may not be aware, there is a fundraising event this weekend at the Cottage Grove VFW for the Teddy's Heart Foundation. It's going to be a taco feed, and I know that there's going to be all kinds of fun there for the whole family. So I would encourage you to mark your calendar and get out there to support a really, really great organization. [36:25] Councilmember Justin Olsen: Secondly, I wanted to take a minute to say thank you to all of the Cottage Grove staff members who worked so hard over the last few months to coordinate and organize this past Saturday's first Cottage Grove Food Truck Festival. It was sponsored by Discover Cottage Grove, which is our Convention and Visitors Bureau arm. We really outdid ourselves, I think, for the first year doing this. The crowds were amazing, we had over 20 trucks that were on site, two different bands. There was a ton of energy in the park at Kingston the whole day, from 11:00 AM when it started till 6:00 PM when it ended, and I think some people even stayed up until 7:00. Our Cottage Grove Lions were present, and we had our monthly meeting last night of the Lions Club, and I'll just tell you that the club was incredibly impressed with the way that things went. We are already talking about what can we do differently to make it better next year. Our chair, this is her first time chairing an event, and she raised her hand and said, "Yep, I'm doing it next year and I'm going to do this and I'm going to do that." So I think it was a really well-received event by the community, and I want to make sure that all of the people who worked on it here—whether it be administrative folks or Economic Development folks, I know we had Public Safety in the park, we had the Parks Department in the park—everybody came together to make it a really special event for the community. So thank you for that. And with that, Mr. Mayor Pro Tem, I'll pass it back to you. [37:55] Mayor Pro Tem Steve Dennis: All right, well thank you, Councilmember Olsen. Well, I just have one thing tonight, and this does not come easy. This is an announcement that I would like to share with all of my friends, my colleagues, our staff team, and the community at large. Serving our community has been one of the truly great honors of my life. And when I look back on the time that we've been here together and the accomplishments that we've made, it's been absolutely incredible. I thought back over the course of the years of my involvement that I've had, including being on a commission, serving our police department, and being on the City Council for nine years—I have dedicated over 25% of my life here. So our next meeting, which is October 4th, will be my final meeting. At this point, I'm not going to say anything more about it, but we will have... I will have some statements to make at that meeting. But it's been an absolute pleasure and I appreciate everything. [39:15] Mayor Pro Tem Steve Dennis: Okay, number 13, workshops open to the public—we do not have any. 14, workshops closed to the public—we don't have any. Item 15, motion to adjourn. Do I have a motion? [39:25] Councilmember Dave Thiede: So moved. [39:27] Mayor Pro Tem Steve Dennis: Motion made by Councilmember Thiede. A second? [39:29] Councilmember Rick Combata: Second. [39:30] Mayor Pro Tem Steve Dennis: Second by Councilmember Combata. All in favor say aye. (Aye) Any opposed? Motion carries 4 to 0. We are now adjourned. Thank you, everyone. Have a wonderful night.