This transcript has been formatted with the requested speaker identifications based on the context provided and the internal dialogue of the meeting. [00:00] **Steve Dennis:** Foreign good morning everyone and welcome to the February 28, 2023 meeting, Board of Directors for Cottage Grove Convention and Visitors Bureau. I'm Steve Dennis, chairman, and honored to be here today. First item we'll have on our agenda is roll call, and we'll ask for help from Jaime Mann. [00:15] **Jaime Mann:** Chairman Dennis? [00:16] **Steve Dennis:** Here. [00:17] **Jaime Mann:** Vice Chair Olsen? [00:18] **Justin Olsen:** Here. [00:19] **Jaime Mann:** Director Hanson? [00:20] **Director Hanson:** Here. [00:21] **Jaime Mann:** Director Larson? [00:22] **Gretchen Larson:** Here. [00:23] **Jaime Mann:** Director Levine? [00:24] **Director Levine:** Here. [00:25] **Jaime Mann:** Director Newt? [00:26] **Director Newt:** Here. [00:27] **Jaime Mann:** Director Patel? (No response). [00:28] **Steve Dennis:** Excellent, thank you, and we do have a quorum today. Next is Item 3, which is adoption of the agenda. I'll look for a motion to adopt. [00:35] **Justin Olsen:** Moved. [00:36] **Steve Dennis:** Moved by Vice Chair Olsen. Do I have a second? [00:38] **Director Levine:** I'll second. [00:39] **Steve Dennis:** Second by Director Levine. All in favor say aye. [00:41] **Group:** Aye. [00:42] **Steve Dennis:** Any opposed? Motion carries and that will be 6-0. Item 4 is approval of the minutes. 4.1 is approval of the November 29, 2022, CGCVB meeting minutes. Were there any changes noted by anyone? No? Okay. Not seeing any, I'll look for a motion to approve. [00:55] **Director Hanson:** Move. [00:56] **Steve Dennis:** Motion made by Director Hanson. Do you have a second? [00:58] **Director Newt:** Second. [00:59] **Steve Dennis:** Second by Director Newt. All in favor say aye. [01:01] **Group:** Aye. [01:02] **Steve Dennis:** Any opposed? Motion carries 6-0. Number 5 is business items. 5.1 up first is presentation from Afton Apple, and Jaime will lead us out in that. [01:10] **Jaime Mann:** Chairman Dennis, happy to introduce and invite Sarah Parkos from Afton Apple Orchard to come up and give us a quick overview of what is happening at Afton Apple. [01:25] **Steve Dennis:** Oh, good morning Sarah, how are you today? [01:27] **Sarah Parkos:** Good, thank you for having us again. I'm Sarah from Afton Apple. I'm here with my mom, Cindy. Thank you for inviting us here this morning. So I'm going to give you a brief history about the history of our farm and what we're up to these days. Growing up, my dad always wanted to be a farmer. He had many skills, including carpentry. Although he was a successful cabinet maker, he wanted more variety. So back in 1989, he stumbled upon a three-line classified ad for a 117-acre apple orchard. They learned that this orchard was one of three orchards originally planted in 1964 as part of a corporation. The corporation went bankrupt, so one of the original investors purchased it and they were trying to run it for a couple of years, but they were unsuccessful. After a little research about farming, they decided to dive in. One of the first projects they did was to replace the rugged old single tire swing and build a playground so us kids had something to do all day while they were working and renovating this farm that they just bought. So the long list of projects just continued on from there. You can see where the trees started with pruning; a lot of things were pruned with chainsaws at this point because they had been overgrown and not taken care of. There were some road trips to purchase some farm equipment because there was not much there. We added on a concession area in the small retail building for the apple orchard and purchased our first grading line to grade some apples. And again, one of the first projects was to update the playground. Here's a picture of the single tire swing that was hanging from a post—us kids needed something to do to stay out of their hair, so that was one of the first projects. Shortly after, we were able to open for our first year for business and we started with a few hay rides. We had our Apple Shack, and we invited all of our friends and family who were willing to hang out with us on weekends and even during the week after their normal jobs to come help this work. Our building was 20 by 20 and we thought that was huge and fantastic. This was one of our first strawberry seasons; as you can see, our strawberry building consisted of a small portable building built on a trailer with sides that propped up with two-by-fours. So we sold pick-your-own strawberries, a few pre-picked strawberries, and then a few miscellaneous items. We started doing some more renovating and after a few years in 1999, we built our first big retail building and our existing Apple building became our new strawberry shack. That year we also got our first cows in the petting farm named Onyx and Frizzy. In 2000, we decided to offer a unique experience by adding a six-acre corn maze, and we dedicated the theme to our apple orchard, having an apple theme, and it was a big hit with our customers. The following year, we grew our corn maze to add several more acres and we turned it into a U-shape. This theme happens to be about scarecrows. In 2002, we finally outgrew our little retail building and then our second retail building, so we added on another piece of our building for some storage and added a loading dock. 2004, we built our atrium that sits right next to our building to offer covered seating for our visitors, and then the following year, again, we updated our playground. If you've been out to our farm, we know that our playground is a big hit for families. We also added Straw Mountain in 2005 and added some extra animals to our petting farm—our cows were very thrilled to have some playmates. In 2008, we became more involved with Cottage Grove, becoming a sponsor as part of their Strawberry Festival, and we had our hay ride and our cow train and tried to do as much as we could for community involvement with Cottage Grove. Again in 2010, we needed another playground remodel, so we gave it another facelift and updated with some new towers. We also added on Retread Hill. We try to take anything extra that we have around the farm and utilize it into something different, something unique where you won't find it in other places other than a farm. After that, we ended up adding our spider web and our swinging tube to our playground area, and we added on to our building yet again in 2013. It was our first year of hosting the Minnesota Major Motocross Champion Ryan Dungey, who started a fundraiser for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. We were approached by the coordinators with the Minnesota Major bike ride and they wanted a local space with plenty of space for their bike ride, a 5K run, and some sponsor tents. They started and ended their bike rides from our driveway and we had enough space for them to run their entire 5K at our farm. We've always created corn maze themes that highlight the importance of farming and we've had themes about bees, scarecrows, goats, apples, and more. After having been involved with the fundraiser and learning about the incredible efforts, we decided to dedicate our 15-acre corn maze to the theme to support the research for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. This was the first year we were able to donate a portion of our corn maze admission sales to support research at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. Later that year on a cold winter day, we were invited to be a part of the Cottage Grove holiday train by shuttling families through the events for their big event, having the big concert and everything at the event, and our crew jumped at the opportunity to be able to haul everything over in the winter and try something different, so we're grateful for their support too. In 2014, we kicked off our 25th year being family-owned and operated. We celebrated with a magician, bounce houses, a beer tent, concessions, and giveaways, and we also brought in DockDogs for the weekend and it was so much fun to see that. The following year was the debut of Johnny Combine. We're always thinking of new innovative ideas for the farm. My dad and a good friend and employee modified an old John Deere combine to create an incredible play area with seven slides, a patio lookout, and a space to pretend that you're a combine driver. It was an instant hit with our young visitors. In 2016, we dedicated our 15-acre corn maze design to the theme of thanking your local heroes, including honoring fire, police, and EMS public safety teams. We invited Hastings, Cottage Grove, Woodbury fire and police departments, as well as the Washington County Sheriff's Office to hang out for some meet-and-greets for several weekends at the maze. The departments we invited to come out did not disappoint; they went all out with bringing equipment including a fire boat, UTV, ambulance, fire trucks, squad cars, and even a ladder truck. They even raised a flag to fly over the corn maze and did canine demos. We also had "fill the boot" contests to fill the firefighters' boots with donations. We matched the donations made through that contest. We were able to donate several thousands of dollars to each department. It was such an incredible experience to see our visitors interact with these guys and watch the kids climb up into the ladder truck. Also that year, we had our first Afton Apple Core classic car show. It was great timing to host a car show as most shows wrap up at the end of the summer. We gave each car a dash plaque and had several classes for a fun competition and presented plaques in the afternoon. Enjoying these cars on a beautiful fall day was very well received by both our car show guests and Afton Apple visitors. In 2017, it was another busy year with construction. We brought our mobile Berry Barn to the Cottage Grove Strawberry Fest to offer our famous strawberry shakes and other treats in Kingston Park. We built a new storage barn and remodeled the towers of the playground with three new playhouses, patios, and even a Jacob's Ladder. Later that fall, we partnered with the folks at Frontier Ag & Turf to bring in some huge tractors and Gators for a nice display for our first Touch-a-Tractor weekend. 2017 was a great time to highlight the 60th anniversary of Dr. Seuss's famous *Cat in the Hat* in our corn maze. We again hosted fundraisers for Cottage Grove's Public Safety Board and Washington County Sheriff's Office, and we donated a portion of corn maze admission sales to support public safety. Since Dr. Seuss's *Cat in the Hat* is an iconic character in literacy, we also hosted a fundraiser with Malone Elementary School in Prescott. We again were able to donate several thousands of dollars to each of these organizations. Once again, Cottage Grove Public Safety knocked it out of the park bringing their ladder truck and flag to our corn maze. In 2018, our theme was "Bee-Amazing" and our theme was dedicated to learning all about bees as well as being amazing. We had signs posted around the orchard with pictures of people doing nice things—you can be amazing by simply picking up trash, holding open a door, or reading a book to a child, something like that. At the 2019 bike ride fundraiser for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, the organizers wanted something special at the starting line and asked if we had any ideas. We called up the Cottage Grove Fire Department to see if they could bring a ladder truck and a flag at the starting line, and they were more than happy to be a part of the event. Later that fall, public safety came out again with equipment and did meet-and-greets with their canine. 2019 was the year of our first annual Sunflower Festival. We had five acres of beautiful yellow sunflowers. 2020 was a really tough year for our Afton Apple family and crew. After a long, courageous battle with an aggressive form of leukemia, we lost our very own Farmer Frank on May 26th—on the anniversary of the purchasing of the orchard by he and my mom. We also had an EF1 tornado go straight through our corn maze that year. 2020 was a blur, but with the support of our most incredible employees, loyal customers, and compassionate community, we were able to get through the year. We celebrated his life by dedicating our corn maze to encourage people to live in the moment. 2021 was an incredibly dry year. The irrigation system ran almost 24/7, but it was all worth it with one reason being able to add the pick-your-own zinnias to our flower festival. 2022 unintentionally became the year of the baby goats—we had 11 baby goats born on our farm throughout the fall, adding extra excitement to our petting farm. And we have some highlights about our farm. This is a bird's-eye view of our courtyard area. Throughout the years, we have learned that crops that we work so hard to grow can be wiped out in minutes from curveballs from nature. We've had entire farms devastated from frost during blossom, bugs, straight-line winds, hail storms, or a tornado. But "when it rains, look for rainbows," and that's what we've adapted throughout our adventure of the farm. So we offer pick-your-own produce all summer and fall. Starting in June, we have pick-your-own strawberries. In July, we'll have pick-your-own blackberries, black raspberries, summer raspberries, and then we also network with some growers being able to provide fresh produce directly from the farm in Michigan, so we'll bring in cherries and blueberries. In August, we start with some apples, fall raspberries, zinnias, and sunflowers, and again bring in some more fresh fruit including peaches from Michigan. September will continue on with our fall produce and add some fresh sweet corn, squash, and gourds. October will be the month of pumpkins and gourds, and in November, our produce will be available in our building. One of the big parts about our farm is that we encourage people to relax and enjoy Mother Nature. Over the years, we've noticed that many family traditions are being pushed by the wayside; therefore, we work extra hard to focus not only on providing nice crops but also providing a memorable experience to keep family traditions alive. We're often asked why we are so dedicated to keep the farm going with ever-changing laws, agritainment regulations, and new housing developments coming in closer. It's because providing a beautiful outdoor space for creating memories and having an opportunity to make a difference in someone's life is worth the uphill climb. We're focused on making good choices for our next generations. We recently installed our second solar panel system on our storage barn to help provide energy and reduce our carbon footprint. Adding on to the theme of providing green space for our beneficial insects, we have added to our sunflower and zinnia field and increased our flower festival to 11 acres. Butterflies are a vital part of the pollination process and it's amazing to see them dance across the fields. We have numerous varieties of zinnias, colorful sunflowers, and yellow sunflowers, making it a bee and butterfly haven. We have several weekends of flower festival throughout the early fall, inviting folks to come out and enjoy a view of a few hundreds of thousands of flowers all at the same time. We have photo ops throughout the field including some rocks and some bridges so you get a little bit better view from up above. We're always brainstorming, planning, and creating ideas to make our farm unique and making sure we have something to offer for everyone. We provide opportunities for our communities to simply enjoy escaping the hustle and bustle of the daily grind, as well as opportunities for families to enjoy experiences you won't find anywhere else but at a farm. Throughout our corn maze, we have 24 trivia stations relating to the theme of the corn maze. Not only can you go get lost in a cornfield, you can also practice your aim with shooting our Apple Blaster, check out our yard games, and our mini mazes. The corn maze area has great opportunities for team bonding with work events, scout groups, family gatherings, and more. Our Afton Apple crew is like one big happy family. We have the best crew with all sorts of backgrounds that all come together for our seasonal business. We've always treated them the way that we want to be treated and do our best to make their experience with us a great one. Here are some examples: we started our annual Mystery Day—we tell them we're going to go do something fun, "are you in?" and they text us back and say yes, and we get on a bus and they don't know where we're headed and we're gone for the day and it's all a surprise. We have an annual Employee Appreciation Dinner, we provide hot lunches for everybody in the fall, and we do employee recognition all throughout the year. And even this past year, we went on a St. Croix River cruise with our crew. Our tour program is such a fun way to enjoy the orchard from behind the scenes. We have lots of school tours throughout the week for kids ranging from just learning to walk through kids in college to even work groups. Great communities are built by people with a variety of backgrounds. Some are given generous opportunities with perfectly laid out paths, while others are silently struggling to get by. We've supported several food shelves to offer families fresh produce and donated funds to support purchasing more essentials. We have recently awarded continuing education scholarships to graduating seniors and are involved in many local fundraisers. So this year, what's happening at the farm? It'll be our 34th year of being family-owned and operated. Although we don't have visitors at the farm this time of year, we're busy bees working to prepare for a great year. We're in the planning stages and have a few new ideas up our sleeves that we hope to implement this year. Blossom time is an incredible time of year—this happens in early May and here's a bird's-eye view of some apple trees in blossom. It's a pretty cool view, but nobody's at the farm to enjoy it, so we try to take lots of pictures for everybody. In June, we will open for pick-your-own strawberries. Our berry barn and petting farm will also be open and we're looking forward to being a part of community events this year. This will be our second year of pick-your-own blackberries and black raspberries in July. We're planning on opening August 19th for our fall season with our pick-your-own apples and raspberries and have our petting farm open, which they'll be very excited for visitors and concessions. In September, we'll have our flower festival, anniversary weekend, Touch-a-Tractor, our corn maze opening, and our first Apple Festival. October will be filled with festivals, pumpkins, gourds, and fall favorites. Our retail store is open daily in November with fresh apples, pumpkins, fall decor, and more. We're also busy packing apples and fall squash for our local food shelves in November. According to our official Afton Apple weather station, we have lots of snow right now; therefore, we are busy preparing for the next great year. Thank you for your time and thank you for inviting us to share a little bit about our farm. [14:50] **Steve Dennis:** All right, well thank you so much for coming down. It's a very impressive presentation and really a fun thing to look at the progression of your progress over all the years. Here at Discover Cottage Grove, we're very appreciative of the support that you've had for this organization. I know that you've been an advertiser with us in our Visitors Bureau and that you've also done a tremendous amount of community give-back, especially in the areas where money has been donated back to public safety and things along those lines. So it's really impressive and we're very grateful to have you as a partner here. I think I can speak for everybody in saying that you guys are a great family-owned local business and do tremendous things here to support the community back in return. We would ask that our community always keep you guys top of mind when it comes to needing any of the products or services that you guys provide there and do a great job of doing. Is there any feedback from anyone on the panel here? Councilmember Olsen? [15:55] **Justin Olsen:** Good morning. Way back in 2008, I was a fuzzy-faced brand-new City Councilmember and the president of the Strawberry Fest, and we didn't have anybody to sell strawberries. So we reached out to Frank and Cindy, who were kind enough to invite me out to their home, and we made an agreement that Afton Apple was going to be our strawberry purveyor for the Strawberry Fest from that time moving forward. Unfortunately, the weather didn't cooperate with us so I'm sure, Cindy, you remember—Sarah, you may as well—I believe you brought strawberries up from Iowa to make sure that we had strawberries that year because it was too cold to grow the strawberries in Minnesota. Ever since that time, you know, me and my family have looked at your family like we're part of the same family. My kids were five and three when that happened, and every year they want to go to Afton Apple—every year—whether it's the corn maze or to pet the pets, and believe me, you got a lot more pets today than you did back then. To take the hayrides... Frank always had a funny story to tell. You have become part of the fabric of this community based on all of the things that you mentioned: giving back, working with public safety, continuing to try to add different experiences to people who come to the farm. It's never stale. And if you can get out of that doggone Apple Store for under 100 bucks, you're a better person than me, because my family goes in there and they just go hog wild—pies and cider and apples and you name it. As the chair mentioned, it's just the epitome of a well-run family-owned business and even though we lost Frank in 2020, which was a very, very sad time, Sarah, the next generation along with your mom, you guys have continued to grow and expand and just do so many amazing things. It's truly a privilege to have a relationship with a business like that because you actually operate the business. You may not have the same objectivity that somebody who stands from a little bit further away does, but I'll tell you what—you're very unique in what you do and how you do it, and I mean that in the very best way possible. We love having you be part of the Strawberry Fest each year, we love having you be part of assisting our public safety team with fundraising through the various events that you do at the farm, and frankly, we just love having you be part of the community. You've given back far more than many, many local businesses ever would, and for that, we're grateful. So thank you for being here this morning and thank you for all that you've done for this community for so many years. [18:30] **Steve Dennis:** All right, thank you Vice Chair Olsen. Anyone else? Anything? All right, well thank you again Sarah, we appreciate you guys very much. [18:40] **Sarah Parkos:** Thank you. [18:41] **Steve Dennis:** Awesome. And next we'll move on to Item 5.2 which will be the HVS Market Study and our very own G will help us with this. This is something that was a cooperative effort requisitioned by the City Council and the Economic Development Authority as well and of course, Gretchen serves not only on our board here but also as our Director of Economic Development. Welcome. [19:05] **Gretchen Larson:** Good morning everyone. It's tough to follow a presentation like that; it was so beautiful, I'm like, "Gosh, what can I do to make mine more interesting?" Thank you so much. So the HVS Hotel Market Study was a process that was undertaken by the EDA when they approved the city to move forward with hiring a team of experts to evaluate whether or not the city was ready for another hotel venue. The elements of it are to first start with site selection. One of the things HVS came highly recommended for is because folks in the hotel industry shared with us that there's no way they're going to tell you you're ready for a hotel if you're not. And so that's the thing—when you hire an outside expert, you want to make sure that they're respected in the industry and as I mentioned, they came highly recommended. If you look to your right, the three site locations that she took a look at were the 80th Street, Jamaica Avenue, and Keats. They looked at the whole city, but obviously in speaking with the City Administrator and staff and the other folks in the business, they knew basically where most would probably want to be located and it's along the Highway 61 corridor, which makes sense because it's "easy in, easy out" sort of thing. After they looked at the sites, then they did an evaluation of the demand generators. So they visited with folks—as you see here—Renewal by Anderson, 3M, Northstar Sheets, and other folks in the commercial side of it that said, you know, what do they need to get out of this? Why would they want a hotel? And of course, it's for the folks that come and do their turnarounds and all of the other work. They were saying, "Well, those folks all have to go to Woodbury unless Country Inn and Suites has room." Business folks generally tend to like a particular brand or the ability to stay a little longer, and so they discussed that with them. Then they did a ton of interviews with the leisure groups—the people that run the treehouses, our team that has the ice arena and all the other events that happen in the city—and they asked them, "Well, what do you want and why do you want it?" After that, you have to look at your competition. The area supply listed are those hotels in the greater area that they took a look at, including our own Lakota and Country Inn, and then tried to talk to them about what they do and what they see if they were going to expand in the market. Ultimately, they came up with a recommendation, and the good news was that they really believe that the city is ready for yet another hotel and maybe some future hotels as well. The report that you see is a lot of numbers and that's really what the hotel industry wants to see. They want to see the numbers; they want to see "does it really work?" Tanya and her team at HVS did a great job of distilling those numbers into something that most of us who aren't actuaries or finance directors can actually understand and see. The bottom line is that they do recommend a hotel in the area. It's going to be something that will be successful at some point, and she ran the numbers out all the way to five years to show the folks in the hotel industry when they would start realistically seeing a profit on the hotel, because when you go into them, you don't make money those first couple years. So you have to make sure that your survey encompasses everything they would need to know to determine whether or not they could be successful. The first recommendation is at the 80th Street corridor and of course, all of you are familiar with the city—it's because there's a lot there that somebody could actually walk to from a hotel. But Jamaica and Keats look good; the more we add housing and jobs, those types of things, then of course the city will continue to grow in a strategic and orderly manner. One of the things since the study has been released is it's been sent to the hoteliers who asked for copies, plus folks who didn't necessarily ask for a copy but we're sending it out anyway. The City Administrator and the team have had preliminary meetings with at least one group. Marriott is going to be speaking to Wyndham and then is going to also be speaking to a hotel developer who builds for multiple flags. So there is interest there. How the deal will work out and how long it'll take remains to be seen, but it's good news for the city, it's good news for the CVB, and I know that we're pleased with how this study turned out because we believe we got a good value for our money. Chairman, if maybe you want to add a little bit more since you were actively involved in meeting with the hoteliers? [23:45] **Steve Dennis:** I'd be happy to. Just to mention the fact that we believe that there's tremendous viability in having additional lodging here. It's not just us as a team here involved with the city; it's all the different investors we have in the industrial park who have indicated to us time and again that when they have—and some of these places just to mention are corporate headquarters—so they've got people coming into our area for training and extended periods of time where they're here. They end up having to send, in many instances, the people that come to town out of Cottage Grove, and so we would love to be able to capture that opportunity and keep those dollars and all that viability right here for us. In addition to that, we have a very substantial and successful local athletic program for youth where there's a huge number of tournaments. Some of them are national tournaments that now have made a home in Cottage Grove coming once a year. We've got all kinds of opportunity with our wedding venues where you have a 300-person wedding and we've got to have a place for folks to stay. So there's just a tremendous amount of opportunity that, like I said, across the board everybody believes in. It's just a matter of timing and of course having the right location to plug these folks into. We'll certainly do our very best here as a city to be very amenable and workable for them to come in and get their projects going. That's what I have to add to it. Excellent. All right, do we have any questions for Director Larson? [25:35] **Director Larson:** Just one question. Can you remind me again how many rooms does the Country Inn and Suites have? Does anybody know that? [25:45] **Steve Dennis:** I want to say they have about—is it 90? [25:48] **Jaime Mann:** Approximately. [25:49] **Gretchen Larson:** Approximately. So it would be another hotel about the same size as Country Inn potentially recommended. One of the things that we've discussed with the hoteliers that have expressed an interest is maybe having a dual-brand hotel. The new concept is to build it in such a way that they have a connecting space between the "Extended Stay" and what you call the "Regular Stay." So that idea has gotten a lot of traction and almost everyone has already mentioned it as a dual-brand of some sort. [26:20] **Justin Olsen:** Thank you, good information. I had the opportunity to read through the report and then it took me like a week to recover, but it was a really well-done report. So a couple of questions have popped into my head as I was reading and then listening this morning. First and foremost, location, location, location. I know that we've been marketing the city aggressively to this niche out at the ICSC for the past several years and perhaps the Chair has some insight into this, but has there been a preferred location identified by the potential end users? [26:55] **Gretchen Larson:** So the potential end users have not specifically said that they have a location in mind. They do take the recommendation of HVS seriously that 80th Street at Highway 61 would make the most sense to begin with because it has so many demand generators there. The other ones are going to take a little bit more time. [27:15] **Steve Dennis:** Just, you know, obviously the Shops at Cottage View area is going to be probably the high-line point of interest because when you look at something like that, visibility is there, access is there, vehicle counts are there, the commercial node is going to be there—everything's going to be set for success, plus proximity to the business park, right? So that would be, if I'm an investor, probably the primary area. Second to that is the opportunity for redevelopment, but we know redevelopment comes at a higher cost—usually a factor of three to one: acquisition, demolition, and then construction. So that would be an area, you know, like you had mentioned, G, along 80th and 61. And again, the future is always wide open. Somebody can come in and say, "Hey, I want to do X, Y, and Z." If they've got the money—or as has been said, capital is spent where capital's welcome—we're definitely as a community amenable and open to any opportunity here that would increase our potentials as a city to be able to serve. We're a growing, vibrant city and I think there's just tremendous opportunity here, and just personally, I believe that there's more opportunity even than what's indicative in that report. [28:40] **Justin Olsen:** Yes, that's my feeling. So thank you both for that feedback, that's exactly what I expected. I'm glad that it was exactly what I expected. One of the things that comes to mind frequently as we talk about our community is putting our best foot forward when people find an entry point. For example, if you get off on 80th Street from Highway 61, what do you see? What does it say about our community? And obviously having strong business partners such as some of the folks that you mentioned flying their flag as people pull up, that gives people a sense of the type of community that you are. There's nothing worse than that retail bleed where we lose dollars to surrounding communities because we just don't have that service or those facilities to meet those needs. As the Chair mentioned earlier, with all of the various softball and hockey and all the other athletic tournaments that have been coming to Cottage Grove as we continue to grow, seeing those people eat in restaurants that are outside of our community, stay in facilities that are outside of our community, is pretty difficult. So it's encouraging to hear that this report indicates that there's tremendous opportunity and hopefully that will be the impetus for some of these folks putting shovels in the ground. The second question that I had was: as we think about our community in relation to the surrounding communities, are we looking at unique brands that maybe don't exist in the surrounding area? Maybe there's a 20-mile radius as an example where there isn't a—I'm just going to throw this name out because it just popped into my head—but say a Days Inn. If a Days Inn doesn't exist in the surrounding community and somebody's got Days Inn Reward Points, does that make a difference? Or are they less concerned about the flag and more concerned about just putting something up and having a good location? Fairfield, Hampton Inn, Holiday Inn Express—those kinds of things that you find in almost every community of our size? [30:45] **Gretchen Larson:** So are you referring to the hoteliers? [30:47] **Justin Olsen:** Yes. [30:48] **Gretchen Larson:** The hoteliers obviously want to have a successful product, so whatever is their most successful product is. In the community, it's the demand generator; that's the type of flag they want. They're obviously probably going to build the flag that they know will be the most successful in the community. As for the smaller, if you will, or more unique hoteliers, we have spoken to some of them at ICSC in the past. Now whether or not we're a right fit for their brand, since it's a smaller brand... I would think that—and the City Administrator probably could comment on this as well if she'd like—is you want a brand that's recognizable because people get rewards for whichever hotel brand they like the best. So the more known it is, probably the better fit it would be for a city of our size. [31:35] **Justin Olsen:** As a business traveler myself, I know that I'm very loyal to the places that have the rewards programs. I've got a bunch of cards in my wallet—Choice Hotels, Holiday Inn Express, Marriott, Hilton, whatever—and again, that speaks to the customer about the type of community you are. The flag that you fly matters. So I really like the idea of working with those large brands, and then to the redevelopment opportunities, particularly as you look at our gateway right off 80th Street, which is where we have most of our traffic. I think there's significant opportunity there to freshen things up a little bit. Hopefully, this will be part of that process. Thank you. [32:15] **Steve Dennis:** All right, thank you. Any other comments or questions before we wrap this up? All right, well thank you G, we appreciate that very much. And that will conclude 5.2. We'll move on to Item 5.3, which is the 2022 fourth quarter lodging tax revenue review, and Jaime will help us with that. [32:35] **Jaime Mann:** Thank you, Chairman Dennis. So before you is our full year review of lodging tax received along with other revenue, which includes Visitors Guide ad sales and a $10,000 grant that we received this year. Quarter 4 revenue includes only lodging tax; we were budgeted for $16,587. Our actual lodging tax collection was $17,908, so we are just over 8% over our projected revenue for Quarter 4. That brings our total revenue for 2022 to almost $91,000. So we are right on track with our projections—we're actually almost 20% over our projections for 2022. That's a great year for us, which tells us 2023 budgeted numbers should be right on track as well. With that, I would be happy to answer any questions. [33:25] **Steve Dennis:** All right, thank you Jaime. Any questions on this particular report? Okay, well excellent, thank you. It's good to see that we're up 18%; it'd be good for most businesses to hit that number, right? Item 5.4 will be the 2023 Events Plan and Jaime will just keep rolling with you. [33:45] **Jaime Mann:** Thank you, Chairman Dennis. All right, so when we looked at our 2023 events plan, we wanted to take into account staffing time as well as board time. You all volunteer to be a board member to work these events with us, so we wanted to be very conscious of everybody's time when we were making our plan for 2023 for the events that the Visitors Bureau would attend. Our first event coming up is going to be the Cottage Grove Area Chamber Community Showcase. We are partnering with the City of Cottage Grove to have a joint booth. It's a fantastic event to attend because it is all of our area businesses that are part of this event showcasing what they have to offer. Attendance I believe last year was about 750 people; we're hoping for the same or more people attending this year. It is a great event to start our year of events off with. Next in May, Memorial Day weekend, is the One Family Tournament. It is a huge sports tournament held at Kingston Park—very diverse crowd at this event. They host a ton of different sports activities, they have food trucks, and it draws in right around 2,000 people, maybe a little bit more. Discover Cottage Grove attended for the first time last year and they had a great turnout. We think it's another event that brings a lot of people into the community, but our community members are also welcome to attend the event as well. Following up to that, we have Cottage Grove Community Night at the St. Paul Saints game. Our first year of this was last year; it was a great turnout, it was a fun event, we had beautiful weather. We will be there again June 10th this year to talk about the community, talk about Strawberry Fest, and kind of bring people in. It's the weekend prior to Strawberry Festival—a great time to talk about our largest event of the year. Strawberry Festival follows the weekend after the Saints game; it is June 15th to the 17th this year. Attendance is huge—it's our largest event, 17 to 25,000 people. There's carnival rides, there's a huge parade—the biggest turnout I think I've ever seen at the Strawberry Fest parade this past year. So we are hoping that it continues into 2023. It's a great event for Discover Cottage Grove to have a presence at as well. We were a part of the marketplace last year, and marketing and communication specialist Julie Pryor Miller is part of their committee as well, so she helps in that planning. Following up to that, our Bike Park is celebrating their 10-year anniversary this year. It is a very unique local attraction that brings a lot of people into the city. They are having an anniversary party on August 19th; they're expecting anywhere from 750 to 1,500 people. Now we haven't attended this event obviously because it's their 10-year anniversary—it only happens one time—but we are choosing to be a part of it because it is going to be a big draw into the community this year. It's a different type of visitor than we see at normal events in our community, but it should be a great crowd, so we're looking forward to that one as well. And then into the holidays, our second annual Hometown Holiday Celebration. While we don't have a date yet, we think it's going to be in November. We had a great turnout this past year even though it was frigidly cold for the event. We are hoping for better weather and bigger crowds, but we had a lot of fun—we had Santa, we had reindeer, we had food trucks, and we had activities for kids. Discover Cottage Grove will be a part of that again this year. And then our final event of the year will be the Holiday Train. This is a huge draw again for the city of Cottage Grove—between five and eight thousand people in attendance. They had food trucks, they had activities, the train, the bands. It's a great event for Discover Cottage Grove to be a part of as well. So that was kind of a quick overview of the events that we have planned to attend this year and I would be happy to stand for any questions. [37:35] **Steve Dennis:** All right, thank you Jaime. Any questions or feedback on this plan for this year? All right, well it looks like it takes us pretty nicely through the calendar. I think there's a lot of good things for us to do and be involved with and should be very helpful in getting our message out, so thank you very much. Awesome. Well, that will move us on to Item Number 6, which is other business. 6.1 is comments. Do we have any comments from the table? Okay. I will make a quick note that on April 13th, we have our volunteer banquet and everyone here on the panel is invited to come and be part of that. That'll be down at River Oaks Golf Course and I'm sure that Chef Isaac will put together a wonderful meal here for everyone to enjoy. We also have the opportunity to nominate a Volunteer of the Year or Volunteer Group of the Year. This is something where folks who are interested, if you know somebody that has made a big difference here in the community, you can go to CottageGroveMN.gov/volunteer and you can make a nomination for someone to get that recognition. We should have some information on the city's website for that as well as social media. That'll be something that we'll all be pushing for and what I would always like to say, and I believe that Councilman Olsen will agree with me, is that we very much appreciate all the volunteers that we have across the wide spectrum of different volunteer opportunities—commissions, civic groups, charitable groups, etc. There's a lot of people that work together to make our home a much better place. So that's what I have for comments. 6.2 is response to previous comments. We have under 6.2 a historic Visitor Bureau P&L review; we're going to hold off on that report until the May 2023 meeting. We've got some additional data that we can pull into that. That'll take us to Number 7, which is a workshop. We do not have any today. And before we call for adjournment, I do want to mention that the next meeting of Discover Cottage Grove will be held on Tuesday, May 23rd, 2023 at 7:30 a.m. We're going to keep the date the same because everybody's got it on the calendar. And I've asked Vice Chair Olsen to run that meeting for us and put it in his capable hands. With that said, Number 8 is adjournment. Do I have a motion to adjourn? [40:15] **Justin Olsen:** Motion made. [40:16] **Steve Dennis:** Motion made by Vice Chair Olsen. Do we have a second? [40:18] **Director Hanson:** Second. [40:19] **Steve Dennis:** Second by Director Hanson. All in favor say aye. [40:21] **Group:** Aye. [40:22] **Steve Dennis:** Any opposed? Motion carries 6-0. Thank you all, have a wonderful day.