Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAbout2023-04-05 City Council (Regular Meeting) CITY OF COTTAGE GROVE Equal Opportunity Employer 2897 -458-Fax 651 2800 -458-651  gov.mnwww.cottagegrove Cottage Grove, Minnesota 55016 12800 Ravine Parkway  MINUTES COTTAGE GROVE CITY COUNCIL April 5, 2023 COUNCIL CHAMBER 12800 RAVINE PARKWAY SOUTH REGULAR MEETING - 7:00 P.M COUNCIL CHAMBER 1. CALL TO ORDER The City Council of the City of Cottage Grove, Washington County, Minnesota, held a regular meeting on April 5, 2023, at Cottage Grove City Hall, 12800 Ravine Parkway. Mayor Bailey called the meeting to order at 7:00 p.m. 2. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE The audience, staff, and City Council Members stood and recited the Pledge of Allegiance. 3. ROLL CALL City Clerk Tammy Anderson called the roll: Mayor Bailey - Here; Council Member Dennis - Here; Council Member Khambata - Here; Council Member Olsen - Here; Council Member Thiede - Here. Also present: Jennifer Levitt, City Administrator; Korine Land, City Attorney-LeVander, Gillen & Miller, PA; Tammy Anderson, City Clerk; Ryan Burfeind, Public Works Director; Gretchen Carlson, Director of Economic Development; Zac Dockter, Parks and Rec Director; Pete Koerner, Public Safety Director; Brenda Malinowski, Finance Director; Amanda Meyer, City Engineer; Emily Schmitz, Senior Planner/Interim Community Development Director. 4. OPEN FORUM Mayor Bailey opened the Open Forum, and asked speakers to limit their comments to three minutes. Bonnie Matter, 6649 Inskip Avenue South, Cottage Grove, stated she would greatly appreciate it when City staff makes a presentation in the future, that they state their name and the city and state that they are from. She has to do it, so she would appreciate it if staff could do it, not their address, just the city and state. City Council Meeting Minutes April 5, 2023 Page 2 As no one else wished to address the Council, Mayor Bailey closed the Open Forum. 5. ADOPTION OF AGENDA Mayor Bailey stated Council Member Dennis wanted to add something to the Consent Agenda, and Mayor Bailey would speak about a Closed Workshop this evening. Council Member Dennis requested to add Item S to tonight’s Consent Agenda, to ask our City staff to provide a detailed SWOT Analysis, related to the petition filed by Holcim on March 16, 2023, for annexation of 119.5 acres in Cottage Grove, in preparation for the April 19 public hearing. A SWOT (Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats) Analysis is an analytical tool to map positives and negatives that will lead up to best outcomes for planning purposes. It’s a tool used by many organizations, businesses, and government entities to help map out a picture that will lead to informed and positive decisions. He asked staff to intrinsically forecast any and all foreseeable current and future costs to our City so that we can understand the financial implications, should Council decide to accept the application for annexing any portion of Grey Cloud Island Township. Because it’s been intimated by the applicant that they may seek to apply to add up to 120 acres of land per year for annexation, he would seek an analysis to look at the long-term considerations relative to future operations and maintenance costs that the City would undertake. Essentially, what burdens will we face if Grey Cloud Island Township goes at this in a piecemeal process; or if at some point they come to us and say we’re going to seek that you take on the totality of our community, we would be in a position where we would have to make some decisions. If they were to lose a substantial amount of their taxbase and become insolvent, there could be a potential that we’d be tasked with annexing their entire community if they were to make that application with us. For consideration in this SWOT Analysis, he asked: What ballpark amount of tax capacity could we expect, and what would it cost us to fund core levels of government service for that community? Would these costs be equal to, higher, or lower with our current average tax per capita numbers for our residents? How might that impact us? What he’s really seeking here is an opportunity for us to have this be mapped out in such a way that gives us a really good opportunity to make an informed choice. He thinks that’s fair and without anybody tipping a hand, whether they’re pro or against; we just need the data and facts so we can analyze that for the present and future. This Council has always taken pride in making decisions to stand the test of time. He stated if this is approved to add this to tonight’s Consent Agenda, that means there would be no public testimony received at this meeting on that topic because the topic itself would be on the Consent Agenda. Mayor Bailey stated there will be an opportunity tonight, since we’ve not previously had any conversations about this particular subject, to have a Closed Workshop at the end of this meeting for attorney-client privileged communication, per Minnesota Statute 13D.05, Subd. 3(b) to discuss the annexation of the Holcim property and potential litigation. Mayor Bailey stated Item S will be added to the Consent Agenda at Council Member Dennis’ request with a motion and a second. As part of the approval process, he’s asking for Council to go into a Closed Workshop at the end of this Council Meeting. City Council Meeting Minutes April 5, 2023 Page 3 Council Member Olsen made a motion to add Item S to the Consent Agenda; second by Council Member Thiede. Motion carried: 5-0. Mayor Bailey confirmed with City Attorney Korine Land that we just adopted the agenda, so we don’t need to do that again, as we normally do. 6. PRESENTATIONS A. South Washington Watershed District Presentation Staff Recommendation: Receive presentation from South Washington Watershed District. Matt Moore, Administrator of the South Washington Watershed District, stated the Board asked him to give the City Council a brief update; he’ll speak about things they worked on last year, things they’re working on this year, and a few local interests for Cottage Grove. Manager Doucette and Manager Stephens are also here tonight, with Manager Stephens newly appointed; both are from Cottage Grove. Last year, we did an internal reorganization; John Loomis is our Deputy Administrator, and we hired Kyle Axtell to take over a lot of the project work. We have a good staff and many projects, four of them this summer. We’re now focusing primarily on water quality; two projects, in Woodbury and Newport, will take place this summer. We’re trying to leverage their dollars with city dollars; we’re doing contracts and agreements with cities to do Operation & Maintenance (O&M) of those facilities, which is working out very well. We also did a couple water quality projects in St. Paul Park last year. We’re also increasing support for deicing; as Public Works Director Ryan Burfeind knows, we’re working on getting a deicing control to the cities, primarily the electronics on the trucks, so are focusing on that. We’re also working on enhancing street sweeping and will be rolling that out this summer in Woodbury; hopefully, if it works pretty well, we can come to Cottage Grove and try to talk staff into doing it here as well. For a brief time, we were engaged with the Mississippi River, Representative McCollum is reintroducing a bill that will bring dollars to the Mississippi River; we’re hoping, if that legislation passes, we’ll be able to get some more dollars to do things around the river. We’ve also been involved in the EIS Analysis of the backwater mine; that project is baffling. We’ve also been very involved in the Lower St. Croix Watershed Plan, which is in the eastern portion of our district; that allows us to access State clean water dollars to do projects for the St. Croix River and Lake St. Croix. For 2023, we’re reengaging our Citizen Advisory Committee (CAC); so, if anybody is interested, give our office a call. We can always use another person and ideas; we’re looking ahead to the next plan update, which will start in 2024, so the CAC will be up to speed by then. We’ll continue our water quality work; this summer we’ll be constructing BMPs at 16th and Cedar in Newport. We’re looking for opportunities to utilize park land where we City Council Meeting Minutes April 5, 2023 Page 4 can, to put in more water quality treatment. We’re also planning on some work in St. Paul Park, and of course expanding the street sweeping; we hope to start expanding that program because it’s by far the best effort to clean up stormwater. We’re also planning to re-survey the Grey Cloud Channel this summer; that project was built down there a few years ago. Local interest to Cottage Grove is of course the coordinated Capital Improvement Program (CIP); there were two applications from Cottage Grove this year. We’ll also continue the work with the irrigation controller program and also the work at Hamlet Park. Also, at 65th and Geneva, on the border with Newport, the ravine going down the hill; we’ve been working with Washington County on that, so hopefully, something will come out of it sooner or later. Administrator Moore stated he’d be glad to answer any questions. Mayor Bailey stated regarding 65th and Geneva, many of our citizens travel that way, and we’ve heard a lot of comments about that particular stretch of roadway and some of the traffic challenges and the stormwater runoff. That one is important for this Council, as it definitely will affect the citizens of Cottage Grove. Administrator Moore agreed and stated Washington County has now put in their plan of when they’re going to construct it, using the sales tax that they were able to get passed. Council Member Olsen asked if there were going to be doing any raingarden programs this year; Administrator Moore replied we still have the program, but now we try to steer most of that work through us to the Conservation District, so they handle that program now. If anybody is interested, they can give our office a call, and we’ll get them set up. Mayor Bailey thanked Administrator Moore for his presentation, and stated we appreciate the partnership that they have with our community. B. Spring Flood Preparedness and Response Presentation Staff Recommendation: Receive presentation from Emergency Management Planning team and respond to questions. Mayor Bailey stated Gwen Martin, Deputy Director of Public Safety-Police Captain, and Director Burfeind will speak on this. Captain Martin stated our presentation will be brief. She pointed out a couple of areas that we focus on: The River Acres neighborhood sees a lot of ravine flooding in the Spring, and the two access points to Grey Cloud Island, which are the Grey Cloud Trail bridge and the Grey Cloud Island Drive causeway. Director Burfeind spoke about what river gauges we look at, because there’s not a river gauge in Cottage Grove, and also how the river reacts; it’s a little different in Cottage Grove than other cities, like St. Paul and Hastings, which are more on the river channel. We look at the Hastings gauge; from all the history we have, what’s happened in Hastings we can then extrapolate to what’s happened in Cottage Grove. What’s unique is its really more of a lake next to Cottage Grove because we’re north of the lock City Council Meeting Minutes April 5, 2023 Page 5 and dam; so, as those river flows increase and we start to see St. Paul going up and Harriet Island going underwater, you can go to Grey Cloud Island and nothing’s changing because they just continue to release from water through the dam. Until Hastings gets to that 13’-15’ range or above, that action stage is where we’ll see any movement in our river level. While other cities may be responding, if you go to our bridge, nothing has changed. Water has to reach a certain level and basically reach the capacity of the dam, and then you’ll see our river level start to go up. Because there’s so much flood storage, such a big area down there, it still goes slower than what Hastings does. So, it can be a little anticlimactic for us because there’s just not a lot happening; it just takes time for that to happen. Captain Martin displayed overhead photos taken by our drone this week of the Grey Cloud Island Drive Causeway and the Grey Cloud Trail bridge; the water levels were normal. Director Burfeind stated in terms of our actual Flood Outlook, the Mississippi River, downstream from St. Paul, has a definitely elevated chance for major flooding, as does Stillwater on the St. Croix River. There are three levels we use Action Stage, Moderate Flood Stage, and Major Flood Stage: Those correlate to specific descriptions the National Weather Service uses, and we also have those levels set in Cottage Grove. There are three main areas of concern in Cottage Grove: 1) The Grey Cloud Trail bridge; when the water gets to 691’, we have to close the bridge. 2) The River Acres neighborhood, as homes there can get flooded. 3) If the water goes over the Grey Cloud Island Drive Causeway, the second fill, that’s when the Grey Cloud Island access is severed. Right now, looking at the Flood Outlook, there’s definitely a chance that the Grey Cloud Trail bridge could close; there’s about a 60% chance of that. However, there’s a very low chance of water going over the Grey Cloud Island Drive Causeway; that’s really where Grey Cloud island is severed from access, which is a much bigger concern. Anything could happen, we could get a lot of rain upstream and we could have that major flooding. We’ll continue to monitor, as things can certainly change, but at this point, it’s more the Grey Cloud Trail bridge where there’s that potential concern of closing and then having to route all the traffic on the causeway. Captain Martin stated our Emergency Management Planning Team is always thinking about Spring flooding, as it affects Cottage Grove every year. We’ve been meeting biweekly since February 2 to make preparations for anything that might need to happen. If and when floodwaters approach dangerous levels, we’d meet more frequently, weekly, then up to daily. Accomplishments to date:  Our Communications Division created a Flood Preparedness and Response webpage with a lot of good information for residents.  Updated some Flood Risk maps from our GIS Department.  We’ve sent two letters to residents of Grey Cloud Island and River Acres Road.  We’ve also prepared for volunteer recruitment coordination management to start thinking about sandbagging; previously, All Saints Lutheran Church has been responsible for that, they stepped up and wanted to take that on. However, this year they said they just couldn’t do it for multiple reasons. There are many of them that would love to help, but they just can’t take on the management and coordination. So, we City Council Meeting Minutes April 5, 2023 Page 6 started planning for one of our departments to do that, to take that on, and we had plans all set up, ready for volunteers to come in and sandbag, do production, and we would deliver them down to River Acres Road; the residents could call, tell us what they needed, and we’d do what we could to facilitate volunteers to potentially help with whatever else the older folks needed.  At this point, our GIS Department put this map of a 692-foot line together, which is what we hit in 2019; right now, the residents have about a 25% chance of meeting or exceeding that level. We did not have a large ask for sandbag help, so we did not go forward with the volunteer days of making sandbags, but we’ve got that plan in our back pocket should things change. Director Burfeind mentioned the biggest effort for sandbagging in River Acres was one home that had a walkout-style basement; each year when the river came up much at all, they had to get about 3,000 sandbags for their home. In the past year, they have actually built a flood berm out of clay, with just one small opening out the walkout, so it’s very easy to just put a small number of sandbags and now they have that flood protection. So, that was a key change; we don’t really need to do the 3,000 sandbags anymore, now it’s only a couple hundred. That home is no longer in the same type of risk that it was in the past. He stated they’d be happy to answer any questions. Council Member Khambata asked if this property owner had consulted with the City on the development of that berm, or did the City request that they build the berm? What gave the owner of the property, which had previously been susceptible to flooding, the idea to do that now? Captain Martin replied when she went there and spoke with the current resident, Salvador, he said that the previous property owner had built that berm after being subjected to floods. Salvador has only lived there for a couple of years, so we’re not sure exactly what happened and how that berm was constructed. Mayor Bailey thanked both Captain Martin and Director Burfeind for the presentation and sharing that information with the public. Hopefully, we won’t have to worry about it this year. C. Autism Awareness and Acceptance Month Proclamation Staff Recommendation: Receive a brief presentation from Public Safety on autism training and two initiatives for autism awareness. Proclaim the month of April 2023 to be designated as Autism Awareness & Acceptance Month. Pete Koerner, Public Safety Director, stated he’s aware Council does many presentations throughout the year, but the City Council has been doing the Autism Awareness & Acceptance Month proclamation for quite a long time; he thought it started in approximately 2011. Cottage Grove Public Safety has been very active in continuing education awareness training for autism, and he’s really proud of our team as we’re ahead of the game. All of us are touched by autism through family members and City Council Meeting Minutes April 5, 2023 Page 7 friends, and acceptance is not just the Public Safety Department; it’s really Citywide. He thinks the proclamation speaks volumes as to how our City is operated. Our Public Safety Board is always looking for ways to raise money; so, they are selling Public Safety autism patches in the Police Department lobby, $10 each, and all proceeds go to the Public Safety Board for training of our officers. Sergeant Van Halanger of our Police Reserves designed a license plate for our squads; when this month is over, the license plates will be keepsakes for the officers, who will reimburse the cost. We’re one of the first Departments that has really taken this on, so it’s something for us to be proud of. He stated Council Member Olsen would now read the proclamation. Council Member Olsen thanked Director Koerner for his comments. He stated he and his wife, who are parents of a son with autism, are extremely grateful to the entire City, the Public Safety team, and the Public Safety Board for embracing autism awareness and acceptance. This training speaks to the leadership of the City and the Public Safety team, in terms of recognizing that there are more and more people diagnosed with autism every single day. We need to be aware of what their idiosyncrasies could be. The Public Safety Board also provides free window stickers for a residence to designate that somebody with autism lives there; if there’s an incident, whoever is responding will understand that there may be somebody there who may not respond to verbal commands or may be nonverbal themselves, etc. He complimented Sergeant Van Halanger for also doing such a great job on the license plate design. Council Member Olsen read aloud the Autism Awareness & Acceptance Month Proclamation. He stated it says 1 in 44 children has Autism Spectrum Disorder; in Minnesota, that’s 1 in 36. When his son was diagnosed 19 years ago, those numbers were 1 in 150. So, it just goes to show you that we’re getting much better at diagnosing and recognizing that this is a much more prevalent situation than it was even then. Council Member Olsen made a motion to proclaim the month of April 2023 as Autism Awareness & Acceptance Month in the City of Cottage Grove; second by Council Member Dennis. Motion carried: 5-0. 7. CONSENT AGENDA A. Approve the March 15, 2023 City Council Regular Meeting minutes. B. Approve the March 15, 2023 City Council Special Meeting minutes. C. Authorize issuance of a temporary intoxicating liquor license to the Cottage Grove Lions Club for Kingston Park on June 15-17, 2023, and Lamar Softball Complex on June 17, 2023, in conjunction with Strawberry Fest. D. Approve the issuance of rental licenses to the properties in the attached table. E. Appoint Derek Rasmussen to the Planning Commission for a 4th term ending on February 28, 2025. F. Appoint Jenny Olson to the Public Services Commission. City Council Meeting Minutes April 5, 2023 Page 8 G. Accept the Certified Local Government Scholarship Grant in the amount of $795.48 from the Minnesota Department of Administration State Historic Preservation Office. H. Authorize Public Safety staff to explore and apply for the U.S. Department of Justice COPS hiring grant. I. Authorize Public Safety to apply for a FEMA AFG FPS grant for $130,550.00 to create, design, and implement a home fire safety program for the Cottage Grove community. J. Authorize executing the Opiate Antagonist subgrant agreement between the City of Cottage Grove and the Metropolitan Emergency Services Board. K. Adopt Resolution 2023-048 Accepting Donations received in the 1st Quarter 2023. L. Adopt Resolution 2023-047 Authorizing the write offs of Cottage Grove EMS accounts receivable for 2022. M. Approve the sale of nine (9) 12-gauge shotguns to officers for the $300 appraised value per shotgun. N. Adopt Resolution 2023-043 awarding the quote for 65,250 pounds of Crack Sealant material to Brock White in the amount of $45,675.00. O. Adopt Resolution 2023-046 approving the plans and specifications and establishing an April 27, 2023 bid date for the 2023 Mill and Overlay Project. P. Authorize the use of four of the City’s SAC credits for Jersey Mike’s that will be located at 8800 East Point Douglas Road South, Suite 800. Q. Approve increased budget amount for the ball field groomer from $41,000 to $43,500. R. Adopt Resolution 2023-044 supporting housing and decision-making authority by local elected officials and City staff. S. Request staff to provide a detailed SWOT analysis related to the petition filed by Holcim on March 16, 2023 for annexation of 119.5 acres into Cottage Grove in preparation of the April 19 Public Hearing. Council Member Khambata pulled Item E, Appoint Derek Rasmussen to the Planning Commission for a 4th Term ending on February 28, 2025, Council Member Olsen pulled Item F, Public Services Commission Appointment, and Council Member Dennis pulled Item K, Accept Donations-1st Quarter 2023, for further comment and/or discussion. Council Member Dennis stated he pulled Item K, as it’s always his pleasure to share with the community that we have some very generous companies and individuals, who really make a great difference on behalf or our community, making Cottage Grove be a better home through their generosity. For the first Quarter 2023, January 1 to March 31, 2023, we received five donations, totaling $29,111.64, accepted by the City:  Cottage Grove Athletic Association, for soccer goal purchase and equipment boxes, valued at $12,611.64  NorthPoint, 4th of July Sponsorship, $5,000 City Council Meeting Minutes April 5, 2023 Page 9  Tennis Sanitation, 4th of July Sponsorship, $5,000  3M, Strawberry Fest Sponsorship, $1,500  Justin & Kim Olsen, for a Memorial Bench, in memory of Beverly Raun, $1,500 All of these were very amazing donations and are very much appreciated. No donation amount is ever too small or too large; these dollars make a great difference on behalf of the whole community. Council Member Olsen stated Item F is to encourage appointment for Jenny Olson to the Public Services Commission. He stated Jenny and her husband, Eric, are also members of the Cottage Grove Lions Club, are longtime residents of the City of Cottage Grove, and have raised two fantastic young people. Jenny is now at a place in her life where she would like to get a little bit more involved in City government. We had a terrific interview with Jenny, and we feel she would be a wonderful addition to the Public Services Commission. He asked for Council’s support. Council Member Khambata stated Item E is a Planning Commission Reappointment for Derek Rasmussen, for a fourth term. He’s been a great and active member of the Planning Commission; Council Member Khambata believes he brings value and would like to see him serve another term. Before the motion to approve, Mayor Bailey noted that Item S has been added to the Consent Agenda. Motion by Council Member Olsen to approve the Consent Agenda; second by Council Member Thiede. Motion carried: 5-0. 8. APPROVE DISBURSEMENTS A. Approve payments for the period of 3-17-2023 through 4-04-2023 in the amount of $1,574,893.58. Motion by Council Member Dennis to approve disbursements; second by Council Member Khambata. Motion carried: 5-0. 9. PUBLIC HEARINGS - None 10. BID AWARDS A. 2023 Pavement Management Project - Bid Award Staff Recommendation: Adopt Resolution 2023-045 awarding the bid for the 2023 Pavement Management Project to OMG Midwest, Inc. dba Minnesota Paving & Materials in the total amount of $2,939,954.36. Amanda Meyer, City Engineer, stated the 2023 Pavement Management area before City Council Meeting Minutes April 5, 2023 Page 10 Council includes portions of the Thompson Grove Estates neighborhood and also includes the frontage road on the south side of 80th Street, between Hemingway and Hyde Avenue. Six bids were received and opened on March 23, with the lowest bid from OMG Midwest, Inc. dba Minnesota Paving & Materials, at $2,939,954.36; she noted the Engineer’s Estimate was $3,100,000. These bids were very competitive, and we were happy to see them. We’ve previously done work with Minnesota Paving & Materials and have had a good experience with them. Council Member Khambata stated he’s seeing a pleasant trend where some of these bids are starting to come in below the Engineer’s Estimate; is that something she is also seeing, or is this an anomaly? Engineer Meyer replied historically we always have our team doing their best efforts to look at the market and do their best estimate on what we thinks the bids are going to be. This year our team has done a really great job of estimating what we think the market is going to look like with the bids, and we’ve been very happy to see those results. Motion by Council Member Khambata to Adopt Resolution 2023-045 awarding the bid for the 2023 Pavement Management Project to OMG Midwest, Inc. dba Minnesota Paving & Materials, in the total amount of $2,939,954.36; second by Council Member Olsen. Motion carried: 5-0. 11. REGULAR AGENDA A. East Point Douglas Road and Jamaica Avenue Reconstruction and Signal Modifications - Xcel Undergrounding Project Staff Recommendation: Approve the Xcel Energy undergrounding project for the overhead power within and adjacent to the East Point Douglas Road and Jamaica Avenue Reconstruction and Signal Modifications project corridor with funding through a City Requested Facilities Surcharge (CRFS) Rider, and no decrease in the franchise fee, to cover the cost. Engineer Meyer stated in September 2022 we had a workshop for this East Point Douglas Road and Jamaica Avenue project. During that workshop, we talked about undergrounding some of these Xcel power poles for various reasons. Excess expenditures were discussed at that time. Those are costs above and beyond relocating of private utilities (gas, cable, electric, fiber) due to conflicts with the proposed project; in this case, those costs to go underground would have to be paid by the City. Since that workshop, staff has received additional information from Xcel on the costs to relocate underground, which she shared with Council. She’ll also be looking for some direction on how to fund those excess expenditures. Engineer Meyer stated as our design team looks at the proposed improvements, they’re looking for conflicts with existing private utilities, identifying those, and the cost to relocate those are on that private utility company. Looking at the relocation from City Council Meeting Minutes April 5, 2023 Page 11 overhead to underground, those are excess expenditures that the City would be required to pay. During the bid award for this project, we included the Bid Alternate in front of Menards for the Mill & Overlay. The Xcel Undergrounding Scope coincides with the City’s project. The red lines on the map, outlined in yellow boxes, are the areas that Xcel is focusing on to relocate underground; there’s about 160 feet near the intersection of 90th Street and Jamaica Avenue, and there’s about 1,200 feet along the east side of Cottage Grove Plaza, Target, and Carlson Auto, and then about another 1,200 feet on the south side of Menards. She noted there are a few different reasons why we’d want to relocate underground; she displayed an image of the east side of Target with existing power poles between the curb and the trail, which are in conflict with the City’s proposed project. If those poles were to be relocated and stay above ground, they would need to be relocated where those trees exist today; those trees are private trees on private property. So, private trees would be removed, an additional temporary construction easement would be needed to complete the work, and a permanent drainage and utility easement would need to be acquired from the adjacent property owner for those poles to be relocated in that area. Along this approximately 1,200-foot stretch, there are at least 30 mature private trees that would be impacted if the poles were just relocated, and at least three property owners for an additional temporary construction easement, and a permanent drainage and utility easement would need to be acquired. So, this is a great example of a location where undergrounding is a good idea so we can relocate that within the existing narrow right-of-way and relocate that underneath, in this case, the trail. Excess Expenditures and Funding Options Xcel did a scoping estimate and completed their design of this proposed project, and provided the City with their Engineer’s Estimate of those Excess Expenditures, $471,368.57. There are three different options for how the City can pay for that: 1) City Requested Facility Surcharge (CRFS) Rider; this is the preferred method, which was discussed at the workshop. At that time, we estimated it would be about $1 per residential home per month for about 36 months. Since Xcel has completed their design and their Engineer’s Estimate, the dollar amount is actually .93 per home for 36 months, which would total $33.48. To a resident, right now they would see $1.65 franchise fee on their bill, and below that there would be a specific line item that would be titled CRFS Rider at .93. 2) CRFS Rider, but reducing the franchise fee. Instead of seeing $1.65 franchise fee, they would see .72 for the franchise fee and .93 for the CRFS Rider; the total would still be $1.65, and they would not really see a change in those fees on their bill. What that means for the City, though, is if we’re not collecting those franchise fees over a 36-month period, that’s impacting the City’s Roadway Maintenance Fund; that ultimately funds the spot curb replacements, spot sidewalk replacement that our Public Works team does throughout the year, but it also funds our Mill & Overlay program. So, if we’re not collecting those franchise fees, we’re not funding the Road Maintenance Fund; therefore, we’d be delaying our Mill & Overlay program. Based on what we’re estimating for this year’s Mill & Overlay project, it’s about 1.7 miles over a three-year period. So, we’re almost at 5 miles of roadway that we would have to delay in our Mill & City Council Meeting Minutes April 5, 2023 Page 12 Overlay program if we chose to reduce that franchise fee to cover these excess expenditures. 3) The City would prepay that dollar amount; the City would then bond for that dollar amount over a 15-year period, and the residents would see an impact of about $4 per home per year over that 15-year period, which totals about $60 per residential home. She mentioned this is also not currently in our Financial Management Plan to bond for that dollar amount; if it was bonded, it would be traditional debt service to the City, which could potentially impact future project funding. Engineer Meyer stated all that being said, staff is recommending moving forward with Option 1, the CRFS Rider, but not reducing the franchise fee. She displayed a flowchart provided by Xcel to use the CRFS Rider method; at this point, the City needs to determine how to fund those excess expenditures. Once that’s been determined, Xcel can move into construction; with the CRFS Rider, that actually would not be implemented until after construction had been completed. They would look at the actual dollars paid during construction, rework those surcharges to make sure there is no overpayment, etc. The City would receive a 60-day notice of that surcharge before a resident would see it on their energy bill; the residents would receive a notice about 30 days prior to the first surcharge payment being due. She pointed out the listed surcharges by customer class; five of them are at .93 per month over a 36-month period. The highest surcharge is at $3.72 for the larger commercial and industrial customers, as well as the large municipal pumping customers. Engineer Meyer stated staff is just looking for Council guidance on how to fund these excess expenditures, and staff is recommending using the CRFS Rider without reducing the franchise fee. She stated she’d be happy to take any questions, and there’s also a representative from Xcel Energy here to answer questions. Council Member Thiede asked Engineer Meyer to explain the cost to the residents for each one. Engineer Meyer stated if Council decided to move forward with the CRFS Rider and reduce the franchise fee, the residents would not see a change, so it would be a net zero impact to the Xcel customers. Mayor Bailey stated if we did that, however, then we would cease do Mill & Overlay projects for five years because the funding that we use from the franchise fee pays for the Mill & Overlays now; we made that change several years ago. Council Member Thiede asked what impact would that have, is it for 5 miles? What does the 5 miles refer to? Engineer Meyer stated that’s saying that the Mill & Overlay program would basically need to be delayed for about a 3-year period. Based on the amount of footage we’re able to include in this year’s Mill & Overlay program, we’re estimating about 5 miles of roadway would need to be delayed over that 3-year period because the franchise fees would not be collected. Council Member Thiede asked what kind of negative impacts would we feel on that; Engineer Meyer replied the longer you let roads go without doing any sort of pavement City Council Meeting Minutes April 5, 2023 Page 13 rehab, you’re looking at more of a reconstruction or pavement management projects with full pavement replacement, spot curb, etc. Council Member Thiede stated that’s a general response, but it could be there would be no issue if it’s delayed for that period of time. He asked how big of an issue is it. Mayor Bailey told Council Member Thiede that as part of our CIP conversation, we included pavement management and Mill & Overlays. So, staff’s comment is legitimate because what ends up happening is those roads don’t get Mill & Overlay, so they continue to deteriorate, which is going to be a bigger onus on the citizen. If we have to do a full reconstruction, he asked if the cost share is 60-40. Engineer Meyer stated she believed the residential properties are assessed at 45%. Mayor Bailey stated we’ve been seeing some of those numbers in the $6,000-$8,000 range for 15 years. Council Member Thiede stated we just haven’t really qualified it. We’re always sticking the homeowner with these costs, it’s only $33.48 for 36 months, but you get this and that and pretty soon it’s a lot more than just a mere .93 per home. Council Member Khambata stated the way he interpreted this is Option 2 eliminates that revenue stream from the utility franchise fee to Cottage Grove. So, we’re reducing our funding in our Mill & Overlay account; that’s where they came up with those 5 miles. He asked how many miles of Mill & Overlay do we do a year? Engineer Meyer replied for this year’s project we’re at about 1.7 miles. Council Member Khambata stated that sets back our Mill & Overlay program by a total of 3 years, which means that every street that is scheduled for the foreseeable future now has to last 3 years longer. It’s not just those 5 miles of road, that’s every road that was ever going to get Mill & Overlay for perpetuity now has to last 3 years longer. He asked if that was correct. Engineer Meyer replied we would just have to take a look at which roads were programmed for those 3 years to see if they are able to wait another year or 2 or 3, or if they would need to maybe have a thin overlay and be programmed for a pavement management project. Council Member Khambata stated it’s going to catch up to us at some point. Mayor Bailey stated staff probably won’t want to say that, but the answer is yes; because what’s going to end up happening is if we find that some of these roads are not where they need to be, we as a Council will have to decide to raise the levy to cover the cost of the money that’s going to be taken out of the CRFS Rider. Council Member Dennis stated we don’t do a project unless it’s necessary. We’ve got an investment here, we’ve got to protect it, we’ve talked about this many times over the years. If we don’t protect the investment that the community made in our streets, which are assets, we would be derelict of duty unless it was an emergency situation where we had to pull back hard on any spending. This is a circumstance that we have to do for maintenance to protect the integrity of our roads; that’s the bottom line. Council Member Olsen stated he was in the neighborhood that had the first Mill & Overlay, for which he’s very grateful; he’s lived in that home for over 20 years, and the Mill & Overlay was done 2 years ago, so the road was at 18 years. Typically, at about City Council Meeting Minutes April 5, 2023 Page 14 25 years, we have to start talking about some sort of maintenance on a roadway. If we’re lucky, it’s not full reconstruction but occasionally it is. With the abuse that our roads have taken this year with this winter, he guarantees there’s a lot more pavement damage that has occurred due to the weathering. Because his neighborhood had the Mill & Overlay at 18 years, that will give us another 15 years of life. So, his roadway won’t need to be dealt with until it’s 33 years old, so that’s 8 more years before he will be assessed for something. The assessment is the key; he asked Director Burfeind if he knew the average assessment for a full reconstruction on a roadway. Director Burfeind replied a full pavement replacement and spot curb is estimated at about $5,000; a full reconstruction would probably be about $6,000-$6,500. Council Member Olsen confirmed that that is an assessment that a resident would pay. So, by extending his roadway life from 25 years to 33 years, he saved $5,000 to $6,000 for that length of time. That’s a good deal, and he thinks every resident in the City should be subject to that deal and have the ability to make that deal. It sounds like the only way we’re going to be able to ensure that they can is by continuing to fund the Mill & Overlay projects, as those would then extend the useful life of the pavement. He asked if that’s correct. Director Burfeind replied when the Council authorized us to do the first Mill & Overlay program 2 years ago, it was a new thing we were doing. That is the main goal: We’re trying to get more years on the same roadway. The 25-year cycle, that run, is not sustainable, and we have to extend that beyond 30 years, so he’s correct on that, yes. Council Member Olsen stated it really gives us an opportunity to delay hurting the resident with an assessment that they would have to pay by providing them with essentially a service that costs about $11.50 a year; we can continue to fund that so that we can do the Mill & Overlay projects and buy some time for residents so they don’t have to end up paying an assessment sooner than they’d like. He stated if he looks at the balance of it, it’s a pretty obvious choice, and he’s fully in support of Option 1; he doesn’t see any reason why we wouldn’t do that. If you look at it short term, you might look at it one way, but if you look at it long term, it’s a much better deal for the resident vs. having to deal with an assessment after 25 years. Council Member Thiede stated this is all part of this project, and we’re bonding for that project, we’re getting some grants and bonding for that project, so asked why the $471,368.57 would not be part of those project costs. Director Burfeind stated Option 3 could be done, but that results in a higher cost per home over the time of that payment. With Option 1, you’re looking at $33.48 as a total cost for a homeowner. For Option 3, you’re looking at $60; now, it’s spread out over a longer time, but it’s nearly double the cost for the homeowner. Council Member Thiede stated even if that was within the overall bonding for the program because he was looking at that, thinking that was a separate bonding but it’s not; that would be if it’s part of the entire project bonding. Director Burfeind stated that’s correct. Whether it’s with the project or separate, it’s still a bond that’s paid for throughout the entire general levy tax base. City Council Meeting Minutes April 5, 2023 Page 15 Council Member Thiede stated we’re doing a bond anyway, so you’re saying it would be an additional $4 per home for that little piece, which is a small percentage of the larger piece. Director Burfeind stated that’s correct. Mayor Bailey shared his opinion, and Council Member Thiede knows he’s a person who prefers powerlines to be underground. With what just happened over this past weekend, the houses that were without power in Cottage Grove were due to the fact that trees fell on powerlines. His neighborhood never lost any power, but we have no above-ground powerlines in his area. There were some feeder lines that also were affected by this storm, which caused some of the powerlines to go down, once again because trees fell on powerlines. When Council first started talking about doing this project, we talked about putting it underground, and the reason we were doing it, other than the aesthetics, was because we’d have to take down all of those trees along that stretch. We’d have to purchase right-of-way, both permanent and temporary, and we already know what that’s costing us in the other area of this stretch; so, those would be added costs. If we were to try to recapture all of the property along there and then have to take down the trees, it would be significantly more expensive for all of us. He thinks it makes complete sense to do Option 1 vs. the other two; he certainly doesn’t want us to deal with a Mill & Overlay reduction for 5 years, he doesn’t think that makes sense. He thought we’d also incur some additional levy issues in the future if we were to go with the City Prepay option. Ms. Matter requested an opportunity to speak. Mayor Bailey stated no, she could not speak, as she had been sighing and making noises throughout this presentation. Ms. Matter stated she does not want this put on her electric bill. Motion by Council Member Olsen to Approve the Xcel Energy undergrounding project for the overhead power within and adjacent to the East Point Douglas Road and Jamaica Avenue Reconstruction and Signal Modifications project corridor with funding through a City Requested Facilities Surcharge (CRFS) Rider, and no decrease in the franchise fee, to cover the cost; second by Council Member Dennis. Motion carried: 4-1 (Nay vote by Council Member Thiede). As Ms. Matter continued to speak, Council Member Dennis asked Mayor Bailey to call Point of Order. Council Member Dennis stated we have a process in play here, we cannot have people in the audience acting out and doing things which disturb the peace of our meeting and create a situation. So, the option is we call for a five-minute recess, and our Chief of Police is in the room, and maybe he needs to be activated here to have a conversation with that individual. Mayor Bailey told Ms. Matter she just can’t make noises and such during the Council Meeting. She stated that she asked to speak. Mayor Bailey stated this is not the proper place to do it; she stated but it was, she put it on her list. Council Member Dennis asked Mayor Bailey if we could take a five-minute recess; Mayor Bailey agreed and temporarily closed the meeting. City Council Meeting Minutes April 5, 2023 Page 16 Mayor Bailey called the meeting back to order. B. Utilities and Engineering Division Building Staff Recommendation: 1) Receive information on the 30% design of the Utility & Engineering Building. 2) Authorize preparation of plans and specifications for the project. Director Burfeind stated we last spoke about this project at a workshop on January 25. At the end of that workshop, staff was directed to complete the preliminary design for this building, and bring it back to Council to review where we’re at, look at the costs, and make the decision whether or not to move forward into the final plans, specifications, and design completion. So, we’ve done that; tonight, our architect, John McNamara, of Wold Architects, will present the preliminary design and where we stand today. Director Burfeind first gave an update on costs and some additional funding opportunities; noted we’re still tracking well with the $14M budget that we first mentioned last July, at the first workshop where this project was discussed. Since January 25, we have been looking at other opportunities for funding: State General Fund Appropriation Request: This is a $3.5M request to the State of Minnesota in the form of a Bill, which was introduced last week and deferred to the Capitol Investment Committee. The basis behind that request is really the PFAS component of our operation. Once the permanent treatment plants are completed, we estimate about 25% of that division’s workflow is going to be for PFAS treatment plant operations and maintenance; so, 25% of $14M is $3.5M. As we all know, the 3M Settlement is fully paying for those treatment plants as well as the staff time to operate and maintain those treatment plants. But there is no funding for any kind of support structure, where staff will have offices, locker rooms, restrooms, and a garage for their vehicle. The settlement is supposed to pay for treatment, which is what it’s doing, but there are added costs to have new staff, as well as a location in which they can do their work. So, that’s the basis of the request to the State, and we’ll see how that moves forward in the coming weeks. South Washington Watershed District Grant: Mr. Moore mentioned earlier tonight that we had applied for some grants. This one is specific to the irrigation system, which we would have either way with a site like this, but we would design it to draw water from the stormwater ponds and not the City water. The SWWD is in favor of that, as it reduces phosphorus, sediment, and overall stormwater runoff. With that grant, they would then pay for 50% of the irrigation system and a portion of the stormwater ponds. We estimate that grant funding to be about $230K. There’s more magnitude in the State request, but this is still obviously a good amount of money that would then buy down from the total cost of $14M for our Utility Division building. Director Burfeind stated if Council votes to approve tonight to move into final design, we anticipate we would hear on both of those grant applications before we went to a bidding phase for this project; so, Council will have an understanding of where we stand for funding. He asked Mr. McNamara to speak about the preliminary design. Mr. McNamara stated since we last met, we spent quite a bit of time with staff talking about the development of the design solution that we have for you tonight. It’s City Council Meeting Minutes April 5, 2023 Page 17 reasonably in the same configuration as previously shown; we had some really good conversations operationally, related to how we want this building to not only fit on the site but how it can also be sort of a stepping stone for other potential development on that site. We spent a lot of time making sure the building was sited in the right location, the location of the front entry of the building, and some things in the building were positioned in such a way that any future expansion of this building would be easy to do. He specifically spoke about the diagram displayed: We reoriented the open office area a bit to take advantage of some daylighting into the building, off of the street side of the building; there would be five offices for the engineering team and the open office area for work stations. There’s a workroom, a small staff breakroom, and some locker rooms for the staff in the middle area there. Much of the building is vehicle storage for the utility staff and maintenance vehicles, but we have three large storage rooms, similar to what they have at the current Public Works facility, but with room for growth along the north side. There’s also a small cold storage area off the end of the building for just the regular storage of light poles, etc. The Water Treatment Facility will be to the south of this, and in between the two buildings will be the staff parking area. Mr. McNamara stated regarding design and development of building materials, we’ve been working collaboratively with Stantec on the design of the Water Treatment Facility, which looks to have quite a bit of precast on the building; so, the large area where vehicles will be parked and where some of storage areas are located will be a precast concrete material, with some windows that bring daylighting into that garage space. In the office area, we’re doing a red brick, similar to what we’ve done on other City facilities, so it will look very cohesive to other City municipal buildings. We’re looking to incorporate a small amount of limestone, similar to this building and at the Central Fire Station, where we have those public entry points. There’s a little bit of metal panel on the building to accent some of those entry points. The remainder of the building is fairly utilitarian with just those garage spaces. As we kind of looked at the design of the building, we started to look at the massing of the building. We determined that not only on this facility but also on the Water Treatment Facility is that a lower mass out in front where the public entry is and where the office spaces are were appropriate for that area, but we just simplified a precast box for where the storage areas are. He displayed an aerial view of the building, as well as a closeup view, as if you were in the parking lot, looking at the front entry. The large windows we have on the front simulate some of the other features that we’ve done here at City Hall, into the office areas where we have work stations. We kind of focused the daylighting into those areas. As you continue around the building, you can see the overhead door into the vehicle garage. Around the back of the building is where the cold storage area is. We collaborated with Stantec on an overall view of the whole site, to give context for the Council and others to see how this whole area will develop over time. The building on the south, along 110th Street and Ideal Avenue, is the proposed location for the Water Treatment Facility. Our access road off of Ideal will split off, to gain access to the front of that building and also to the front of our building. On the north side of the site, we have an area to serve as a parking area for the Public Works Utility Building; that would be where the entry would be to the future development to the north. We would expand the public parking lot in that location to provide additional parking for any future City Council Meeting Minutes April 5, 2023 Page 18 building on the site. There will be two stormwater ponds along Ideal Avenue that Director Burfeind had mentioned earlier; those will serve not only our facility but also the Water Treatment Facility. He displayed views from the street as you drive by, at the intersection and also along Ideal Avenue, to see how the two buildings kind of work collaboratively in that area. Budget: They’ve started their collaboration with Kraus-Anderson and are about halfway through the design process, a good time to engage them in some estimates. As a favor to us, Kraus-Anderson looked at the current design solution to see how we were aligning with what we had previously told Council. Right now, our construction costs are lining up with where we expected to be when we presented this earlier. We were projecting about $11.45M in construction costs, which includes the site work and the building. We had included some escalation numbers just because of the issues that we’ve had in the construction market over the last couple of years; we expect that we will see some reduction of that in the coming year. Until we get a detailed estimate from Kraus-Anderson, we are continuing to keep some of those escalation costs because our expected construction duration will be into 2024; about a year from now is when we would start construction on the facility. Our project costs are still in alignment with where they were previously, and we’ll continue to develop those over time. As Director Burfeind had mentioned, we are still tracking at $14M of total project cost. Should Council agree to continue on with the design of this project, we are completing the schematic design development process right now, expect to be finished with that in the next month. They’ll do some cost estimating at that point in time, but construction documents will take us about 3 months, which will put us into the end of summer; at that time, we’d be ready to come to Council for authorization for bidding of the project. Bidding will take a month, and the nice thing about his timeline is that we’ll have all of the winter of 2023 into 2024 for procurement of some of those longer lead time items, like precast and steel, so that we’ll be ready to break ground in Spring 2024. That will shorten our overall construction duration on site because all of those materials will be ready to be delivered to the site as soon as we can start putting in footings and foundations. We’re projecting about an eight-month construction project, which would put us complete with this project in Fall 2024. Mr. McNamara stated he’d answer any questions related to the building or the design. Council Member Thiede asked what’s the timing for the Water Treatment Facility. Director Burfeind replied we’re looking to start construction on that this year; that project would do all the mass site grading, which if this building moved ahead would be incorporated. The City would obviously have to pay for that, but you get that efficiency of scale. That would also bring all the utilities to the site because we need the water and the sewer for the Water Treatment Facility, either way. So, that would also happen this year. So, all of the site development and utilities would actually happen in 2023 with the Water Treatment Facility. The Water Treatment Facility is a much larger construction, it’s a very complicated building, and we’d look at finishing that in late Spring 2025. City Council Meeting Minutes April 5, 2023 Page 19 Council Member Thiede asked what about construction materials; he asked if there are similarities in terms of the materials used on both buildings. Director Burfeind replied those are procured by the contractor; the way we can start the treatment plant is a design bid build where we bid it out and get a general contractor who would procure those. Something like this office building is more of a construction manager model, so it would be two separate procurements for building materials. Each of those contractors has to procure their materials, for liability and warranty reasons, but really that efficiency is on all the site work. Council Member Thiede stated he was just thinking with any precast panels or similar items, if there was some collaboration there by using the same vendor, etc., that possibly there could be some elimination of some setup costs. Mayor Bailey asked if that was a possibility; Council Member Thiede stated he knows it’s two separate projects. Director Burfeind replied those general contractors really have to order those, so whoever that general contractor is has suppliers they generally work through; so, those would likely be two separate procurements. It would be nice to have that efficiency, but the City would have to insert itself into the project and actually order those materials; we’d take on a ton of liability if there were delays or defects with the material. Council Member Thiede stated it would seem there would be some program management that could tie those two together a little bit, there would be some significant benefits to get that collaboration but knows Director Burfeind can’t commit to it. Director Burfeind stated that’s something we can keep in mind. Mayor Bailey asked Ms. Matter if she wished to speak on this particular item, but she did not. Motion by Council Member Olsen to authorize preparation of plans and specifications for the Utility & Engineering Division building project; second by Council Member Thiede. Council Member Dennis stated he will not be able to support this. Going back to the very first time this came forward, he’s been 100% consistent with his feelings on it; it’s not that it’s not a nice plan, it’s not that it’s not a good-looking building, or that there would be some benefits of getting space management and things like that for efficiencies. There are a couple concerns that he has; generally speaking, over the years when he’s voted against something, he always dignified the community by letting people know why he won’t vote for it. First and foremost, he recalls part of the funding mechanism for this facility is that we’re going to have to provide some increase in water rates. Second, he’s had concerns based on how this is funded; the Water Treatment Facility part of it is covered through the 3M Settlement Fund, but the Utilities Building he believes is not, so that’s something for which we’re going to have to take on additional debt. At this point in time, his financial outlook and philosophies don’t lead him to the conclusion that this is the right time to take on another building and all of the cost factors that go along with that, as we have yet to pay off some of the other debt that we have. So, he’s not at all criticizing the work, he doesn’t feel badly that there are those who feel that this is something that would make a difference, but for him, he’s been very City Council Meeting Minutes April 5, 2023 Page 20 direct, and far more verbose in our workshops; this just is not something that he could support at this time. If we were down the line a little bit, regardless of our bond rating or anything else, if we had a little bit freer debt load, he’d be more open to that. He just wanted to go on the record so when he says no, people will understand why. Council Member Khambata stated it was his understanding from our meeting in January that we were taking this in measured steps. So, approving this gets us to the next milestone, but this is not a full approval to break ground. He asked if that was correct. Director Burfeind replied following our policies, we would bring back the Final Plan and Specifications, and we would ask Council to set a bid date to move ahead into the bidding process. So, you would see this again before breaking ground; that is a requirement of a project of this size. Mayor Bailey stated this past week he had the opportunity to testify at the Capitol on a couple things that we’ve been trying to move forward, to get some Capitol support from Bonding Bills. One of them, which we haven’t started testifying on yet but he hears is coming, is about this particular building. The total cost of the project could decrease to some extent because we’re looking at getting some State dollars to help fund that building. When we were at the Capitol, listening to what some of these cities were planning to do (Public Works buildings, utility buildings, Community Centers, etc.), there was one question being asked of these particular communities, by the leader of the Investment Committee: What are your water and sewer rates? Obviously, this is in the public record; the level of sewer and water rates, from other cities requesting bonding dollars, is double, triple, or quadruple the amount that the citizens of Cottage Grove are paying. The point of the matter is we’re still one of the cheapest places if you’re going to purchase water through our water treatment system, we are by far a city with some of the lowest water and sewer rates. He just likes to look at how we compare with other communities when we look at the grand scale; he stated how we’re looking to fund this should it get to that final step, along with hopefully some money from the State, it makes sense to him from a process where it’s something that we definitely need for the future. Motion carried: 4-1 (Nay vote by Council Member Dennis). 12. COUNCIL COMMENTS AND REQUESTS Council Member Khambata asked if staff could put together just a broader analysis of some of the challenges we’ve faced with the weather we’ve had this year. As we look forward to our 2040 Comprehensive Plan, he knows that we always talk about resiliency, and if this is something that we’re going to be experiencing more often, do our Public Works budgets need to reflect that for plowing; snow staging was also a factor this year. He would just be curious how ours and other communities have reacted to a well above average snowfall year, and if we’re taking appropriate steps to make sure that we’re maximizing our resources and efficiency. Mayor Bailey stated he thought it’s a great callout in the sense that since he did his State of the City Address, at that time we were within two of last year’s total for plowing. We’ve had multiple snowstorms since then, and we truly appreciate all of the workers at City Council Meeting Minutes April 5, 2023 Page 21 Public Works for the work that they did on this last storm, as it was very difficult. He thought that would be a good point as we talk about budgets for 2024-2025. Council Member Khambata commended Public Works, as he knew there were a lot of downed trees and powerlines, and those trees seemed to disappear pretty rapidly; so, he knew those crews had been working hard to get everything back up and running. Council Member Dennis stated he thought we needed to pass a resolution with Mother Nature to say there won’t be any more snow this year; that would be it. Mayor Bailey stated he saw some snow flying outside a little bit ago. Council Member Olsen stated we don’t want her to get mad at us. Council Member Dennis stated how much worse can it get; we’re number 3 on the all-time list. He thinks all of us probably feel the same way, and we’re very appreciative of the work from our teams, not just Public Works, but also Public Safety, as when people called, an ambulance and a police officer showed up. It was a great effort all the way around; he called Administrator Levitt on Saturday, and she was down at the Public Works building answering phones to help people and get information out. So, it’s pretty cool to see, and he appreciated the good spirit and nature of most of the community; they understand we have 36 square miles, it’s a very large area that we have to take care of, and people have been working very hard to do that. He's very appreciative of all of the work, all the way around. Council Member Thiede stated in that same vein, everyone has done an excellent job. He was thinking the next technology invention we should come up with would be to positively or negatively charge these snowflakes, on the grass areas, but not on the roads. So, when the snow falls, it just gets attracted to the grass and we won’t have any snow on the roads. He thought if he could invent that, he’d probably become a millionaire. Council Member Khambata stated he thought we just needed to have heated streets, like Bemidji. Mayor Bailey stated, now there’s a cost! Council Member Olsen reiterated what others have already said; Public Works, Public Safety, and the City staff really showed their true colors on Saturday. He had an opportunity to stop at Public Works where he saw Public Safety, Parks, and Public Works personnel, and Administrator Levitt; there were a lot of extra people who were activated to try and ensure that the residents of this community got the highest possible level of service in a really challenging circumstance. We had several trucks that struggled with the weight of the snow, and that resulted in some maintenance issues; the shop was taking them in, fixing them, and sending them right back out if they could. He believed the crews came in at 2:00 a.m. and stayed until about 4:00 p.m. the next afternoon, went home and took a nap, and then they did it again on Sunday. All he heard down there was phone call after phone call after phone call; Administrator Levitt took a lot of those questions about powerlines in roads. Director Burfeind and his staff had a huge map out where they were identifying all the various work order locations, trying to make sure that roads were getting plowed, but getting done in a safe manner. The plowing was really slow because they had to stop for tree branches and powerlines, but Administrator Levitt and the rest of the team taking those calls continued to reassure everybody. They did a great video for Facebook, explaining where we’re at, what we’re City Council Meeting Minutes April 5, 2023 Page 22 doing, and this is what we’re going to be doing. In a very challenging situation, this team stepped up in a major way, which is what they always do. He wanted to personally thank them for that. The spirit of the staff, even though they were dog tired, was really good; in fact, they have some kind of a prediction thing going on with how much more snow and how much less. Whoever is on the up side of that, you should probably send them on vacation because we don’t want them to win. Council Member Olsen wished all of our friends celebrating Passover this evening a very Happy Passover. Best wishes from all of us to your family for a blessed year ahead; it’s a very important day in the Jewish faith, so he hope everybody’s having a great Seder. Council Member Olsen took a moment to recognize one of our firefighters, 27 years on the job, District Chief Jeff Brown, who worked his last shift on March 31. Interestingly enough, part of his duties that day were going to the visitation for Gerry Gerlach, who recently passed away; all of us in town know the Gerlach family. Almost six generations of Gerlachs served on the Fire Department, one of whom actually passed away at the Fire Department from a cardiac arrest after he fought a fire. It was a really nice turnout for Gerry’s visitation and funeral at St. Rita’s. He can’t thank Jeff enough for 27 years with the City; he’s been an amazing asset to this community. He’s done everything: As a District Chief, he was responsible for formulating and coordinating all of the Annual Training Plans. He’s been a mentor to so many firefighters who work for the City of Cottage Grove and now many other agencies. He’s always been a very reasonable, rational guy. He thinks the thing he appreciates most about Jeff is the can-do attitude. Jeff was never that guy who was going to say that’s a really bad idea, no, we can’t make that happen; he was one of those people who, when conversing about making changes, said yeah, we should try that, let’s figure out how to do that. Those kind of people are awesome teammates, they’re great to work with. He never fell into the not my fault, lack of accountability kind of mindset that we sometimes see in the workplace. He was just a very positive influence. He’ll say he will be missed, but he won’t be because he’s sure he’ll be hanging around since he’s retired now and doesn’t have anything else to do; so, he congratulated Jeff. Council Member Olsen thanked Director Malinowski, as she got an email from him a couple weeks back about some data that he was looking at on the League of Minnesota Cities website. He likes to play with financial data because he’s very proud of the way that our City manages its finances. He took a spreadsheet that they had put out and mapped out where is the City of Cottage Grove in relation to peer communities over 40,000 population. We always compare ourselves to other cities in the County, but he wanted to do a bigger look to see if we’re really as good as we think we are. He really wanted to know when we talk about the value to the taxpayer in the City of Cottage Grove, we do that with regard to our peer communities in Washington County, so does that same message resonate across the metro. The fact of the matter is it does. He asked Director Malinowski to speak a little bit about what they looked at together. City Council Meeting Minutes April 5, 2023 Page 23 Director Malinowski stated here in Cottage Grove we talk about our four sample properties, but we also talk about that median-value home. So, we look at that compared to other communities in Washington County, but she took a deeper dive and looked at median-value homes with populations over 40,000 in the metro area; we can’t just look at our tax rate or the value of the homes, we have to look at what that taxpayer is paying. So, Cottage Grove’s median-value home in property taxes for 2023 will be paying $1,082, and that is the third lowest in the communities that we looked at. We know in Washington County we’re the second lowest, so we still compared very well; for example, Edina is at the top at $1,964, but we’re lower than Plymouth, Apple Valley, Woodbury, and Lakeville, which are right around $1,200 to $1,275. It was a good exercise, and we compared very well. Council Member Olsen said one of these communities that we compared ourselves to was Shakopee, over 40,000, and they get a whole bunch of fiscal disparity money each year. So, that actually put them at the bottom of the list; he asked how does that work for them, how do they get that? Director Malinowski stated she’d have to dive into that a little bit deeper because she can’t explain that tonight, but when we’ve looked at the tax rate, it’s very low, and it is because of the fiscal disparities. She didn’t know if it was because of a certain business that they had in town or what those factors were, but we would have to look at what they’re makeup is compared to ours. Council Member Olsen stated Shakopee has the horse-racing facility, they have Valleyfair, they have a big Amazon warehouse, etc., so he found that really interesting because their rate is super low, but they get a whole bunch of fiscal disparity money that we don’t get. So, he’d like for us to be able to figure that out. He thanked Director Malinowski for sharing that information. It was nice to see that when we compare Cottage Grove against those other communities with over 40,000 population, we still provide tremendous value to our taxpayers. Council Member Olsen stated we talk about diligence all the time with regard to responsible budgeting, making sure that we’re trying to look ahead; as Council Member Dennis said earlier, we make decisions that will stand the test of time. We’ve recently had some reinforcement that we might be doing okay; Mayor Bailey will speak on that. Mayor Bailey stated regarding the Public Works comments, kudos to Director Burfeind and the Public Works staff, Administrator Levitt, everybody who was really helping out. Council really has to be careful with what we see on social media, because we generally see the worst of people there. Talking to our Xcel Energy rep, who was here earlier and was going out to homes to check on people who Mayor Bailey had talked to, they were much nicer in person than on social media. He wanted to make sure the public understands, especially with this storm, there were a couple of interesting things on social media, like why isn’t my street plowed, and phone calls that we were getting; part of the reason was some trucks went down, needed fixing, and we had to get them back out. Because we had a lot of powerlines down and tree damage, with trees on the roads, we had to pull a couple of our plow drivers off plow routes to go clear roads for safety. So, there were multiple pieces that really drove that cleanup. Other than City Council Meeting Minutes April 5, 2023 Page 24 spending all those hours in the truck, they were also clearing trees out of the roads and dealing with downed powerlines, to make sure the roads became passable quickly and efficiently. Others commented that the snowplow drivers were going really fast through the neighborhoods; with the weight of the snow, that was a big issue in trying to clear that snow. Personally speaking, his street was not plowed until late morning or early afternoon; he happened to be out there, snow blowing his driveway, and the plow driver came by. He’s never seen a bigger pile of snow than what was put in his front yard. He didn’t know if that was done intentionally for him, but what also happened is because it rolls and because it was so dense, on the end of his driveway he had to get his snowblower up over the big bumps that were left. Everybody was having those challenges and were upset about that, but the fact remains it was a particularly heavy snow, which took down trees, with rain before that. He asked Director Burfeind to pass our appreciation along to all who worked during that storm. On social media, they might see pieces of that and don’t feel appreciated, but the majority do appreciate their work. Mayor Bailey stated that we’re very excited to announce that the City of Cottage Grove recently had our bond rating upgraded to AAA. Other than that making money cheaper to borrow, what’s amazing to him is when he was on the Council, before he became mayor, we had always aspired to get to AAA. The word was it was going to be a long time for that to happen. He’s been the mayor for 16 years, and we have seen that rating go from AA to AA+ and now to AAA; frankly, not that many years ago, we had talked with Ehlers about this, who said there were still a couple things we had to do. He truly believes that when we just went through this lengthy budget cycle, planning for five-to- ten years down the road, he thought it really showed them that we have the capacity and the ability and that we are very good stewards of the money. He gave kudos to all of our staff, this Council, and previous Councils, because it’s going to make a huge difference to us in the future when we borrow money because our credit and how we manage our finances is extremely good. A City of our size, ironically, normally doesn’t get a AAA rating; we were told we really had to have a population of 50,000-60,000 people before we’d qualify with a large enough tax base. So, the fact that we already achieved the AAA status is really outstanding; he gave kudos to Director Malinowski and her staff. Mayor Bailey stated he was also pleased to announce that once again he’s had the opportunity to raise $25,000 total for the 4th of July fireworks. It just goes to show how great our business community is; most recently, he got confirmation from Hy-Vee that they will graciously donate $5,000 to the 4th of July fireworks, along with Tennis Sanitation, NorthPoint, 3M, and Renewal by Andersen. He personally thanked them, and asked if you see any of their staff out in the community, please thank them; make sure that they know that we do appreciate them supporting our community by creating that great event. Mayor Bailey also thanked the Lions, who will be putting all the other pieces together with that, which will make it truly a family event on the 4th of July. 13. WORKSHOPS - OPEN TO PUBLIC - None. City Council Meeting Minutes April 5, 2023 Page 25 14. WORKSHOPS – CLOSED TO PUBLIC Motion to close the meeting pursuant to Minnesota Statute 13D.05, Subd. 3(b) for attorney-client privileged communication to discuss annexation of the Holcim property and potential litigation. 15. ADJOURNMENT Motion by Council Member Olsen, second by Council Member Khambata, to adjourn the meeting at 10:09 p.m. Motion carried: 5-0. Minutes prepared by Judy Graf and reviewed by Tamara Anderson, City Clerk.