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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2024-06-26 City Council Meeting Minutes COTTAGE GROVE CITY COUNCIL June 26, 2024 12800 RAVINE PARKWAY SOUTH COTTAGE GROVE, MN 55016 COUNCIL CHAMBER - 7:00 P.M 1. CALL TO ORDER The City Council of the City of Cottage Grove, Washington County, Minnesota, held a regular meeting on June 26, 2024, 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 Garza- Here; Council Member Khambata-Here; Council Member Olsen-Here; Council Member Thiede-Here. Also present: Jennifer Levitt, City Administrator; Tammy Anderson, City Clerk; Ryan Burfeind, Public Works Director; Zac Dockter, Parks and Recreation Director; Joe Fischbach, HR Manager; Conner Jakes, Associate Planner; Pete Koerner, Public Safety Director; Korine Land, City Attorney-LeVander, Gillen & Miller, PA; Gretchen Larson, Economic Development Director; Brenda Malinowski, Finance Director; Amanda Meyer, City Engineer; Mike Mrosla, Senior Planner; Emily Schmitz, Community Development Director. 4. OPEN FORUM Mayor Bailey opened the Open Forum. As no one wished to address the Council, Mayor Bailey closed the Open Forum. 5. ADOPTION OF AGENDA Motion by Council Member Olsen to approve the agenda; second by Council Member Thiede. Motion carried: 5-0. 6. PRESENTATIONS Eagle Scout Award - Christian Meyer Staff Recommendation: Recognize Christian Meyer’s accomplishment of Eagle Scout and award him with a plaque. Mayor Bailey asked the Council Members to join him in front of the dais and Chris Meyer for the presentation. Mayor Bailey stated I was talking to Chris earlier this evening, and his parents are in the audience. This is always a very special time for all of us in Cottage Grove, whether it’s the Girl Scout Gold or the Eagle Scout award for boys, we take pride in the citizens of Cottage Grove achieving this important rank. The City of Cottage Grove, like we’re doing this evening for Chris, recognizes you for your amazing achievement in receiving the rank of Eagle Scout. Other than presenting you with this plaque this evening, if you walk down the hall next to the Council Chambers, on the wall you’ll see all of the previous Eagle Scout and Gold Girl Scout Award winners’ names and the year that they achieved that award. So, the names date back many decades, so you will be part of the history here in Cottage Grove. Mayor Bailey stated after he gives Christian his plaque, he’ll ask him to tell the public what he did to achieve his Eagle Scout rank. Mayor Bailey read aloud the plaque presented to Christian, and congratulated Christian on behalf of himself, the Council Members, and the citizens of Cottage Grove. Everyone applauded. Christian stated for my project, I built three of the rocket-style bat houses, which may not seem very impressive at first, but each bat house stands at over three feet tall and can each house up to 400 bats alone. So, me and everyone else that participated with me had put in a total of over 200 hours into the project. So, I built these down at the Carpenter Nature Center, and the way they’re installed into the ground is you dig a three-foot hole, you mount it to a 20-foot steel post, hoist the pole into the hole, and then you pour in concrete and just let it sit. So, all three of the bat houses are still standing, and I’ve been monitoring them and will continue to do so for any signs of bats. Mayor Bailey confirmed with Chris if anybody wants to see his work, they can go to the Carpenter Nature Center to see those. Christian stated that’s the hope with the bat houses, that they can help to reestablish the bat population. Photographs were taken of Christian with Mayor Bailey, the City Council Members, and Christian’s parents, after which everyone applauded. Christian shook hands with Mayor Bailey and the City Council Members, who each congratulated him. B. Fourth of July Fireworks Donation Presentation Staff Recommendation: Accept Fourth of July Fireworks Donations. Mayor Bailey stated he’ll ask Council Member Olsen to introduce a guest who’s here in the audience. Council Member Olsen stated as everybody in the community knows, the Cottage Grove Lions Club is proud to hold the Fourth of July event each year at Kingston Park. The purpose of this presentation tonight is to really give thanks to our sponsors. I’d like to ask our past president, John Langdon, if he would step up to the podium, as he’s here tonight representing the Cottage Grove Lions. Maybe John could tell us a little bit about the event, when it starts, what we’ll have going on, etc. Since we had rain for Strawberry Fest, the weather should be perfect for the Fourth. John stated yes, the event of course is on the Fourth; we start grilling at 5:00 p.m. and we continue until about 10:00-10:30 p.m., until the time the fireworks are done. We’ll be cooking hot dogs, hamburgers, cheeseburgers. I believe we’re going to probably buy some more bikes this year and have a raffle to give those away, along with Glow Sticks as well. I know there will be a vendor, Mik Mart, there, selling ice cream, another doing roasted corn and cheese curds. We’re looking forward to a great event, and I’m hopeful the weather will hold out for us. Council Member Olsen stated it seems like every year we draw just a ton of people, and you mentioned that we do the raffle there, which is something that I think people appreciate. That doesn’t cost anything, it’s for the youth who come to the event, and that’s on the Lions Club’s dime; it’s just a way of sort of giving back to the community. So, when you come, make sure you get your raffle tickets. Typically, we have Cottage Grove Fire, some of the police officers, maybe some apparatus will be there as well. It’s a good event, and John is the grill master, I have to give credit where credit is due. John stated you did a great job yourself, though. Council Member Olsen stated I appreciate it, I’m a rookie, but I’m learning from the best. We just want everybody to come out and have a really nice time. John stated absolutely. Council Member Thiede confirmed it was Thursday night; Council Member Olsen stated yes, it is on Thursday, the Fourth of July. Council Member Olsen stated we have some really awesome vendors who come to participate, and none of this happens without the donations of some of our friends in the business community, so Mayor Bailey will take a minute to recognize them. Mayor Bailey stated so for those of you watching at home, they can see it on the screen; frankly, we love the Lions, they’ve been fantastic, whether it’s Strawberry Fest or other events, including being the ones that kind of sets up the Fourth of July, the family picnic, and the family fun. We couldn’t do the fireworks without the sponsors: 3M, Hy-Vee, NorthPoint Development, Renewal by Andersen, and Tennis Sanitation; all of them donated $5,000 towards the fireworks, which gives a grand total of $25,000 worth of fireworks. The Lions also provided the fireworks for Strawberry Fest, which were nice; Council Member Thiede stated I negotiate quite a deal with them. Mayor Bailey stated if you haven’t been to the Fourth of July for the last several years, these same businesses have been supporting the fireworks here in Cottage Grove for quite a few years now. It is one heck of a show and it is constant. So, if you really want to see an amazing display, come on down to Kingston Park, have some food and some fun with the Lions. If you see employees of these businesses, please thank them; again, these businesses didn’t have to do this, they’re doing this because they’re part of our community and they want to give back to our community. So, on behalf of myself and the rest of the Council and our staff, thanks once again to 3M, Hy-Vee, NorthPoint Development, Renewal by Andersen, and Tennis Sanitation. Council Member Olsen thanked John for being here tonight to tell us a little bit about the event, we’re looking forward to a really great night. 7. CONSENT AGENDA A. Approve the May 29, 2024, City Council Special Meeting Joint Workshop Minutes. B. Approve the June 5, 2024, City Council Special Meeting Minutes. C. Accept and place on file the minutes from the April 9, 2024, meeting of the Advisory Committee on Historic Preservation (ACHP). D. Approve Resolution 2024-099 and the appointment of the election judges listed in Exhibit A for the Statewide Primary Election on August 13, 2024, and authorize the City Clerk to appoint additional election judges, as needed, to fill vacancies. E. Approve the issuance of rental licenses to the properties listed in the attached table. F. Receive the 2023 Cottage Grove Convention and Visitors Bureau Annual Report. G. Authorize the Public Safety Department, Police Division, to apply for the MNOSHA Safety, Advisory Council on Traffic Safety (ACTS) Safety Project, Department of Justice Body-Worn Camera, and the Minnesota Department of Public Safety-Office of Traffic Safety, grants. H. Authorize Resolution 2024-092 approving final payment to Renovation Systems in the amount of $3,631.53 for the Glacial Valley Park Building Project. I. Adopt Resolution 2024-093 approving referendum questions on the November 5, 2024 ballot to impose a Local Option Sales Tax for the betterment of Hamlet Park, Mississippi Dunes Park, and River Oaks Golf Course and Event Center. J. Adopt Resolution 2024-089 authorizing the submission of the claim form for the DuPont AFFF Class Action Settlement and authorizing the City Administrator or her designee to sign all documents necessary to complete the claim form process. K. Adopt Resolution 2024-098 awarding the 2024 Goodview Avenue Water Service Installation Project to Capra’s Utilities Inc. in the amount of $123,025.00, and approve the contract with Capra’s Utilities Inc. L. Approve Change Order #1 in the amount of $450,285.33 for the Low Zone Water Treatment Plant project, increasing the contract amount from $38,182,800 to $38,633,085.33. M. 1) Adopt Resolution 2024-097 approving the Metropolitan Council Clean Water Fund Grant Agreement No. SG-21410, and authorizing Public Works Director to sign all documents necessary to effectuate the Grant. 2) Authorize the expenditure of $11,750 from the Water Utility Fund to match the MCES grant. N. Approve the Professional Services Agreement with Stantec Consulting Services for a Market Analysis and Small Area Plan. O. 1) Adopt Resolution 2024-094 approving the Final Plat for Hawthorne Pines Third Addition. 2) Approve the Hawthorne Pines Third Addition Development Agreement with Pulte Homes of Minnesota with minor modifications as approved by the City Attorney. 3) Adopt Resolution 2024- 095 approving the Hawthorne Pines Third Addition Development Plans dated April 30, 2024, prepared by Alliant Engineering and as approved with minor modifications by the City Engineer. P. Approve Resolution 2024-100 accepting donations received for the Fourth of July Fireworks. None of the Council Members wished to pull any Items on the Consent Agenda for further discussion and/or approval. Motion by Council Member Khambata to approve the Consent Agenda; second by Council Member Garza. Motion carried: 5-0. 8. APPROVE DISBURSEMENTS Approve disbursements for the period of 5-30-2024 through 6-19-2024 in the amount of $6,786,241.02. Motion by Council Member Olsen to approve disbursements; second by Council Member Khambata. Motion carried: 5-0. 9. PUBLIC HEARINGS - None. 10. BID AWARDS TH 61 River Oaks RCUT Project - Bid Award Staff Recommendation: Adopt Resolution 2024-096 awarding the TH 61 River Oaks RCUT Project to Pember Companies, Inc., in the amount of $1,203,803.45. Ryan Burfeind, Public Works Director, stated bids were received for this project; this project is kind of a unique, different project that we haven’t done in our community before. This is a Reduced Conflict U-Turn (RCUT) intersection down at the River Oaks entrance, which kind of also shares that southerly entrance for Zywiec’s. Really, this is a safety enhancement. It’s really meant to improve that access from the safety perspective. There’s a median that you can cross through right now, which allows for right-angle accidents, which are by far the most severe at those high speeds. It removes that and it constructs two U-Turns in pretty close proximity to the existing driveway. Sometimes on Highway 52 you’ll see them almost a half mile away; these are pretty close, so it’s still very convenient. Cars still need to wait for a gap, so it’s not necessarily allowing cars to get out faster, but it really eliminates that severe right-angle accident, and almost kind of prevents people from making bad decisions. You see a lot right now where people are double stacked in the median, and now one car can’t see; so, it eliminates all those issues and MnDOT has a good history with these with about an 80%-90% reduction in serious injury and fatality crashes after they’re implemented. We obviously have been fortunate to not have a fatality there, so this is a little bit of a proactive project, but that’s why we were able to get grant funding for it. I like to talk about those benefits because unfortunately, when you see the bids, our lowest bid was higher than our engineer’s estimate; we got good, competitive bidding from the standpoint we had seven contractors who bid the project, but we are about 18% over the base bid vs. the engineer’s estimate. So, it’s about $1.2M; the grant funding is $1,010,000; initially, it was $710K, but MnDOT actually gave us an extra $300K to help make sure we could fund as much of this project as possible through their Local Partnership Program grants. So, the City is still only looking at a little under $200K for this construction of a cost share, and that we would fund through our MSA Funding. So, we wouldn’t be looking to fund that through general levy or taxes. Considering all of that and when you look at these higher bids, there’s a couple of things that could have gone into it: The time of year that we ended up bidding it; it was quite a process to get through to get through all the different approvals at the State level and the grants; it is a very challenging project because we have to build it basically day by day with lane closures, almost like what you’re seeing with the bridge right now down at Innovation Road, so we actually have to do some work in each stage, do a little bit of that concrete work. It’s a challenging project to estimate, and that could have gone into it as well. Knowing that we have that MSA Funding we’ll be able to tap into once the East Point project is done, we are comfortable recommending we award this bid. Unfortunately, we are in a little bit of a time crunch because we do have to award a project by the end of this month to tap into those grant funds as well. Director Burfeind stated with that, we’re recommending acceptance of the bid, and I’ll stand for any questions. Council Member Olsen stated I’m glad you brought up the fact that we’ll be able to utilize MSA Funding for that; you and I know what that means, but there might be people watching who don’t. He asked Director Burfeind to take a minute to explain what that Municipal State Aid (MSA) Funding is. Director Burfeind replied regarding MSA Funds, cities and counties get them, and we can use them for either projects on our own State Aid roads, like 80th Street, East Point Douglas, and Jamaica, or we can use them when we’re working on a higher-level road, like a County Road or a State Highway, in this case. They do come through the gas tax, which is where that funding is received from, and it’s split out based on the size of your community. Like I mentioned, we’re really been using the current funds each year for our East Point and Jamaica project, which of course we’re wrapping up this year, so we’ll have that funding available then to tap into once that project is complete and paid off. Council Member Olsen stated perfect, thank you very much. I just wanted to make sure for anybody watching at home if they had any questions understood that we do get those MSA Funds allocated to us on an annualized basis. They are available to us for projects like this because otherwise that would put quite the burden on the taxpayer here in the City of Cottage Grove. Council Member Thiede stated just out of curiosity, you said we’re basically getting funded $1,010,000 of that; Director Burfeind confirmed that just over $1M will be grant funding paying for that project. Council Member Thiede asked if that’s a combination of State and Federal; Director Burfeind replied that is a grant through the State of Minnesota, so the Local Partnership Program is the name of the grant. So, it’s for MnDOT partners of local agencies to fund projects like this. Council Member Thiede stated I was also curious as it’s also a U.S. Highway, whether there would have been any other monies or could be any other monies even to take up that other $200K. Director Burfeind replied so we reached out, Mayor and Council, to MnDOT to see if there could be additional funding. They kind of did a somewhat unique thing in awarding an additional $300K already, so that was really I think what we could get. We did look at the different pots when this project came up; it was actually driven by some challenges in that area with some crashes, not as severe, a couple years ago, and MnDOT really directed us to this grant fund that was the most acceptable. With that additional $300K, that was really the most we could get for the project. Council Member Thiede asked what was the base for the grant, who’s sponsoring that grant or where does that money come from again? Director Burfeind replied that’s a State grant. Council Member Thiede stated that’s also the State, okay. Council Member Khambata stated so every time we upgrade a road, I probably ask this question, but the current style of interchange was acceptable up to a certain volume. Highway 61 has been in its current configuration for as long as I can remember, so as volume has increased, its become more and more unsafe, which is preempting what we’re doing now. What’s the life expectancy of this type of improvement in terms of volume, and in terms of infrastructure investment, is this something that will kind of last unless or until there needs to be some sort of like metered interchange there? Or is there another next step if we see volume increases beyond what are projected? Director Burfeind replied that’s a good question. So, this will be the first one in this area; I think you will actually see MnDOT start to and continue to look at installing these along Highway 61, down in Denmark Township, we certainly have other intersections. It definitely will have a longer life cycle; the safety’s always there, that safety improvement, then it really becomes access. We’re growing, Hastings is growing, so you’re going to see more and more traffic that will make the actual physical access harder. You would not see signals at any of these intersections just for this type of speed; there are two at Manning and 10. Really, as Cottage Grove continues to develop, and this is obviously far down the road in that area, you’d likely see more of a system of frontage roads and continued interchanges, like we have at Innovation Road, 80th Street, 70th Street. One of those would likely be someway down the road at Manning Avenue and potentially another one in this area. Now, that’s pretty far out, but that would be the next step. Unfortunately, it’s a challenge with these freeways, as they are there to move traffic fast and efficiently. We’re really fortunate that MnDOT is working with us on this type of project because otherwise they’d just close the median, and then cars would have to go down to Manning and turn around. So, I can’t give an exact answer for the life cycle just because it’ll always work, it’s just a matter of the longer delays. You really have to see development come through this area, our future growth, to have those frontage roads and interchanges. Council Member Khambata stated all right, so there is a plan for what happens next; Director Burfeind replied yes, that would be the next step. It’s pretty far out, but it’s like what we saw down to the Innovation interchange. Motion by Council Member Olsen to Adopt Resolution 2024-096 awarding the TH 61 River Oaks RCUT Project to Pember Companies, Inc. in the amount of $1,203,803.45; second by Council Member Garza. Motion carried: 5-0. 11. REGULAR AGENDA - None. 12. COUNCIL COMMENTS AND REQUESTS Council Member Khambata stated the only request I have is that leading into the holiday weekend, everyone have a safe and fun and responsible holiday. Council Member Olsen thanked Council Member Thiede and the rest of the members of the Strawberry Fest Committee for all of their hard work and effort putting on this year’s Strawberry Fest event. It was made more challenging for them this year due to the weather. There have been years where we’ve had some rain, and there have been several years where we’ve had really great weather; the rain never makes it easy, but the team was out there working hard. I know that the Strawberry Fest Marketplace was packed full, even though it was raining, and you can tell when you look at the fields out there. But that whole team worked very, very hard to bring us to this point, get us through this point, and what you may not know is now that it’s over, the work doesn’t stop, because now they’re already planning for next year. So, thank you to all of the Strawberry Fest Committee Members. I also want to thank all of our Strawberry Fest Ambassadors, who served for the last year, who represented the City of Cottage Grove, including Council Member Garza’s daughter. They had their time in the sun, and now I believe they had the coronation on Monday night, so now we have a new batch of Strawberry Fest Ambassadors, and I’m sure they will be just as wonderful as the past batch. We were very pleased to have all of those folks representing our community for the last year. Council Member Olsen stated again a reminder, July 4th, 5:00 p.m., Kingston Park, for this year’s family friendly Fourth of July event. Thanks again to all of our vendors who have agreed to come, and all of the Cottage Grove Lions members who are going to be there to make it a really fun event, and thank you to all of those who made donations, as Mayor Bailey mentioned earlier, so that we could have a great event. Council Member Olsen stated I also want to say thanks to our City staff for all of the hard work and effort they put forth with respect to Strawberry Fest. People may not realize it because they just sort of see the end result of the work, but we had Parks people there working the entire festival, whether or not it was raining, emptying garbage cans, making sure that all of the waste receptacles were available, making sure that the recycle receptacles were available and taken care of. We had just a bunch of our Public Safety folks there, police, fire, EMS, and a lot of the City staff were there, representing the various elements of the City, including Discover Cottage Grove; they were part of the Strawberry Fest Marketplace. So, this is all work that they’re doing in addition to their “day job,” and they deserve a lot of gratitude and a lot of credit for being there for us for Strawberry Fest. So, thank you again. I know in many cases the departments sort of put a kibosh on whether it’s a vacation or anything like that so that we have appropriate staffing to keep the park safe and make sure that everybody’s having fun. Council Member Thiede thanked Council Member Olsen, said you kind of stole my thunder there, but the gratitude is definitely worth it, just to thank all of the people on the committees, to also recognize that they are volunteers; none of them get paid for that fun that they have. For the most part, it’s all fun, sometimes it gets a little stressful at times for different things, but the gang does a great job. We had a couple new people on the committee and some of the people volunteering, but we definitely can always use more people. So, everybody out there that’s listening, let’s get involved. Right now, what we’ll probably end up doing is just kind of do some review of this year’s activity and things of that nature, and then discuss some of the things that we should change for next year. For people wanting to get involved, typically in the fall, be on the lookout as we’ll start having some meetings and things like that. Also, obviously, we have our Monster Bash Halloween Parade, as we always do, and that’ll be at the end of October, right around Halloween. It’s great to start getting involved at that point, too. So, again, thanks and as Council Member Olsen said, to everybody in the City for the time they put in, it’s tireless, and it can be exhausting. I haven’t got any firm numbers and things like that, but it wasn’t too bad; we escaped a fair amount of the rain until Saturday afternoon, and then the skies decided to dump on us for about an hour and a half. That’s the reason why the soccer fields now look the way they do because I probably could’ve taken the canoe out there after the rain got done. But it’s great to have a place like that to have that festival, and I know there’s just tons of people that really enjoy it. So, thanks to everyone. Council Member Garza stated I just want to say Strawberry Fest was amazing. The parade was awesome, we had such a great time. Thank you so much for allowing my family to be a part of it, Josie loved her last year as an ambassador, and it was an honor just to be a representative of our community, so she really enjoyed it. She’s going to wear her Strawberry Fest jacket proudly, so if you see her out here, make sure you say hello to her because now she can wear it without being with the other ambassadors, so she’s very excited about representing our City. Council Member Garza stated otherwise, have a wonderful weekend, be safe out there; I know the holiday is coming up, so just be safe, keep in mind there’s other people on the road, so just be careful out there. Mayor Bailey stated kudos on the Strawberry Festival, on our outgoing ambassadors, our incoming ambassadors; I think we’re in good shape with the new batch coming in, too. I just want to mention that this coming Friday, June 28, yes, it is going into a holiday weekend, kind of leading up to the Fourth of July, we do have our first event, which is Movies in the Park, Trolls, at Highlands Park, close to dusk. There are some events that are happening before that, so if you want to stop in, there’s popcorn, a food truck, and some craft things that are happening there. In the event that there is rain, the makeup date for this movie is Friday, July 12; so, we’ll keep our fingers crossed that Movies in the Park on this coming Friday is actually going to be rain free. Mayor Bailey stated there are two workshops this evening; the first is open to the public, and that’s an update for the Council from our staff on the Mississippi River-Grey Cloud Island Flooding Update. As we all know, there’s been some major flooding happening not just in Minnesota, but throughout the Upper Midwest. There is some effect happening in Cottage Grove so we’re going to talk about what we’re doing to help with that. We will be going into the Training Room for that. Shortly thereafter, there will be a second workshop that’s closed to the public, and that is regarding Labor Negotiations; that workshop is closed pursuant to Minnesota Statute 13D.03 to consider strategy for labor negotiations as we are going to be negotiating with some labor unions. So, with that, we will adjourn from here and then Council will meet over in the Training Room. 13. WORKSHOPS - OPEN TO PUBLIC - TRAINING ROOM Mississippi River/Grey Cloud Island Flood Update Staff Recommendation: Receive current water level conditions on Grey Cloud Island and provide staff with feedback. City Administrator Jennifer Levitt stated you received my bulleted update as the conditions on the Mississippi River are changing by the hour. This evening, even as we speak, we have police out on the island, going door to door, collecting information about the residents that are there, gaining emergency contact phone numbers, and talking about the plan that we’re going to unveil tonight in regards to our emergency response; what will be available and what won’t be available, what will be open and what won’t be open. So, we’re going to first start off with Ryan, he's going to go through the scenario and the situation related to the water elevation, the fact that we had the Corps of Engineers out today evaluating the causeway. As you are aware, we closed the green bridge today as well, as we anticipated. With flooding conditions, it can become very volatile because it can be unpredictable; debris can be a factor, and Ryan will touch on that. Then, we’ll turn it over to our Public Safety team, and they’ll talk about mutual aid that we have secured. We’ll go over our evacuation plan and emergency response efforts that will be available. So, with that, Ryan, I will turn it over to you; I will warn you that Ryan is all about numbers, he stayed up late last night because they kept giving predictions until the wee hours of the morning and then again at 11 o'clock today. Ryan has got spreadsheets upon spreadsheets to provide the interpolation; so, if you want to see a spreadsheet later, Ryan can show it to you. Director Burfeind displayed a map of the areas involved, here’s Grey Cloud Island, which is our real concern. We do talk quite a lot about the River Acres neighborhood with the flooding. There is one home that’s more on the eastern end of the neighborhood that had to sandbag a little opening in their berm that they built last year; that’s the only home that would have had impact to the actual house. The next one up is about a foot above the predicted crest, so there are no other concerns with River Acres. What’s unique this year and different than 2014 and 2019 and last year is in those years we had to close the bridge; our policy is when the water is a foot below the bottom girders and expected to hit it, we close it. We had to put on Jersey barriers to basically weigh down the bridge and ballast it to make sure when all the trees and all the debris in the water are forced on that, it doesn’t move the bridge off of its footings. As Jennifer mentioned, that was done today, and that’s been done three times in the last ten years prior to this. In all those other years, we never had issues or concerns with the causeway; we call that the second fill, going from Lower Grey Cloud Island to the township. This flood has been changing so rapidly, increasing so quickly, that even just since Monday evening they have increased their predicted crest so much that that’s what drove this concern on the causeway. It’s been since 2001 that we’ve actually had to worry about the causeway; at that time, the flood was obviously so drastic it went over the top and created major damage to it. So, we had the Army Corps of Engineers out today; they actually are very experience in this, of course, that’s what they do out of the St. Paul office. I’ll talk about what the main point of concern and what’s really forcing this closure that we need to look at out of the causeway. Just one thing, if you’re ever out there, the water is actually two different levels on either side; so, the level on this side actually follows whatever river level is here, and on the upstream side it’s actually about two feet higher. So, the causeway is acting kind of like a dam right now, which is not what we want it to do because of the water level here at this point. The other thing that’s kind of impacting things is way up here you’ve got the County box culvert; that actually has become completely clogged with the debris, a massive tree got stuck against it, and it’s now building up behind it. We had a meeting out there at 5:00 p.m., and the County agreed to not remove that debris, which would have washed it right through the culvert and stacked it right against our bridge, which we do not want at this point. It’s not actually damaging or causing impacts to their culvert, it’s just more of a nuisance. So, that was a good outcome of the meeting at 5:00 p.m. Earlier today, we had debris on our bridge; we removed that and got Rumpca out there, so we’re sitting pretty good at this point from the bridge standpoint. Just to show how it’s been changing, on the left is the bridge and this is the river gauge we looked at, and on the right, this is the gauge that’s upstream in that causeway. This was on June 24, and you can see the bridge here it went up almost a foot in a day, on June 25, similar on the upper side of the causeway. On June 26th, it went up about a foot and a half, between that late afternoon and the morning of the 26th, which is today, it’s actually gone up another, over half a foot since this morning. So, the water actually went up a foot and a half in a day at our bridge, which we’ve never really seen before. We have those snow melts, but it’s much more gradual and we know those things much more in advance. So, you saw this all on the Minnesota River, that’s what’s causing our flood is the Minnesota River flood at this point. All of those points, Henderson, Jordan, they’re all cresting higher than what was predicted. In some cases, it actually beat the 1965 record, which obviously we are not going to experience here, but it was an extremely high level of the Minnesota River. Here is some of the debris that was on our bridge, an extremely large tree, which we were able to remove today and get the flow under it. This is all the debris upstream of that County box culvert; there’s just a massive tree that obviously has been dead and in the back channel for quite some time. It actually got caught lengthwise on that culvert and it’s now stacking up behind it. One thing that the County is watching very closely is this power pole here is actually the power that serves all the township and Lower Grey Cloud Island, so ensuring that that does not get to be damaged; so, Xcel is aware of that and they’re watching that closely. River Forecasts: The St. Paul station is actually kind of what predicts what’s going to happen above the causeway, and the Hastings river gauge is what predicts what happens at the bridge. So, this is what we look at closely. They’ve actually, last night as Jennifer mentioned, they were updating these like every two hours, which I’ve never seen before in any of our floods. Usually, it’s once or twice a day, so things are changing pretty quickly. These I pulled actually just before the meeting, so these are pretty current. You can see in St. Paul it’s going to rise about another 2.5 feet, so that’s what we’re looking at, a similar rise above the causeway. In Hastings, it’s real similar, 2.5 feet is what we’ll see at the bridge. So, the bridge actually won’t go under water, the river will not rise higher than the bridge level itself. Here are the two areas of the bridge that we closed today, and then here’s the causeway. Right in the middle is a large 10 x 10 box culvert and that’s really our point of concern, so that’s what we had the Army Corps out to look at. So, this is that box culvert, and this is on the upstream side; water is flowing extremely fast through it, and it’s actually kind of dipping down as it goes through this box culvert. There’s a few things to consider, but actually these are going to happen so quick we’re not going to have to do some of their recommendations. The key point is there’s this line right here, that’s the top of the box culvert, and once water gets to there, the Army Corps is very strongly recommending that we close the road at that point because water can actually seep through this joint and then get under. This road section is just really pavement and rock on top of the concrete, it’s not really bonded to it; so, water can get into that road section, destabilize it, and it’s just not a situation we can have cars driving on. But actually because of this depression in the water, the actual level today is realistically here; so, probably in the next day we’re going to see this come up enough to fully encompass that box culvert and it’s going to jump up really fast at that point to get to here. So, this is the key point the Army Corps says we really need to close the road because it’s just nice safe to be driving on at that point. Here are just some other maps to kind of show the effects of the island. Really, all the homes are very high up on the island, like they’re 10, 20, 30 feet above even the highest flood that we would ever experience; so, there’s actually no issues with the homes. Here’s Camp Galilee, all this purple coloring would be more like the 1965 flood, so not what we’re going to experience, but there could be some water up on the driveways and such for Camp Galilee, so, we’ve been communicating with them very closely. And then there’s a home on the far eastern end where their driveway actually gets pretty low, so there’s going to be three-to-four feet of water over their driveway, which has happened over the recent floods as well, so they’re familiar with that and ready for that situation. Like I mentioned, River Acres really any of the homes they really have to be in that purple, which is the 1965 flood, to impact except for the one home right here at 8327, which would have that water up into the basement if they didn’t do sandbagging, which they have done. So, with that, I know I went through a lot of information really quick, but the key thing going back is that box culvert, which I’ll go back to. We do anticipate, Gwen’s been looking at it, I’ve been looking at it, and the Army Corps gave a spot river forecast for us because we’re between the two gauges. So, we are kind of in no man’s land for the river level, and we’ll really probably be hitting this point sometime Friday morning where we will be at the top of that headwall, where from a safety perspective, we really have to look at closing the causeway. Mayor Bailey stated with all this, one question I had it was interesting what I saw with the dam in Mankato and what happened there; I mean, obviously, that in essence can happen here if they’re not careful. With the debris that’s getting stuck, is there a way to use like a claw. You see how they have those things that pick up logs and stuff, have they thought about doing that at all to try to get that cleared up? Director Burfeind replied that is what we used with Rumpca Companies, they used an excavator today to remove it from our bridge. The problem now is we actually don’t want those excavators on the bridge so they have to kind of go from the edge. The water level, probably by late tonight, is actually going to be above the bottom girders, so it’s just going to stop everything, everything that hits that bridge. Mayor Bailey asked but is it going to matter? Director Burfeind replied yep, then it won’t matter. Really that upper one, we actually want the County to leave it because their intent was to try to remove that, but they can’t actually remove it; they have to just kind of bust it loose and let it flow through, which would go right to our bridge. So, we had a meeting with Wayne Sandberg and Doug Berglund from the County, and we all agreed that they’re going to leave that, they’re obviously going to monitor it daily at this point. They’re going to leave their debris in place until the flood comes back down. Council Member Garza stated thank you for all of the information, there’s a lot of stuff happening down there. I’m wondering if we need to close the bridge by Friday, how will the residents go back and forth between? Director Burfeind replied they will not be able to, at that point they will have no access to the island, and that’s a real discussion point because we haven’t had to deal with this since 2001, but we’re in that situation now; and really, safety dictates that we do that. In terms of the length of that closure, based on the rise and the crest and the recession of the water, it’s probably Monday that we would hope we could have the Army Corps back out and our structural engineers do an inspection of this culvert to make sure it’s safe and then reopen it. So, you would be looking at three to potentially four days of residents either having to leave the island or just stay. Council Member Garza asked and so, if there was an emergency on the island, there’s a boat? Director Burfeind replied that question will be answered by Public Safety in the next part. Council Member Khambata stated you said it has to come up another 1.5 feet and then the water will just push up against the girder on our bridge. So, at that point, what considerations do we have to take before we can reopen our bridge? Director Burfeind replied that’s a good question. So, with our bridge, obviously that will remain closed for longer; we’re probably looking at next Thursday to Friday to have a point where we could reopen it. We also have to do an inspection with our bridge engineer. So, they would be ready to come out as soon as the level is low enough to reopen it, do an inspection, make sure none of the trees damaged the bridge, make sure the bridge didn’t move on its footings at all, and then we remove the barricades and reopen it. I guess that’s probably next Thursday or Friday. Obviously, there’s rain forecast this Thursday and Friday, which isn’t a lot, fortunately, but there’s more rain forecast next Monday, Tuesday. That probably won’t increase the crest at this point, but we talked to the Army Corps today and it could extend that a little bit. So, that could move back the reopening. Council Member Olsen thanked Director Burfeind for addressing the upcoming forecast because I was going to ask you to do that. So, I’m sure we’ve been in contact with our friends in Newport and St. Paul Park; are they experiencing similar challenges? I know in Newport sometimes that levee has been problematic for them, because depending on how they manage their stuff, that could have an impact on how we manage our stuff. Director Burfeind replied yes, and I do think they have the impacts with the levee, and it’s probably down where the boat ramp is; that wouldn’t necessarily change our river levels, but I do know with this crest they’re going to have challenges down there. I don't know if they’ve been sandbagging or anything like that in that area, but I believe it’s mostly around the park. Council Member Olsen stated and the reason I bring it up is because you mentioned mutual aid partners; they are mutual aid partners, but they might have their hands full, so I’m sure Nick and Pete will talk about that in a little bit. I also wanted to ask about the bridge. We’ve had inspections done on that bridge several times in my time on the Council, and I know that it’s not bad but it’s not awesome either. So, do we have any concerns about structure or anything like that? Director Burfeind replied no, not at this time, so we did that major rehab project the previous year that really fixed a lot of our issues. We talk about it as a fracture critical bridge, which sounds is there an issue with it. What that means is its a steel truss bridge, and there’s a certain member, and if that member were to fail and causes the whole bridge to fall in, that’s above the water level so we’re not anticipating any damage from trees or along that line. Council Member Olsen said with respect to the residents, whether it’s on the island or River Acres, are we putting out a bat signal for sandbaggers or are they okay? Do you know what we need? Because obviously if they need help down there, I know our church has helped in the past, and I’ve been down there several times myself. Director Burfeind replied there are no issues with sandbagging on the island, due to the height of the structures. For River Acres, the good thing at this home, 8327, they used to need a much bigger sandbag operation because they had to build their sandbag wall around the entire property to protect the house. But the new homeowner actually built a berm to actually protect the house two years ago, and they left out about ten feet; that way their property can drain during normal times. We actually did our usual, we delivered sandbags and poly last Friday, and it’s just a small effort that they were able to just manage it themselves. Council Member Olsen stated the home on the island, I think you were talking about Mr. Bell’s house, where the driveway is going to be under water. Do they need any help over there? Director Burfeind replied there’s really no way to prevent that driveway water, it’s just going to happen because that is actually where they have the main channel flow coming through. Mayor Bailey stated I went down and looked at it today, and I know the kayak trailer is down there. Are we pulling, or are they pulling that out of there, or did they build that so that is safe? Parks and Recreation Director Zac Dockter replied yes, I’ll call them to see if we need to pull that out or not. Mayor Bailey stated I just didn’t want that to be floating away, I did see it was still there. Director Burfeind stated elevation wise, that’ll be fine. Mayor Bailey asked it will be fine? Director Burfeind replied yes. Council Member Olsen stated when I drove down there, I didn’t see any issues with the new construction or anything like that, everything appeared to be okay there. So, we’re not having any flooding concerns on that piece of land or anything? Director Dockter replied no. Pete Koerner, Public Safety Director, stated Deputy Fire Chief Nick Arrigoni and I will probably be going back and forth, as I stole him away from the REP Drill we’re doing at the high school tonight. Director Koerner stated there are a lot of moving pieces here, and I’ll just start with the decision’s made that we are going to close the causeway on Friday; there’s going to be extremely limited Public Safety Services on the island. Captain Rinzel is down there right now, going door to door. I see there are probably a couple residents here, so afterwards we’ll speak. We have a contact list, so the first thing we want to do is obviously encourage people to evacuate before the causeway is closed. If they choose on their own to stay there, we do want contact information, whether they stay or not, but we’re going to keep track of who plans on staying and who leaves. If they give us their cell phone carrier, we’re able to do a Code Red notification for the residents so we can give very up-to-date notifications to them. Today, things rapidly changed. Captain Rinzel was down there with Brian and Gary, and our plans kind of keep changing. As far as any kind of police response needed, it would be limited. Our best plan of action right now is we’re going to have our UTV placed at the Hazen P. Mooers there because then our squads can at least get down there, and there’s enough room on the iron brick for our UTV to get across. Once the causeway is closed, we don’t want to be going that way. Deputy Chief Arrigoni will cover what we’re going to do as far as EMS because we have been working with Holcim so we have staging and everything there. As far as police response, very, very limited. I’ve had a lot of people ask about State Patrol; yes, they have a helicopter, but they don’t bring personnel in. We do have the rescue boat or the air boat, and Nick will talk about that. With the rushing water, it’s just not safe to have responding officers who are not trained in water rescues; that falls more on Fire and other mutual aid partners. As far as police, we won’t have staff staged on the island for the weekend, but we will have access for extreme emergencies, but we don’t want to put our responders there into that danger either. So, Nick has a lot to cover. Deputy Chief Arrigoni stated obviously today has been real fluid. I’ve been in contact with Newport Fire Chief Wylie and St. Paul Park Fire Chief Kramer. What happened today is I got a call from Captain Martin this morning, saying hey, I’m down south and we need some help; I said, okay, what do you need? So, the first thing that we had to do was find out how we’re going to best get access if both the causeway and the bridge is completely impassable. So, the airboat went out with one of our firefighters and a Newport firefighter, and they did a little bit of recon, and I’ll kind of show you here. Initially, we did not know if the first fill under the bridge was going to be accessible at all. It sounds like the UTV will be able to pass and that’s going to be Option #1. The same thing as the P.D., if we get a medical emergency or a fire down there, we’ll have medic gear staged, and I was fortunate enough to be at the REP Drill, so I got to brief the majority of the Fire Department on the operations for this weekend and the people that will be staffing the station. So, Option #1 would be very similar: We would go down to that UTV, we’d hop into that, and we could respond to the home. Here at Aggregate, I spoke with Joe, their plant manager, and he gave us pretty much free capacity to use whatever areas we need there, so that’s really awesome of them. This is going to be the launch access; so the airboat today came from Lions Levee, which is closed but is accessible for us, we were able to launch effectively and relatively quickly. From the airboat, they came down to this launch access. They were able to get the boat up on the landing in a dry area, which is great, and then turn around, go back into the water, and go back up to Lions Levee if that becomes our only option. It took them 10 or 15 minutes once they were in the water to get from Lions Levee to Aggregate; obviously, it took them much longer to get from Aggregate back to the Lions Levee, so that was about 20 or 25 minutes. If this is our only method of access, in this parking lot we’re looking at staging one of our fire engines for fire suppression abilities, which was again our limiting factor there is response time. St. Paul Park has also offered to give up an engine for the weekend, but again, much like the police, they won’t be staffed. We will also have one of our Fire Explorer vehicles, some sort of squad there. If we use the airboat, go off in the squad, they will respond in the house. We’re going to have ALS gear ready for them so anything that would usually come in the ambulance will be accessible. They will treat, the only change is obviously they would not be transported in an ambulance back to the boat, it would be in that squad they would go in the boat to land where an ambulance would be waiting for them there. If the bridge idea, which is our first option, holds, it would be a UTV either to the house or we could stage one of those squads on the other side of the bridge, same with an engine. The benefit of putting it at Aggregate is they lock the gate over the weekend, and some of our equipment is a little bit out of sight, out of mind. I’m working with Aggregate to get a key for access for that tomorrow. What I will do then is come up with a final plan, and the whole Fire Department will be briefed on that. We obviously know that if any of this happens, it’s going to tax our resources pretty heavily, so I’ve been in contact with Chief Wylie; they will have people ready to operate the airboat all weekend. What that will look like is that will just be through Dispatch, a Newport Fire page, they will get notified that we need the airboat at Lions Levee, and we’ll meet them there. So, hopefully, we’re all kind of coming together at the same time. Chief Kramer also understands what’s going on; they do have a boat that’s in the water, however it’s like an outboard engine boat, which really limits them when we start getting into the back channels. So, I would not anticipate that’s going to be a good option for us. I’ve also reached out to Hastings Fire Department in terms of mutual aid, so we know that if anything happens that’s going to leave our City a little bit vulnerable for a period of time, so they’re offering to give us mutual aid as needed, the same with Newport, St. Paul Park, and Woodbury. Council Member Olsen asked have you guys talked to the refinery? Deputy Chief Arrigoni replied we have not talked to the refinery. I will reach out to them. I know they have limited fire suppression capability, but if it’s an option, we’ll absolutely use it. Director Koerner stated I left a message with Chief John Wright, too, though if there was anything they could help us with. Deputy Chief Arrigoni stated I will obviously be available all weekend as a point of contact for anything that happens. I’ve told all the crews that if there is a medical for whatever reason on the lower part of the island that’s likely to be closed, I will respond and try to be the Incident Commander for that as well. He asked Director Koerner if I missed anything. Administrator Levitt asked can you just talk about what our fire suppression capacity is with the two apparatus that we’ll have on hand. Deputy Chief Arrigoni replied yes, I’ve decided that we’re going to bring our engine tender down to the island, so that gives us 2,000 gallons of water, which is much better than our typical 750 on our engines or 500 gallons on our ladder truck. I also want to keep our ladders in our town, as they’re specialty equipment, and we would never need that down there. Depending on what St. Paul Park brings, if they bring their tender, we’ll have upwards of 4,000 or 5,000 gallons of water for fire suppression, but with that, we have to make a decision if we take our tender out of the City, I’m likely going to want St. Paul Park’s in their town as well. So, they would provide us with an engine, 750 gallons of water, when it’s all said and done, 2,750 to 3,000 gallons of water. We do have pending, because we’re going to have to do a little bit more recon, and this is what I’m going to work on tomorrow when we finalize kind of the Fire EMS plan, we do have the ability to draft out of the river. With that being said, we’re going to have to kind of troubleshoot that, as the Mississippi has so much sediment. We have not done it since I’ve been on the Fire Department. It’s something that I don't know if it’s actually feasible. If it was a very clean, clear body of water, that would be a for sure thing to be able to draft and then we’d have endless amounts of water, but that’s kind of to be determined. But for sure, almost 3,000 gallons of water for fire suppression. Administrator Levitt asked Deputy Chief Arrigoni when would we use helicopters. He replied so, helicopters, luckily for us Aggregate has multiple landing sites. This would be the primary, and this is the secondary. We’d use helicopters for anything that’s a critical medical; so, something that we’d normally transport by ambulance, a heart attack, a stroke, anything that’s time sensitive. So, if they need to get to the hospital for surgical intervention as soon as possible, something that we normally would not call a helicopter for, we can in this situation. I’ve briefed the majority of the paramedics on the Fire Department, and I want to make sure I hit the rest tomorrow. In conjunction with myself, it will be their call that if they think they need to start a helicopter, we could call LifeLink, and they will be able to get to the hospital much faster, especially if the bridge is not passable. Hopefully, that stays accessible for us with the UTV; that will cut off probably 45 minutes to get more definitive care, but as this is just very fluid, we’re just going to kind of make the call as the weekend plays along. Director Koerner said we have been in communication with LifeLink; Captain Martin spoke with them earlier this morning, so they’re well aware of it. We didn’t want to get ahead of ourselves too much today, but we had already reached out to Camp Galilee also. They had a retreat planned for this weekend, so they’re already cancelling that. Obviously, our last piece was to get in front of the Council and now communicate with the residents. Again, Captain Rinzel is down there right now, and we have some residents here, too, so I can speak with you before you leave. Mayor Bailey asked are we also communicating with the Grey Cloud Township people or is it just Cottage Grove? Director Burfeind replied I spoke with Dick Polta today. Those in the township they don’t have any major impacts, they have one home that has a driveway that would be inundated with water, but obviously they’re able to continue to get out through that upper causeway and that upper box culvert the County owns, and there’s no concerns involving that. Mayor Bailey stated so, they’ll be okay; Director Burfeind confirmed that. Director Koerner stated the emergency manager for Washington County, Doug Berglund, has been involved in many of our conversations yesterday and today, too. Administrator Levitt stated the other thing, too, is Holcim is actually extending the holiday week to their employees, so they’re actually closing down operations on the island. So, they will not be present or need to have any people on site. Mayor Bailey stated in the past, whether it’s situations like this or when we had our PFC water issue, we declared an emergency. Is it your thought that we should do that in this case? The reason I’m saying that is because declaring an emergency, that gets us in line for Federal and State funds to help pay for whether it’s the repairs or anything. What’s our plan for that? Administrator Levitt replied we’re intending that we would declare; obviously, the State has already declared, and we heard that Washington County is going to declare on Friday. So, at this point in time, we would probably, depending if we do interviews on July 8 or on July 10, we would formally adopt that declaration, and it’s okay that it’s postdated because we’re in an emergency. So, at this point, the fact that the State and the County have both declared, it’ll make it a lot easier for us. Council Member Olsen stated and we don’t see a need for any National Guard support or anything like that. Administrator Levitt replied for us, it’s going to be if there’s any damage to the bridge or the causeway that there’d be funds that we would need to recover at that time. Council Member Garza asked what time on Friday, if it closes on Friday, what time will that happen? Director Burfeind replied our recommendation is noon on Friday that it would be closed for the causeway. One thing I’ve been meaning to mention because this can make it frustrating, based on the river forecast, they just did the evening update right now and it stayed the same. The water probably will not overtop that causeway, it’s really that huge safety concern of the water getting under the road section and destabilizing it is why we have to close it. So, it probably won’t go over the top, which is good because if it goes over the top, that’s the major damage scenario. So, just so you’re aware of that, people are going to see this road, it’s kind of water on the side, you’re going to see it come up on the edge of the road but not actually go over the top. Council Member Garza asked will there be concrete barricades or something so that wouldn’t encourage people? Director Burfeind replied yes, so, we are going to do concrete barricades on the causeway. Gary Roloff was here when we had the one flood, and the biggest trouble was with the gawkers and onlookers, they were moving all the barricades back then to get down there to see it better. So, we will be placing Jersey barriers at noon on Friday. Council Member Garza stated it was pretty busy down there last night. Director Burfeind stated there’s heavy traffic, my guys were having a hard time getting through there because there’s so much traffic down there today. Administrator Levitt stated and that will also help security; if people choose to evacuate, then we won’t have additional people on the island. Mayor Bailey stated so when we’re reaching out to all of the residents of Cottage Grove down there, if somebody doesn’t have the ability to stay at a hotel or something like that, are we providing feedback to the American Red Cross or anything like that? Director Koerner replied what I got from Captain Martin today is if they are told they should evacuate and they choose to stay, then it’s less likely that the Red Cross would be involved with that. Mayor Bailey stated I understand that, but if they say, hey, I’m not able to afford to leave. Director Koerner stated Administrator Levitt and I had talked about that; we were going to reach out to Washington County tomorrow about maybe some housing options if people don’t have the ability, where do they go? So, we’re working on that right now. Mayor Bailey stated yes, I just want to be able to share with them that there’s that option if they’re not able to afford to move. Council Member Olsen stated the Armory had an emergency shelter in the past. Mayor Bailey stated but I do know Washington County does normally provide funds for people, like if you have a house fire or something like that, they’ll provide them a hotel for a period of time through their emergency services. So, you will know, though, who’s staying on the island? Director Koerner replied we hope to, yes, Captain Rinzel is going door to door tonight. We didn’t want to just leave a door hanger, and he’s very well versed on what’s going on here, too, if residents have questions. Council Member Khambata asked are you aware of anyone on the island that has any specific medical needs that could need special attention? Director Koerner stated on our form we’re asking if they have a home alarm system in case for some reason we start getting trips to that or something, but then we also ask about any special needs or concerns, medical conditions, mobility, or transportation issues. So, all those questions will be asked of the residents. Deputy Chief Arrigoni stated I was able to look today to see if there was anybody in that part that’s going to be affected, like was transported previously, but also severe chronic medical issues, and there was nothing of concern. Council Member Garza stated I know you mentioned the Red Cross, but did we check with our two local hotels and motels to see if there’s an opportunity maybe to offer our residents a discount or something, encourage them to come over? Mayor Bailey replied they’re usually aware of that and that’s usually where they’ll end up going. Council Member Garza said I thought we could maybe encourage them to offer discounts to those residents. Mayor Bailey stated since you’re here and came to listen, do you have any questions for us here? A gentleman stated we’re from Camp Galilee, so we’re just here factfinding, more than anything else. My question is we’ve got some campers out there, we’re trying to get them off, most of them will have left, but there’s one individual we’re working with, that’s their home; they’re not there right now, they’re on the road, so we’re working with that individual. My question is there a possibility that that road would close, that bridge would close before Friday noon? Director Burfeind replied that’s a million dollar question. We really do our best to dial this in with the Army Corps, like I said, they actually gave like a spot forecast for the river crest and how high it’ll get, and it actually matches up pretty well with what I saw last night. So, that would be noon on Friday. The real challenge is it can change quicker, it’s hard to make it perfect in these backwaters, as the backwaters just act differently than the main channel. I think we’re as confident as we can be that Friday is the date. We’re obviously watching it very closely. If we see it going up faster, we’re not just going to wait to see it; we’ll probably be laying eyes on this every hour or two hours, just to make sure nothing changes quicker. If it does, we’ll be notifying folks immediately. Director Koerner stated Captain Martin has been communicating today with Aaron and Eric, the caretakers. The gentleman said my other concern is if the bridge is closed, that’s great, that will eliminate the riffraff; we get a lot of riffraff out there, on that part of the island. If we all evacuate and there’s nobody there, there’s nobody to stop them. Nobody knows how to read private property anymore, so. He asked how long would you anticipate that bridge being closed again? Director Burfeind replied our hope, based on even the most current update, is Monday when we can get the Army Corps back out there because they want a reinspection of the culvert. We’ll be watching that closely every day, but Monday we’d reinspect it and look to reopen on Tuesday. An unidentified woman stated we also heard reports that the power might be shut off to the island. Director Burfeind stated I’ve been in communication with Trisha Duncan from Xcel and Michael, whom she works with. So, in 2019, they had told us if we were closing off both roads, they were going to cut power to the island. Today they confirmed that it’s not a set policy; what they have to confirm is there’s no underground infrastructure because they would have to deenergize any underground power lines if we close off both roads. I’m not aware of any underground, so I have the contact information for the head person of their control center; they’re out right now just verifying all their equipment that they have and if any of it is underground. As long as it’s all overhead, they will not be cutting power. I do not believe from all of our experience that there’s underground. Mayor Bailey stated it looks like what she sent me is they will not cut power off unless the pole gets damaged. Director Burfeind stated that was definitely a concern for like an hour, earlier on, but we can confirm that’s not the case. The unidentified woman asked if that is the pole by the causeway. Director Burfeind confirmed that and said that would affect the township and Lower Grey Cloud Island. The unidentified gentleman asked has Xcel done anything to try to support that? Director Burfeind replied it still has all of the guide wires in place, stable, and that’s really what’s holding it. It’s actually off to the side. There’s actually a really nice big log, sitting against it, it’s actually protecting it from all the other debris. So, right now, it’s about as good as it can get. There was some talk about maybe putting some riprap around it to armor it, but they were more concerned that that would do more damage than good. Mayor Bailey stated thank you for keeping us up to date. Council will take a brief recess, then we’ll move into the closed session. 14. WORKSHOPS - CLOSED TO PUBLIC - TRAINING ROOM Closed Workshop - Labor Negotiation Staff Recommendation: Closed meeting pursuant to Minnesota Statute 13D.03 to consider Strategy for labor negotiations. 15. ADJOURNMENT Motion by Council Member Thiede, second by Council Member Olsen, to adjourn the meeting at 9:13 p.m. Motion carried: 5-0. Minutes prepared by Judy Graf and reviewed by Tamara Anderson, City Clerk.