HomeMy WebLinkAbout2024-11-20 City Council Meeting Minutes
COTTAGE GROVE CITY COUNCIL November 20, 2024
12800 RAVINE PARKWAY SOUTH
COTTAGE GROVE, MN 55016
COUNCIL CHAMBERS - 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
November 20, 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; Jon Pritchard, Fire Captain; Pete Koerner, Public Safety Director;
Korine Land, City Attorney-LeVander, Gillen & Miller, PA; Brenda Malinowski, Finance Director; Crystal Raleigh, Assistant City Engineer; Emily Schmitz, Community Development Director;
Brad Petersen, Public Safety Captain; Gwen Martin, Public Safety Captain; Gretchen Larson, Economic Development Director, Molly Pietruszewski, Recreation Services Manager; Riley Rooney,
Associate Planner; Phil Jents, Communications Manager.
4. OPEN FORUM
Mayor Bailey opened the Open Forum.
Bonnie Matter, 6649 Inskip Avenue South, stated I’m just here because I just wanted to make sure I understood that there was a Planning Commission meeting on 10-28, and at that, there
was a Public Hearing on the 2025-2029 CIP; and things have changed a little bit since that Public Hearing happened, and I want to make sure that the documents are going to be updated.
I’d like to know where they’re going to published and when they’ll be available. That’s it, thank you.
As no one else wished to address the Council, Mayor Bailey closed the Open Forum.
5. ADOPTION OF AGENDA
Motion by Council Member Thiede to approve the agenda; second by Council Member Garza. Motion carried: 5-0.
6. PRESENTATIONS
A. Swearing In and Badge Pinning Ceremony
Staff Recommendation: Swearing In and Badge Pinning Ceremony for Deputy Fire Chief Peter Fischer,
Fire Captain Chelsey Flores, and Firefighter-Paramedic Riley Erickson.
Mayor Bailey said for this presentation, Fire Chief Jon Pritchard will speak. Mayor Bailey asked the Council Members to join him in front of the dais for the swearing-in/badge-pinning
ceremony.
Chief Pritchard thanked the Mayor and City Council for having us here tonight to celebrate a really great tradition of pinning badges for a new firefighter-paramedic and a couple
promotions. We’re going to start with Deputy Chief Peter Fischer and asked him to step forward.
Peter has been recently promoted to the Deputy Fire Chief position. He was born and grew up in Maplewood, MN, with his parents and two sisters. Peter attended North St. Paul High
School and was a dedicated Boy Scout where he earned his Eagle Badge. Peter went on to Hamline University where he earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Public Administration and Accounting.
After college, Peter started his career working for the Minnesota Department of Commerce as a Market Conduct Analyst, which I asked Peter to explain to me and he has trouble doing so,
but it’s great experience with budgets and spreadsheets.
Peter began his fire service career in 2014 with the White Bear Lake Fire Department as a parttime firefighter-EMT. Peter immediately found a great passion for fire and emergency
services and pursued his paramedic training through Hennepin County EMS. Peter obtained his paramedic certification in 2016 and in the summer of 2016, he was promoted to a parttime
firefighter-paramedic with the White Bear Lake Fire Department. With his passion for fire and emergency services, Peter pursued a fulltime firefighter-paramedic position with the Cottage
Grove Fire Department and began with our City in February, 2017.
In February, 2020, Peter was promoted to Fire Captain; in his time as a fire captain, Peter has been involved in much innovation in pressing the department forward. He has helped
lead the department’s community CPR training program, including much work that led us to obtaining a HEARTSafe City designation. Peter was a founding member of the department’s live
burn training team, and he was intimately involved in improving EMS quality of care, among many other successes.
Peter lives in Lake Elmo with his partner, Stella, and their dog, Dara. Peter continues to support scouting and works as an Assistant Scout Master with the Troop from which he received
his Eagle Scout Award in Maplewood. Peter is truly grateful for the opportunity to serve humanity with love and compassion through the fire service, and he is passionate about giving
the highest level of professional service to the citizens of our community in Cottage Grove. He credits his mom and dad for instilling these values in him from a young age and both
acting as amazing role models. So, tonight Peter’s father and mother, Peter and Christy Fischer, will be pinning his badge tonight, and his two sisters can also come up front, Emily
and Hannah.
City Administrator Jennifer Levitt asked Peter to raise his right hand and repeat the oath after her, which he did. Administrator Levitt congratulated Peter, and everyone applauded.
His dad pinned Peter’s badge and his dad and mom congratulated him, after which everyone applauded.
Mayor Bailey and the Council Members shook hands with Peter and congratulated him, after which photos were taken of Peter with his parents, Mayor Bailey, and the City Council Members.
Chief Pritchard said the next person we have is Fire Captain Chelsey Flores. Chelsey grew up in Burnsville, MN, with her parents and one sister. Chelsey attended the Academy of Holy
Angels High School where she developed her passion to serve others. After high school, Chelsey earned her Bachelor’s Degree at UW-Stout; then, shortly after graduating, Chelsey moved
back to Minnesota and bought a house in Cottage Grove. Chelsey enjoys playing basketball and when playing with what she calls the “old guys,” which is probably me now, at the gym, one
of the fire captains noticed that Chelsey had a lot of talent, was quite intelligent, and he suggested that she take the St. Paul Fire test. Chelsey responded to that suggestion by
asking, “Are there really female firefighters?” He looked at her with the strangest look and said, “Of course there are.” This struck Chelsey as a moment where representation matters,
and she had not seen representation of females in the fire service while growing up or even into her 20s. Chelsey came to understand and embrace how important representation is and
continues to serve as a proud example of representation and inclusion in the fire service.
After learning women could be firefighters, Chelsey sought out a firefighter-EMT career and she began her parttime firefighter-EMT position with the Cottage Grove Fire Department.
Chelsey fell in love with fire and EMS and went on to pursue her paramedic certification through HCMC, and she planned it incredibly well because she was also pregnant with her first
daughter, Maya. Despite being pregnant, Chelsey got through with Maya being born in January, 2018, Chelsey continued her paramedic training and graduated on time with the rest of her
class. She even has a great photo of Maya as a young child at her graduation.
In October, 2018, Chelsey began her fulltime career with the White Bear Lake Fire Department as a firefighter-paramedic. While balancing work and life, she also had her second daughter,
Scarlett, about two years after starting at White Bear Lake.
Chelsey always wanted to come back to where her fire service career began and also to her hometown community of Cottage Grove, so she came back to the Cottage Grove Fire Department
in March, 2021, and she’s had a profound impact since joining the department. Chelsey has been instrumental in many Fire Department improvements: She helped improve our FTO Program,
led the implementation of our community paramedic, and vetted with our Police Department’s Case Management Unit. She served as a live burn instructor, and she’s coordinated a large
amount of the department’s Safe Haven Home Safety Program, which has now seen more than 125 household visits since February 2024.
Chelsey continues to live in Cottage Grove with her husband, Michael, and daughters, Maya and Scarlett. Maya and Scarlett will be pinning Chelsey’s badge tonight.
Administrator Levitt asked Chelsey to raise her right hand and repeat the oath after her, which she did. Administrator Levitt congratulated Chelsey and everyone applauded. Chelsey’s
daughters then pinned Chelsey’s badge, after which everyone applauded. Chelsey was congratulated by Mayor Bailey and the Council Members. Photos were taken of Chelsey with her family
and the City Council.
Chief Pritchard stated the next person we’ll welcome tonight is Firefighter-Paramedic Riley Erickson. He stated Riley grew up in a small town in Wisconsin, called Nekoosa. This is where
he met Emily while they were in high school, and they have been together for approximately ten years now and live in Minneapolis with their dog, June, and cat, Roscoe. Riley attended
Ripon College where he majored in Sociology and Criminal Justice; he was also a four-year letter winner in baseball, and he really has a pretty good stat in one of those years, you
can actually find it on the internet, but he was a talented baseball player.
After moving back to Minnesota, he pursued his paramedic training from Hennepin County while his wife attended law school at the U of M. Riley said he had a harder time getting
through school than his wife. Riley worked for two-and-a-half years as a paramedic at Hennepin County where he was also a water rescue medic and a paramedic student preceptor.
Riley is excited to begin a new career at Cottage Grove and get to learn the fire service more thoroughly. Riley has been an astounding addition to our Fire Department since he
started early this spring; he brings a contagious excitement and positive demeanor. In his time on the department, Riley has led efforts to improve EMS care, including implementing
an improved evidence-based stroke score to improve the care we provide to patients that may have a stroke. He’s also leading our ultrasound improvement effort. We are thankful for Riley’s
great contributions, and we look forward to his great impact on our department.
Tonight, Riley’s wife, Emily, will be pinning his badge.
Administrator Levitt asked Riley to raise his right hand and repeat the oath after her, which he did. Administrator Levitt congratulated Riley and everyone applauded. His wife, Emily,
pinned Riley’s badge and everyone applauded.
Riley was congratulated by Mayor Bailey and the Council Members, after which photos were taken of Riley and Emily with the City Council and everyone applauded.
Mayor Bailey said it’s exciting to see all the new positions and new employees that make up our Cottage Grove Fire Department.
B. Eagle Scout Award - Ryker Pace
Staff Recommendation: Recognize Ryker Pace’s accomplishment of Eagle Scout and award him with a
plaque.
Mayor Bailey said we’ll stay down here in front of the dais because now we have an Eagle Scout Award that we get to present, he asked Ryker Pace to join the City Council. Mayor Bailey
said one of the things that we do in the City of Cottage Grove is we recognize with distinct honor those that become an Eagle Scout; we also do the same thing for the Girl Scouts with
the Gold Award. Mayor Bailey said he and Council Member Thiede both have sons who became Eagle Scouts, and we’re very proud of them. Because the City of Cottage Grove takes great honor
and pride of those achieving the rank of Eagle Scout, we recognize them in two ways: One is presenting them with a plaque this evening, and also in City Hall, to the right of the Council
Chambers, there is a wall that has all the names of all past Eagle Scout recipients in Cottage Grove, as well as the Girl Scout Gold Award recipients.
Mayor Bailey told Ryker I just want to congratulate you, as do the citizens and everybody here; I know your mom and dad and your grandpa and grandma are here. So, I’ll just read
the plaque and then we’ll have you speak. Mayor Bailey read aloud the plaque given to Ryker, then said on behalf of myself, the Council, and all of the citizens of Cottage Grove, congratulations,
and handed the plaque to Ryker. Everyone applauded and Ryker was congratulated by all of the Council Members.
Mayor Bailey said for those that don’t know, to attain the level of Eagle Scout, they usually have to do a project or something to give back to the community. So, I’m going to let
Ryker share with the public what you did for your special project.
Ryker said I did my project for the Youth Service Bureau here in Cottage Grove, kind of over by McDonald's; they had a picnic table outside that got crushed by snow when they were plowing
their parking lot, it got piled up, and it got crushed. You can’t really use a picnic table that way, so I decided to build two picnic tables and put them on a little area, I forgot
how big it was, but I mulched it, put like the black plastic edging around it, I put the two tables on it, and that was my project. Everyone applauded.
Mayor Bailey said before we do the final picture here, I do want to mention that just recently, over the last year, I was president of the Youth Service Bureau, and I used to tell
Mike Huntly, the director, that picnic table needs to go, the one that Ryker spoke about. So, the fact that you put two in, with mulch underneath, is definitely much needed down in
that area, so fantastic.
Photos were taken of Ryker and the City Council, as well as his parents and grandparents, after which everyone applauded.
Council Member Khambata told Mayor Bailey I have to commend Ryker for making not just one, but two of those tables. I looked at the plan to make a picnic table, because my wife was asking
me for one, and about ten minutes into looking at the plan, I decided it wasn’t a project I was going to take on. Mayor Bailey said well, now you know who to call if you want him to
build one for you.
C. Cottage Grove Holiday Events
Staff Recommendation: Receive the presentation outlining the upcoming holiday events within the
community.
Mayor Bailey said next is a recap of all of the great upcoming holiday events here in Cottage Grove, and you can see some pictures from last year. So, we have Molly Pietruszewski, Recreation
Services Manager, from our Parks and Recreation Department, who will walk us through and share with us what some of these upcoming great events are in the next month and a half.
Molly stated I am just one person in a big, amazing department that makes all of these events come to life, so I’ll take a little credit for all the work everybody does behind the
scenes. We have these events somewhat in chronological order:
November 28, Hale to the Bird 5K: This is held annually at Hamlet Park on Thanksgiving morning. The race begins at 9:00 a.m.; we encourage residents to register online through ActiveNet.com,
key word Hale to the Bird. This is the 14th anniversary of a local group of guys who grew up here and wanted to give back; it kind of started with their families and has grown, you
can see a couple thousand people there walking on Thanksgiving morning. This is also
kind of our big kickoff for the Holiday Train fundraising towards the Friends in Need Food Shelf; so, all of the money that Hale to the Bird raises goes to the Holiday Train and eventually
ends up at the Friends in Need Food Shelf. It’s a great event, and we encourage residents to come out on Thanksgiving morning for the Hale to the Bird race at Hamlet.
November 12-Maybe into January, Holiday Lights Home Tour: Back by popular demand, it opened last week, on November 12; as of today, I think I we had like 15 houses signed up. If you
or a family member has a house in Cottage Grove that should be showcased, this is a great way to get that information out there. All you have to do is go to the City’s website, insert
the address, and we have it set up so that it creates a map. The second part of this event is if your family’s looking for a cheap, free date night, take the kids out in their jammies
with some hot cocoa to have a great night. Maps will be available using all the addresses inputted as of Wednesday, November 27; as more houses are added, we will continue to update
that map, and we will update it through December 16, but the map will stay live probably through Christmas and maybe a week or two after the New Year for those who keep their lights
up longer. Typically, we have 30-to-40 houses on the map, so it’s a good chunk of houses in Cottage Grove, and it gives you clear direction on where to go to see all those good ones.
Molly asked Mayor Bailey if he wanted to post his house yet; he replied I will be, I promise you, but it’s not out there yet.
December 5, Hometown Holiday: Will be held here at City Hall from 5:00-7:00 p.m. It’s a fun evening of activities, Santa, Mrs. Claus, and the mayor will be arriving via fire truck at
4:30, and then we will be lighting the tree; where in the past people have shown up and the tree has been lit, this year we’re bringing back the tradition of them lighting the tree.
We have wagon rides coming from the HERO Center and the Washington County building. We have live reindeer on site, games, activities, prizes, food trucks. As you saw from the first
picture, we have over 35 inflatables down this walking path. We have hot cocoa and cookies this year, lots of great sponsors for the events, along with the Park High School choir coming
back to do some pop-up caroling around the events. It’s a great family event, it’s quick, it’s easy, it’s in and out, two hours. So, we really encourage people to come out that night
and park either at the HERO Center or the Washington County building and take the wagons in.
December 8, River Oaks Santa Breakfast: Has been a tradition in this City for as long as I can remember. It will be held December 8 at River Oaks; breakfast times start 9:15-12:15, includes
photos with Santa, sleigh rides around the golf course, S’mores over the bonfire outside, and a super fun North Pole breakfast. Reservations are required, and they’re only taking them
via phone, and I know it is typically a sold-out event; so, if your family is looking for something fun to do to kick off the holiday season early in December, I encourage you to call
and make those reservations soon as they do typically sell out.
December 11, CPKC Holiday Train: Is coming back for the 20th year in a row, which is pretty amazing. It is never a given that they’re going to come back. This is also the year that we
hope to hit some big numbers supporting the Friends in Need Food Shelf; we have a pretty big goal of $100,000 again, and we’re hoping to meet that with little fundraiser sponsors like
businesses and then donations by people the night of the train. The brightly-lit train arrives at 5:15 p.m. this year, on a Wednesday, so it will be a little bit more busy at the Park
and Ride, but we’re hoping to make it all work. Again, we’ll be utilizing wagon rides from the Park and Ride, down to a little bit past the Youth Service Bureau. Once the train arrives,
it takes about 15 minutes for the train to set up, the boxcar opens, they perform for about a half hour, and then it takes about 15 minutes to close up and pull out; those I think are
some of the best moments, the pulling in and the pulling out. Festivities start as early as 3:30 p.m.: We’ll have food trucks, a warming tent, a DJ on site, again, lots of amazing sponsors
helping to make this a great event. On our train, the performances are by The Lone Bellow and Tiera Kennedy; there are two trains that go across North America and Canada. If you’re
looking for more information, I would check the CPKC website, under Community Events it says Holiday Train; it’s pretty unique and cool how they make it across Canada and North America
and make it all work.
All Winter Long, Parks and Recreation-Get Out and Play!: We just like to remind people that recreation is not just your summertime splash pad kind of activities; all of these great amenities
stay open all year round, and it’s looking like we might be on the right track this year: Parks; Trails; Warming Houses (Open the day after Christmas, 8 different sites this year, adding
Glacial Valley Park); Skating Rinks; Sledding Hills; Cross-Country Skiing Trails, groomed at River Oaks Golf Course; Snowshoes, we’re not quite sure where they’re going to be located,
but we’ll definitely be posting where those are going to be-for rental, we use the I Paddle Port box, so if you’re familiar with renting kayaks, it’s the same situation, it’ll just
be snowshoes and not a kayak and life jackets.
Other Festive Happenings in Cottage Grove
November 24, Grocery bagging at Cub Foods, 8:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m.: The Holiday Train Committee is bagging groceries this Sunday, and I know Mayor Bailey and our Council Members will be
there to help out, as well as a lot of friendly City staff and Holiday Train volunteers.
November 29, Turkey Time at Shepard Farm, 10:00-11:00 a.m.: Join a naturalist to learn about our heritage-bred turkeys up close and make your own turkey call.
November 30, Procrastinator’s Market Craft Show, River Oaks, 10:00 a.m.-3:00 p.m.: Shop with over 32 crafters and artisans to get those gifts checked off your list.
December 3, Introduction to Glowforge: Ornament, Shepard Farm, 6:00-7:30 p.m.: Come learn the ins and outs of laser engravers that can create beautiful laser-engraved products.
December 7, Fill Up a Fire Truck, 10:00 a.m.-1:00 p.m., Friends in Need Food Shelf: Stop by to help us fill up a fire truck for the Friends in Need Food Shelf, moved from Woodridge Park
to the food shelf. People can see what the food shelf looks like and the unique experience people get when they go there; it’s pretty amazing when you go in there and see how people
get to shop. It feels pretty good to know that’s where we’re donating.
December 8, Cottage Grove Lions Santa Breakfast, Cottage Grove VFW, 8:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m.: Join the Cottage Grove Lions for their annual Santa Breakfast; Adults $12, Kids $8. This is
the same day as the River Oaks Santa Breakfast, so you can choose one of them or go to both if you wish.
December 21, Snow Much Fun, Sensory-Friendly Saturday, Shepard Farm, 10:00-11:00 a.m.: Join a naturalist at Shepard Farm for a hike and activities geared toward nature lovers who need
a more sensory-friendly environment.
Molly said there are lots of activities happening the next four weeks around town, as there are only three weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas. So, it’s going to go fast once we
start off with the Hale to the Bird 5K next week. If anybody has questions, I can definitely try to help answer those or give you information that I do know.
Mayor Bailey told Molly you did really well in covering all of these events; he thanked Molly and the rest of the Parks and Recreation team and the City staff for putting this together
for us. I’m definitely looking forward to all of these amazing events coming up. Molly said have a happy holiday season, and I’ll see you Sunday, bagging groceries.
D. Proclamation - Small Business Saturday
Staff Recommendation: Proclaim November 30, 2024, as Small Business Saturday.
Mayor Bailey asked Council Member Thiede to read aloud the official proclamation for Small Business Saturday, and Council Member Thiede did so.
Motion by Council Member Thiede to proclaim November 30, 2024, as Small Business Saturday; second by Council Member Khambata. Motion carried: 5-0.
7. CONSENT AGENDA
A. Approve the November 6, 2024, City Council Special Meeting Minutes.
B. Approve the issuance of rental licenses to the properties listed in the attached table.
C. Receive report on Business Retention & Expansion Program Survey Results.
D. Authorize the purchase of the equipment and service ribbons utilizing criminal forfeiture funds to be
reimbursed by Washington County.
E. Adopt Resolution 2024-158, awarding the Portable Restroom contract to LRS and authorize the service agreement for the three-year contract commencing on January 1, 2025 for the portable
restroom service for the City of Cottage Grove.
F. 1) Approve purchase order to St. Croix Recreation for picnic shelters for Pine Tree Pond Park and Pine
Glen Park in the amount of $36,276.00. 2) Adopt Resolution 2024-161 authorizing the service
agreement with Michael Basich, Inc. for the installation of picnic shelters at Pine Tree Pond Park and
Pine Glen Park for the amount of $33,120.00.
G. Authorize Public Works to advertise and sell surplus property on Cranky Ape.
H. Approve the consent to improvements with Xcel Energy.
I. Approve Change Order #2, thereby increasing the contract amount for TH 61 River Oaks RCUT by
$2,650.00, to a total of $1,209,527.40.
J. Adopt Resolution 2024-16 authorizing distribution of the Draft Environmental Impact Statement for
the Nelson Backwaters Project.
K. Authorize the Mayor to sign the Agreement between City of Cottage Grove and U.S. Home, LLC,
Related to Segments of Sanitary Pipe for Graymont Village.
Mayor Bailey wished to pull Item I, TH 61 River Oaks RCUT-Change Order #2, on the Consent Agenda for a question and then his comments.
Mayor Bailey stated this item was a Change Order, increasing the amount of money that was being put towards this particular project, which is completed. He explained the project, which
changed the exit from River Oaks Golf Course to a righthand turn only, to go south, and then go up and come back to a U-turn to go north on Highway 61. One of the things I saw they
did was they put this concrete sidewalk down the middle, between the two roads, and I wondered what they were doing. Now we have to put up barricades because it was wide enough that
cars could go through, so cars were just strictly cutting across. My question is why are we putting a sidewalk across the middle of Highway 61, in front of River Oaks?
Ryan Burfeind, Public Works Director, replied that’s a great question, it’s one that we’ve definitely gotten, once people saw that going in. The simple answer is it’s an actual
Federal ADA and Pedestrian Accessibility Requirement. Even though we consider them driveways, that actually is West Point Douglas Road and then East Point Douglas Road intersecting
Highway 61. It’s a Federal law that all intersections need to allow pedestrians to cross. Let’s say you just filled in the median and didn’t do the U-turn, you just closed that median
and people had to find their way, then you’d actually be severing the intersection. But when you have the RCUT with the U-turns, it’s still considered a full-access intersection, so
that’s where it comes from. I will say we pushed this all the way to the top of the Pedestrian ADA staff at MnDOT because clearly, no one should cross there, it’s not safe, it makes
no sense, but it’s not really about that; it’s a hard and fast Federal rule that there really was no way around. Actually, after that, I paid attention; if you drive down Highway 52,
going to Rochester, out in the middle of the country, and there’s RCUTs and there’s a sidewalk cutting through them. Out there, the median is so massive, the sidewalk has to kind of
snake through it, and a car would never try to navigate it; well, here, it’s just such a narrow median, it was pretty convenient for cars to try and cheat that and get right through.
So, that’s the reasoning, it doesn’t make a lot of sense from a practical standpoint, but sometimes you’ve got Federal rules that you really just can’t get around.
Mayor Bailey said yeah, it’s unfortunate, and nothing against the handicap accessibility, obviously, at all, but we don’t really want anybody crossing there, no matter who you are
because of the safety of the highway. So, it’s very disappointing that they forced us and the State of Minnesota to put that in at the taxpayers’ cost, that was my only reason for pulling
it.
Council Member Thiede asked can you mention what we’re going to do to keep cars from going across there?
Mayor Bailey replied I guess I can, it’s part of this, and I saw it, I believe it’s up already, I went by there today. So, they added barricades across there, and that was why the
increase in cost, I believe for $2,650, was to put these posts with reflectors along the median there so that cars cannot cross, like they were. When I saw it before, I could see a
car going there, and I was shocked as to what they were trying to do, but I understand now. I don’t agree with it, but I do understand why we had to do it. He thanked Director Burfeind
for sharing that information.
Motion by Council Member Olsen to approve the Consent Agenda; second by Council Member Garza.
Motion carried: 5-0.
8. APPROVE DISBURSEMENTS
Approve disbursements for the period of 11-01-2024 through 11-14-2024 in the amount of
$2,087,362.62.
Motion by Council Member Garza to approve disbursements; second by Council Member Khambata.
Motion carried: 5-0.
9. PUBLIC HEARINGS - None.
10. BID AWARDS - None.
11. REGULAR AGENDA
A. Intermediate Zone Water Treatment Plant - Preliminary and Final Plat, Site Plan
Review, and Variance
Staff Recommendation: 1) Approve Resolution 2024-159 approving the Preliminary and Final Plat, to
be called Pine Tree Pond Addition. 2) Approve Resolution 2024-160 approving a Site Plan Review for
the construction of an Intermediate Zone Water Treatment Plant and variances to the maximum
building height and minimum rear-yard setback located at 8300 Isleton Court South.
Riley Rooney, Associate Planner, stated before you this evening is an application on behalf of the City for a Site Plan Review, Preliminary and Final Plat, as well as a Variance for
the Intermediate Zone Water Treatment Plant. The site is located south of the Central Fire Station, just off of 80th Street South, in Pine Tree Pond Park, it is 6.78 acres and consists
of vegetative grasses and a variety of coniferous and deciduous trees. The highest grade is at the northwestern corner of the property, which decreases in elevation towards the park
itself. The City is requesting approval of a Preliminary and Final Plat to split 6.78 acres from the existing Central Fire Station addition for the creation of a new parcel with a frontage
of 88 feet on 81st Street South. The parcel is currently zoned R-3, Single- Family Residential, and is guided as Park and Open Space in the 2040 Comprehensive Plan. Utility and essential
services are permitted in this District as Administrative Conditional Use, and this is just because they don’t pose any adverse impacts to the residents in that neighborhood. One thing
I just want to touch on briefly, as a reminder, the City currently operates a handful of Interim Treatment Plants; this is just to provide clean drinking water to residents in the City
at this time. Through this 3M Settlement, we were provided funds to construct two permanent treatment plants, the first Low Zone Water Treatment Plant is currently under construction,
and the second one is before you today.
The location of this Water Treatment Plant was specifically selected due to the location of existing watermain infrastructure, as well as the well locations down there, and both
to serve the intermediate pressure and high pressure zones.
Briefly, I want to touch on the park as well. Given the treatment plant is proposed on park land, the 3M Settlement Funds are compensating the City for the value of that land, the
6.78 acres; the City of Cottage Grove recognizes that the proposal will reduce the park land on site, so in exchange, compensation from the Settlement Funds are planned to pay for some
of the park improvements that Director Dockter has put forth.
The proposed Water Treatment Plant consists of a 58,000 square-foot building, as well as a proposed future phase, which would include water softening infrastructure; that’s been
highlighted on the screen in red, and that will be detached from the principal structure itself. So, the site will have two access points, one off 80th Street South, which is highlighted
in blue, and the other off 81st Street, which is highlighted in green. The 81st Street access will be the primary access for day-to-day operations and vehicle traffic; the 80th Street
access will be secondary, for construction traffic and also for infrequent truck deliveries to the Water Treatment Plant itself. Both
accesses will be gated to ensure some more security of the site. Pedestrian connectivity will not be provided directly to the Water Treatment Plant itself, but additional connections
are being proposed as part of the park improvements to enhance the connectivity for residents as well as individuals from the Fire Station to and from the park.
District standards require 14 parking stalls on site per Code; the total parking stalls being proposed include 18, which are highlighted in blue. There will also be an additional
8 stalls provided to the rear parking lot of the Central Fire Station, this is just due to the 6 being removed with installation of the access road from the Water Treatment Plant to
80th Street South.
The City has submitted two Variance requests: The first is to the maximum building height. This includes two areas of the building, which exceed the District standards, the first
is the stairwell here, as well as the lamella room and detention tank section. These are both just over 40 feet in height, while the remainder of the building is 33 feet in height or
less. A Variance is required for these two sections, first just to provide access between the floors and then also to provide the needed space for the lamella room and detention tank
section. The building footprint of these two phases is pretty small, occupying only 7% of the entire building itself. Additionally, the applicant, the City, has designed the building
to sit at roughly the same height as the Central Fire Station by using the existing grade on that area.
The second Variance is to the minimum rear property line setback. The City is proposing a 32-foot setback to the rear property line, minimum setbacks require 35 feet in an R-3 Zoning
District. A Variance is requested for this just based on limited acreage of the site, as well as the size of the building needed to encompass the water treatment process. In addition,
moving the Water Treatment Plant further south would not only impact the existing City water infrastructure, but it would also occupy more of the park space there.
The Architecture proposed meets and exceeds Code requirements; the proposed materials are on the screen before you. These have been selected to essentially complement the existing
City buildings, including the Central Fire Station itself.
The submitted Landscaping plan meets and exceeds all Code standards as well; the applicant is proposing 36 overstory trees, 32 coniferous trees, and 108 shrubs. A berm will be installed
on the western property line between the homes here and the Intermediate Water Treatment Plant. A tree inventory was also conducted and mitigation is required; 10 trees are going to
be installed to fulfill those mitigation requirements there. Here’s just an image of what the landscaping berm will look like between the houses in the residential district and the
Water Treatment Plant.
The Lighting meets and exceeds all Code standards as well, with a 0.0-foot candle at all neighboring property lines. There are 17 parking lot poles to be included, which will be
30 feet in height with single heads directed downward, towards the parking lot itself.
Planner Rooney said I am actually going to turn this over to Director Burfeind to talk about the site operations, and Mayor Bailey thanked Riley.
Director Burfeind said Riley covered all of the planning aspects really well, I want to touch a little bit on construction operation and a little more on what we’re doing here. So, Riley
touched on why it’s going here; obviously, it’s kind of really in a neighborhood, in existing park land. Like she said, its all of our seven wells that we have in this area go right
to this location and serve the two big ground storage tanks. It’s also where we pump water up to the high-pressure zone, as we call it, kind of this area and going up to the border;
water has to enter our system here, and by doing that and using these existing pipes, it’s very cost effective. In Woodbury, it’s just a different layout; they have 22 wells scattered
across the city, and they have about $100M to connect all those wells to a treatment plant, and we will not have anything that significant. Even if we could have built it let’s say
out on undeveloped land east of Keats or somewhere out there, which we couldn’t, you’d probably be looking at $50-$60M to install 6 massive watermains and then bring it right back to
this location. So, that’s just not a practical approach. During the design, we were very cognizant of the fact that we are in a neighborhood.
From a construction standpoint, we would be starting next summer, early summer I would say. We’ll take bids in the spring. We’re at about 60% design right now overall on the plant,
so that’s progressing really well. It is really three full summers to get this building operational, as there’s so much concrete that we have to pour. We were looking at getting operational
before the summer of 2027, but when you have a plant of this size, you really want
to get it operational when you have lower water demands. You don’t want to bring this thing online and be in the peak of summer with massive water demand, so really fall of 2027 makes
the most sense. With that, 2028 is kind of the EPA mandate to have all this done, so we’re still a year ahead of that, and, as Riley said, we’re providing fully-treated water today
regardless.
Thinking about being in the neighborhood, Riley talked about setbacks, screening, everything we’re trying to do is to minimize the impact to this neighborhood. We have the two entrances,
so large trucks, that was an issue here; we’re kind of fitting this in like a puzzle. If we had all the land we wanted, you’d probably put this on 15-to-20 acres, and we’re fitting
it onto about 6.5. We’re utilizing that Fire Department road around the east side of the building, so when we have larger deliveries in the future, they can drive in off of 81st, drive
north, and out; they’re not turning around, they won’t have backup beepers, as that’s a very annoying thing to have in a neighborhood.
We’ve been working very closely with the Fire Department because obviously in all this we cannot impact the Fire Department operations. So, part of this plan will actually be to
widen that road to make it wide enough for two vehicles that goes around the back of the fire station, we really want to do that immediately so we can use it for construction access
as well. The biggest impact this neighborhood would have would be all that construction access for three years; so, if we can get that off of 80th, not off of 81st, that would be a
huge improvement. At the start of construction, we’ll have to because it’s the only way in and out of the site, but then we can move it to that point. We’ve been working closely with
the Fire Department leadership team, and we’ve also actually had presentations to the crews as well because this is kind of a new neighbor for them, to have this facility here.
Operationally, once this is done, it’s kind of like the Low Zone plant, there’s not a lot going on. The media that treats the PFAS, Ion Exchange, that probably lasts four-to-six
years before we have to do a changeout. We’re taking the iron and manganese out of the water more on the west end of the building, and that’s like 20 years before we have to change
out the media; that’s when you’d see some larger semis come in to do that work. Other than that, it’s really one-or-two Public Works staff that would be coming in each regular business
day, during regular business hours, just to keep tabs on the plant and make sure it’s operating. Everything is enclosed inside, so it’s very quiet; in terms of having a large building
there, it is a good neighbor.
Like Riley said, we’re even trying to work with the lower elevations and stacking material up on the building so it’s not necessarily always a 33-foot wall you’re seeing, maybe
some dirt can kind of come up the sides to soften that look a little bit. Like I said, we’re being very intentional about reducing that impact as we build this giant facility.
Just to touch on really quickly, we do have in this area five temporary treatment plants that are part of that service for our water system. To provide the treated water, you can
kind of see them highlighted in the red boxes here; those would be taken offline after this building is complete as those came through the Planning Commission and City Council. They’re
small, they’re metal buildings, they don’t really meet any standards, but they’re very cost effective in a temporary nature; so, those would be taken down. One of those is an Ion Exchange
facility, so actually the tanks will move into this facility as well; that one was just finished this year, so a little bit of a cost savings there from the temporary treatment plant.
Director Burfeind said with that, we have the recommendation, and I’ll be happy to stand for any questions.
Mayor Bailey asked if Council had any questions.
Council Member Thiede said you’re talking about the lights and you’ve got this berm for the houses to the west, and then you’ve got houses directly across 81st and actually right
by the entrance there, too. You’ve got your 30-foot light poles, I mean, you’ve got the tanks there. I don’t think there are any lights associated with the tanks, are there right now,
the water towers?
Director Burfeind replied not really specific for the tanks. I will say in terms of more of the parking lot lighting, since it is more of a Cobra head, like we have here at City
Hall, very much downward directed, I think it’s much less light. The remainder of the neighborhood has kind of our standard kind of globe-style light that projects quite a bit of light
out; it should be quite a bit less than that. And the building does sit quite a bit lower than those homes that are to the south, so that’s going to make a nice, kind of natural barrier
for them as well.
Council Member Thiede asked there have been meetings with the neighbors and such?
Director Burfeind replied yes, that’s correct. So, actually many years ago, we sent an initial letter about this; we had a letter really specific about the treatment plant in about
February 2024, and there was a neighborhood
meeting in October 2024. There were only a handful of residents there, and actually most of the questions were about the parks and the streetlighting, not lighting here but streetlights
that were out in their neighborhood. Also, at the Planning Commission, I think overall they were very understanding of the need to have this facility in our City and kind of appreciative
of the efforts to make it as low impact as we can.
Council Member Thiede said all right, great, thanks.
Mayor Bailey said the only other comment I was going to mention is I noticed on the map, and staff was great with putting this on there in the event that we, in the future, want to add
water softening. There is in both this site, as well as the current facility that we’re building, off of 100th and Ideal, would have the ability to expand or add water softening to
that.
Council Member Khambata said I just wanted to touch really quickly on the variance for the height of the building. If I recall correctly, the practical difficulty there with the two
areas of the building that need to have that variance are: 1) To have a stairwell to access the roof, and 2) The other, if I’m not mistaken, is for the process of loading and unloading
the replacement material that’s used on site. Is that correct?
Director Burfeind replied yes, you’re definitely right on the stairwell, and the side with the lamella room, as Riley called it, that’s the access point for chemicals and things
like that as well; so, that operation is going to be happening. One other reason is, and I won’t get into the details of it, there’s kind of a gravity flow through the plant with this
iron and manganese removal, and that has to be at the highest point as well; so, that’s situated in that room, which kind of requires that height above the rest of the facility. Council
Member Khambata said thank you.
Council Member Thiede said one other thing that I kind of looked at and remembering when the Central Fire Station was built, there was discussion about planning that if we had expansion,
it would go to the east to get more garage space. Looking at this, this doesn’t seem to affect that at all, is that correct?
Director Burfeind replied yep, that’s correct. That area just east of the Central Fire Station, between that and that loop road, that was the area earmarked for that expansion,
and the loop road, as I call it, was really placed in a permanent location, so it would not impact that.
Council Member Thiede said great, okay.
Motion by Council Member Khambata to Adopt Resolution 2024-159 approving the Preliminary Plat and Final Plat to be called Pine Tree Pond Addition; second by Council Member Thiede. Motion
carried: 5-0.
Motion by Council Member Garza to Approve Resolution 2024-160 approving the Site Plan Review for the construction of an Intermediate Zone Water Treatment Plant and Variances to the maximum
building height and minimum rear yard setback located at 8300 Isleton Court South; second by Council Member Olsen.
Motion carried: 5-0.
12. COUNCIL COMMENTS AND REQUESTS
Council Member Khambata said I don’t have any requests for staff; however, I would like to state that I think this qualifies as the first snowfall of the year. So, everyone just please
be safe.
Council Member Olsen said Molly did just an unbelievable job with her presentation earlier, talking about all the various holiday events that we’ve got going on and soon to come. I did
want to just double back on one of those, which is the 2024 Cottage Grove Lions Santa Breakfast; that breakfast starts at 8:00 a.m. at the VFW on December 8, and it runs until noon.
The cost per adult is $12, the cost for kids is $8 for the breakfast, and of course we will have Santa at the breakfast for pictures and all of those things. So, do what I plan to do,
which is get there early, get a great breakfast, sit on Santa’s lap, and then head over to River Oaks to repeat. I think that’s the way to do it that day.
I also wanted to just compliment the Public Works team. I know they’ve been working super hard on getting all the streets swept before the snow started to fall; in fact, I think
they were in my neighborhood this morning when it was nice enough outside to be able to get the street sweeping done. I know that they’ve been very hard at work, getting prepared for
the winter season; let’s not forget, they’re continuing to work on mitigating the damage that was caused by the severe storms we had here a couple months back, including tree removal
and all those sorts of things, there’s tree trimming going on. So, I know a lot of those folks are putting in extra time, and I just wanted to say thank you for that.
The other thing that I just wanted to talk about real quick is our Cottage Grove area Beyond the Yellow Ribbon team, which actually services two areas; one of those is our Cottage
Grove Armory and we also cover Hastings, so we have the Hastings Armory as well. We are once again partnering this year with the Cottage Grove Lions Club on making sure that none of
our military families or veterans go without this Christmas. The Cottage Grove Lions have been tremendous partners for the last five years, we show up at Target en masse, this year
it’s December 14; we start at 9 o'clock, we hand out the lists of all the families who need support, and we just go to town and it’s a really fun day, it’s a busy day. We take all of
the gifts back to the VFW, and then we wrap those and make sure that we’re all set to deliver. If you would like to help us fund that endeavor, one of the things that the Cottage Grove
Beyond the Yellow Ribbon team is doing this year is we’re doing a big ticket raffle called our Holiday Helper Raffle; those tickets are $100 each, and there are only 100 tickets, and
we’re getting down to the last few. In fact, I’ve been getting text messages this evening while sitting here about people who want tickets because they know we’re almost out. The opportunity
that you have is if your ticket is drawn for the Grand Prize, you can win $1,500 cash, and then we have various prizes of different denominations, all the way through winning $150 if
you’re chose as the tenth prize winner. The good news is you can put your ticket back in the hopper after every draw, so people can win multiple times. It’s a really great way to support
military families and veterans in our community. If you’re interested in that, again, tickets are running pretty fast so we’ve only got a few left, but you can reach out to me. You
can also reach out to Sergeant Pat Nickle, who is our incoming President for Cottage Grove Beyond the Yellow Ribbon, and Pat works in the Cottage Grove Police Department; Captain Brad
Petersen, who is our incoming Vice President for Beyond the Yellow Ribbon in January; or you can reach out to our current President, Raymond Kane. We all have tickets, and we’d be happy
to sell you one. It’s a great way to help support military families and veterans, and a special thanks to the Cottage Grove Lions Club for partnering with us again on that this year.
Council Member Garza said I just am excited to get out and collect some donations at Cub Foods on Saturday; I think we’re there from 8:00 to noon, some of us, and so excited to see some
people come out and bring some donations for Friends in Need.
Mayor Bailey said I do know the donations, what they’re looking for because it’s been a while since we’ve done this, is actually there’s a little container to put money in, so most
of it is just tipping; now, we don’t get the tip, but the tip obviously goes to Friends in Need.
Council Member Olsen said it all goes to Friends in Need, do your Thanksgiving shopping at Cub this weekend and come and see us.
Mayor Bailey said what’s funny is I have seen a variety of different people on social media that have been putting out different dates for bagging groceries. So, my grandson a little
bit ago must be watching or something because he said grandpa, don’t forget to tell them that on Friday, from 4:00 to 7:00 this week, so November 22, the Squirt B2 Hockey Team is going
to be bagging groceries at Hy-Vee. Council Member Olsen said I think we have the coach in the room, don’t we? Mayor Bailey said yes, he’s in the back there, Zac is the coach. So, if
you’re interested, whether you go on Friday and then go again on Sunday and come and see us, some great opportunities to help. Again, all the proceeds from the Hy-Vee event goes to
the Squirt B2 team for tournaments and paying for ice time, which we know is quite expensive. Of course on Sunday, when we do it, all of the proceeds go to the Friends in Need Food
Shelf.
Mayor Bailey said this evening, we have two workshops, both are open to the public: The first one is basically Cannabis Businesses/Uses-Zoning & City Code Ordinance Amendments; we have
actually been through this before, now it’s just kind of finalizing things before it goes before the Planning Commission and Council. Our City Attorney
will be talking to us about that. The second workshop is our final review of the 2025 Budget and 2025 Property Tax Levy; our staff is going to give us an update on kind of where we’re
sitting right now from that standpoint and some of the things that we have asked, if possible, to have added to the budget without raising the tax.
With that, we’ll adjourn in the Training Room. So, everybody have a great Thanksgiving next week, and we’ll see you in December.
13. WORKSHOPS - OPEN TO PUBLIC - TRAINING ROOM
Cannabis Businesses/Uses - Zoning & City Code Ordinance Amendments
Staff Recommendation: Discuss and provide feedback regarding Cannabis Businesses/Uses, Zoning, and City Code Ordinance Amendments.
Mayor Bailey said this workshop is for our City Attorney, Kori Land, is going to walk us through the final version, just to make sure Council’s aware of where we’re at with everything.
Then it will come back to us at a future date, correct?
Attorney Land replied correct. So, we’re finally getting to you with all these cannabis conversations that we’ve been having. This is the last workshop we’re going to have, and
then I will be here to present this to you at the next Council Meeting.
We’re going to discuss two parts of the Code. As you know, you have two sections to your City Code: One is your administrative sections and this is where we’re going to talk about
all of the registration ordinance, the fee table, and the odor ordinance, but the other half is the zoning. We talked about uses and zoning, and the Planning Commission has vetted the
Zoning Ordinance, and so that we’re just going to kind of review to make sure we’re all good with where the uses landed in the Zoning Districts, all the bubbles match.
Just to refresh your memory on the kind of uses we’re talking about with cannabis, there’s sort of two categories of cannabis: There’s the kind that’s legal today, which is the
low-potency that’s edible, and don’t get confused because edible also includes beverages, just because the legislature is that creative with definitions. So, low potency means under
0.3% THC in the product; again, that’s what’s legal under Minnesota law today to be sold, and we have one low-potency cannabis retail store and that’s High North. So, that’s the only
place in Cottage Grove that is officially allowed to sell lower potency edible products. If anybody else is selling it, I don't want to know. So, that is the hemp edible low-potency
version of cannabis.
Then there’s cannabis, which is marijuana, 0.3% or higher THC level, and nobody can be selling that today except medical because the Office of Cannabis Management (OCM) is not licensing
anyone for it yet; so, if that product is out there, it’s 100% illegal in the State of Minnesota. If you are not selling it and you’re using it yourself because you’re growing it in
your basement, again, that’s fine, we don’t care; we’re talking about businesses.
Then there is the retail, which can be the lower-potency version of the retail that is in existence today and then the cannabis retail, which is not legal yet. There is all of the
industrial kinds of uses: the manufacturing, the processing, and production, and then there’s the cultivation, which is generally done in an AG Zoning District.
So, this is where the uses landed in our Code: We have the lower-potency hemp edible retail beverage, which we’ve separated from sort of the gummies version of the edibles. Those
can be sold, you determined that that would be acceptable if someone has an off-sale liquor license or it’s an off-sale exclusive liquor store, this is not the gas station version,
this is only an exclusive liquor store. So, they can sell these THC beverages, which only come in low potency; you can’t buy a cannabis beverage, it’s only in low potency. You also
decided that they can be allowed at on-sale, which means that they can be consumed at a bar or restaurant with an intoxicating liquor license. Again, the only two places where it is
allowed as a permitted use, and won’t need to come in for any Land Use approvals if it’s associated with a liquor license, but only if it’s a liquor store or intoxicating liquor license
on sale.
Then there’s the low-potency edibles retail, that’s apart from a liquor store or on-sale liquor license; that’s what High North has. So, this would be a Conditional Use Permit,
and these are the Zoning Districts where that would be allowed. Cannabis retail is also allowed in the same Zoning Districts, but we have buffers and I will explain those in a second.
Whether it’s low potency or cannabis, it won’t matter, manufacturing uses only go in the I-1 and the I-2,
then there’s the wholesale, but they’re not storing any product, but they are dealing in the business, which may involve cash business; these are allowed in Zoning Districts B-3, B-2,
PB, and MU. And then there’s cannabis cultivation, which can be done both indoors, in a greenhouse or a fully-enclosed normal brick and mortar building, or it can be outdoors. So, these
are the Zoning Districts that they go in.
Buffer Zones: We talked about 1,000 feet between uses, except for on-sale and off-sale because we don’t care if it’s associated with a liquor license, but if it’s a low-potency cannabis
retail, those uses would have to be 1,000 feet apart. If it’s a cultivation and it’s a retail, those would have to be 1,000 feet apart. So in this cannabis business or low-potency business,
they all have to be at least 1,000 feet apart from each other, and they have to be 1,000 feet from schools and 500 feet if it’s a daycare in a commercial zone; so, if it’s a residential
daycare, we’re not counting those because generally, these are all going to be commercial districts anyway. They have to be 500 feet from a residential treatment facility, that means
it’s an overnight addiction kind of treatment facility, and that seems to make good sense. They have to be 500 feet from an attraction in a park, so it’s not the park property line,
it’s the playground, it’s the pavilion with a back to it, a picnic shelter. For cultivation and manufacturing, we said 1,000 feet from residential.
So, where can low-potency retail go? So, High North, they can go in these Zoning Districts and the only buffer zones for low-potency retail will be 1,000 feet between these. It
still will require a CUP, but we’re saying they have to be 1,000 feet from the other. So, you could get any low-potency retail in this Zoning District, and this is where they would
go. For example, when you zoom in on High North, this is what their buffer bubble would look like; if they choose to stay a low-potency and edible retailer, we would put a 1,000-foot
bubble around them, and then no other cannabis or low-potency use could locate within that bubble.
Cannabis retail, so the dispensary version, which is not going to be associated with any other kind of business, they’re not going to be selling also like hair accessories, this
is solely just a dispensary, they will be in the same Zoning Districts as the low-potency retail district, but now we have our buffer of bubbles. So, they can be outside of the bubbles
in these Zoning Districts.
Council Member Garza asked what if High North decides to go to cannabis retail? They’re fine in that bubble?
Attorney Land replied it’s the same buffer bubble around them, so they would be on this map, and they would have their green bubble.
Manufacturing and production, again they’re industrial uses and were put in the industrial park, in the I-1 and I-2, so anywhere in the purple. We did put a red bubble around LeafLine
Labs because they are an existing medical cannabis use, so they get the 1,000-foot bubble around them; no other cannabis or low-potency use could operate within that bubble, and then
there’s 1,000 feet from residential. So, there are still plenty of opportunities for someone to put a site together for a manufacturing facility outside of the bubble.
LeafLine Labs came to you at the last Council Meeting I was told because one of the requests that you had made at the last workshop was that you wanted and we had a 40-acre minimum
requirement on outdoor cultivation, and a 40-acre minimum on indoor cultivation as well. Remember this is allowed in both the I-1 District as well as the AG Districts. LeafLine would
not qualify as an indoor cultivation because they don’t have 40 acres, they only have a 22-acre site. They came into town in 2014 to operate their medical cannabis facility; at the
time, it was the IB-2 and now it’s been rezoned to the I-1. They asked for a 134,000 square-foot expansion into a greenhouse, which then they converted into a brick-and-mortar building,
but they’re only in the first phase of that building. So, the bottom corner shows what their existing site looks like today. They still have under that old permission from 2022 to build
the addition that they wanted to, but considering they’ve only completed Phase 1; now, the Council had directed that we had a 40-acre minimum, as I said, for both indoor and outdoor
cultivation. They requested that indoor cultivation minimum be reduced to 20 acres. So, I kind of thought about some options. The proposed ordinance that was in your packet shows a
20-acre minimum for indoor cultivation, again which would have to occur in a hoop house, in a greenhouse, or in a brick-and-mortar building on a site that is at least 20 acres. We can
do that, that’s what’s written in the Code today, so indoor cultivation, whether it’s in the I Zones or the AG Zones, would only require a 20-acre minimum. But, knowing that LeafLine’
s real use is in the Industrial Zone and the Industrial Park has much smaller parcels than your typical, let’s go back to the map there, than the AG Zoning Districts; so, maybe it makes
sense to only require a 20-acre minimum for the I Zones but a 40-acre minimum if
you’re in the AG Zones. So, those are kind of the ideas I’ve thought of, and you can leave it the way it is with 40-acre minimum, and then LeafLine just becomes a legal nonconformity
because that’s what they are today; or you could do a 20-acre minimum if it’s indoor cultivation in all the Zoning Districts, all four, or you could do a 20-acre minimum in just the
Industrial Park and a 40-acre minimum in the AG Districts.
So, I’m going to pause because we kind of need to get to the solution of that.
Mayor Bailey asked Council if they had any thoughts on it; he said my thought was if they wanted to do the 20 acres indoor, I’m fine with it. I don’t know that I’d want it to all be
outdoor within the Business Park, it kind of doesn’t fit with what we’re doing over there with the process, and then do the 40 acres everywhere else. I mean, that’s kind of my take
on this. Council, do you have any other thoughts?
Council Member Khambata asked does LeafLine state whether they wanted to expand both the indoor or outdoor cultivation? Mayor Bailey replied they’re behind me. Council Member Khambata
asked what degree of greenhouse qualifies as indoor vs. outdoor?
Attorney Land replied a greenhouse is an indoor, enclosed structure. Now, we do have performance standards for the building materials in the I-1 Zoning District; so, they’d have
to comply with that, even if technically it’s a glass building greenhouse, it would have to comply with our ordinance. It couldn’t be any kind of a plastic greenhouse; it would have
to be glass.
Council Member Garza said I wonder if they just want to grow indoors because they can’t even grow year round.
Council Member Khambata asked because they’re landlocked, could they if we left the ordinance as is, could they request a variance to that nonconforming use because of that practical
difficulty? And we kind of leave things as is for now and not kind of like reshape it and see kind of what comes next? Because the challenge is, once we open the gate, we can’t close
it, right? So, if this is a scenario where it makes sense for a replan, but not for the broader use, then I think we’d be better off leaving the ordinance as is and granting a variance
where a variance is warranted. And then if, over time, as we’ve done with other land use and zoning ordinances, if there seems to be an overwhelming need to change it and kind of bring
the standard down to what the practical use is, with what we’re seeing in variance requests, then we could do that at a later date. I don't know, that’s my thought on it.
Mayor Bailey said I’m just going to say to Council Member Khambata, my question would be Kori was showing the other pictures, and there are other pieces or places in the Business Park,
that then somebody could come in and just cultivate without a structure.
Council Member Khambata said well, that’s what I’m saying; I disagree with lowering the acreage. I think we should leave it a 40-acre minimum and then what comes to mind is Menards
needed a variance for their impervious surface because they’re landlocked. So, that was a unnecessary burden and a practical difficulty that warranted a variance. We didn’t have to
change our Zoning Ordinance regarding impervious surface for Menards; Menards came to us with a practical difficulty that we could all agree was specific to their parcel and their use
that warranted the variance.
Council Member Thiede said my question was obviously with the indoor, the actual product is enclosed, so there’s security; for like outdoor, then, we’re saying 40 acres, is there any
requirement for security on that in terms of?
Administrator Levitt replied yes, the Statute actually requires 6-foot fencing around it, and we in our ordinance have extraordinary buffering and mitigation efforts to try to keep
the view away from public Right-of-Way view; as well as there’s just literally some security that the Statute requires to make sure that it’s not easily accessible around the exterior
of an outdoor cultivation.
Council Member Thiede asked so is that, in terms of that buffering and so forth, then I guess I’m trying to think of what’s the magic between the 20 acres and the 40 acres? Is there
any?
Administrator Levitt replied just to give it a little extra protection from adjacent neighbors, especially in an outdoor cultivation where there is automatic odors when the plants
are blooming, and you can’t contain that. So, we’re just trying to give it a little extra to avoid the nuisance issue to the adjacent properties.
Council Member Thiede said so, is it the fact that the 20 acres being indoor, coming down to that 20 acres, obviously you’re better able to contain and secure things with a building
vs. just outdoors. So, I guess I would say it’s probably a good thing with the indoors, and I’d probably be okay with the 20 acres.
Attorney Land asked 20 acres just in the Industrial Park, or 20 acres citywide, also in the AG?
Mayor Bailey said I’ll just say even if another, with all due respect to our friends at LeafLine, if another company wanted to come in, I would not want them to be able to do something
that the others can’t do, you know what I mean? Because then they get an undue advantage, so I’m thinking if we’re going to, with those Zoning Districts, I’d say you let it be 20, it
still keeps them in compliance. If somebody else came in or wanted to build a building on a 20-acre parcel to cultivate, with all due seriousness, that would increase the tax base for
us vs. adding a field with marijuana growing on it. That was my take on the whole thing.
Council Member Thiede said yeah, and I’m okay with it.
Mayor Bailey said that was my only difference, Tony, between the two. Council Member Khambata said yeah, I would agree with that.
Council Member Olsen said yeah, I think that’s the way to go. Have you benchmarked any other communities? I know you represent several, but I mean.
Attorney Land replied yes, and they have, it ranges from 20 to 40, it’s just kind of the average.
Council Member Olsen said I think your proposal now keeps 20 acres in the Industrial Park and then provides the rules as they are and they make sense.
Attorney Land said I’m seeing enough head nods now so we have a consensus on that. She said cultivation again in the I-1, I-2, and the AG Zones, buffer zone is 1,000 feet from residential,
and then a minimum for outdoor would be a minimum of 40 acres, and indoors in the AG would be 40 acres. Council Member Olsen said correct.
Attorney Land said, so, moving onto the City Code Amendments, we’re going to talk about the registration, the process, the fee table, and the odor ordinance. The OCM says now we can
actually talk about licenses and the types of licensing uses is posted in Land Usage that we were talking about before. Business licenses come in these 13 different forms, and we get
to regulate all of them; sort of, not really, we get to register them.
Registration Process: An applicant with one of those 13 names goes before the OCM and submits an application. The OCM gets to vet those applications, make sure that they meet all the
criteria, and are eligible for that particular license. Then they go to the City and they gave them a preliminary approval, but it’s on hold. And they send us what we would call a Zoning
letter to make sure that that business is complying with that particular property that they want from a Land Use designation; I’m guessing there’s going to be some hitches and glitches
in that process because the applicant probably didn’t think about it, so of course, the City’s going to have to say no, you don’t have a CUP, and it’s going to go back to square one
and go to the City and get the CUP and then try to walk through OCM again. Then OCM will say okay, you’re now in compliant zoning, here’s your license. Once they have their license
in hand, they will walk into City Hall, ask for the City Clerk, and say I’d like to register with you. So, that’s the process. Once they enter the door, we will apply very, very minimal
criteria because OCM has already gone through these applicants and done all the background investigation; so, we just kind of check the boxes, are you complying with our ordinances?
Like do you meet Zoning and everything that we have in our registration ordinance; have you paid your fee? Are you current on property taxes and assessments? Do you have your State
license, please? And then are you paid up on any City fees and regulations that sometimes we find when an applicant comes in; oh, by the way, you forgot this, come current on your escrow
fees. So, we’ll catch all of those things at that point.
City Council approval will be required for all of these registrations; we’re not going to do an administrative approval, so they will show up on your agenda. The term cannot be
coterminous, like we normally do, with a January 1 to December 31 license; we don’t get to do that with these registrations because the OCM will be issuing them annually, based on a
12-month period, based on whenever they walk in the door and get final approval. It could be March 1, it could be March 12, we don’t know; but whatever that term is, it’s going to create
a little bit of a logistical issue just keeping track of these awkward registration terms, but that’s what we’re going to have to do because we need to keep it consistent with OCM’s
license. Registration is just like licenses, we’re saying they’re not transferable, so they don’t try to sell them to another business or move them to another place; so, if the
owner wants to sell the business, the new owner has to come in and apply. There will be a cap on the fees, per State law, we’ll go through that. We can have a cap on the number of retail
dispensaries, and we’ll talk about that, and then special events are a separate permit, they’re not a registration, and we’ll discuss what the details are of that.
Fees: So, OCM, in their infinite wisdom, has decided they get to charge their fees, they get to charge an Application Fee, a License Fee, and then the Renewal Fee. The City can charge
half of the OCM’s License Fee, with a cap of $500 for the initial registration, and then half of the Renewal Fee, or a cap of $1,000. So, even though LeafLine will walk in the door
and pay $20,000 for their first initial application, we will get $500. And LeafLine will pay $70,000 for their Renewal License from OCM, they will pay us $1,000. So, that’s just reality,
what we’re faced with, the Legislature’s the boss.
Lower potency, hemp, edibles, beverages, I just want you to think about this for a second, okay? This is again a gut-check moment. We have already said these are going to be permitted
uses if it’s associated with a liquor license, right? So, people can sell the beverages at an off-sale liquor store or on-sale with an on-sale intoxicating liquor license. They will
be required to register with the City, so even though they don’t need Zoning approval, they will still come to Tammy’s desk and she will process them and they will show up on your Council
Agenda. But I want to point out that at this point in time, there is no insurance available for on-sale consumption of a THC beverage; so, any bar or restaurant that’s selling it, even
though they have dram shop insurance for their alcohol, has no insurance for the THC beverages. Now, the industry may figure this out and eventually insure them, but as of right now,
there’s no insurance for it. I’ll give you kind of the horridest of all horribles where an underage person goes into a bar, they order a THC beverage, they are served, they are overserved,
they walk out of that bar and they die, for whatever reason, hypothermia. The parents sue the bar; well, with a THC beverage, it wasn’t alcohol so their dram shop isn’t going to touch
it. They have no insurance for this. Now, this is not a reflection on the City, this is a protection of the public. So, I just ask you to kind of again have that gut check; do we want
to put in the ordinance that in order to register and complete an application for a registration, that they have to have insurance for this product?
Council Member Khambata asked considering nobody offers insurance for that, would that be acting in an arbitrary and capricious manner?
Attorney Land said it’s open for everybody, I mean, I just think it’s a liability.
Council Member Thiede said but it’s not a liability on the City, it’s only on the restaurant.
Mayor Bailey said I could see the bar getting sued; Council Member Thiede agreed.
Council Member Khambata said I wouldn’t touch that, but the question is why require insurance that doesn’t exist? That seems arbitrary.
Attorney Land said okay, then I’m seeing no insurance, and that’s fine.
Attorney Land said these are permitted uses; a registration can only be suspended by the City for a period of 30 days, and OCM will investigate and they can overrule and give the keys
back to the business owner. So, by making it a permitted use, we have little control; by making it a conditional use, we would have the ability to revoke a CUP for any violation of
our City Code. So, I just again want to throw that out there as a gut check; are you still under sort of the policy directive that these, when it’s a beverage sold with a liquor license,
then it’s a permitted use?
Mayor Bailey asked so if our people go in and do a compliance check, if they were to fail it because they gave somebody a low-dose beverage, would that fall under our current alcohol
process?
Attorney Land replied no, we can give them a $2,000 penalty, that’s it.
Mayor Bailey asked is that because of that product or just any of them?
Attorney Land replied that’s because of that product. So, the Statute says if someone fails an underage compliance check or sells to an underage human not in a compliance check
but we find out about it, we can issue a $2,000 penalty, but we can’t suspend their registration over it.
Mayor Bailey asked unless we make it a conditional use? Attorney Land replied yes.
Council Member Olsen said because then we have the ability to revoke that permit, in which case they can no longer conduct business with that.
Council Member Thiede asked is that similar to the liquor?
Attorney Land replied well, the City has control over a liquor license, and we can revoke those. We can have a hearing, and obviously, with the CUP you would as well. We’ve done
that before with rental property.
Council Member Thiede said well, I would just keep the conditional use. Mayor Bailey said that’s what I’m thinking, too.
Council Member Olsen said and that way, too, remind me again, though, if we did make that a conditional use, to make that come forth to require a CUP, what kind of expense is that?
Attorney Land replied you know we could kind of, I think the medium approach might be an Administrative Conditional Use Permit, so it’s approved by staff.
Council Member Olsen said I would prefer that, personally.
Attorney Land said it would have the same revocation ability.
Mayor Bailey said I asked you everything I wanted. Tony?
Council Member Khambata said it’s a separate conditional use from the liquor license, and they fail a compliance check, how do we police that? If they can still operate as a liquor establishment,
how do we ensure that they’re not also still selling the THC beverages?
Attorney Land replied a spot check. I mean, that’s the Police Department, that’s usually what you do when somebody has been a troublemaker, you just keep checking up on them.
Mayor Bailey said, Kori, real quick; so, if a restaurant selling liquor were to fail on this, we could revoke their CUP for this, but they could still sell alcohol?
Attorney Land replied correct.
Council Member Garza said and just piggybacking off of what you’re saying, and I brought this up at the last meeting, I don’t understand what the separation between the two is if there’s
a CUP for liquor.
Attorney Land replied there isn’t.
Council Member Khambata said it’s a separate license. Council Member Olsen said a liquor license is a liquor license.
Council Member Garza asked and there’s not a cannabis license? Council Member Olsen replied there is now.
Council Member Garza said and you can’t have a cannabis license yet, the OCM is in control. Okay, that’s what I was trying to get; I just don’t get why we’re treating them differently.
Council Member Olsen said it’s about having a degree of accountability; Council Member Garza said yeah, I get that, I just didn’t understand that it wasn’t on a CUP.
Council Member Olsen asked Administrator Levitt if she had a thought on the CUP piece?
Administrator Levitt replied it gives you more leverage that you don’t have today. An Administrative CUP would be more appropriate, I think, and not creating as much workload for
staff. We can bring that all to the Planning Commission and then to you so it can be more expedited.
Council Member Khambata said I agree with the Administrative CUP; Council Member Olsen and Mayor Bailey said I do, too.
Mayor Bailey asked Kori again, just so I’m clear, let’s say they fail the compliance check, we could revoke, you said something about a $2,000 fine?
Attorney Land replied right; so, the State law allows you to issue an administrative penalty of $2,000 for failing a compliance check.
Mayor Bailey asked so would this be one of those situations where you could do, kind of like what we do with alcohol, where you can say if it’s the first time, it’s this?
Attorney Land replied well, absolutely. Obviously, somebody if they are caught in a compliance check failure and I think even High North failed it the first time, we’re going to
issue whether it’s a financial penalty, and you can
have a scale if you want for second and third violations; so, it doesn’t have to be $2,000 the first time, maybe it’s $500, and then you move up from there. Obviously, you’re not going
to revoke their CUP for one violation; it’s got to be a repetitive behavior.
Mayor Bailey said so then my comment would be it’s a great CUP idea for that option, and then I think staff, you need to come up with the scale, similar to what we’ve done with
alcohol, in my opinion.
Council Member Garza said I have a question about revocation; at what point is revocation, is revocation the third time? I would think if they’re selling to underage, whether it’s
alcohol or whether it’s cannabis, shouldn’t they be closed?
Mayor Bailey said I don’t disagree, it’s just the way it is.
Council Member Garza said yeah, it’s like, if you sold a liquor drink and they’re under 21 or if you sold a cannabis drink under 21, they still should be, they should be in trouble,
right? That shouldn’t be any different.
Mayor Bailey said that’s what they’re trying to do for us, and then I think what we just said is that we’ll try to mirror the options we can to current alcohol scales, and then
at what point do you revoke? I think now it would be the third time.
Council Member Olsen asked is there any difference with the drinks that don’t contain alcohol vs. the drinks that do contain alcohol with regard to who is allowed to police it, to do
the checks? For example, our Police Department is the one that handles all of the liquor compliance checks; does the Police Department have to be the one to do the THC?
Attorney Land replied yes, it has to be.
Council Member Olsen asked even though it’s an Administrative CUP vs. it coming to Council, it’s still depending on who’s going to be responsible.
Council Member Thiede said I don’t think we’d want it any different.
Council Member Olsen said well, I’m just asking because of course that’s additional workload for them.
Attorney Land said it is, but there’s an elbow. I think you just kind of do it the same time they do their alcohol check; it’s just one of the, I think normally they like to have
them in pairs, one of you order beer, and one of you order a THC beverage and see what happens.
Council Member Olsen said okay, fair enough.
Council Member Khambata said yeah, that was going to be my next question, directed at Public Safety, is having to do these compliance checks and unnecessary, like where’s the complexity
at to your existing system for spot checks?
Public Safety Director Pete Koerner replied obviously, it’s more work, but I don’t think it’s getting more complex, whether we do one night; right now, we do one night where we
do tobacco, and the next night we do alcohol, it’s manageable.
Council Member Khambata asked so it’s not asking an unnecessary degree of effort from you guys? Director Koerner replied no.
Attorney Land said just to confirm, the legislation allows you to put a cap on the number of retail dispensaries. So, these are the cannabis version, not the low potency, you can’t put
a cap on that. But the cannabis retailers, that’s your dispensary, whether it’s part of just a standalone one or it’s a mezzobusiness or a microbusiness. So, those three types of retail
cannabis, you can put a cap on the number of how many you have in your City based on your population. You have to have one for every 12,500 people. So, what I wrote into the Code was
you will allow one for every 12,500 people; you have 41,207 people, according to the last State demographer’s count in 2022, and by my math, that’s three. You haven’t quite reached
four, but you’re close. So, you’re at three that you would have to allow in the community. Do you want that cap, or do you not care?
Council Member Garza asked do we have a cap on liquor stores?
Mayor Bailey replied there’s a law for that, isn’t there? Director Koerner replied yeah, it’s related to the liquor licenses.
Council Member Khambata asked doesn’t our Zoning Ordinance already kind of limit the; I thought I counted it, there was four or five, but if you took all the applicable Zoning setbacks,
then there’d only be like four-or-five locations.
Attorney Land replied well, it would be that first map that I showed you with the bubbles.
Council Member Khambata said right, it would be 1,000 feet from another establishment and all of the other things. I think, unofficially in my head, it would come to like four-or-five
opportunity zones where you could have separate places. But, again, like as we develop in the future, and we have additional Industrial areas, the number of places where one could be
could also change.
Attorney Land said well, it couldn’t be in the Industrial Zones; it has to be in the B-3, PB, or MU.
Council Member Khambata said but yes, so, I guess I think the current Zoning setbacks are one limiting factor. Do we need to have a conversation about if there are any additional
ones?
Council Member Thiede replied it doesn’t let them, I guess this gives us a little more control on it. And like we were saying initially, I’d rather have the control and you can always
loosen it up vs. having to tighten it or something like that, right?
Mayor Bailey said so, you’re basically saying right now is there will be three dispensaries; Attorney Land replied yes, you would have to allow three. Mayor Bailey said well, High
North would already be one.
Attorney Land replied yes, if High North converts to a dispensary; now, their low-potency use doesn’t count, but if they convert it to a dispensary, then that would be one.
Council Member Thiede said I’d say go with three. Mayor Bailey said and we can change it in the future. Attorney Land said you can always remove it later. Council Member Olsen
said and the way it’s written, I think, makes it pretty easy to do the math.
Special Event Permits: Attorney Land said now, Cannabis Special Event Organizers is one of the categories of business licenses, and this says they don’t have to come to the City for
a registration, but they do have to have their event permit approved by the City. The process, unfortunately, in State law I think is backwards: Instead of coming to the City first
and asking for approval, they’re supposed to go to the OCM with all of their paperwork and the material that says here’s all my background investigation, and you can check all the boxes
on my criteria for making me eligible for a cannabis organizer license and here’s my proof that the City already approved it. The City needs to approve it first, so everything in State
law that they’re supposed to submit about their actual event we have to require to see because we have to know where are your entrances and exits, how are you storing your product,
how are you spot checking all of the people, making sure everybody’s over 21 that enters into the area, where are you storing your waste? So, all of this stuff we need to know upfront,
and so we’re requiring in the Code, and it looks like a lot of things that they have to submit, but that’s because the State’s going to be asking for it; what does the State know about
our City? We know our City and our properties better than they do. So, you need to approve everything that they’re seeing before it goes to the State. So, one of the recommendations,
and this is again up to you, is that an event may only be allowed on private property, it avoids any liability by being in a public park. We have insurance for our parks; they can’t
get insurance for onsite consumption, that might be a problem. So, I’m recommending that we have private property only you can put, unless with Council approval if you want to allow
them. Because I see these in two different forms: It’s either going to be a Food Truck event that’s all cannabis vendors or what they call the Weed Dabbler, I’ve heard, so you have
that, and that’s all just cannabis vendors vs. the I’m a cannabis vendor and I want to come to Strawberry Fest and put up my tent. And/or maybe I even want to have instead of the beer
tent, we’re going to have my weed tent at Strawberry Fest, it’s on public property, but it’s not like the entire event, it’s a special event for weed; it’s just part of a larger event.
Either one of those things would have to be approved by you, whether it is on private property or you want to allow it on public property. But my question is do you want to allow cannabis
vendors with special events, which is what they’re calling them, to occur on public property?
Mayor Bailey said here is my question, we don’t allow smoking in our parks, correct? So, then, the answer is no. Because if you can’t smoke cigarettes or whatever in the park, why would
we say okay, you can have an event and you can smoke marijuana in the park? It doesn’t make any sense.
Council Member Olsen said yeah, I’m on the same page.
Council Member Thiede asked are you able to differentiate between the smoking version event and then the lower version?
Attorney Land replied right, that’s the other piece, is they’ll say well, maybe we’re just a low-potency event.
Council Member Khambata asked does State Statute allow us to regulate low potency in this scenario?
Attorney Land replied yes, it’s the same; a special event organizer can be doing either one of those special events, any kind, either low-potency or cannabis.
Council Member Garza asked if they decided that they wanted to host a cannabis event, they can do it on private property?
Attorney Land replied yes, they couldn’t apply for it.
Council Member Garza said and what you see around the Twin Cities, especially related to cannabis events, they’re generally on private property, they’re not seeing them at parks.
So, I don’t think they should be there.
Mayor Bailey said to your point, I agree, but I think as this develops, I guess we’ll see; some cities are free wheeling it, letting whatever happen, and then there are other cities,
which I’ll be honest with you, the majority of the suburbs are keeping it really on private.
Attorney Land said and again, you can always, if it’s not a big deal or it ends up being something you want to pursue, you need to let me know and I’ll modify it. All right, so,
it’s not on public property.
Again, they have to have a security plan, and we’re going to run that by the Police Department to make sure that it all works; but even if it’s on private property, we still want
to make sure that there’s going to be a good security plan for it, know all the specifics about it, is it indoors or is it outdoors. I’m still confused on these, as they can be up to
four days, but is that consecutive, or is that over several weekends, or is that I can come back for four days every week? I don’t quite know how that’s supposed to work, and OCM doesn’t
have their rules, so, we don’t really know. It just says it can be up to four days. There can be onsite consumption; again, we would do that on a case-by-case basis. We are going to
require an escrow fee, just in case there’s a security issue and the Police Department has to respond; extraordinary efforts may require the Fire Department to respond. We want to be
able to have some kind of security deposit to cover those costs, and then the wonderful category of other conditions imposed by the Council.
Attorney Land said and just because we are aware, because we know that cannabis manufacturing, as well as cultivation, has an odor, and we want to make sure that these businesses
are good neighbors. So, timing wise, it seems appropriate to introduce an Odor Ordinance now, but it’s not specific to cannabis; any business that stinks is going to come under this
umbrella of odor. There’s wonderful technology that’s very, very objective that will be required; it will require an investment by the City to purchase this nasal ranger or some kind
of similar detection device, but it is extremely accurate. For LeafLine, we made them buy it and become owner of a nasal ranger; they had to have a certified nasal ranger on staff.
So, they are complying with the Odor Ordinance to make sure that they aren’t an issue or a problem. It does have some very nice objective standards, kinds of sets of rules of so many
violations within so many months, now you have to come in and meet with us; it’s not like we immediately punish, it’s let’s talk, let’s see if we can work out some kind of an odor mitigation
technology that will solve the problems. If they don’t want to self correct, that’s when they get into the punishment zone, and there are options for that as well.
Council Member Garza asked with this ordinance, does this affect like the farmers when they’re doing their fertilizing and it smells like manure? Is that going to be an Odor Ordinance
violation?
Attorney Land replied if someone complained, we would have to look into it. I mean, obviously, there’s a very real odor, and that’s the process that the farmers use.
Council Member Thiede said and that’s somewhat subjective, depending on the person. I know that there are farmers that think that’s the smell of money.
Council Member Garza said and that would be everything, then, that we’re talking about that has an odor, right?
Attorney Land said so, my plan is I will go back to tweak the ordinances, based on this discussion, and present it to you for adoption at your next meeting: There will be the Zoning
Amendment, the Registration Amendment, and
the Odor Ordinance. The fee schedule will be updated together, so the cannabis fees will be incorporated into that one and updated as a whole.
Mayor Bailey said sounds good, thank you, Kori, for walking us through this, it is such an impossible, stupid thing.
Council Member Olsen said well, I’m sure we’ll be talking more at a later date, when the OCM starts to implement some of their things.
Mayor Bailey asked now do they have to be up and running January 1?
Attorney Land replied it will be the target. Everybody’s moratoria, all the cities’ moratoria have to expire December 31, which is why everybody’s kind of scrambling to get something
in place, even though there aren’t any rules yet. So, yes, to your point, we will probably have to come back and revisit once they finally kind of get things more solidified and are
actually implementing things. I have heard second quarter of 2025 before they’d be issuing licenses; there might be some licenses they can certainly do sooner than that, medical, as
they’ve been licensing that for years so they should be able to get that one, I would think, fairly quickly. But some of the others, it will just take longer for them to finalize all
the processes they have to go through, so, second quarter, third quarter of 2025.
Mayor Bailey said all right, sounds good, thank you.
2025 Property Tax Levy and Budget Workshop
Staff Recommendation: Provide staff with feedback and direction regarding the 2025 Property Tax Levy and Budget.
Mayor Bailey said next up is Brenda, who will take us through the levy and the budget discussion.
Brenda Malinowski, Finance Director, said so, when we met in September at that last budget workshop, Council, you had requested that we come back and touch base with you before the final
levy adoption at the next Council Meeting. There were a number of items that we weren’t able to get in the levy, and so, we were looking to see if there were other ways that the funds
for those items, those budget adds, about $424,000, in yellow. So, that’s why we’re coming back to you tonight. Then there are updates on some other things that have happened since
September that we want to hear direction on whether to put it in the levy or not.
So, here’s our budget calendar; we’ve been going all year, and at home you received your estimated Property Tax Statements this week. Tonight we’re at this workshop and we will adopt
the final levy at the next meeting. So, here is our levy; just a reminder, it is 12.98% with the HRA portion, without the HRA portion it’s about 12.39%. The biggest increase in that
property tax levy is our General Fund, so, our chief Operating Budget for the City.
I thought it would be good to know the changes, what was the reason for that levy increase of 12.98%; so, we did a pie chart of 100%, the largest portion is the salary and benefits
from those contracts that have been negotiated and settled since we met in September, so, those have been worked into the budget. We had contingencies for that, so we had enough contingency
in the budget to put all those in the budget and not have to find things to cut in order to get those salaries and benefits for those contracts in the budget. The other largest portion
is those Internal Service Funds; primarily, our health insurance went up 10%, so that’s not in that top number, but it is here in that Internal Service Fund. Worker’s Comp is statewide,
and then our IT Service is cybersecurity, those software commitments that we make to keep us safe. So, that is the increases.
City Tax Rate: We’re at 37.177%, that includes the HRA Levy, we got that from the County this week. That is consistent with where we were back in 2021-2022. In 2023, we went down, we
had those big appreciations of existing homes in the community; we’re no different than anywhere else in Minnesota or the nation there. So, we did have that jump in Tax Rate, so we’re
kind of stabilizing that to where we were.
Our sample properties, here is pretty close to what we looked at in September, it’s gone down just a little bit on those five sample properties. The median home, when the County
came back, the Assessor’s Office said our median home decreased 2%; now, the County is saying it went down 4.17%, and so we’re using that number
because that is what the County is looking at when they hold their budget workshop, that’s what’s online. The value is about the same for 2025, 2024 was just a little bit different.
So, at the end of the day, that median home increased $58, that includes that HRA Levy. Remember it would increase by about $35 if there wasn’t the change in the homestead market value
exclusion credits this year. So, there’s that shift, so these residential properties built have seen less of an increase in property taxes this year. But our other property classes
or tax classes, that still has to be paid and so they’ll be paying it. The State’s not paying this, nobody else is paying this, but the other taxpayers are paying this. So, we remind
people that as we went through the budget cuts, we were still tracking rates on that median home, consistent with our FMP, which targets a $100 increase on that median home.
On the bottom, into the future, we know that 2026 had a lot of equipment, so we’re starting to put a Park Levy in there so we’ve got a large increase in 2026, then we stabilize
right around that $100. So, we do have a little bit of work to do for 2026, but remember at that last budget workshop in August, you did decide to move some of the equipment forward,
into 2025. So, that brought that down to that $132, as it was a little bit higher at that point. Even with that increase in 2026, we still have some equipment that we haven’t been able
to make in there, and equipment is going to be our biggest gameplan, I think, which is how we get our levy increase. It’s at about $1.2M of an equipment deficit in 2026, even with that
$130 increase.
Director Malinowski asked if there were any questions on that; none were asked.
Director Malinowski asked and how do we compare? Preliminary levies are in, property tax rates are in here for Washington County, so we’re able to take a look at our median home compared
to median homes across all of Washington County, for other cities. As you can see, we are still second from the bottom; we haven’t gone up and we haven’t gone down, we’re right where
we were last year, just behind St. Paul Park.
Here are our growing communities of over 40,000; here, we’re third from the bottom, the same as last year. It’s kind of interesting that the Apple Valley and Maple Grove, it was,
they were all kind of right in a line.
How do we compare with Tax Rates? So, just to be mindful of our Tax Rate, I always say that we can buy a different, better, or a bigger median home here in Cottage Grove than we
can in any other community in Washington County, but let’s still be mindful of our Tax Rate. So, we’re not at the top and we’re not all the way at the bottom; we’re in the bottom quadrant.
Washington County has this, and I’ll send you the packet that they have for their Board; some of you probably have already seen it, but it has a lot of great information. They do
have the City, Town portion for all the cities, and Cottage Grove is favorable there, with a $58 increase compared to the average there of $61 throughout the County.
Fund Balance Policy: So, we started to talk about those items that were in yellow, those budget adds that we wanted to maybe fund if we had additional dollars with our performance in
2024 for some of those other budget adds and items. I just want to review the policy; so, it’s just saying that at the end of the year we should have 45%-55% of our combined Fund Balance
at the end of the year to pay next year, because we won’t get our first settlement until July. If it’s above that percentage, we can transfer that; so, once we determine what the unassigned
Fund Balance is at the end of the year, in the past and this year would be no different, we can send some out to our other funds. Per our policy, we send it to our Debt Service Fund
at 30%, Equipment Replacement 25%, Building Replacement 15%, Future Pavement Management 10%, and then a small portion to the Internal Service Funds. The Finance Director and the City
Administrator are allowed to do designations, and those are the numbers that we’re talking about tonight, and we need your input on what those designations are. Specifically, there
are things such as a piece of capital equipment that we couldn’t get purchased on time, by the end of the year, we will carry forward because we couldn’t complete that purchase this
year. Or we know that we’re having a hard January and we need to buy some salt, and we have savings in our 2024 budget, we will call that a designation, and we’ll carry that forward.
We bring it back to Council and tell you what we’re doing, but this is what we’re talking about tonight.
Here’s the history of the transfers that we’ve done in the past, this goes back to 2017, and some years we had quite a large transfer, and some years, 2022, we didn’t have any.
It was a hard year because of inflation, and we had market adjustments, and we were just glad to meet our fund balance policy at the end of the year.
Here’s just a quick calculation, I took a spreadsheet, so it’s not super pretty, but our ending 2023 General Fund Balance was about $15.4M; we’re anticipating we’ll be able to increase
our General Fund by about $1.8M. A big portion of that is savings for our snow removal, it is our building permit revenue, it is our investment interest, the market that’s now coming
back the other way. Our budget contingency, we had $200K in budget contingency; if we don’t spend that, it gets added to our Fund Balance, so, that explains that $1.8M. So, what the
Compensated Absence is, it would usually be down here, it is one of those assignments that we talked about; so, when employees leave the City of Cottage Grove, if they have annual leave
on the books, they can get that paid out. At the end of the year, everybody can carry forward 264 hours, and we’re going to increase that starting next year. So, we have to be prepared
that if somebody retires on January 10 or December 31 of the next year, that we can pay that balance out; and, so, that is a calculation that we have to do per GASB requirements, and
yes, we have to fund that on financial statements. So, we think it would be a good idea to put that into an Internal Service Fund so that money is sitting there; and then we can demonstrate
to S&P Global when we go for a debt rating or a financial rating, that we’re being mindful, we’re funding our liabilities in the future. And we think that’s more transparent to do it
that way, so that’s what we’re recommending. So, while it would be here, we’ve got it up there this year. It doesn’t make a change down here, but I just wanted to tell you that we were
going to be doing that. So, our estimated ending Fund Balance is about $15.8M, and this is where we do our assignments, and that’s what we’re talking about tonight; and we’re talking
about this $756K, so $442K of it goes to those yellow budget items, but then there’s other things that we’ll be talking about this evening. So, if we take that $15.8M and we subtract
out these add items here, it gives us $1.8M; take the $15.8M minus the $1.8M, is our unassigned ending Fund Balance of $14M. If we take next year’s budget, our unassigned Fund Balance
is going to be 49%; so, it’s in our range of 45%-55%. That was a lot of numbers and a lot of explanation, are there any questions on that before we go forward; no questions were asked.
Administrator Levitt said just as a reminder, it will probably be on the December 18 Council Meeting to set up that fund for that Compensated Absence, you will see that. I think it’s
really important that we strengthen our position for bond before we go out for bonding with S&P.
Director Malinowski said and here’s where we’re starting, so here’s that $424K, those were the items, the budget adds in yellow that Council had said okay, we would like to fund that
if we have a way to fund that; and so, I can review all of them, or if you have any questions on any of those budget items, the budget adds.
Council Member Olsen said yes, I have a question, but it doesn’t have to do with anything that was on the screen, though. You mentioned that there’s still some equipment liability
kind of baked into the 2026 number at this point in time, and of course things are fluid and some stuff will change or whatever, and that’s despite trying to move some of the equipment
up an additional year, to 2025. Our Fund Balance after this expense is 49%, and our range is 45%-55%. Is there any equipment that we could potentially fund with the Fund Balance that
would still keep us within the 45%-55% range but would take it off the books for the future if we pay for it now? Is there anything like that that you discussed?
Director Malinowski replied we haven’t discussed it internally, and I think what I’m hearing, so, instead of sending it out to the other funds, should we just focus on equipment
by putting it in the designation?
Council Member Olsen said that’s, to some degree, yes, that’s what I’m saying. But what I’m really looking for is there something additionally that could be added to this list that
is of importance, from an equipment perspective, that would still enable us to maintain our 45%-55% Fund Balance as we rollover? Because after you pay for these things, you’re still
saying we’re around 49%. So, is there something else that we may want to pay for now that we would absorb, not push it off into the future, to mitigate that issue that we’re staring
in the face for 2026? Is that even something you guys want to talk about, or is that probably a conversation for a later date? The idea being okay, if you don’t want to talk about it,
we’re not going to talk about equipment, in order to make sure that when that bill does come, that we’ll be able to buy it and pay for it. Either option will work for me.
Administrator Levitt said one option is, if you want to forego your policy, you could direct staff to tell us to put it all in the Equipment Replacement, and that would then apply
to that flexibility of those funds to address this. Because staff really hasn’t looked at any of the actual equipment list, but if you would like to do something like that, you could
redirect us to make that allocation.
Mayor Bailey asked would that one be allowed out there? The range, or if we reallocate?
Council Member Olsen said no.
Director Malinowski replied I said we’ve got $1.2M in equipment that isn’t in the $130 increase on that median home. In addition, there was about $1.2M in equipment that’s been
requested for 2026 that isn’t in that $130 on that median home.
Council Member Olsen said I think maybe I misunderstood, but were you asking what would the rollover be?
Mayor Bailey replied yeah, that’s what I was looking at, when you’re requesting these funds.
Council Member Olsen asked what is our current Fund Balance Policy?
Mayor Bailey said our current Fund Balance Policy is going to divvy out to those different buckets.
Administrator Levitt said the only thing is, I better make sure that we caveat that with the next slide that you’re going to show them that there’s an actual reduction. Because
we would coordinate with Zac an addition, so we’d have to add those things in, you see what I’m saying, to get to our number.
Director Malinowski said so, we’re going to add all this small stuff.
Administrator Levitt said so that’s the additions that we’re looking for; Council Member Olsen said that is correct.
Director Malinowski okay, so this $756K, the $424K we just talked about, and then we’ll be talking about some more of the numbers later. So, my apologies, I did not understand that
question.
Council Member Khambata said so, for clarity, the items we’re discussing are already represented in that 49.6% Fund Balance; Director Malinowski said correct.
Council Member Olsen said except for this, this is not.
Council Member Khambata said so that’s about another $160. When we go out for ratings, our policy is 45%-55%, but when they look at our Fund Balance being say 49%, 50%, or 51%,
does that have a more, does that reflect differently from their perspective, or is it just within our projected window, we are rated one way? So, will this 45% reflect differently than
being at like 55%?
Director Malinowski replied it doesn’t reflect differently; so, as long as we’re sticking with our policy, as long as we’re following our FMP, that’s what we talk with S&P about,
is that we’re following this plan. Our Fund Balance Policy states that we’re between 45% and 55%, and we are within that percent. As Finance Director, I can come to them with a 50%,
because it’s right in the middle. And then if there are fluctuations the next year, either way, then we’re still able to do that. So, this is in that 49% that we talked about.
Council Member Olsen said and with respect to, you mentioned the FMP, so I know that Council Member Thiede has mentioned on several occasions, you know, gosh, we’re kind of projecting
this $100 per year thing, and wouldn’t it be nice to stay within that number? The 2026 number is quite a bit more than that. So, by redirecting the Fund Balance to equipment, we should
then, based on what I’m thinking so please correct me if I’m wrong, but we should then be able to mitigate that 2026 number, to bring it down closer to that $100 level that we’d all
like to stay at; to kind of keep the ship on an even keel instead of rising like this. From where I stand, if what I’m saying is true, it seems like a wise choice.
Council Member Khambata said as for the designation, it doesn’t actually spend the money, it just allocates it.
Council Member Olsen said it moves it forward.
Council Member Khambata asked so our Fund Balance stays 49%? Mayor Bailey Council Member Olsen confirmed that.
Director Malinowski said and I think I’m understanding this, Council, that if there is an amount that we can try to designate for equipment, that actually we would even transfer it to
our Equipment Replacement Fund?
Council Member Olsen said that’s what I’m thinking, yes.
Director Malinowski said so instead of even doing a designation for that dollar amount of equipment, that we would transfer it to that fund so it’s available there for our 2026
budget.
Council Member Olsen replied yes, because it’s all necessary stuff; it’s not like we can delay it, and we don’t want to issue Equipment Certificates if we can help it because that just
adds to our debt value. So, again, it seems to
make sense that if we want to mitigate that number for 2026, we need to make a decision now to do that by allocating those funds specifically for that use.
Director Malinowski said we typically come back the first meeting in February, and at that point, we’ll know exactly how this is going to work.
Council Member Olsen said yes, once all bills are paid and everything. Director Malinowski said yes, everything’s okay, we’ve paid all our employees, we’ve taken care of all our
bills and everything else that we need to.
Mayor Bailey said so, Brenda, at that point, what you’re saying is once we’ve paid everything, we then would determine if we wanted to change the designation. That way, we may move
it towards equipment, and that would help with the budget for 2026, okay.
Council Member Olsen asked are you comfortable with that approach?
Director Malinowski replied I like that approach; that equipment number alarms me.
Council Member Khambata asked so if projections come in lower than expected or we have another event like 2020 where the economy falls flat, is there a possibility of pulling that back
if we find ourselves in a position where we need it?
Council Member Olsen replied yeah, we can always transfer funds; we just can’t use the money for anything other than its designated use because there’s a Statute that directs the
funds.
Mayor Bailey said well, even if things went bad, like it did in 2023, we pulled things out because we had to, to make sure that we balanced our budget. To be honest with you, that
didn’t exacerbate our problems with anything; because we said okay, we’re not going to buy this or we’re not going to buy that this year because we need to make sure that budget’s safe,
due to the inflation rates.
Council Member Olsen said and let’s not forget, it’s still taking a long time to get equipment, so being planful is critical.
Mayor Bailey said I also like how we’re trying to work towards the Fire Cadet program; I think it’s a great idea. The Traffic Enforcement Officer, when you see some of the numbers, it’s
unbelievable the number of DWIs and such he’s already catching. And then the Outdoor Siren grant, I think that’s fantastic because I think that’s going to get the City some additional
funding, and I like that, and we obviously need it. And I didn’t talk about the police cameras, but we obviously need them.
Administrator Levitt said so, I mean it’s usually not this early in the process that we would identify, but we just wanted to make sure that we could grab that low-hanging fruit that
was left over and we could grab these extra things; so, I think we’re good to move on with it.
Director Malinowski said and then with that, I’ll turn it over to Ryan. And this, what he’s talking about, we let you know a lot of times we’ve seen that the number and designation,
too.
Council Member Olsen said so you’ve already baked it in, which Director Malinowski confirmed.
Administrator Levitt said we said $30K for the next 4 years, but I think it’s probably more important for us if we can buy equipment.
August, 2024 Storm Debris Disposal
Director Burfeind said I only have one slide for you today. So, I’m just looking at our storm cleanup and outstanding costs. So, we talked about tree debris removal; we have those two
big piles sitting down at the compost site. There were some different thoughts or staff directives when we had our workshop back in October:
The first one was talking to more logging companies, people who would harvest wood, if they would have interest in coming to the site. Gavin, our former Forester, a Management Analyst
now, he reached out to several. For the most part, they were looking for damaged trees and good trees out in the forest, but they also really didn’t want to get into trouble with EAB
quarantine restrictions, moving across County lines, all those different situations. So, we didn’t have any interest in doing it from that standpoint.
We also reached out to firewood companies, which can be a little bit more local, so they can maybe not have issues with the EAB quarantine issues. Everyone that we talked to already
have a sufficient supply that they work off, and from their standpoint, it was just easier to manage and not touch our pretty big piles.
So, unfortunately, with those two routes, we spoke to several companies and could not get any interest in reducing that pile size.
We worked a lot with the Fire Department on a prescribed burn option. Just from a safety management perspective, we really want to keep them in like 10 x 10 pile sizes, and there’s so
much wood, there would be 250 separate burns is what we estimated. We would need to hire a company to do that, just because at the City level we don’t have that training expertise to
manage more of a prescribed burn. So, that’s cost prohibitive and also just the environmental concerns, as people would see this constant burning of this material that’s just going
up in smoke, quite literally. So, that does leave the chipping and hauling to St. Paul District Energy. I think we have presented a number of $100K-$110K, just making sure we have coverage,
looking at $30K each year for 4 years. It is okay to leave that pile there, it is on City land. Maybe some of it we’d target first, so its out of the way if we need some fill. But the
Kwik Trip site, for the most part, is on the back part of that City property, not in the way of anything, not causing any harm. It’s also good, just from a public perspective, that
is Renewable by Energy; that’s basically a giant boiler that provides all the heat for downtown St. Paul. They have their own air emission standards that they’re not polluting the environment
with when they burn it. So, I think that’s just good from a public perspective.
Other Outstanding Costs
Stump Grinding: The remaining stumps that were actually left in the ground that we’ll grind in the fall; that’s a contracted project that we have to deal with putting the topsoil down
and reseeding, that’s inhouse work, so it’s $12K just for material costs. Tree Replacements: $81K to replace the 162 odd trees that were blown down; we do not have that in the budget
for 2025, as planned, because really our budget every year is taken up with our 14,000 boulevard trees, dead, diseased, dying hazard trees that we cut down in winter and plant in the
spring. And that’s fully programmed, we use that each year. But we are going to be aggressively going after grant funding and we believe we can get that, our Representative Hansen has
been consistently forwarding opportunities for us; they have been competitive grants, but I think we would score well. When we get the right one, there is one coming up from Metropolitan
Council that we should qualify for; a lot of them require you to be in an area of environmental justice and there’s specific boundaries of that. Unfortunately, where the storm hit they
aren’t in those boundaries. So, a couple of grants today we haven’t qualified for, but it looks like with this Metropolitan Council grant we will, and then we would use that to do the
tree planting. If we’re not successful, we’ll keep doing it, and we have told residents that we do have to get funding for this, so it may not happen in 2025 but if it happens in 2026,
that’s when it would be. So, we’ll continue to do that, and that’s the total at the bottom of all of our outstanding costs.
Director Burfeind asked if there were any questions on that, and none were asked.
Fire Cadet Program
Director Koerner said as we’ve had these budget conversations, one thing that keeps coming back is recruitment, hiring, staffing kind of things. So, we’ll start with Captain Brad Petersen,
I tasked him and Sergeant Torning, they’ve been looking at a C.S.O. Cadet Program; in 1992 we first started the parttime C.S.O. program, before that we had fulltime, but 50% of those
have been hired as police officers in Cottage Grove. So, it’s been very successful. One thing that has happened, though, is our C.S.O.s are becoming very marketable, and if we don’t
have a position available, we are losing them to other departments; so, that’s why we’ve kind of taken the next step now to look at maybe a Cadet Program. With that success, I know
the Fire leadership team has also been talking about recruitment and different challenges with staffing. They’re trying to model a Fire Cadet Program off of our C.S.O. Program, and
that’s becoming a more-popular model. After that, we’ll talk a little bit about some of the parttime hours to convert to fulltime. I know Council has received a ton of information over
the last couple days, and I apologize for that. It’s just really difficult to try to put into words in a memo or anything, so with that, I’ll turn it over to Captain Petersen; after
that, the Fire leadership team will talk about the other two.
Captain Petersen said good news, I’m not asking for any money. Just to set the stage, I’m going to quote a couple statistics from a recent IACP survey: Over the last four years, the
number of police officers is consistently decreasing with only a very modest increase in 2024. Over 81% of police agencies are experiencing difficulty recruiting. About 75% of agencies
are reporting that they’re dedicating a significant amount more attention and
resources to recruiting and retention; despite all of these efforts, most agencies are operating at 91% of their authorized strength levels. I say that just to set the stage and give
a reminder that this isn’t a Cottage Grove problem, this is a nationwide issue where we’re facing a lot of challenges and difficulty recruiting. I think we’re better off than most agencies
and that’s because of the creative upstream thinking and solutions that we did over the last number of years. I believe those are working and will continue to work and pay dividends,
but despite that, right now we’re looking at a significant challenge to recruit and hire 5 police officers to return to authorized strength for our January academy. We went through
several rounds of police interviews and C.S.O. interviews and didn’t identify a ton of talent for the police officer position; we found some, but not enough. The really positive thing
is there’s a ton of talent in the C.S.O. ranks, so we identified 8 additional C.S.O.s that we want to bring online in the next probably 6 months; I’m confident the majority of those
would be great officers for the City of Cottage Grove, and they’re spaced out in terms of when they’ll become POST eligible. So, looking 6 months and 3 years down the road, I don’t
think we’re going to have any recruiting woes if we can retain them. And, so, as the chief said, that market is so competitive right now that all police agencies are doing whatever
they can to get their hooks into these C.S.O. candidates; whether it’s paying for their skills, offering them guaranteed jobs, or paying recruiting incentives. It’s a cutthroat world
out there right now, and so, what we’re trying to do is get these C.S.O.s on board, retain them, and then make them our next police officers. So, what I would like to do is within the
framework of our existing budget; so, if we can’t find suitable POST eligible police officer candidates right now, we’re going to kick that can down the road a little bit, have some
salary and benefit savings, and then when our C.S.O. becomes eligible, they’d become our next police officer. In the meantime, we’re going to pay for them to go to the skills program,
and it ends up being some cost savings that way. Full transparency: We might end up in a situation where we’re running understaffed, and that would need to incur some overtime expenses
there. Despite that, I think this would be relatively budget neutral. So, what the C.S.O. program would look like is, just like we always have, we bring them on board as C.S.O.s first,
let them prove themselves. Then as we interview them, vet them, if we decide that this is a person that we had interest in promoting to a police officer position, we’d make them a C.S.O.
2. They’re still parttime, they’re still only working about 30 hours a week, there are no benefits, but we’re incentivizing them and rewarding them and investing in them with a little
bit more training. About 4-to-6 months before they become POST eligible, we upgrade them to that C.S.O. Cadet program, which is a fulltime position with benefits. About 24 hours is
dedicated to them going to school, and then the remaining 40 hours per week is a couple hours on the street where they’re still doing a little bit of the C.S.O. stuff, but mostly their
main focus is being prepared for that eventual police officer position. So, training, ride alongs, whatever we can do to get them on the street as a police officer faster. So, here’s
the cost breakdown: On the left, you’ll see costs for a police officer, on the right is a C.S.O., these are the annual expenses that Joe provided. So, if you look at that 4-to- 6 month
window where they’re a C.S.O. Cadet, a police officer would cost us $63K over that 6-month range, and a C.S.O. Cadet, even if we paid for their skills and give them benefits, is only
going to cost $45,800, so a difference of about $17,500. So, I’ll give you a practical example of this: We’ve got a current C.S.O. right now, Cole Pfeifer. Rather than hiring a police
officer to start on January 27, I hired Cole as a C.S.O. Cadet, we’d save $17,500 and that might come down a little bit if we have to pay some overtime if we had some staffing crunches.
Does that make sense? Captain Petersen said I could see us potentially up to 3 of these for this January academy if we can’t find some high quality, ready-to-go police officers right
now, which is a distinct possibility.
Captain Petersen said so, what I’m looking for is an authorization to pay their skills, create a fulltime position with benefits, and acknowledgement that there might be some overtime
expenses.
Council Member Olsen asked if we put some money into this Cadet Program, obviously that’s an indication on our behalf to the candidate like look, our gameplan is you’re going to have
a job here, right? There’s still the risk that they could accept a position elsewhere, that risk still exists. Hopefully you mitigate that risk by doing this, but it still exists. So,
what do you do if and when that happens?
Captain Petersen replied they sign a contract and they would agree to reimburse the City, make us whole for our investment, and that’s prorated; for example, you have to stay here
for 3 years, you’d be a cadet 3 years, and then their reimbursement is prorated. We’ve done that with our paramedic program back in the day. Director Koerner said that’s the same as
we just did with the Fire Cadet Program.
Council Member Olsen said I’ve got to tell you this is a very common approach in the private sector. Most of your pharmacists, as an example, they start out as a pharmacy technician,
they work in a Walgreens or CVS, and when they demonstrate that they want to become a pharmacist, those companies pay for their school. That’s not cheap. But they sign an agreement
that says when I’m done with school, I’m going to work for you for a certain period of time. Once they kind of get comfortable in that environment, they tend to stay there a long time.
So, it’s not an unheard of thing, and it seems like it makes common sense. I mean we’re kind of dipping our toe in the water with Fire right now, but with Mike Dandl and Sam Anderson
and maybe even Jordan at some point, which I think is a good thing, too. It makes perfect sense, and I think it’s a great idea.
Council Member Khambata asked do you know the approximate cost for the additional training and skills, what it will cost the City?
Captain Petersen replied yes, $7,500 if you walk in off the street; for the rest of us, it’s great to get the 20% discount because of our relationship, so it’s $3,400 for that skills
bill.
Council Member Olsen said and I think, too, we’re working on like Century and some other places, too, and that’s one of the reasons we do the Woolery scholarship is because these folks,
those are expenses that are part of this if you won’t to become a Public Safety professional that you’ve got to fund somehow. It’s a good idea.
Director Koerner said now we’ll transition to the Fire Department.
Deputy Fire Chief Nick Arrigoni said we’re going to piggyback off of the police officer cadet program a little bit as well, so a lot of this will be a little bit repeated. So, the
Fire Cadet Program, which Woodbury and a couple other cities are doing, Oakdale is looking seriously into it, is an opportunity for individuals that are interested in the fire service
to come in and they can get their certifications, Fire I, Fire 2, and we pay for them to become an EMT. They gain experience at like an entry-level position. Really, one of the big
things that cadets could do that would help us tremendously in this program is the cadet’s job is not to always go out on the call with the crew. So, really, their primary focus is
community outreach, helping with CPR, Safe Haven visits. They would help shuffle vehicles here and there and some of those maintenance things, data collection. That really allows the
crews, who are supposed to be going on the calls, to keep them on the calls. It would help us tremendously in department operations, much like your C.S.O. program currently does.
The Fire Cadets will serve a 3-year period. What we’re asking for is a benefit position with a livable wage, and kind of the reason we’re looking at that is it kind of fluctuates
in like what ages would like to do this. You obviously get your younger population, but we might get some older folks, too, that we’re trying to give them somewhat of a livable wage
with benefits; so, they have the ability to enter into this Cadet Program instead of having to do something else. The goal of the Cadet Program, much like the police program, would
be to have a spot for them at the end of the Cadet Program or in the last year of their Cadet Program. It really allows us to vet these folks, so they’re working with us, they might
be going on calls with us, they’re obtaining their certifications, we allow them to get potential for other training opportunities. It’s a very easy transition as we vet them and we
say we want you, you’re part of the Cottage Grove culture that we want to build. They’re hired as a fulltime firefighter-EMT, and then much like we’re doing with Sam Anderson and Mike
Dandl, they’d go to paramedic school. The cost for this with a start date of March 1, 2025, would be $58K, which we saw earlier; that includes benefits and wages.
We’re going to move on to the potential to convert some parttime employees to a fulltime person. So, the way we operate right now is each shift, A, B, and C shift, has 6 positions;
that’s 24 hours a day, and of that, 5 of those positions are the fulltime firefighters. We have, ideally, 1 parttime firefighter-EMT or firefighter-paramedic makes up that sixth position,
oftentimes 0600 to 1800, or 1800 to 0600 are the times, and they predominantly work 12-hour shifts. Our full-timers work 2,756 per year, not including overtime. Like I said, every shift
has 1 parttime firefighter position; to do the math, it takes 7 parttime firefighters kind of equals that 1 fulltime person. So, our parttime firefighters work at least 432 hours, that’s
36 hours a month, minimum, 120 off-shift hours, training, public engagement, callbacks. Right now, we have 21 total parttime firefighters to fill all the positions on all 3 shifts is
what we’re seeing. One fulltime firefighter would replace 7 parttime firefighters.
What we’re running into oftentimes, if there’s no parttime person that’s available to cover the shift, we do run into some overtime issues. We actually increased the budget in 2024 to
support increased wages; we did a callback
bonus and some other incentives as well. Over the years, this is our total parttime firefighters budgeted vs. what we’ve actually had despite our recruiting and retaining efforts, which
I will hit on here shortly. As you can see, that number has been dropping since roughly 2018.
So, when we talk about like what will this cost? What does each person cost? A fulltime firefighter’s wages are about $120K, uniforms off the bat are $1,000, and turnout gear is
$4,000. For 7 parttime firefighter-EMTs, that’s almost $107K, uniforms are the same, and a set of turnout gear is the same. What we’re seeing, though, is oftentimes we have to get a
set of turnout gear for each person, so that number for turnout gear jumps drastically.
Out of Service Time: Right here, on this graph, the red is times when we had 1 crew on; the yellow is times we’ve had 2 crews on. It’s no secret, I’ve stood up here a few months back
and said we’re in a spot that we don’t want to be in; we’re going to work hard towards getting to where we want to be. As you can see, the November and December schedule is set, you’re
seeing far more where there are 2 crews on. Projecting into 2025, I think we’re going to get to a point where we have a lot more hours where we have extra crew, too.
2024 Calls for Service Times and Hours: Again, through October, this is kind of where we really got hit hard here with staffing. As we’re bringing folks on and another person is going
to start here soon, I presume those numbers are going to start to drop again as well.
So, the big thing is like having computers, and this is not a Cottage Grove problem, specifically, it’s not a local problem, it’s not just a State problem, it’s a national and actually
an across the world problem. So, what have we done for recruitment and retention? We’re working at it every single day, it’s a lot of what we put our time into; so, we’ve increased
the pay to be some of the best in the metro. For 2024, we’ve reduced the hour requirements that the parttime folks have to work. We have very flexible training; actually, our training
program in 2024 was developed around what our parttime firefighter-EMTs requested. Callback percentages and bonuses: There’s a scale for if they hit a certain amount of callbacks, they
get a bonus for that. We removed residency requirements, and then experience pay also is something we added. And then we’re out, too, with Century College, Inver Hills, the 916 program;
I’ve been in communication with a lot of them, and Chief Pritchard has been in communication with a lot of them as well. It’s like we update our agreements, ride along, contracts, things
of that sort. We’ve advertised a ton on social media, post on all the sites. We were out at Night to Unite, handing out flyers, trying to get people interested in this field. Every
public event we do is a networking opportunity for us; it’s inevitable that somebody’s asking what does it take to be an EMT? What does it take to be a firefighter? Tell me more about
this situation. So, a lot that we do, CPR and AED classes, Citizen’s Academy, we’re staffing Strawberry Fest and Fourth of July, and the Food Truck Festival; we’re getting a lot of
questions and interest in that. I think, honestly, too, one of the hardest things where we can’t necessarily gather the data, it’s just the person-to-person networking that we’re doing.
I could tell you because I’m the one that sets it up, I’ve had more ride-along requests in the last 6-to-9 months than I’ve ever seen in our organization, ever. It’s a lot of people
that hey, yeah, Cottage Grove has a parttime system, they’re interested in it, we encourage them to come in and do a ride along, and we’re seeing a lot of applicants on the back end
of that. And then you have the applications that we have and the people that we have actually started where we’re running into some people drop out from the system or the process; they
may fail their psych, they may fail their background. What we do see a lot is they look at, even with the reduced and very flexible requirements, hey, it’s not for me, I can’t afford
to be away for that amount of time. And that’s what we’re seeing, not just with the Fire Department, but a lot of things in the workforce. Our metro parttime firefighter-EMT hourly
wages we are right with Woodbury, who is at the top. So, that was a big win with the parttime folks here. He asked if there were any questions on that.
Council Member Olsen said with the recruitment efforts, being a retail guy, recruiting is just sort of in my work because it has to be. When my customers walk in my store, they don’t
care if somebody has a headache, they don’t care if someone’s dog died, they don’t care, they just don’t. All they want is I’m here, give me what I want, give me a good experience,
and away I go. The way that I’ve sort of grown up with regard to recruiting is it’s just like selling cars or anything else, it’s a numbers game; the more people you talk to, the more
nos you’re going to get, the more yeses you’re going to get. So, it’s encouraging to see the applicant flow is increasing a little bit, I mean that should be an indicator that some
of what we’re doing is working, but I’ve got to tell you the networking element of that, in my view, is the most critical piece. You’ll stand at Century College or anywhere else all
day and talk to kids and do whatever and you should; but those opportunities to interact one on one, like you said, at
Strawberry Fest, at Night to Unite, at all of those things and then you get those ride alongs, that’s where the gold is. So, I would encourage us to really continue mining for that gold
and look for even more opportunities. There’s so darn many events that go on in this town that you guys know, all year long, and any missed event is a missed opportunity where you might’ve
found somebody that you like. So, as you work with the team on sort of what can we do in 2025, I would just encourage you all to really continue the emphasis on that, and we’ve got
to be there; we’ve got to have some representation, we’ve got to be in our shirts, we’ve got to have our whatever, right? Handing out the hats and the stickers and whatever you can
do to keep moving forward with that I think will help.
Deputy Chief Arrigoni said and this year I’m incredibly proud of our team because it was a rough year for us staffing wise. We were able to staff and still have people attend a
lot of these other things. Because I agree with you 100%, the networking is where you make your money. One other thing I should state, too, is I’m making phone calls every week, and
what I’m doing, more times than not if folks are close, instead of having a conversation over the phone, I just invite them in; come sit with me, I will run you through any questions
you have, it's far more personal than over the phone. That’s been incredibly successful as well, we’re seeing a lot of applicants from that realm as well. We’re seeing, like you said,
the applicant numbers should go up, and we should be hiring more.
Council Member Olsen said right. So, as your evidence and things perhaps, well, if you’re not already doing this, is I know you’re handing out information to people; maybe you want
to put together like a mini application or an interest form that somebody can fill out for you on the spot, and then you can be like, hey, man, somebody will call you in a couple days
to set something up. Not only do you know that you’ve given your information to them, but you’ve captured their information as well. Again, just retail, when you get that mini app,
that’s an opportunity for a limited interview; okay, look, Johnny might be interested, let’s talk for a minute, and then when can I get you in for a formal conversation?
Administrator Levitt asked Mayor Bailey, just to confirm, are we agreeable then in our final budget document to convert those 7 parttime to 1 fulltime, their equivalent? And then you
saw on the slide how we haven’t been able to meet our budgeted quota of parttime anyway. So, that’s the one affirmation we need.
Mayor Bailey replied I would say yes.
Council Member Khambata asked is that for the needed overtime, right? So, we would have to retain the parttime that we do have until we convert this?
Administrator Levitt replied we can and there’s still parttime available positions.
Council Member Thiede said and the understanding is that like it’s not increasing, and it’s not a long-term increase, necessarily.
Administrator Levitt said correct, it’s budget neutral.
Administrator Levitt said the last item Zac is going to talk about extremely briefly, I sent you an email this morning, and I apologize for that. He will just explain one of these positions,
the succession planning with our situation.
Director Dockter said so, the good news, what I presented in the memo is it’s a relatively budget-neutral position; so, we think we can recover costs and this person will help with
creating an online platform for facility use and for programming and doing some things. There will be a lot of cost savings there that will be, when we go to the online platform, a
lot of those costs will be transferred over to the end users. There’s about $25K in fees there. This new position is going to be responsible for adding programs and events, lessons,
pickleball programs, things of that nature; we think we can recover at least $15K in new revenue there. Just adding facility rental, I think I put it in the memo, but we’ve gone from
like $30K a handful of years ago to $120K; that number just keeps growing, and as we keep adding facilities, it’s going to keep growing. Things like Woodridge Park are bringing a lot
of new opportunities, so all those things matter, all those things add up. So, we’re looking at not creating a new position but converting an existing parttime position to a fulltime
position; we have a staff person in place and that just allows us to be more productive and get a lot more things done. Every time I go to my staff when we ask for new things, they
say with what time? And that’s just where we’re at, the needs in the community are growing, and we’re struggling to keep up, so that’s my ask tonight.
Mayor Bailey said I think that’s a great idea, and the person that you have this slated for makes perfect sense. That was quick and easy, right?
Administrator Levitt said Council, this is it. Is there anything we missed?
Council Member Thiede said well, I wanted to just discuss one thing, it’s residents’ perception. We sit here and we go through all of this, we say it all looks great. But people
got their tax statements, right? And, so, they kind of go over it a little bit; for instance, my taxable market value actually went down 7.5%, okay? And it’s great because my property
tax went down, for the last year it was 4%. And I look at each section, and Washington County went down, the School District went down, and the Special Taxing District is Metropolitan
Council. But the City, my portion of the City went up 4%, okay? And it’s a little bit better because my property came down a little bit better, but it’s something that I know the residents
are going to say, well, gees, everything else is going down, and the City is going up. And we just heard from the voters that at least there was more than half of the people were kind
of bent out of shape about spending more money on parks and so forth; so, that’s kind of a little bit of a message. And I guess I’m just thinking, and actually I looked back at the
levy and ours, for all of Washington County we’re 3rd place from the highest in terms of our percentage increase, all right? The FMP is great, but we’re always above it; it seems like
it's always over $100, right? So, are we going to be able to have the opportunity to correct that next year, that $107?
Director Malinowski replied $101 is the average median size.
Council Member Thiede said again, it’s always a little bit more, a little bit more, and then people keep getting hit with all these different expenses they have, that’s always just
a little bit more. And even though it’s one thing that’s a little bit more, all of a sudden we have 12 things, and those 12 things aren’t a little bit more, they’re a lot more. And
what else I’m thinking is that if there was a way to actually send a message that we’re looking at that, we’re doing great, you guys did a fantastic job of looking at expenses. But
in terms of the possibility of actually, from what we said we were going to do, reduce it a little bit, it doesn’t necessarily have to be a lot; but if you’re sending a message and
we keep telling people well, we looked at everything, and we actually adjusted down based on everything we saw. And it may not have that big of an impact on what we can do, and all
the things we are looking at are great; but all the things that we had in there were a little extra, which is great, but we’re going to continue to use that money. So, you might want
to send a message to say, well, hey, we’re actually dropping this just a little bit. And that might be from 12.5% to 11.8% or something like that, and again, it’s a perception thing,
and we are paying attention to what’s going on and know that there’s a budget and a limit to what has been spent.
Administrator Levitt said we could take away to make it go back.
Council Member Thiede said, well, we have the experts here that take a look at that and say, I mean, obviously, we didn’t, at one point, we were going to have a variety of things
that were going to be potentially lower, right? Or we were leaving out, and now we’re saying we’re adding those back in. So, I would say please take a look at that.
Council Member Garza said if we don’t add them back in now, it’s going to be higher in 2026.
Council Member Thiede said, well, again, we’ve got a FMP that we do have to look at, how do we manage? You know, we can’t just go out and.
Council Member Olsen said Dave, you’re part of the City Council, right? Council Member Thiede replied I am, and I look out for the rest of ‘em.
Council Member Olsen said okay, to be here. So, you voted for this budget, and you sat through every budget meeting and you had every opportunity to say, you know what? I think
we need to cut that.
Council Member Thiede said and I usually do.
Council Member Olsen said you had every opportunity this year, you voted for the budget that was presented to us, you voted in favor of it. You did not say at that time, you know what?
We need to shave X, and this is what we need to bring down. Here’s the key is we’re charged with providing the highest possible level of service that we can.
Council Member Thiede said we’re charged with providing the good service, not the highest possible, not the most expensive.
Council Member Olsen replied I didn’t say the most expensive, I said the highest possible level of service we can at a reasonable cost. We’re still the second lowest in the County
for our levy, and that’s per capita, and we get no Local Government Aid (LGA), none, zero. St. Paul Park, Newport, and places like that, they get hundreds of thousands and in some cases
over $1 million a year from the State than we get in LGA. And yet we still outperform the vast majority of those communities. When you look at the metro, we’re the third lowest for
communities of our size. Shakopee, which is the lowest, gets multimillions of dollars a year, and funding from the State for the
fiscal disparities we’re an apples and oranges comparison, which is the way that it is. Look, we go through the budget year after year after year after year, line by line, and squeeze
the dime in all the various places we can. If you want to drop the budget, then you’ve got to come forth at budget time and say, this is what I want to cut. And let the conversation
happen, but the horse is out of the barn now.
Council Member Thiede said we’re having that conversation now. We had the election that came through that clearly knocked down additional spending.
Council Member Olsen said the City of Cottage Grove has not passed a referendum, whether it’s school referendum or any kind of City referendum in 20 years. So, that’s not meaningless,
20 years the City of Cottage Grove has not voted in favor of even a school referendum; so, those referendums passed because of the City of Woodbury for the school, and when I was a
kid, they passed all the time, but they don’t anymore. So, what does that tell me? That tells me that we need to continue to be as fiscally responsible as we currently have been and
continue to be, but we also have to find ways to fund the things that our residents need and expect from their City government. Public Safety costs a lot of money, Public Works costs
a lot of money, equipment costs a lot of money, and Bonnie, I don’t need to hear it, okay? Keep it to yourself. If you want to run for the City Council, put your name on the ballot.
Enough.
Bonnie replied no, I am a resident, and I just want to be able to speak. Council Member Olsen said and now is not your chance. Bonnie said this is a workshop. Council Member Olsen
said not in this workshop. Bonnie said I understand it all, and you’re.
Council Member Olsen said ma’am, move to adjourn.
Bonnie said I have read all of your minutes.
Council Member Olsen said I’m done.
Mayor Bailey said we have a motion to adjourn, do I have a second?
Council Member Khambata asked can I interject one comment?
Council Member Olsen said we need a second before we have further discussion. Council Member Garza said I’ll second.
Mayor Bailey said okay, further discussion.
Council Member Khambata said Dave, I agree with you. In 2020, we had a budget that decreased and we got caught in an inversion where we decreased our levy while experiencing rapid
inflation. And we’re paying, we’re still paying for that.
Council Member Thiede said in the pandemic, we did very good there.
Council Member Olsen said because we got Federal money.
Mayor Bailey said I remember that, every other city raised their levy significantly.
Council Member Khambata said okay, so we got caught in an inversion in 2020 that we’re still making up for, and so, while I agree that we do need to spend every dollar wisely, we
are chipping away at $5,000 line items on our $26M annual budget.
Bonnie said yes.
Council Member Khambata said I think, Bonnie, please be silent; I think we are doing our due diligence with the taxpayer dollar if we are talking about fractions of a percent on the
budget, and we are taking these things I believe very seriously. And you’re not wrong, but I think the risk of again like alleviating a half percent budget here means a 1% make up next
year. And, so, while we have to be vigilant with every dollar, the reality is those things cost what they cost, and every director that I’ve ever met with on budget, I ask them, tell
me what you need and tell me what you can do without, okay? Zac is willing to wait who knows how many more years for a vehicle, right? And that gets deferred every year until one year
its not going to be able to be deferred anymore, and that’s going to come out of the General Fund, and it’s going to affect our Fund Balance. Because it’s going to become a need, not
a want at some point. So, that’s my major concern with your approach, and I don’t like a 12.98% approach, but I think at this point, the difference between a 12.98% and a 12.74% on
somebody’s annual budget; and, again, the message is good, but I think the better message to send would be we are dissecting $5K line items on a $26M budget, nothing is going to waste.
Everything has been justified and accounted for; the things that can be left on the table we’ve identified, and in this scenario, labor negotiations went as expected, so we could pull
back on our
contingency and so on and so forth. We are doing our level best; I don’t think we’ll ever be the lowest because of LGA, we’ll never get the LGA. So, we’re doing the best we can while
still meeting all of our obligations for promoting the health, safety, and welfare of our community. And I know, and I don’t speak for everyone, but as a homeowner, who pays taxes on
four houses in the City, I don’t like raising the taxes, but I also know from standing here and being in these meetings, that every one of those dollars has been met. And, so, I agree
with you, it gives me heartburn, but we’re not asking for; well, this is spreading out, I mean, wood chipping trees, a $30K line item, we’re going to spread it out over 4 years because
it makes more sense, okay? I will take our budget and I will defend it to any taxpayer, including Bonnie, that we have done our level best, and this is without sacrificing something
in terms of level of service, as that we’re not willing to do, right? Because the taxpayers do like the high level of service, we’re getting feedback on that. They want nice parks,
they just don’t want to pay for parks; that’s something that I don’t think we’re ever going to be able to reconcile, but I’m okay with it. But I will defend our budget to anybody in
the City because nobody on their home budget is taking a $50K or $100K year budget and dissecting 25 some items, and that’s essentially what we’re doing.
Council Member Thiede said but it’s just more about the message that we’re sending and who it will affect, and what it’s doing with the increases.
Council Member Khambata said okay.
Mayor Bailey said I’ll just say one thing and then I will call for the vote. The only say I’ll say is we have consistently over the years been second lowest, no matter what we did, and
so the taxpayers in Cottage Grove feel their City is worth the taxes; they get what they get cheaper than any other city in the County, with the exception of St. Paul Park.
Council Member Garza said and they get amazing service; that was echoed by Council Member Olsen.
Mayor Bailey said and they get amazing service, but I’m just saying the dollars are what I look at; I actually share that when we talk about, when we talk with our County Commissioner
and they talk about the Tax Rate or Tax Capacity. It’s like, okay, it’s dollars and cents for our citizens, they want to know what is mine, what is it going to? And we saw a graph,
and there could be some maybe different ways we could communicate with the citizens and all that. But what I would tell you is if we cut the budget, and I’m just making this number
up, by $10M, someone is going to come along and say it should be $11M. And you’d probably be the one, and I’m not trying to be facetious, but by point to you.
Council Member Thiede said I would say that’s unreasonable. I’m just saying in terms of the message out there, because of some of the things we’ve heard. And obviously, you guys,
well, Tony didn’t, unfortunately, but Justin, Monique, and Myron, I guess you all got reelected, and I never saw any numbers on write-in votes; I had my neighbor tell me that they wrote
in a couple, but it’d be interesting just to see how many write-ins there were.
Council Member Garza said I had 482 write-ins, and the mayor had 900 and some. Mayor Bailey said I think I had 988, I think. Council Member Thiede asked write-ins for somebody else?
Council Member Garza replied, yes, for me. Council Member Thiede said no, I’m talking about write-ins for somebody else because they didn’t want to vote for you.
Mayor Bailey said well, that’s what she’s saying.
Council Member Garza said so I was on my special election; so, for just my special election, I had 442 or 482 people write-in against me. The mayor, for his special election, he had
about 900 something. Mayor Bailey said 980.
Council Member Garza said but he had like 18,000 votes, I had 15,000 votes, so, I mean, that’s such a small portion of people that wrote in.
Council Member Thiede well, again, I think that’s why who won, and we usually see that, but I don't know who looks at that.
Mayor Bailey said it’s a lot more Mickey Mouse, and now it’s more Donald Duck.
Council Member Khambata said I wish that we could have a 0 levy increase, but in order to do that, things would have to be cut out.
Council Member Thiede said and that’s not reasonable, but I mean, we haven’t seen significant growth in homes and things like that, it’s slowed down some, based on the numbers.
Council Member Olsen said it slowed down, but if you look at our permit revenues, it’s still pretty consistent, so, I mean.
Council Member Thiede said so, we’re still getting a pretty good amount of money there; it’s just looking at some of those things and saying well, why should I; you know, there’s
been inflation, right? But that’s actually tapered back; unfortunately, there’s certain things that you can’t taper back with inflation.
Council Member Khambata said, well, I’m not an economist, but if you remember in post 2008, the Fed had 10 years where they couldn’t get inflation to crack 2%. So, it was easy to have
a flatter budget levy increase when the economy was stagnant and maybe was dumping money into the economy, to try to get it going. Then again, the City had a small levy reduction in
2020, and we ended up paying for those few percentage points the following year with the rapid rate of inflation; whereas, had we not had a revenue decrease and diverted some of that
revenue, that would have softened the subsequent year’s levy increase.
Council Member Olsen said not to mention your most expensive thing every year is people; Council Member Thiede said it’s people, exactly. Council Member Olsen said 67.5%. Council
Member Thiede said and I’d like to say all people, a lot of them, can find you.
Council Member Khambata said automation, you just let AI do it all.
14. WORKSHOPS - CLOSED TO PUBLIC - None.
15. ADJOURNMENT
Motion by Council Member Olsen, second by Council Member Garza, to adjourn the meeting at 10:06 p.m.
Motion carried: 5-0.
Minutes prepared by Judy Graf and reviewed by Tamara Anderson, City Clerk.