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HomeMy WebLinkAboutPSC 3.17.25 COTTAGE GROVE PUBLIC SERVICES March 17, 2025 COMMISSION 12800 RAVINE PARKWAY SOUTH COTTAGE GROVE, MN 55016 COUNCIL CHAMBER - 7:00 PM 1. Call to Order 2. Pledge of Allegiance 3. Roll Call 4. Approval of the Agenda 5. Approval of Minutes A Meeting Minutes January 27, 2025 6. Open Forum 7. Presentations A Girl Scout Pedestrian Safety Presentation 8. Business Items A Granada Park Parking 9. Commission Comments 10. Staff Reports and Materials 11. Council Comments A Council Agendas 12. Adjournment 1 MINUTES COTTAGE GROVE PUBLIC SERVICES January 27, 2025 COMMISSION HERO CENTER, CLASSROOM B - 7:00 p.m. 10125 85th Street South, Cottage Grove, Minnesota, 55016 1.CALL TO ORDER Chair Lisa Kons called the Public Services Commission meeting to order at 7:00 p.m. 2.PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE Chair Kons asked everyone to stand and recite the Pledge of Allegiance. 3.ROLL CALL Chair Kons was advised that Roll Call had been taken. 4.APPROVAL OF THE AGENDA Vice Chair Kath made a motion to approve the agenda; Commissioner Tracy Jenson seconded. Motion carried: 7-0. 5.APPROVAL OF MINUTES A. APPROVE MINUTES FROM THE NOVEMBER 18, 2024 MEETING Motion by Vice Chair Kath to approve the November 18, 2024 meeting minutes; Commissioner Jenny Olson seconded. Motion carried: 7-0. 6.OPEN FORUM Chair Kons opened the Open Forum. As no one wished to speak on items not on tonight’s agenda, Chair Kons closed the Open Forum. 7. PRESENTATIONS - None. 8. BUSINESS ITEMS A. Hillside Trail Sidewalk Ryan Burfeind, Public Works Director, said tonight we have Genevieve Tester, our Graduate Engineer, who will be presenting on this topic. She’s got some follow-up information with her presentation here tonight. Engineer Tester said tonight we’re going to continue our discussion on the proposed Hillside Trail Sidewalk Project, last discussed in May, 2024. There will be time at the end for the commissioners and the public to make comments and ask questions. Last Spring, staff brought routing options before the commission, seeking feedback regarding the installation of a sidewalk along the 600-foot stretch of Hillside Trail, east of Jamaica, near Woodridge Park. The commission requested additional Public Services Commission Meeting January 27, 2025 Page 2 of 17 information and that now is at a final recommendation. The project has come as a result of inquiries from the community, wanting a pedestrian connection to the park from Jamaica and a segment being a missing link in our City’s trail and sidewalk network. Last May, we brought four alternatives to the table, and they varied based on what side of the roadway the sidewalk was placed; so, we had some north, some south, some varying between those two. Regardless of what was chosen, tree removal and sign relocation was necessary. Because of the additional crossing, the current storm sewer alignment, and some north side deeper grades, in addition to some private utility conflicts, the sidewalk on the south side alternatives was pursued further. There was a back of curb alternative and then there’s also a sidewalk with a boulevard alternative that was discussed. So, this back of curb sidewalk puts pedestrians closer to the roadway, compared to that with a boulevard. It also requires some additional coordination with snowplows in the winter, but it will provide less disturbance for adjacent properties, such as driveway, irrigation, etc. Staff is recommending this back of curb design to accommodate existing residents while also providing a non- street pedestrian route. The clear zone is the area identified from which a motorist can recover from typical steering realignments or run-off-road events. It is a design recommendation to not construct immovable objects within this clear zone; based on speed and traffic along Hillside Trail, the clear zone in this segment is 12 feet. So, a sidewalk offset by 8 feet would remove pedestrians out of this clear zone; however, we don’t have the public property to do this, so it’s unfeasible. The current pedestrian situation is having the route on the road and its currently an unmarked shoulder. A reasonable solution, while weighing the pros and cons of property impacts, pedestrian safety improvement, and feasibility of construction, is a sidewalk off the back of curb. Shoulders are not substitutes for a well-designed pedestrian facility. There may occasionally be the need to design shoulders where walkways are either the roadside is constrained or where it’s just not feasible to implement a sidewalk. There are no major feasibility concerns in a 600-foot stretch between Jamaica and the Woodridge Park trail. There is adequate public Right-of-Way space and no physical limitation or land use characteristics that render a sidewalk unsuitable. This naturally is a portion of the City’s trail and sidewalk network. Staff recognizes that the entirety of Hillside Trail does not have designed pedestrian facilities; the missing links in our network go beyond this area. In a perfect world, the City would have the resources to place sidewalks along all residential streets and bring them to ADA compliance, giving pedestrians the safest routing options. In new developments, this is our standard to have a sidewalk along residential streets, at least one side. So, in existing developments what we can do is field the concerns we’re getting, kind of poke at those missing links over time, and make the greatest improvements with our funds available. The proposed route on Hillside Trail provides the connection for heavily used pedestrian facilities on Jamaica to the major destination of Woodridge Park. It has been previously discussed that currently, pedestrians use both the north and south side of Hillside Trail, walking on the roadway. Installing a sidewalk would also pull foot traffic to the south side, creating more conflict at Janero Avenue and create challenges for residents pulling in and out of their driveway. Essentially, the value of enhanced pedestrian safety supersedes that of car traffic and comfortability. Janero onto Hillside Trail, going north, is stop controlled; so, a pedestrian crossing here, from an engineering perspective, is safe. The intention of the striped shoulders east of Jamaica was to provide some sort of designated pedestrian route. The 3,200-foot stretch to get to Hillside Elementary just currently is a less feasible project. Additional pedestrian and vehicle counts were taken after the May meeting. The first table is our pedestrian count, and the limitation of this is it doesn’t outline the destination, but rather the origin of pedestrians. What the data does show is that most pedestrians in this area are utilizing that City park. Table 2 is the vehicle count, and there’s a greater concentration of vehicles in the segment nearest Jamaica, where we’re proposing that sidewalk. So, the connection to a City park, and the notable foot traffic at that park, and the higher traffic volumes as one approaches Jamaica, support the addition of pedestrian infrastructure to link this segment of Hillside Trail to the City’s trail and sidewalk network. As sidewalks are retrofitted into existing neighborhoods, having a boulevard between the road and a sidewalk is not always achievable; in our history of retrofits, a back of curb is more common. So, the top photo is in Highland Hills, as you look west, towards the Bailey Woods development; the bottom photograph is on Meadow Grass, looking up to 65th, in the Pine Summit development. The back of curb sidewalk, when the street plow comes through, is where the snow and ice builds up, before those sidewalk machines can come through. Again, that’s a coordination piece for Public Works to manage, and this isn’t necessarily an out-of-the-ordinary situation, as I’ve mentioned it in other parts of the community. Having the sidewalk there in the walkable weather months is a positive safety upgrade. With the initial cost estimate last Spring, we were at about $51,000. We’re at the beginning stages, staff is doing the design for 2026 Pavement Management, which as you can see is west of Jamaica for mobilization and contractor coordination purposes. We’re recommending that the adjacent segment of the proposed sidewalk is looped into the 2026 Pavement Management project. So, your timeframe for this project proposal is Spring and Summer 2026. Public Services Commission Meeting January 27, 2025 Page 3 of 17 Ultimately, sidewalks are appropriate for urban areas. They provide a positive separation from traffic, they include an all-weather surface, and provide access for people with disabilities; they are readily identifiable for both pedestrians and motorists of where users are located. City staff recommends a 2026 installation of a six-foot wide concrete sidewalk, placed at the back of curb, along Hillside Trail to connect Jamaica Avenue and Woodridge Park. Chair Kons asked if there were any questions from the commissioners: A female commissioner said maybe you mentioned it and I just didn’t follow you, but the other side of Jamaica, the other side where the striped paint is, is there a future plan to do a sidewalk on that side? Engineer Tester replied correct me if I’m wrong, but City Council has been talking about when pavement management comes through this main part of Hillside Trail, it’s on their radar to look at constructing a sidewalk at the time the bulk of Hillside is reconstructed. The female commissioner said right. So, when money is feasible, and you have the funds to do it, that is on the plan. So, what the ask is currently is a small portion of 600 feet, that’s just the first part, that’s like Phase 1 or whatever, and then future phases will incorporate a sidewalk on the other side. Director Burfeind replied and that’s like Genevieve said, it’s looking probably next will be west of Jamaica. He said this is all about destinations, you know. Right here, if Woodridge Park wasn’t there, you probably wouldn’t see this item before you, right? Because we’re not just going to build 600 feet of sidewalk to nowhere, it’s overkill, from Jamaica to Woodridge Park. The next part is obviously west of Jamaica, which was visited I think in the mid-2000s, I don't know if the City Council was part of that, but I remember our City Administrator talking about that and it didn’t move forward at the time, but it is something that’s been discussed. You know we’re doing a little bit of Hillside Trail reconstruction in 2026, but further down, it’s either 2028 or 2029, we’re looking at doing the remainder of it, all the way back to Hillside Elementary; and that’s when we would visit that, which would obviously require similar public engagement, as it’s obviously affecting many more property owners at that time. That will be our next step because of the destination of Hillside Elementary. A female commissioner said I just want to thank staff for addressing those questions and concerns that we have on topics like these and the thoughtfulness of the plan and how to retrofit it into the neighborhood with the least amount of disruption. Chair Kons asked if there were any other questions or comments from the commissioners; none were asked. Chair Kons said I’ll now open this up for public forum: Brianna Mothes said I live at 8683 Janero Avenue South, and I’m right on the corner of Hillside and Janero. For those of you who are aware, I am the penguin house. So, I’d like to address, after looking over the issues that I and the neighbors had brought up back in May, and also the commission, that we had asked for numbers and research. We feel as though there were concerns that weren’t addressed at all, and that others were not adequately addressed. So, first of all, while we understand that logically, research suggests that sidewalks are the safest option, that makes sense. However, in this situation, there have been no instances or accidents that warrant a sidewalk in this area. However, putting a sidewalk at this location, it does put three property owners at a disadvantage from the other 54 property owners on Hillside Trail South, and that’s not including the property owners on Janero Avenue South. And then that’s also, again, what wasn’t addressed was the removal of green space and reducing the property values of these three property owners, compared to the other Hillside Trail South property owners. There are 54, I counted, there’s 54 property owners on Hillside Trail South, between Jamaica and Johansen Avenue, which is where there are sidewalks. There are existing sidewalks on Johansen, at the top of Hillside, that the trail system could connect to. And, so, moving on, this proposed sidewalk also doesn’t address the bigger issue, which is the struggle of pedestrian travel along the rest of Hillside, which is the root of the problem. Putting a sidewalk on this one section without future plans in place for additional remediation of the actual problem is irresponsible, and it’s an irresponsible use of government funds, and it’s unnecessarily, you’re targeting a small minority of City residents. You know, another issue I thought about was bicyclists that are traveling down Hillside, on the east, that have to deal with the change of the terrain. If they’re coming down Hillside on the road, with a bike lane, and then all of a sudden they cross Jamaica and they’ve got to go on a sidewalk, and then, all of a sudden, they have to go back on the street again. Typically, that can cause, I mean, that’s something we’ll have to really look at, you know, having that lack of continuity, you know, going from street to sidewalk to street. Again, it just doesn’t make sense to have a whole stretch on Hillside of a designated, a central pedestrian lane, and then have 600 feet of sidewalk, and then have nothing for the rest of Hillside. And Hillside has issues, I mean, again, it’s not just 600 feet, it’s all of Hillside, all the way up to Johansen. And there are no plans in place for Hillside; correct me if I’m wrong, Public Services Commission Meeting January 27, 2025 Page 4 of 17 there are no future plans in place to correct, to deal with pedestrian safety with the remaining part of Hillside. And I think they handed out, and I did make copies, so if you want to look, at the intersection of Hillside Trail South and Johansen Avenue, you can see there are existing paths. So, essentially, at the top of Hillside, if you look at, and again, there’s a map on the first page, there’s a map on the second page that show, and again, what I’m talking about, that there are better ways to do this; either allocating these funds for future development or allocating these funds towards a temporary solution of creating an extended, you know, using paint to create a temporary fix for all of Hillside to protect. And yes, we understand that yes, a sidewalk in a perfect world, a sidewalk is the safest option, but of course, that’s really expensive for all of Hillside. So, again, that, so, going back to if safety and connecting our community’s trails and sidewalk network is the reason for this project, instead of installing an expensive sidewalk that only connects a couple hundred feet of trails and sidewalks; Figure 1, a little orange, and that’s again from the west side of Jamaica along Hillside, that little, little bit. You know, why wouldn’t we utilize that money to create a larger fix? This can be achieved by extending the peace of mind option on Hillside from the west side of Jamaica along all of Hillside, up to Johansen Avenue South. That’s in Figure 1, that’s all the yellow, and that’s where sidewalks already exist. Again, that’s already a sidewalk network; it would be a larger connection and again, that’s the green on Figure 1, and that’s creating a true connection trail-sidewalk network. Again, that also has continuity in the trail system, and also that creates equality amongst all of the Hillside Trail residents. An unknown female commissioner said so, I mean, I think we have some questions to understand this is to go from Jamaica to the Woodridge Park, which like she said, we haven’t seen or heard of any plans to continue the other side of Hillside, on up the hill, around the curve and everything, all those residents. Where are they, they should be connected to the path; if connecting to this path is so important for pedestrian traffic, that this stretch needs to be taken care of right now, I don't know. It just seems like overkill, or even the volume of your street count on the one day at the end of May, this seems very expensive, #1; #2, if you’re the resident there with a sidewalk running in front of your property vs. the sides, as on one of the properties, its on the side. The majority, even where it’s an existing sidewalk, on this side of Jamaica, they run along the side of people’s properties, not in front, or they’re in the back. You know, along Jamaica, yes, there are sidewalks, and that’s the fact. An unknown female commissioner said and I would like to know, I think it makes it more challenging leaving, coming and going, and then you add snow removal, which, you know; are you going to coordinate, is this 600 feet going to be the big priority to snowplow? But now you’re buried this high on the sidewalk before you’re even to your driveway. It’s just seems like overkill. I feel like we’re reiterating everything we already shared with everybody. Ms. Mothes said and I would like to make a note, my background’s in research. I’d like to know the traffic numbers that took place, we’re doing a heavy road construction time, the north and southbound lanes of Jamaica were under construction; and so, they were, you know, half was closed at the time, so, people were rerouting at the time. As well as East Point Douglas was under construction at the time, between Jamaica and 19, things were closed, so people were driving all over the place, trying to reroute; people were traveling more so or less so down Hillside, a lot of people were coming down Janero, trying to cut across, trying to detour Jamaica. Chair Kons asked so, do you think traffic was much higher because of all that? Ms. Mothes replied I don't know, the problem is potentially. Chair Kons said that’s what we tend to see when we have this stuff going on, you’ll see a lot more traffic then, okay. Ms. Mothes said and the other issue is any research study, but again, with my background, you taking one day and then saying, this is fact is absolutely appalling to me. Like, you can’t pick one day of numbers and say this is fact. And, so, that’s where I’m, I couldn’t believe that they said here’s the traffic and then sending it to the researcher and saying, you know, all this is high traffic volume. So, that’s where I wish that there was further numbers and being able to look at that further and saying; again, with the results also were extenuating circumstances, there was a lot of construction going on. So, I would have liked to see a few more days worth of research and also not during a time where there’s heavy construction going around, literally every direction surrounding that area. I would be interested, and again, it very well could fall not in our favor; again, as a resident, I very much am seeking a resolution that’s beneficial towards our community. I know that there’s an issue with pedestrian safety on Hillside, I just don’t think this is the solution. Vice Chair Kath asked Chair Kons if he could ask for point of order. Chair Kons replied yes. Vice Chair Kath said I think it’s great that you shared your feedback, I think now and you’ve shared it before; I’d like to propose that we move into more of a deliberation now of us, as commissioners. Chair Kons absolutely, Ms. Mothes said okay. Vice Chair Kath said so we can provide staff either a recommendation to move forward or not. Chair Kath said thank you, are there were any more comments or questions from any of the commissioners? Public Services Commission Meeting January 27, 2025 Page 5 of 17 A female commissioner said, I have one question. So, I don’t think there’s any plans, is there plans for further up Hillside, so, from Woodridge on up to Johansen? Is that just wasn’t part of this budget, or is this something that could potentially be postponed and do it all in one fell swoop versus if everyone’s on board with that? Director Burfeind replied I can speak to that. Chair Kons said thank you, I think you can help answer that one, go ahead. Director Burfeind said I’m happy to answer that, as I was writing things down during the discussion. I do think, I do believe a lot of this was in Genevieve’s presentations. With no action today, it would then be reactive and not proactive, and we’re not waiting for an accident to occur, and we need these sidewalks to be installed. In terms of it taking up green space and kind of singling out the three homeowners, this is in the public Right-of-Way, so this is not on the private property. Sidewalks are a standard amenity in urban areas. All new developments have them on one side of the road, and I can tell you developers charge no different for that lot versus the other side that does not have a sidewalk; it simply doesn’t come into play because it’s a standard feature to have in residential areas. Why not connect it to Johansen? That is a great question. We talked through it in the presentation, more about the other side of Hillside. Like I said, if we did not have a destination of Woodridge Park, I don’t think we’d have this discussion, right? We would not go in and arbitrarily place 600 feet of sidewalk next to three homes, right? It’s always the destination, and we have the opportunity with this $50,000 to connect to an arterial roadway with sidewalks on both sides on Jamaica that connect to many, many residents to have a community feel and a Regional type park. We’re not just simply placing a sidewalk here, this is $50,000, and if it was $1 million, we would have to join hands because the City doesn’t have $1 million; I can tell you this is not a reason to not spend that money to provide that route for pedestrians. Regarding the bicycle riders, so, that’s also for bicycle riders and not necessarily just pedestrians. They certainly do ride on sidewalks and they ride on the trails, but I guess we would not expect it. I’m sure if there are kids out riding their bikes and they are riding all the way up Hillside, they may hop onto this sidewalk. But, technically, really bicycles do ride on the road, it’s common, it’s very standard, and in our community, they’re actually supposed to walk when they’re on the sidewalk; they’re not supposed to ride their bikes on the sidewalk. So, I wouldn’t expect bicycle riders to probably be on that, but if they would, we’re talking about foot traffic pedestrians for this sidewalk. On the traffic, I actually looked it up, because we did want to get a current count on that day, which was about 2,700. Actually, we do counts at these locations every two years; so, back in 2023, when we had our plans down, there was actually 3,700 cars per day, so it actually was lower. And maybe we could have had more of that information, but I just looked it up on our tracking count, so, actually, historically, it has been a little bit higher; why it was lower that day, I’m not sure, but it is pretty typical that we take a 48-hour count or a 24-hour count. You do want to watch for construction, that’s important, right? If something has a planned detour or road closures, but outside of that, that tracker is very consistent on a day-to-day basis during the week, and that’s when we want to do the counts. There was some more discussion about why not the whole neighborhood? It’s just kind of the fact of the matter, we have this opportunity to connect a destination to a major walking road, and that’s what we’re really talking about. In terms of the location of the sidewalk, so, I do agree on Jamaica, that’s a main road, with no driveways, so that is the back yards of all those residences. But I will say 90% of our sidewalk is in the front-yard space, that’s where it goes in all the new developments; and it will be on a side yard if there’s like a corner lot, but the front yard is where it goes. I have a sidewalk in my front yard, and the other side of the street does not. And snow removal, that I think is an issue. We are, I don’t want to say unique, but we do plow all of our sidewalks in town, and I will say the majority of cities actually don’t do that. So, in that discussion, these residents would not have to shovel that sidewalk, we actually do that because we have dedicated routes of dedicated staff; they don’t plow streets, they don’t plow cul- de-sacs, they only plow sidewalks. There are four machines and anytime it snows, they are out doing that. So, that is something that will happen, and residents will not be asked to shovel that sidewalk, so that’s something Public Works is willing to take care of. Like Genevieve talked about, we’re looking for coordination, right? We want to make sure the roads get plowed and the sidewalks get plowed. We don’t want the sidewalks to get plowed and then we come plow the road and now we’ve got a pile of snow on that sidewalk being left; so, that’s something that we deal with in many other areas of town and we will certainly be coordinating that effort. In terms of snow on the driveway, you know, that actually won’t change; the plows plow left to right, and everyone knows when you get home, you have that big pile of snow at the end of your driveway. Our sidewalk machines are different, they can fold their blades, like a street plow, so they’ll generally as they go from the sidewalk to a driveway section, they’ll kind of flatten that blade out so they can push through it and not dump their snow in the driveway. Then they keep going, or we use snowblowers, when the snow gets too deep, we use snowblowers. There’s a little different way we can control that snow and make sure we’re not dumping even more snow in the residents’ driveways. Chair Kons thanked Director Burfeind and asked if there is any other comment or deliberation. Public Services Commission Meeting January 27, 2025 Page 6 of 17 Ms. Mothes said well, the whole thing. Vice Chair Kath interrupted Ms. Mothes and said public comment is closed, I’m sorry. He said just to help you folks out, normally the way the meeting works is staff will present, and then they will open it up for comments from the public, and then that closes; then it’s up to us now to dialogue, talk, and take your feedback, take their feedback, give our opinions, and ultimately, somebody will make a motion on whether it’s moving forward or not. It’s not like an open dialogue moving back and forth. Ms. Mothes replied okay. Vice Chair Kath said I just wanted to share my opinion of this, especially with the residents here just to give feedback to us commissioners. Again, I do want to thank staff for the work that they did; we did give them a laundry list of homework projects, and I think you did the best you could with the amount of research and stuff. It’s interesting for me, my perspective is probably a little bit, I just live on the other side of 90th, so I’ve seen the curbing come in up 90th, I’ve seen the crosswalks come in, I’ve seen that park, just the amount of people that use that park now is just, it went out the roof. Ever since, I think it really was when the inclusive playground came in, that’s just getting tons of use. And then my other job is driving a school bus, so, I’ve been up and down Hillside a ton; I have Hillside Elementary, so I’m in that neighborhood a ton and get to see the traffic. And I really believe, and I can appreciate if it was in my yard, I would support it, because I just feel getting kids off the street and giving them a safer place to walk is best. For a guy who drives a school bus and puts a Stop Arm with a red light, blinking, and people driving right through it is a scary thing; getting kids at least off the street I think would be a good thing. For me, the cost of $55,000 is pretty reasonable for what we’re looking at here. So, I’m supportive of moving forward. Chair Kons asked if there were any other comments. Commissioner Jenson said I think that I should say, too, I’m a bike rider, and I use our trail system as much as I can, I love our trails, but this is a gap. And I do find myself on a regular basis coming through this stretch, and it is, there’s a lot of traffic coming down the hill and going up the hill, and there’s probably been more than a few times where I do think, oh-oh. Once I do get west of Jamaica, on Hillside, they have the painted trail that slows traffic, cars don’t seem to go as fast. I don’t feel it’s as much danger as I do in here. So, I think it’s a good plan and I appreciate the thoughtfulness being proactive, rather than waiting for an accident to happen, so. Chair Kons said thank you, Commissioner Jenson. Okay, at this time, then is there a recommendation to move this project forward? Motion by Vice Chair Kath to approve what staff has put before us on the Hillside Trail sidewalk and approve that proposal, moving it forward; Commissioner Jenson seconded. Motion carried: 7-0. B. Police Department Annual Report Captain Brad Petersen stated I’m grateful to have this opportunity to present the Police Department’s 2024 Annual Report. Last year, we developed our Five-Year Plan, our Strategic Plan, and everything that came along with that; so now, fast forward a year and I can very proudly say that we made more progress on that plan than anybody had anticipated. According to nearly every metric, we’re knocking it out of the park. As promised, we prepared for you an interim report that memorializes all of that change and progress, backed up by a lot of hard facts and data. So, it’s one thing for me to say that we’re doing great, but you’ll see a lot of different metrics, community engagement and community feedback, which are backed up by a lot of other metrics. Despite all that change, one thing that hasn’t changed is our steadfast commitment to community engagement, community service, still maintaining excellent service, and being an innovative department. One of the primary changes that we had to kick off this process was an organizational change; so, we reorganized the department and created a Community Impact Team (CIT) and created some new leadership positions. Really, it was more about how and why we put people in the teams that they’re in now, knowing what the teams’ goals are and the challenges, and we need to be adaptive to those new challenges. So, that organizational change has worked out very well. The decision to change, the idea behind that was put everybody in the same direction, and power everybody to just start driving the same direction, and inspire employees to start finalizing that goal, just start making progress, and that’s what we’ve done. Captain Petersen reviewed the Core Values for the organization, said everybody is familiar with those, and a lot of our conversations center around Core Values and giving permission needed to make decisions about promotions and specialty assignments. I will remind you that our Strategic Plan wasn’t just a plan; there were performance measures built into that plan, and we used the Benchmark Cities survey data as one of our comparable surveys. So, it’s a collection of cities that’s been identified as doing policing pretty well, so we use that as our benchmark and that’s what we’re comparing ourselves to. Public Services Commission Meeting January 27, 2025 Page 7 of 17 There were a couple noteworthy things that happened throughout the year: It’s really awesome that the Patrol Division saved four lives last year with the help of the EMS folks. That was attributed to rapid response, rapid deployment of AEDs and CPR. Four people walked out of the hospital, walking, talking, and functioning fine, and that’s amazing. Fire Chief Jon Pritchard said I just want to say because I enter the cases into the national database, like the rate in which our police officers apply the AED is 100%. So, I think Brad is really underselling the effect our Police Department has on those four lives. I’m sure they’ve saved more lives than just four, but. Captain Petersen replied, well, there’s four that I can point my finger to, that they left the hospital walking, talking, and fine. Our K9 team did amazing this year, placing at the national competition. We added a fulltime Traffic Safety Officer, possible with fulltime grant funding. If you’re following those stats online, ’re amazing. So, as of today, he had over 40 DWIs in the first quarter, he was actually #2 in the State. A huge win for us is our C.S.O. Cadet Program, as nationally, Police Departments are facing a crisis in terms of retention and recruiting and are really struggling with adequate numbers of staff to do their job well. We created this cadet program, as traditionally we wouldn’t hire somebody until they had completed their schooling and POST certified before ’d start; now, we hire them really early in the educational pipeline. So, when we find a good person with the right qualities that we’re looking for, we’ll hire them, and help them get through school. It’s helping us recruit talent and it also helps us specifically harvest diverse talent. The community survey is really popular, and we’re getting a lot of great feedback from the community, a lot of affirmation that we’re doing a really good job, along with a lot of good ideas and questions on how we can do it better. Online crime reporting is still a little bit underused at this point, so, we’re still trying to advertise it and get more use out of that. It is really a great tool for community members who’d rather not have a police car show up at their house for a variety of reasons, or just for the sake of keeping it online instead of calling to report a crime or a nuisance. That case will be added just like it would if they had called us to go to their house. We made officer wellness a priority this year, in 2025 and 2026. There’s a lot more progress made in that area; we know for our cops to service our community to their full potential, they need to be in a good mental and physical state, to come to work happy and provide better service. We did a better job of recognizing our employees; our employees are doing amazing work, and obviously, it helps a lot and truly means a lot, so, on a quarterly basis, we’ve identified officers as Employees of the Quarter and why they’re successful. It’s being very well received. Crime Statistics: As you start to see some of this data, don’t be afraid to ask what does that mean; I’m not going to go through each one of these things, I’m just going to point out some of the highlights. In some cases, these graphs will show our monthly and annual data; in our case, we’re comparing it to that benchmark average. You can see from that first graph we did a really good job of maintaining adequate staffing throughout the year; our response times are about half a minute faster than the average, so we’re getting the officers to your door, delivering services about half a minute faster than the national average. That’s an affirmation that our response level is working and there are enough cops on the road. We’ve even handled more Calls for Service, and it’s a little bit deceiving because our officers do things that other cities wouldn’t consider a Call for Service just because they wouldn’t have the time; Minneapolis is busy with burglaries and assaults and other things, right? So, they’re not worried about proactively checking a business door or getting a cat out of a tree. So, our officers are handling a lot more calls but they’re not burglaries, assaults, and things of that nature. Our crimes rates are super low compared to the averages, about 50% of the average when it comes to person crimes, and property crimes are an even lower percentage. So, when we look at Cottage Grove compared to other communities, we have a super low crime rate, it’s a super safe community to live in. The mental health calls and overdose calls are really low, and I should say overdose calls specifically are trending downward, largely due to the progressive efforts that our Case Management Unit is doing. So, we’re locating and identifying those people who are at risk and getting them connected to community resources that they need. I’m really proud of the progress that we’ve made. Mental health calls, although if you look at our numbers, they’re trending up, I think that’s due to the fact that we’re identifying more people, we’re broadening our net, we’re intentionally trying to identify those people to get them appropriate services. So, it might look like the calls are going up, but that’s actually a good thing to see. If we neglect that population, then that drives our call volume up in a negative way, right? Because they’re committing crimes and we’re getting into those civil calls and things like that, and we don’t want that happening. Traffic: We don’t conduct as many traffic stops, compared to other communities, and we definitely don’t like writing tickets to the community; however, I feel like we’re doing a really good job of educating the public and that’s impacting safety in a new way. The reason I believe that is if you look at traffic crashes and fatalities, we’ve got much less crashes and we’re right on par Public Services Commission Meeting January 27, 2025 Page 8 of 17 with the number of fatalities; last year, we had one, possibly two crash fatalities. I know we don’t want to minimize one-or-two deaths in our community, it’s what we think about with the number of cars on the road and the potential for that. Chair Kons said and when you think about the 470 people who lost their lives last year, and that’s, we’re doing good work. Captain Petersen replied yes, absolutely. Pursuits: Captain Petersen said another thing I’m really proud of is how our pursuit numbers are coming way down, and we know ’s a very dangerous activity, so we’re minimizing our pursuits. We’ve about halved that in the last two years, and I’m really proud of that, but we’ve done that in a really responsible way. So, we approached this problem by saying thou shalt not pursue, right? And if we do, that gives criminals the green light to commit crime and run from the cops, and it protects our cops, though, too; they just don’t like to drive like maniacs and put people at risk in the community. We figured out the best way to do this is to five the officers the power to make smart choices. If this is a shoplifting incident and we know who the person is, it makes no sense to chase them, right? If this is an ax murderer who’s going to continue on and kill somebody else, then it makes sense to chase that person, right? It also includes smart decisions about why we’re going to chase them. Investigations: Have been really, really thin and not just necessarily in that classical sense where we think about solving all the crimes that would be referred to that division for charging and things like that. They do some of that, but thanks to the fact that we don’t have a lot of crime in the City, they’ll do other things, like the proactive Case Management Unit, and TAG, a Threat Assessment Group. We identify those situations or individuals in our community who need special oversight and investigation and preventative measures to prevent them from causing harm to themselves or family members, that’s done by the Threat Assessment Group. That was pioneered by Captain Randy McAlister and some of the others, who specialize in that. It’s really unique and we’re really in the forefront, nationally, in this matter. So, we can point to a lot of cases where we intervened and saved lives and averted really tragic outcomes. This is not always where it’s that intensive; sometimes these are people who are just not complying with their meds and have a psychiatric diagnosis, and they have the potential to convince others. So, we try to get them into this program and get them the resources they need to have favorable outcomes. Some other things we’re doing are MAARC Reports in investigation. You may or may not know that as complaints get filed through Social Services, we get copies of those, and we have to do a lot of that investigation as well for all of those. We did a lot of background investigations last year because we’re hiring a lot of people; the Fire Department did a big push, as did the Police Department, and we also do backgrounds for the City side. We do a lot of background investigations, and so we have a lot of serious time and resources invested on those. The other thing I should mention is we have a clearance rate of 80%. Most departments are so overwhelmed that they have to prioritize which cases they invest their time and energy in when investigating. So, that means a lot of those low-level crimes or crimes that don’t have several leads just get forgotten, with a really low clearance rate; whereas we have an 80% clearance rate, which means 80% of the cases that come in for our detectives end up being charged, they’re solved. Search Warrants: Another cool thing to know is there aren’t any No Knock or nighttime search warrants. I know that’s a hot topic these days, and we heard it loud and clear from our community that they don’t want us doing those except in really necessary occasions. We had no nighttime, No Knock search warrants last year, but we had 130 search warrants, so, just planning a better, safer way to do them. We had a lot of medicals. S.W.A.T.: We had a handful of S.W.A.T. calls, there’s only one S.W.A.T. mission, but our S.W.A.T. team gets used a lot. We just using great search tools and deterrent options, but we’re not fighting people. We use the drone a fair amount and we’re doing a ton of community impact; we did 61 community events, those were just the big ones, we’re not counting the day-to-day stuff, like the visit at the State Fair or when we stop at a school. Those are Strawberry Fest, Holiday Train, the big-ticket items, 61 of those, that’s a lot of resources and time and shows the dedication. Support Staff: This shows all the work that our support staff is doing, there’s a lot of typical stuff they do, like handling our records and things like that. Use of Force: This past year is what I want to talk to you about, this year we took a little bit different stance in trying to give you a real high-level approach, but the endings are all the same. There’s nothing new or concerning in this data; even though our call volume is trending up from year to year, our numbers of Uses of Force remained pretty stable. You would think that would trend upward, especially with the number of calls we’re getting, but we’re investing so much time and energy into carrying new tools that we’re actually doing most things with less Uses of Force when we look at the call volume. Even when there is a Use of Force, it’s usually a very low level, we use empty-hand techniques or simply displaying or threatening an action of Use of Force. Here’s my PepperBall gun, and for our officers, we consider that a portable Use of Force, a very low level of force, and they’re very stable over the last several years. They trend up and down, but our Use of Force level is very stable over the last 6, 7, 8 years. Again, our portable level is very low, that you might wonder, break this down, like why are we having 4 officers hurt and 5 citizens hurt in that quarter? That might just mean they had a scrape on their knee or my elbow hurts. Anything more than that, and we have a doctor examine. We didn’t happen to have any significant injuries last year at all. Public Services Commission Meeting January 27, 2025 Page 9 of 17 Demographics are largely unchanged from past years, it pretty closely represents the demographics of our community. We know that we can’t make a strict comparison between the demographic data and our Use of Force, we can’t make a strict comparison to the makeup of our community because 50% of the people that we arrest and use force on don’t live in Cottage Grove. So, we know that our crime is probably up due to people from out of town, and they’re here committing crimes, and then going back to wherever they come from; so, obviously, it’s something that we want to keep our eye on, but we can’t use this as it’s not an apples to apples comparison. The other thing that’s really cool is 100% of those Use of Force incidents were all deemed reasonable; there were no other issues that identified themselves. The officers involved are not getting an Internal Affairs investigation, they’re not getting lawsuits, which means obviously we’re doing a really good job with all Uses of Force. Captain Petersen asked if there were any questions so far; I’m trying to do this as fast as I can, but it’s all good stuff, so I want to share it all. Chair Kons said it’s good data. Commissioner Lotts said so that ratio of Use of Force to service calls, I looked back and it was 40,000+ calls, that’s in a year, and you used Use of Force 90 times? That’s incredible, absolutely incredible. Captain Petersen replied yeah. Chair Kons asked how do you compare to sister communities, you know, Woodbury, Oakdale, Inver Grove? Captain Petersen replied so that’s a data point, you usually can’t compare to other communities because everybody tracks it differently. For example, I’m just making this up, Woodbury might say pulling your gun out during the course of a call isn’t a reportable Use of Force, or pulling your PepperBall or using your PepperBall isn’t a reportable Use of Force. Every agency tracks that quite differently, so, that’s one area, unfortunately, where we can’t make that comparison. Chair Kons said okay, I was just curious. Commissioner Lotts said but in terms of call volume, like per population, 41,000 is incredible. Chair Kons agreed. Commissioner Lotts said especially with your officer-to-call ratio, that’s like some of the highest I’ve ever heard of. And I have a lot of friends around in Wisconsin and Minnesota, and that’s incredible, seriously. Captain Petersen said and that just goes to show how much we’ve invested, including tools of deescalation and CIT and capitalization. We’re willing to invest the time, to spend a few extra minutes to talk to somebody and gain compliance, to get a CIT training officer there, to prevent a Use of Force. We’ll do whatever it takes to avoid that Use of Force, we’ll invest that time and energy and explore all options, and we only use force as a last resort; unless, of course, there is somebody in harm’s way and then we will. We didn’t have an IA last year, and I don't know of another department that didn’t have an IA. It’s not because we’re sweeping them under the rug, it’s just there were no legitimate complaints of policy violation that resulted in an IA. There were very few citizen complaints, and each one of those was personally investigated by myself; there were a times when a citizen complaint came in and I ended up just talking with the residents, to hear their concerns, and make an objective decision on whether there were policies violated. In each case, our officers did the right thing. Obviously, when you’re on the receiving end of police services, sometimes they don’t always agree with us. It is what it is sometimes, right? You can’t please everybody, but I explain to them why things are the way they are; they usually walk away and maybe aren’t 100% pleased, but at least they understand why we did that. We handed out a handful of awards last year, several of those were life-saving awards. So, last Spring, we did an Awards Banquet and handed out 50 some awards; that was a combination of a couple years, during COVID, where we neglected our awards, and it was time to catch up. But this past year we had 10 awards handed out, and we’ll be having another Awards Banquet coming up this Spring, so we’ll be able to recognize everyone with these awards. There were a handful of IODs (Injury on Duty) that impacted our operations a little bit, like when we have too many out, there’s too much overtime dropped on our officers. Chair Kons asked if IODs are different than injuries on the other one? Captain Petersen replied well, it could be represented in both places, so. A female commissioner said I think the math might need to be looked at on the IOD one; Chair Kons agreed, said it’s not adding up. Captain Petersen replied, oh, I know why. So, for the Use of Force data, a little boo boo, right? If you have a little boo boo, ’s not necessarily an IOD. An IOD would be something that you’d filled out a First Report of Injury and it involves some kind of medical care. So, that Use of Force data could be significantly higher than that, but this usually results in loss of officer’s time. Chair Kons asked, so, there’s other metrics in that one? Just like a total of 400, but you’re showing 2,200 as the total. Public Services Commission Meeting January 27, 2025 Page 10 of 17 Captain Petersen replied that’s hours; so, the IOD is in green, so, that totals 5, and that resulted in 2,000 lost work hours. Chair Kons said, oh, okay, I wasn’t following that, sorry. Captain Petersen said no problem, I understand. Captain Petersen said the other thing that we’re keenly aware of and devoting a lot of time and attention to is diversity in our officer ranks. So, you can see that according to the benchmarks, we had significantly less minorities, so, we’re about on par with our female officers. That female number will actually be increased, as we just started three females today, so, we’ll actually be just a little bit above the average. And the lack of minority officers is not for lack of trying, we have tried our darndest and almost hired a few; unfortunately, there were a few things in their backgrounds, and that’s why they weren’t hired last year. We were almost at the goal line with a few minority officers in 2024, but we’re trying and we’re getting out there to multiple job fairs, screening events, trying really hard to find somebody we want, and we will achieve that goal. A lot of training hours, we have a lot more training hours than the whole country. All of our officers are CIT trained, which is Crisis Intervention Training. With S.W.A.T., most officers are getting above the required hours of training, and I know that’s a huge investment, but I think it’s a smart investment because of all the data I already shared with you this evening. Another thing we take a look, if you’re interested in this stuff, is we look at how well rounded our training curriculum is; so, we’re not spending 214 hours per officer per year shooting guns and wrestling and driving fast. We’re spending time on crisis intervention and officer wellness and investigative tools and techniques, and things like that, so, we’re very well rounded. A lot of this stuff is maybe not too interesting to you, but I’ll just say that although our Operating Budget is not $14M, our Operating Budget, comparatively, is lower than most agencies. Our overtime budget is significantly lower. I know the community puts a huge investment in us and we’re doing a really good job of spending that money wisely; we’re getting more out of those dollars than most agencies. Just for transparency sake, I put our forfeiture numbers up there: It’s $1,600 sitting in forfeitures for last year, and that’s almost nothing. Again, I know it’s something that the communities’ opinions changed on; in past years, that used to be a decent slice of our revenue, we used to buy vehicles and start trading up and doing things like that. That’s not a thing anymore, and we won’t be able to pursue it in the future. And the rest of these are pursuing grant funds, we’re really looking for those creative ways to fund our operations, which won’t be in this number, and if we secure a lot of grants, that won’t be reflected until we see this year’s data; we’ve got a lot of grants that are coming to fruition right now that we applied for last year. Community Survey Data: This is a new survey that we started this year; so, we randomly send out 50 surveys per month, and we handed out business cards. So, as we’re engaging with the public for any of our services, we’re handing out business cards that has a QR Code on it. So, this is our analysis of who’s filling out the survey; again, no incentive or bonus points for lies. You can see that’s about a 95% satisfaction rate across all these different categories. To me, this is the most important metric, the other stuff is cool, but this is what really matters, what the public thinks of how we’re doing our job; and this says it all, these quotes say it all, right? And that’s what I like to hear about the most. Commissioner Lotts said that actually is a very impressive metric, when you consider the whole point is you showing up, mostly at a time that is an unfortunate circumstance, but to have a 95% approval rating afterwards, I think that’s pretty awesome. Captain Petersen said it’s our Police Department is just that incredible; so, and that’s, the only thing I can do is contribute that to the quality of our officers, the culture in our organization. The amount of character with our officers is really remarkable every day, they deserve all of the credit for that. A female commissioner said and I think that’s huge. I mean, knowing that I’ve talked a lot with Pete, personally, I think you set the standard, he does, and he does a very good job, obviously. So, a good job by everybody, with what you guys do, day in and day out. Captain Petersen replied yep, absolutely. Captain Petersen said I’ll close with these are things that are coming and I’ll share that we have six new police officers, and cadets start today. We’ve got three-or-four C.S.O.s starting next week, so, a lot of new faces, a lot of eager, dedicated people with a lot of talent that they want to share with the organizational community. I think they’ll be coming at the end of February, then probably it’s going to take a while for them to get through their training and actually start performing services, but that’s going to be an awesome addition to our organization. We have a Crime Scene Team coming. We have a lot of things that are under consideration right now, and those are our stationary cameras that read license plates; we need to plan how to strategically place those around town in different phases. So, we’ll start out with a modest amount of cameras, and other communities that are doing this have had huge successes in solving forensic crimes. A typical example would be like your house is broken into, and the only thing we have to go on is a neighbor saw a white sedan yesterday, between the hours of 4:00 and 6:00 p.m. It’ll literally do a search and not only does it Public Services Commission Meeting January 27, 2025 Page 11 of 17 search our community, but it searches all the other communities nationally, just based on that little amount of data, it can give us some leads in a small amount of time. Chair Kons asked so, where are these cameras? These are FLOCK cameras that you’re talking about? Captain Petersen replied yes. Chair Kons asked are they stationary cameras that you’re going to put up? Captain Petersen replied yeah, they’re stationary cameras that generally go outside, but they can be mounted in businesses and commercial areas as well. Chair Kons asked so would they be permanent or portable? Captain Petersen replied think about a video camera mounted on a streetlamp. You could put them wherever we wanted to, but its more or less permanent. There are some mobile versions as well, but that’s down the road; we’re just trying to get a few strategic cameras placed so we can get them up and running. Commissioner Lotts asked are there going to be any in-car license plate cameras? Captain Petersen replied yes and no; so, we just finished a trial evaluation period last Fall, and it didn’t go so well. Well, two things happened: We had some problems with their technology, and then they did a data switch on us and promised us one rate, and then when it came time for a contract, they jacked up the rates, so we said, no thanks. They just came to us last week, and offered us one year free for our entire fleet with that system; so, we’ll probably not end up doing it and then we’ll see what happens after that. Vice Chair Kath said I guess I’m still not quite catching onto this FLOCK camera yet. So, there’s tons of cameras already out there within our freeway systems, people have all kinds of cameras hooked up to their houses. Are you leveraging those first and then strategically going in to place these in different? Captain Petersen replied so, all the other cameras out there don’t read license plates. Council Member Thiede said the FLOCK cameras interface to the internet and so forth; so, the data will actually read that and then go and find the location and things like that. It’s not just taking pictures. Captain Petersen replied, yeah, it’s interactive with the DMV records, potentially, and it can search against that program. Vice Chair Kath said well, it’ll be interesting, obviously, you know that our school buses have the infrared cameras on the side to get license plates, and that funding was given from the State to Districts; but now there’s a lot of talk whether that funding is going to be there and can Districts afford to have those cameras still installed on their buses. So, I don’t know when we get ready to do that if we lose funding at the School District level, if you’re going to leverage with some School District employees to talk about cameras within those buses that are running multiple routes throughout all of Cottage Grove. Captain Petersen replied yeah, I would love to have that conversation, absolutely. Captain Petersen there are a few other things that I could talk about, but that’s a lot, and I don’t want to take up all of your time. Do you have any questions or feedback? Commissioner Lotts asked regarding the C.S.O.s, are those the Community Service Officers that work in the schools? Captain Petersen replied not in the schools; they do transports, you know, patrol, run errands, things of that nature. Commissioner Lotts replied, okay, cool. Chair Kons asked do we still have SROs? Captain Petersen replied we do, we have one at Park High School. A female commissioner asked what are the new Tasers? I think we went over this last time, but I just forgot some things. Captain Petersen replied yeah, so, our officers are currently carrying Tasers; it’s a little bit outdated technology, and unfortunately, Taser said in 2025, we’re going to stop servicing that. So, we had to decide to keep that or go with the pro software guide, which is dead in the water, and there’s no support system for the things that come along with a Taser, record keeping, training, and things like that. So, basically they just force your hand to upgrade to the newer version of Tasers; we just signed a five-year kind of like a lease-to-own option, just spread that payment out over five years, and we get new Tasers for all of our officers. The unknown female commissioner replied okay, but is like the design of the new one work different, or it’s just like more of an upgrade? So, they stopped making that kind of bridge, so you’ve got to get a different kind of bridge? Captain Petersen replied yes, that’s a good analogy. There are some subtle differences in its capabilities and things like that, but essentially, a Taser is a Taser. Public Services Commission Meeting January 27, 2025 Page 12 of 17 A female commissioner said I think you had a statistic that, if I heard you right and maybe I’m wrong, you said 60% of the crimes committed in Cottage Grove are non-Cottage Grove residents? Captain Petersen replied correct. So, is there any common thread, like where those people are coming from or why they’re coming here? And is that being targeted in any way? Captain Petersen replied no, that would be hard; anecdotally, I have some ideas, but to be truthful, I can’t prove them. Yeah, we’ll keep it that they don’t live here. Commissioner Lotts said they come looking for a soft target, and they actually realize very quickly that law enforcement in Cottage Grove doesn’t mess around? Captain Petersen replied we actually have the time to investigate. We hear that a lot, they’re like hey, you’re bringing me to jail for shoplifting? Yes, we are, dude. A female commissioner said to me, that seems like a high statistic; is that normal in other communities, or do we? Captain Petersen replied I don't know really know how to track that, those figures. So, one of the things that I’m telling the kids is we created these system capabilities to generate the data, and most communities don’t do that. You’d think that this would be at our fingertips with all of our recordkeeping systems and tech stuff, but it’s not; and sometimes it boils down to keeping Excel spreadsheets and creating E-forms, where after a call we’re going in and punching in data. I’m a firm believer that if you don’t measure it, you don’t know if you’re truly making progress or are successful. Sometimes the officers hate me for it, but I make them jump through the hoops so that I can track this data and report to you, whether we did good or not. A female commissioner said I think a lot of it is I appreciate this transparency, not only in the sense but even the presence that you guys have on social media I think is very valuable, as a whole, to the community to realize the level of true investment, because that allows citizens to want to be invested in keeping the community safe as well. Captain Petersen replied I’ll be brutally honest, some of our officers don’t appreciate that so much, it’s not necessarily a priority thing, but they’re private people, too, they don’t want to be plastered all over social media; and they get a little bit apprehensive when we take this much data out of context and splash that on social media, right? That takes a lot of courage, but we’re good at transparency, so we put it out there to see what happens. This is the first time we’ve ever taken our own report and just put it out there on our website, and it’s largely been received really well. There was one person who started to comment negatively on it, but they were quickly corrected by a few community members, so that was pretty cool to see. And I’m confident that you’ll see us continue to do that, even if it goes sideways on social media or whatever, because we’re true to transparency. Commissioner Lotts said speaking of transparency, Brad, do you guys track the amount of time your officers spend at just the documentation phase of things? You know, after a call, are they tracking that documentation piece, so that you can absolutely promise me that the general population has zero perception of the amount of time that officers actually spend documenting things? Captain Petersen replied yes, so that is one metric I am dying to know, but I can’t track. Our records management system just cannot do that; so, short of my officers keeping a log of their entire shift, I spent 10 minutes at the gas pump, I spent 30 minutes on a report, and I spent 10 minutes doing X, Y, and Z, that would be the only way that I could do it. Because if I did that, we’d have a mutiny. Chair Kons said I was going to ask if they were doing that because that sounds a lot like. Captain Petersen replied when I started, in 2002, we did that; we actually kept a log for everything we did for our entire shift, and it was horrible, and I won’t do that to them. Commissioner Lotts said yeah, it gets very involved, and any of the Police Departments that I worked at, it was much like that; they used to do it, and then they just stopped doing it eventually because it was just so involved. Captain Petersen replied yeah, and you stop doing police work at a certain point because it’s a deterrent; it’s easier to just not do police work because it takes three hours to document this in an effective manner and accepted manner. It’s one of the things that again, most of the population has no idea, they can’t comprehend how much time they spend documenting, right? So, like, they show up to a domestic dispute, for example. It’s not just one officer that writes a report, and spends three hours making sure that it’s accurately documented; it’s every officer that showed up also has to write a report, typically. So, it’s not just one person, you have to multiply that out, and whenever you have an incident, like it’s not five minutes writing a report because you have to spend the time to make sure it’s accurate. Because afterward, it has to hold up in a court of law, right? If they have to go to court, that’s the first thing that the lawyers look at, so, why does this guy’s report say something that this guy’s didn’t mention? So, that’s the hard part to quantify for the department, is how much time do you spend writing reports? And, it’s, unfortunately, a ton. I literally know how much sick time, leave time, training time, and all other stuff, the one piece of the puzzle that’s missing is that number. And, so, that’s the one piece I need to make a better mousetrap when it comes to staffing and response times or Public Services Commission Meeting January 27, 2025 Page 13 of 17 the amount of miles and things like that, it is puzzling. So, I would never be available to guess, unless the County invests millions of dollars to upgrade RMS, which actually just started not too long ago, and I can only hope. Commissioner Lotts said even it was generalized, based on the calls. Each officer’s going to have to spend 35 minutes documenting this type of call physically, you could maybe come close to some semblance of quantifying the time; but yeah, like you said, 2002, we don’t want to go back to that. Captain Petersen replied no. Commissioner Lotts said you had to document every 5 minutes of your life. Captain Petersen replied no, nope. Captain Petersen asked if there was anything else. There were no further questions by the commissioners; Commissioner Lotts said thank you, it was fantastic. Captain Petersen said I just want to say the whole department appreciates your support so much, and we’re happy to have this oversight committee, we really value that. We’ll be back this year or next year. So, thank you so much for your support, and I’ll see you in a couple months. Chair Kons and the commissioners thanked Captain Petersen. C. Commissioner Terms & Officer Appointments Chair Kons said we will move on to Commissioner Terms and Officer Appointment; right now, we don’t have anybody whose term is expiring. As long as everyone is planning on staying for another year, we don’t have any changes this time around. Commissioner Lotts said I was asked if I was going to stay until my last, and I don't know what that means. Chair Kons replied there you go, enough said. Commissioner Lotts said I’m still here, and so that answers that. Chair Kons said all right. 9. COMMISSION COMMENTS Vice Chair Kath said just a quick question for Ryan, utilities, what were they running on top of the poles, along Jamaica there? Recently, they’ve been running a new line. Director Burfeind replied they are, actually, so, Xcel was actually a little more involved with that. They ran a new line, and I’m trying to think, if that’s actually in an area where they have to drop someone from a helicopter, and I don't know if they’ve started that yet. They actually hang from a helicopter to do some of that work, so, yeah, I believe it is a power line for Xcel, and that’s a transmission line, so its actually a little bigger than like a distribution-level line, that’s what we have, so. It’s a new power line, so don’t be surprised if you see someone hanging from a helicopter in the future. Chair Kons said I hope we’re videoing that. Vice Chair Kath said, so, with all that utility work that happened out there on 102nd, you know, those residents were having problems with electric blackouts; Director Burfeind said yes. Vice Chair Kath asked with the utilities being moved, has that all been addressed for those residents through Xcel? Director Burfeind asked which area of town was that, were you saying? Vice Chair Kath replied where the new, where you realigned 100th and where 102nd and all of that. Director Burfeind replied yep, so, they did run a new distribution line from the Chemolite substation, we call it, that’s down by 3M. That whole area used to be served by like a single multiple-mile line from the substation at 70th and Keats; so, they did provide a redundant line down there now. So, the main feed is still 70th and Keats, but if that line died, instead of waiting for 12 hours to fix it, they can now take 30 minutes or so and switch everyone over to the other substation, so there’s redundancy in that part of town now. Vice Chair Kath said that’s nice. I was just curious because I started seeing all the construction down there, and I’m like, okay, I wonder what that line’s for. Director Burfeind said and one other, thing, Chair, if I can jump in; Chair Kons replied sure. Director Burfeind said just regarding the commissioner terms, just for the officer appointments, just as long as there was no changing, as long as everyone feels comfortable with the officer appointments, we can move forward with those for 2025 as well. So, I know I spoke with Chair Kons and Vice Chair Kath, I think, and are there any reservations with staying in those roles? Chair Kons said no. Director Burfeind said and I know Commissioner Moyer is our secretary, which is normally just Roll Call is the main thing, but we roll a little differently, so, this is your role, but it is still part of our commission. So, as long as you don’t have any issues, that would be the recommendation to Council in February. Commissioner Moyer said accepted. Chair Kons said thank you. Public Services Commission Meeting January 27, 2025 Page 14 of 17 Commissioner Lotts said Genevieve did a fantastic job with that presentation, by the way. I was going to get up and tell her that before she left, but if you can tell her for us, that would be fantastic. Director Burfeind said I will. Commissioner Lotts said one of the things that I did appreciate was quantifying the pedestrian count, and even if that is a slow day that they captured foot traffic, ’s still 35,000 people each year, so, that’s substantial. But I did appreciate the work she did, and it was a fantastic presentation from her. Commissioner Lotts asked was the traffic count based on our speed sign data? Director Burfeind replied the traffic count was our traffic counting tubes. Commissioner Lotts said yeah, sorry, the 35,000 was just the pedestrian count that I was referring to. Director Burfeind said but you are right, we do use the traffic sign, each year we use the tubes for counting, but we obviously use the sign as well, as that correlates to that area for the study. Commissioner Lotts said I didn’t know whether it was your tubes or the sign, because with that size, it could have been an average over time, not a single day. Director Burfeind said I don't know for sure, but that’s a good question, so that could have been as well. Commissioner Lotts said that’s probably also why that average speed was 31 MPH, because you had your sign outside. A female commissioner said that’s until they got six blocks in front of the halo effect, don’t get me started. 10. STAFF REPORTS AND MATERIALS Director Burfeind said first I want to give an update on a handful of different projects: In the water world, we have our much larger Intermediate Zone Water Treatment Plant. It’s kind of a funky name, but that’s the area of the City that it’s located in, but it’s going to go right behind the Central Fire Station, in those big round storage tanks that are on 81st Street. So, there is kind of an existing park area on top of open space that we have to utilize. That’s about a $10 million facility, paid for by the 3M Settlement. So, it’s kind of exciting, we just submitted our draft plan to three different agencies, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA), the Minnesota Department of Health, and the Minnesota Department of Labor & Industry; so, that’s our main step to get final approval, and then we’ll be going to bid this Spring, so we’re very excited for that. ’s one that we started conceptually working on in 2017, when the full crisis hit, and we really got into it in 2021 when the settlement proceeds were finalized. Chair Kons asked and where is that going to go? Director Burfeind replied so, where the Central Fire Station is on 80th Street, it’ll be right behind it. So, it’s kind of an open area. Chair Kons asked is that going to have any effect on the walking path back there? Director Burfeind replied not the actual walking path itself, no. And we’re actually going to be adding an additional trail; Chair Kons said excellent. Director Burfeind said we’re already using an existing park space, and the State will be reimbursing the value of that land, which is appraised at over $500,000. So, that will be paid to the City through the Settlement, and our Parks Director, Zac, has a plan to reimplement that right into Pine Tree Valley Park. Chair Kons said excellent. Commissioner Lotts asked and it has a pond, too, right? Is that pond existing or are you adding one? Director Burfeind replied we’re adding a small pond for the treatment plant, and that’ll treat all the water, the PFAS part of it, which is the stormwater. Yes, that will be exciting; that will be completed in the Fall of 2027, so about three years of construction, but when all is said and done, it’s almost a 10-year project. So, we’re very excited to be moving into the construction phase. 2025 Pavement Management: We met with the City Council since our last meeting, so that’s in the Hidden Valley neighborhood; we’ve got a couple current Council Members, and one former Council Member, in that neighborhood. Council Member Thiede said don’t look at me, I don't know what the deal is. Director Burfeind said it’s a total coincidence that we had one outgoing and one incoming and one’s still current, all in the same project. So, that one’s moving ahead in 2025. There’s a 2025 Mill and Overlay project that will be Hardwood Avenue, between 80th to 70th, and then some of the Timber Ridge neighborhood, going north of 70th. With that, we will be constructing a signal at Hardwood and Hardwood Court, so that is kind of right where the access is to Goodwill and like into Kohl’s, there will be a traffic signal in there. So, that is the way that one was always set up. I will say of all these questions I’ve fielded, this is a common one, are we building another East Point and Jamaica? I think for some folks that feels really close, but it is a lot different. On East Point and Jamaica, we just spent all that money to move a signal that was at East Point and Jamaica; that signal at Target was about 180 feet from Jamaica Avenue, this is like 400-to-500 feet away. So, it’ll be basically a full standard City block. Chair Kons asked so, where are you going to put it? You said Hardwood and Hardwood Court. Director Burfeind replied yes, so, kind of where Hardwood, you go north of 80th, then you go left into Kohl’s or a right to go kind of up that little hill, to turn into the Goodwill; so, right at that intersection right there. Yep, that’s one that we’ve been watching closely, and we’re right at the point of meeting warrants for a signal. I also am anticipating some redevelopment at US Bank as well, so that will further that traffic. Public Services Commission Meeting January 27, 2025 Page 15 of 17 Chair Kons said I’m trying to picture it, but I can’t; I can talk to you after the meeting. Director Burfeind said, oh, yeah, we can talk afterwards. Chair Kons said I was just going to call it Ruby Tuesday’s, but it’s not anymore. Director Burfeind said, oh, the Muddy Cow. Chair Kons asked by Muddy Cow, right there? Another female commissioner asked there will be a light right there? Director Burfeind a traffic signal, yep. Chair Kons said it’ll be this way, not this way, yeah. So you’re going to come out of Kohl’s and hit a light, and then you’ll go a little bit further and you’ll a hit a light, and then you’ll go. A female commissioner said I walk around there a lot and it’s so dangerous; Chair Kons said there’s a lot of traffic. Director Burfeind said another big priority is pedestrian crosswalks there, so it’s safer. A roundabout was looked at, but it really just doesn’t, it’s not in a good area, one, just to construct it, as you’d have to like close access to all those businesses, and it’s not possible because they only have one access; and with a roundabout you want more balanced traffic all the way around, and there’s a lot more traffic on Hardwood and the side streets, so a signal works a lot better there. So, that will be being built this year. 80th and Keats: County is working on a roundabout in 2026, so that’s something the County is actively working on, the last all- way stop on Keats Avenue or Woodbury Drive, so, its just going all the way to 94. Chair Kons said oh, nice. Director Burfeind said ’ll be good if we can get that out of there. New Developments: Director Burfeind said two completely new developments on the Wolterstorff properties, that’s west of Jamaica and north of that little lake there, we call Shepard Farm; the Planning Commission has that one for approval. And then there’s a new plat south of 100th Street, called Prairie Dunes; that’s going in kind of behind those new NorthPoint warehouse buildings. And then there are a couple of new phases of 3M development, so, we’re staying busy in 2025. Chair Kons said I’m glad you guys have nothing going on. Good report. But what about that person next to you that doesn’t have a name tonight? Gary Orloff, Streets Superintendent, said so, obviously, we’re not out pushing snow, which I can take another year of that. So, we’re out removing dead and diseased boulevard trees; we’ve got roughly 100 to take down. We also have a crew, our stormwater guys who are up in ponding areas, removing buckthorn, and there’s a lot of dead Ash trees back in these wetlands; so, we’re north of 65th right now. With this kind of weather, we’re actually out looking where we’re going to be doing our thin overlays, looking at cracks in roads, trying to figure out where our crack fill areas are, looking at striping conditions. The sign guy is out on the Grove side, so west of Highway 61, looking at signs, making sure that you can still see them. Other than that, we’re just waiting for the next snowfall, the trucks are all clean and ready to go. Chair Kons asked what happened on 80th Street this morning? Director Burfeind replied we had a watermain break there. Vice Chair Kath asked and that was on what, Innsdale? Director Burfeind replied on Innsdale. Vice Chair Kath said I know, again, being a bus driver, when I saw that this morning, I’m like I’ve got to get up there this afternoon. So, I think you guys are all done now, it just has to get repaved, or? Gary replied yeah, so, tomorrow morning we’ll put a cold mix in, so it’ll be good to drive on until we do a complete repair. Fire Chief Jon Pritchard said so I’ll be offering more data, kind of in the same coordinates as Brad, in our next coming up meeting. Just real quick, though, we had our all-time high year for call volume, which we expect to continue to see. We hit 4,930 calls, which is up 70% from a year before. So far this month, we’re up 22% in call volume, and assuming someone’s going to have an emergency tonight, which is a fair assumption, we’ll reach our all-time monthly record with still four days left. So, yeah, the cold and flu season isn’t any worse than normal, but our crews are awesome; like, kind of to Brad’s point, compared to other cities, obviously, the other cities have more resources, but our folks continue to do the work and amazingly the best. Especially last year, we had a lot of short staffing due to promotions, retirements, and everything, and they still accomplished an all-time high total. In that same vein, we have already put out a Request for Proposal (RFP) for what’s called the Standards of Cover; it’s a kind of fancy term, but it’s a Fire Service Evaluation Study. So, a professional firm comes in and does a whole review: Everything from where we have stations, where should we have stations, to our staffing, how do they compare elsewhere; what does our apparatus look like, fire trucks, what do we need, what don’t we need, and really up and down. So, we’re currently in the evaluation stage for that, we hope to select a firm or finalize that in early March and get it to Council to approve that firm. What really led to that is we are no longer using Station 4, off of Jamaica and 95th, as a response station. So, in our department, we don’t just like empty spaces where we’re spending money and we may not need that; so, we’re looking at what can we do Public Services Commission Meeting January 27, 2025 Page 16 of 17 with that area, whether the Fire Department needs it at all, or does another City department? Or should we just let it go, like put it up for sale? But we need to do a good study on that, and that’s what prompted us for this study. The goal is to come to this commission with that in September, or it might be even more in November, just because it always sounds good when it’s exactly six months, but we know how the real world works. So, we’ll come to this commission for evaluation and then go to our Council presentation. So, we hope to have all that complete by the end of this year; so, it’s exciting for us to really take a look under the hood and have an outside firm do a really comprehensive study. Chair Kons said excellent, anything else? Chief Pritchard replied no, that’s it. 11. COUNCIL COMMENTS A.Council Agendas Chair Kons said I will defer to Council Member Thiede. Council Member Thiede said hi, guys. Just a comment; actually the Fire Station 4 would make a great brewery. Chief Pritchard replied I would be for anything, as long as its used and promotes the community forward vs. holding us back on apparatus right now. So, I would support any great use of that available space. Council Member Thiede said there would be quite a discussion over that, as Hohenstein’s had their grand opening and so forth. Chief Pritchard replied from what I understand, there’s a lot of interest in that spot right there, but it won’t be a gas station from what I’ve heard from some other footholds. Council Member Thiede said, yeah, and I know there’s a Kwik Trip right across the street. Chief Pritchard said and I just want to emphasize that, I mean, we will obviously vocalize or verbalize when we need resources, but when we no longer need resources, we want to be just stewards; and this is an opportunity in which we said we’re not using this as a response station. And, again, maybe Ryan can use this to put a couple snowplows or something like that, but we don’t want to just have something to have it. So, it’s part of our steward initiative as well. Council Member Thiede said so, in terms of Council, you probably all know that David Clausen actually won the election, and beat Tony out of it there. And some of you may or may not know that David was on the Public Safety Department years ago, and then he retired in 2020; so, he’s a good guy, and he lives right around the corner from me, and then Tony lives right around the corner, so, we have a friend over there. And then Monique, she had been appointed for Steve Dennis’ term, which was on the same time schedule as mine; so, she had to actually run, then, to actually get elected for another three years to finish out that term. So, her and I are on the same time plan; and then David Clausen and Justin and Mayor Bailey got elected for the next four years, so that’s the Council now. Council Member Thiede said so Council, this past Saturday we spent all day in Strategic Planning, and had some really good discussions about different things that we should focus on; everybody made recommendations, looking at all the departments, their accomplishments and goals, and we provided direction and things like that. So, that was a good meeting. You have the agendas of the previous meetings, and if there’s anything in particular that you have a question about those, or have any other questions, I’d be happy to try to answer them. Vice Chair Kath said I don't know if I missed it or not, they had the vote for the Christmas decorations; did that ever get finalized of which one we’re going to use? Director Burfeind replied so it did get finalized, there were a few comments that came up, we didn’t have like an official comments section, but actually the two winners were the ones that match the current ones, they actually tied. However, we had a different style up that’s really just lots brighter; in the day, you can’t see them, but at night they’re really bright. And our current ones do go all over, and so they do look like something during the day, but they’re not that bright at night. So, we wanted to have additional reviews, so we actually put up two of our current ones on Jamaica, right next to those new ones, to kind of compare the difference in day and night. But the winners were the tree and the snowflake, so. Either way, we justified buying new ones, as ours are old and tired and due for replacement. It’s just are we going to keep the thin style or the new style, and we’ll decide before next year. Chair Kons is there anything else? There was nothing further. 12. ADJOURNMENT Public Services Commission Meeting January 27, 2025 Page 17 of 17 Vice Chair Kath made a motion to adjourn the meeting; Commissioner Jenny Olson seconded. Motion carried: 7-0. The meeting was adjourned at 8:36 p.m. Minutes transcribed by J. Graf and reviewed by Kari Reubish. Public Services Commission To: Gavin Hochstetler, Management Analyst From: Ryan Burfeind, Public Works Director CC: March 4, 2025 Date: Granada Park - Parking Concern Review Subject: _______________________________________________________________________________ Introduction Granada Park has become a thriving park space, attracting community members and sports enthusiasts alike. The Cottage Grove Parks Department has invested heavily to bring the community quality pickleball opportunities throughout the parks system. The enhanced popularity of pickleball has led to a greater influx in visitors to Granada Park. While this increased usage is a testament to the parks success, it has also resulted in concerns about on street parking due to the park not having a dedicated parking lot. Residents have reported concerns of limited parking availability near their residence, increased traffic congestion, illegal parking and safety hazards. Background At the November 18, 2024, meeting, the Public Services Commission reviewed parking concerns along Granda Ave, adjacent to Granada Park, and a potential parking restriction. In lieu of a parking restriction, the Commission requested that staff look at options to add dedicated parking for the park and get feedback from the Parks, Recreation and Natural Resources Commission (PRNRC) on this issue. The PRNRC reviewed this issue at their December 11, 2024, meeting. After discussion, the PRNRC recommended that dedicated street-adjacent parking be constructed at the park. Further, they requested that at least one stall be designated for handicap accessibility. Discussion This parking would allow vehicles to pull into a parking stall directly from Granada Avenue. It would allow for 8-10 parking stalls to alleviate street-side parking congestion. This would be similar in style to Pine Tree Valley Park along Indian Boulevard. If the problem persists, this parking option is easy to expand upon. Estimated cost is $15,000 to include removal of the large Ash tree, curbing the perimeter and lot construction (rock base, asphalt, striping). On the following page is sketch of the new park stalls. These parking stalls will be constructed during the summer of 2025. Staff Recommendation Review information about street-adjacent parking as the preferred option to mitigate safety/traffic concerns at Granada Park.