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HomeMy WebLinkAboutPSC 01.27.25 COTTAGE GROVE PUBLIC SERVICES January 27, 2025 COMMISSION 10125 85TH ST S COTTAGE GROVE, MN 55016 HERO CENTER CLASSROOM B - 7:00 PM 1. Call to Order 2. Pledge of Allegiance 3. Roll Call 4. Approval of the Agenda 5. Approval of Minutes A November 18, 2024 6. Open Forum 7. Presentations 8. Business Items A Hillside Trail Sidewalk B Police Department Annual Report C Commissioner Terms & Officer Appointments 9. Commission Comments 10. Staff Reports and Materials 11. Council Comments A Council Agendas 12. Adjournment 1 MINUTES COTTAGE GROVE PUBLIC SERVICES November 18, 2024 COMMISSION 12800 Ravine Parkway South Cottage Grove, MN 55016 COUNCIL CHAMBERS - 7:00 p.m. 1.CALL TO ORDER Vice Chair Ron Kath called the Public Services Commission meeting to order at 7:00 p.m. 2.PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE Vice Chair Kath asked everyone to stand and recite the Pledge of Allegiance. 3.ROLL CALL Vice Chair Kath was advised that Roll Call had been taken; Chair Lisa Kons and Commissioner Jenny Olson were absent. 4.APPROVAL OF THE AGENDA Commissioner Tracy Jenson made a motion to approve the agenda; Commissioner Kelsey Moyer seconded. Motion carried: 5-0. 5.APPROVAL OF MINUTES A. APPROVE MINUTES FROM THE OCTOBER 21, 2024 MEETING Motion by Commissioner Nate Lotts to approve the October 21, 2024 meeting minutes; Commissioner Kelsey Moyer seconded. Motion carried: 5-0. 6.OPEN FORUM Vice Chair Kath opened the Open Forum. As no one wished to speak on items not on tonight’s agenda, Vice Chair Kath closed the Open Forum. 7. PRESENTATIONS A. SNOWMOBILE CLUB UPDATE Public Works Director Ryan Burfeind stated each year before the winter season, we like to meet with our Snowmobile Club and take a look at the Snowmobile Trail Map. The Public Safety Department will usually report if there have been any issues in the last season, but unfortunately there wasn’t much snow in the last season to provide opportunities for snowmobiling. Hopefully, this year will be different. I will say in talking with Jeremy Goebel, the Snowmobile Club President, there are no changes to the Snowmobile Trail Map, so we’re not looking for any formal recommendation to approve a new map at this time. From the City’s Public Services Commission Meeting November 18, 2024 Page 2 of 12 standpoint, I think over the past couple years there’s been a lot of effort on the south part of Cottage Grove: There’s a snowmobile trail along 100th Street, 100th Street has been redone with some realignment on the west end, so we wanted to make sure to keep that trail open and not have it close once those road improvements are done. I think we’ve done a good job of that, that project is complete, and the trail is still able to operate on the south side of 100th Street. So, at this point, we’re not anticipating any coming changes right now where it would affect the snowmobile map, but that’s something we’re always going to keep discussing with the Snowmobile Club. We don’t want to be in a situation where a development moves into an area and all of a sudden its forcing the snowmobile trail out because those are great connections to have. With that, Jeremy is here tonight to give an update from his side. Jeremy Goebel introduced himself as the President of the East Cottage Grove Scramblers. We mark and maintain everything south of Valley Creek up in Woodbury, along 95, down to Andersen Windows and down to Highway 10 and 61, by the County Point gas station. Our club does everything, we mark it, we groom it, we bush hog it, all that stuff. We also put on the Dust ‘Em Off Vintage Snowmobile Show in our field; that’s January 4, and that’s a great event that we brought to the community so we’re happy about that. Over the last four years of having it, we’ve raised over $10,000 and given back to the community and charities. We’re very proud of that, we just donated to the Food Shelf here at our last meeting, so that was very cool. This year we’ve added a Radar Run to it, so hopefully it will bring out more people to the event and there’ll be a good turnout. As far as the trail, we’ve been starting to mark stuff and we haven’t seen any issues. If you have any concerns or want to see anything changed or done, let me know and I’ll make it happen. We definitely don’t wan to lose what we have because we like to ride around here. Jeremy asked if there were any questions. Vice Chair Kath thanked Jeremy and asked if the commissioners had any questions or comments this evening; there were none.. Vice Chair Kath said well, you know I’m going to have a comment because I’m an avid snowmobiler, so I always like to remind the community and volunteers like yourself, it is a volunteer to put all those trail markers up there. So, for the young people that get on their sleds and like to run around all over the place, let’s stay on the trails because it’s a privilege to be on these trails, it’s not our right to be on these trails. I like to remind people of that all the time. So, thank you to you and your club, I enjoyed even last year without the snow coming out to the event that you had; you guys still had a really nice turnout and thank you for doing that for the community. Jeremy said I appreciate it. Commissioner Moyer said I also want to thank you for what you guys do for the community, that’s really awesome to hear. Jeremy said thank you. Vice Chair Kath thanked Jeremey and said now all we need is snow. I know some people don’t want the snow, but there are a few of us that do like it. 8. BUSINESS ITEMS A. GRANADA PARK PARKING RESTRICTION UPDATE Zac Dockter, Parks and Recreation Director, stated I’ll start the process tonight. Obviously, there’s a lot that comes into play here with the concerns on parking on Granada Avenue, but it relates to Granada Park. So, I think it’s appropriate to start with a little bit of history of Granada Park, its got a really unique history; its one of our smaller parks at only 1.8 acres, but it was acquired in the early ‘60s from a company, David Realty, and they actually dedicated I think it was three-or-four lots there. They had 12 lots, and they couldn’t sell the last four, and this was before Orrin Thompson; then Orrin Thompson came in and built thousands of homes in the ‘60s, ‘70s, and ‘80s. So, it’s a small park with a playground and maybe some picnicking, and that was about it. In 1973, residents passed a referendum to improve parks and add the Ice Arena, and this is one of the parks that got improved: That actually added a new playground, a picnic shelter, and then it added two tennis courts. So, it was a pretty popular park in ‘70s, ‘80s, and ‘90s. In the later ‘90s and early 2000s, it became an underused park, as the community demographics had changed, maybe to an older neighborhood, whatever it might be. We started getting a lot of complaints and police calls for loitering, vandalism, graffiti, and things of that nature. In 2010, the playground was to be replaced, and we did a survey of the community with what they wanted to see in the park. Picnicking, pickleball or a sport court, and a new playground were some of the top items, and then some additional landscaping and additional green space. So, we reconfigured the park again, I think it was in 2014: We got rid of the two tennis courts that were from 1973, they needed to be replaced one way or the other; it was a matter of whether they went away permanently or we changed them to something else. Tennis clearly isn’t as popular as it was in the ‘70s, when that was at its height, so we converted to three pickleball courts, which were the first three dedicated pickleball courts in Cottage Grove. I don’t think I have to explain how popular pickleball has become since then, it’s really taken off, so we were glad to have that. It really held its own Public Services Commission Meeting November 18, 2024 Page 3 of 12 for a while, the club played out of there, and it managed itself pretty well, but then it just exploded in the last five-to-seven years. So, we knew Granada Park and the way it’s located, with no parking, with just the three courts, and its proximity to the neighborhood and everything else, we needed to find a new location. We built six new pickleball courts last year that opened up this spring at Glacial Valley Park, and then we have two other courts around the community. We actually have five more pickleball courts that are programmed to go into Woodridge Park next year. So, when we redo the hockey rink next year, we’re going to put them inside the hockey rink at Woodridge, to make those rinks a little more multiuse; so it’s a great opportunity to do that, and I think we talked about it with the CIP, the last time I was here with you. In the meantime, we got some complaints starting I believe it was this year, maybe even last year, of some of the parking issues. A resident had called us with concerns about parking in front of the fire hydrant, blocking mailboxes, using driveways as turnarounds, just generally creating unsafe conditions for the youth that use the streets for bicycling or walking or whatever it might be, and then also just the sheer traffic volume from the cars on both sides of the road. So, those were the concerns I heard. Given the complaint, I coordinated with Public Works and the Police Department and asked what do we want to do? I know they sent out a Community Service Officer to talk with one of the residents. I personally have driven by many, many times, it’s kind of our routine. I’ve seen busy parking, but I can’t say I’ve seen all the issues because I don’t live there, and the resident showed me pictures so I can’t disagree that there’s some of these issues going on. It’s different when you drive by than when you actually live in the neighborhood, I’m sure. I can’t personally vouch for what happens or doesn’t happen, but certainly there is a lot of on-road parking at certain times of the day, depending on the situation, that could create frustration for residents. Director Dockter said I’m not an engineer, I’m not a law enforcement officer, so at some point I’ll let those folks answer some of the questions you might have, but we did look at a potential parking lot option, as there is some green space on the north side of the park, if you look at the image there. I will say that just for reference, the parking lot would have to be considerably bigger than the size of those pickleball courts on the bottom, so you can see it would take up almost all that green space, which is meant to be an open turf area to throw Frisbees, play catch, whatever it might be. It’s going to be probably a six-figure investment with curb and gutter and pavement and everything else that goes into a parking lot. So, it’s a significant investment, so that’s why we thought a public process is probably a good way to start this, let’s get some feedback from the community, let’s let the Public Services Commission talk about it, and see where that might take us. Director Dockter said with that, I will answer any questions you might have, or maybe we need additional staff comment from our Public Works Director or the Police Department. Director Burfeind said I think I have a little more I could add and then I’ll turn it over to Captain Brad Petersen as well, just to maybe just to give the full context. Like Zac said, from an engineering standpoint, it was also looked at because sometimes there might be things like a sight line, maybe there’s a crosswalk. A good example is we’ve got the Bike Park up at West Draw Park where there’s a trail corridor that actually runs and continues across Meadow Grass Avenue; to be closer to the Bike Park, people were parking pretty heavily on Meadow Grass when there is a dedicated parking lot for that park. Because of that, they were blocking a sight line of a pretty busy trail corridor of people coming and going. So, there, there was a pretty strong need to do something; we didn’t actually get rid of all the parking, we just kind of eliminating approaching the crosswalk so we could have the sight lines. Also, there was a better place to park, there was a dedicated parking lot for that park that we wanted folks to use. In this area, like Zac mentioned, there’s not a dedicated parking lot. So, I guess one thing to consider with a parking restriction is we’re not going to eliminate the use of that park; so, if we put a parking restriction here, people who want to use that park just have to park a little farther away, but still on a street without a sidewalk. So, that was a consideration: If they’re parking somewhere else, do they have a sidewalk to walk to that park, or would they be walking in the road? It doesn’t necessarily allow them or force them to park in a better or safer location; there’s not a specific crosswalk here, but there is a point where there’s kind of a little bit of a trail from the park enters into the road, and there’s a pedestrian ramp just to allow folks who are parking in the road to get onto the park property, but it’s not necessarily a true crosswalk. From that standpoint, there wasn’t necessarily a hard engineering standard or guideline to follow to enforce this restriction. So, as Zac mentioned, we thought it would be a great way just to really have some feedback and introduce this to the commission tonight and get your feedback on it. It’s more of an impacted neighborhood, right? You’ve got that parking, but if there’s no parking, does that push the issue somewhere else? I think another consideration was the more pickleball courts that are being built, is that going to kind of spread out the use a little bit, change how heavily used these are? I think that’s something we wanted to see as well. So, that’s some of the engineering background. I don't know if Brad has anything to add. Captain Petersen said I can add a little bit of context. It is true, we have had a handful of complaints regarding the parking situation; the exact extent or number of complaints is a little bit hard to determine because most of them haven’t come in through the normal route, through Dispatch, where there’s a documented incident number. A lot of these concerns have been voiced informally through emails or phone calls or whatever, so we’ve lost kind of the ability to track exactly how many problems or incidents have been reported to us. We did begin to investigate the concerns, we sent some member of our Community Service Officer Division and our Community Impact Team out to observe the neighborhood during the day and evening hours. Public Services Commission Meeting November 18, 2024 Page 4 of 12 So, we spent some hours out there just monitoring the situation. They went door to door, talked to some of the residents, not all, but some of the residents that were available and willing to talk. We started to assess the situation, and we don’t feel like at this moment there’s any traffic management or safety concerns that would make this an imminent matter that needs to be addressed; and I don’t say that to minimize the citizens’ concerns or negate the fact that there is a neighborhood impact that needs to be assessed. At this point, Public Safety doesn’t necessarily have a position or recommendation, but we’re 100% willing to participate in the process and see where that leads us. Vice Chair Kath said okay, thank you. So, at this point, there’s no formal recommendation, so this is kind of the first hearing of the proposals of concern? Director Burfeind replied yes, that’s correct. Vice Chair Kath said okay, with that, then, I’ll open it up to the commission for any questions first or maybe we’ll take a pause; is there anybody in the audience that would like to address the commission on this subject this evening? If you would, just come up and state your name and your address, please. Jeff Huberty said I live at 8398 Granada Avenue; this is directly across from the park. I’ve done a lot of the complaints, I’ve emailed Zac, I’ve emailed the mayor. I do have a letter that I’ll just kind of go over some stuff here that you had said. Some of the stuff that you had said is stuff that I have on my paperwork here. What we’ve experienced is an extraordinary, and it’s not every day, so you can’t drive on Tuesday morning and see the impacts of the park that we see. We live there and it’s constant. When they did first open it, it was probably a lot busier, but now what happens is you have these people that come in, constantly using our parking in front of my house. My house is, if you look at this picture, directly across three cars parked in front of my house, constantly during the summer. Now, I’m not saying every night, but two, three nights a week; there’s nights at the park where the whole park is full of people, there’s 30, 40 cars parked along the roads, and these cars are bumper to bumper, they’re squeezing in space to try and get there. And there’s a large group of people that make it a, I don't know if it’s some kind of tournament that come there weekly and take over the whole park from the north open field there all the way down. But the issues that we have seen is I virtually had one lady, it was a big van, like a large van for transporting children, and there were four, five children in this van on one of the hottest days during the summer, and it was running with the air conditioning on where the lady was over playing pickleball. I walked up to the van to check on it, and there was an infant in the van. So, I did call the police on that one, and they came out and they talked to the lady. I don't know what the results were, but she’s constantly been parking, trying to antagonize with her parking. And going forward here, like I said, there’s times I feel that I’m not getting the use out of my property that I paid for; I have a large boat that I pull in and out of my driveway, there’s times when I come home from being out of town, and I have to call ahead to see if I can even get in my driveway. There’s times when I can’t leave my driveway because I’ve got to wait until these cars are moved. And, again, what they do is they park bumper-to-bumper across the park, and the dangerous part, I have my own selfish reasons why I don’t like it, I think it invades our privacy, the safety of the kids, this used to be a nice, quiet little park and it was always kids that used it. There were always kids over there; I mean, there are different generations that have gone through there, my kids grew up there, different other neighborhood kids. There used to be a pool down at the end of the road, on Granada and 85th, I believe it was. And that was always used by kids, and it was always a nice park, it was always quiet. And we’re not opposed to, I guess I’m not opposed to the pickleball, what I’m opposed to is the invasion of privacy that we get from the pickleball. I can’t look out my window at night, my front window is probably 40-to-50 feet from the street. And I can’t even open my windows, these people are in the driveway, I had kids skateboarding down my driveway because their parents were all over at the park, playing pickleball. I feel like I’m going on and on about this, but I feel there’s a real safety hazard that’s been caused by this, the bumper-to-bumper traffic. When you watch the little kids that go into that park, we’re there all day, me and my wife, and these little kids have to go into the park, in between cars. Now, there’s a path at the park where they’re supposed to access it, but the cars park bumper to bumper to it, and we’ve called about parking there. And I’m not trying to, I’m not saying anything bad, I’m just saying it’s not a high priority parking. I’ve called about the hydrants, people park in front of the hydrants, but the issue becomes the safety of the kids now and my grandkids. When they come out to my house, they have to go in between two cars, walk out in the middle of the street and look both ways to try and watch for traffic. Now, you know all little kids don’t do that, they run in between, and there’s times where it’s been pretty close to some bad results. I just think with the parking on the one side of the street, I agree, does it move down, does it move traffic elsewhere and park in front of other people’s houses? Well, if that’s the concern, there should be concern about people parking in front of my house, too. So, my thought has always been since I’ve talked is the parking on one side of the street; that if you go around most parks in Cottage Grove, the residential sides of those streets, there’s no parking, all along the parks. Otherwise, there’s off- the-road parking provided for those parks. So, something needs to be done. I like the thought of a parking spot in the park, to go ahead and just put a parking lot there, but there needs to be restrictions also because the park is getting overcrowded, and you can’t just have a parking lot with 12 cars there and then people parking on the street again because it’s just going to bring more traffic in. So, my thoughts, again, personally, I feel like we’ve really lost our, we don’t have the privacy of our home that we used Public Services Commission Meeting November 18, 2024 Page 5 of 12 to have anymore, and I’ve asked people, politely asked people to move their cars, it turns into a confrontation. There’s not a lot of respect from people out there these days; if you ask them to move their car, they take it as an offense. Vice Chair Kath thanked Mr. Huberty for coming forward and sharing his thoughts with us. Again, there’ll be no recommendation from our commission this evening. Moving forward, it’ll still be a public issue; this is only the first step, in my mind, of moving forward, so there’ll be plenty of opportunity to bring this forward to other commissions and obviously some day, if it does make it all the way to the Council for a final decision, we wouldn’t be the folks that make the final decision at that point. But thank you for coming this evening. Mr. Huberty started to ask a question; Vice Chair Kath said I need to wrap it up, as public speaking time is technically three minutes and we went past that, we were almost into ten minutes, so I don’t want to belittle anything. Mr. Huberty said I want to ask a question. Vice Chair Kath said well, we’ll let the commission ask some questions, and if anything comes up and certainly if we have time, we can certainly answer any other questions for you, too, okay? Mr. Huberty said okay, thank you for your time. Vice Chair Kath replied you bet. Vice Chair Kath said so, with that, I guess I’ll open it up to our commission now for any questions or comments that we would have. He asked Director Burfeind were you looking for a recommendation this evening? Director Burfeind replied we want to hear if the commissioners do have input or opinions on this matter, I think we’d want to hear them so we can kind of take that into the consideration process, but it is the City Council that ultimately would have to approve or not approve a parking restriction. I think it is a real challenge just because it’s an impact; it’s not a situation, just to be clear, where we can do like resident parking only, that’s not really an enforceable signage to really use. There’s places where it is around the community, but you can’t really enforce it because just the residents at that address should really be parking there; if you have visitors over, they’re going to have a different address, and that’s something that can be looked up. So, it is an impact. I think if we were going to move ahead, I think we’d want to get some more formal feedback from anyone who would have that impact because you now can’t park in front of your home anymore, and visitors can also not park in front of your home. So, that’s kind of why we like to weigh all options, but this commission, looking at the Public Safety and Public Works side of it, any input and opinions that you may have on the matter is what we’re looking for. Vice Chair Kath said and probably even you know any other information that we think maybe should be looked at; I think ’s the one thing I learned when we looked at the Hillside sidewalk issue that was brought forward. We came back and said we think there’s a couple other things that we need to look at first before we even move the process forward so that might come out of tonight’s discussion. Director Burfeind said that is a good example in that Hillside case, and we’ll be bringing that back, likely in January for a final consideration with the information we’ve gathered. That’s something we could do here as well. Obviously, we’re in the winter season now where I assume the use isn’t as high, so we want to kind of address it over this winter season. Vice Chair Kath said okay, perfect. With that, I’ll open it up to commissioners for comments: Commissioner Jenson said I have kind of a comment or question as well, but just looking at an aerial view of the park, it does seem particularly challenging just because it feels like we’re forcing everything onto Granada. There really aren’t any good side streets on the east side of the park, and that’s why we’re really concentrating all that traffic on Granada, and then not having a parking lot, I can see where the issues are arising. So, I hate to take park land away, but it seems like without a lot of other good options, it might be something that has to be considered with the parking lot. Commissioner Lise Alden-Rediske had a couple questions: So, has it only started getting busy since the implementation of the pickleball courts, or has it been busy like this, back to back, for years and years? Mr. Huberty replied no, it’s the pickleball courts. Commissioner Alden-Rediske said it’s an attraction. Mr. Huberty said like you said, it’s a very popular sport, and we’re not opposed to the pickleball, it’s the invasion of privacy in the neighborhood. Commissioner Alden-Rediske said I didn’t know if it was trending up just because of the attraction or if it’s always that way. If a parking lot is on the table, are you thinking like a 6-car parking lot or 12 or 50? Because I also know that there’s a desire to keep green space, which is part of the park land, and you don’t want to encroach too much on that, but I don’t even see sidewalks on either side of the street here. So, if somebody was to park on the street, you’d have to walk on the street if you can’t get to the grass because cars are bumped up against each other; it makes it a challenge. So, I’m curious, if a parking lot is an option, what size parking lot are you thinking? Director Dockter replied we would anticipate a 10-to-14 stall type parking lot, but then you’d have a handicap stall as well, which takes up some additional space there, but that’s what we would anticipate to actually cover the service needs of what’s happening in that park today. Public Services Commission Meeting November 18, 2024 Page 6 of 12 Commissioner Alden-Rediske said and then that leads me to my next follow-up question to that, if it’s 10-to-14, but let’s say it’s like 8-to-12 spaces or something, it seems like you’d still have that same issue on the street. Director Dockter replied yes, I think you would, during peak times you’re still going to have on-street parking, and it’s hard to know. Again, we’re opening more pickleball courts; I don't know if pickleball keeps trending up or if it becomes like tennis and it trends down eventually. Those are all really hard questions to answer, but there’s going to be times, given the way the park is used today, I have to imagine there’s still going to be times where’s there’s going to be on-street parking regardless if a parking lot is there or not. Commissioner Alden-Rediske said I’ve seen on some locations where they put little stripes where this car can be in this spot and this car can be in this spot, and so it kind of prevents the bumper to bumper. I don't know if that would actually make a difference, but it’s an idea. Director Dockter replied I would have to defer to our Public Works Director on that. Director Burfeind said that is a good question, and I think that that can help. In a lot of our parks, we don’t have that striping, but I can think of a few that we do because certainly while there are some parks that have dedicated parking lots, I’d say most of them don’t. So, thinking about Cedarhurst Meadows Park that’s up in Eastridge Woods, kind of north of 70th Street, that has striped parking. The future Denzer Park, which is going to be down off the realign of Hadley Avenue there, we do have some striped parking. So, that is something we could look into, which obviously would be a lower cost, but it would help. I think people usually obey that, to be within your parking lines; is it foolproof? No, but I think that definitely can help manage the bumper-to- bumper situation. Commissioner Moyer asked is this the only entrance? I see like this little sidewalk into this white square; is that like the only entrance into the park that we have? Director Dockter replied yes, that’s the only paved entrance into the park. Commissioner Moyer said and then I’m just wondering if there was to be a parking lot there, where would the funding come from and how would we be able to provide that? Director Dockter replied there currently is no funding source dedicated for this, so through the Capital Improvements Planning process, we would have to reallocate or reprioritize to fund a parking lot. Commissioner Lotts said in previous places I’ve visited, I’ve seen reminder signs, if you will, for parking distances to driveways. Is that something that we actually have a City Ordinance for? Like you can’t park within I think it’s 5 feet of a driveway and 20 feet of a stop sign, something like that; do we have that policy or that City Ordinance? Captain Petersen replied a State Statute addresses parking, and there’s also some Ordinance, too, but to be completely honest, it’s been a minute since I’ve looked at that, and I can’t say with certainty whether there is or is not an Ordinance that would address parking in that situation. Commissioner Lotts said okay, because I just know that that’s a fantastic reminder, at least for myself, because I sometimes will park too close to a driveway, so I’ll actually drive down the block and park somewhere else because I see the sign posted, “Don’t Park Within 5 Feet of this Driveway” or whatever. And then parking on one side of the road, do you think if that was the option, do you think that’s sufficient enough parking, or would it just essentially overflow further down the block? I’ve never driven past this park, so I don't know how busy it is. Director Dockter said maybe I can answer; again, there are days where there’s just so much volume that I think it’s going to be double loaded on both sides, probably the length of the park. But there’s also a large majority of the time where that’s not the case, where I think if you just do single loaded parking, you can see the size of the cars on the map, you can fit quite a few cars on the park side. Of course, people take the easiest route, right? So, they’ll park in this gentleman’s front yard vs. parking 50 feet down the road on the park side, I believe. Now, there’s some cases, again, where it’s just busy enough on those particular situations where they’re going to park on both sides. Single-sided parking would certainly hopefully push people to stack up on the other side, on the east side, according to this image; I’m not sure if that’s the north-south alignment there. Commissioner Lotts said I don't know, I think my first question would be about the Ordinance and parking with the driveways, like distance to driveways; if that’s a thing or if it’s not, I’m not sure. That would obviously kind of help me make a decision, but obviously we’re not here to make a decision tonight, but that’s just kind of the question I had. Director Burfeind said one thing I would add, Commissioner Lotts, just because you did ask about pushing that further away, I should maybe clarify when I had mentioned if there’s a concern, we would push it away; I don’t think that’s ever to say well, we’d rather have them park in front of these homes or these homes. It’s just more cars are still parking on the street, and is there an overall public benefit, and the issue is they’re just walking a further distance on a street without a sidewalk to get to the park. So, I definitely never want to make it sound like we’re in favor of having different homes have the parking, it’s just purely from the standpoint of they’re using Granada Park, there’s just a general safety perspective to be parking closer to the park. Public Services Commission Meeting November 18, 2024 Page 7 of 12 Vice Chair Kath said one of the questions I have is there’s no lights at this park; so, after dark, there’s no issue, right? Director Dockter replied correct. Vice Chair Kath asked and is it heavily used on weekdays vs. weekends? Is there any difference between a weekday vs. a weekend? Director Dockter replied I believe there’s a little bit of both. Mr. Huberty said it’s pretty consistent. If I could speak, I would like to ask two questions; Vice Chair Kath replied sure, but please come to the podium then. Mr. Huberty said so, my one question is the size of the park, 1.6 acres. The amount of facilities that are there to accommodate large crowds is not there; there’s a one-person Satellite for, at times, 100 people in the park, 40 cars in the road, 100 people in the park. The facilities aren’t there to support that many people. The other question, I think I may have misspoken previously about having only residents park on their side; my issue was on most parks in Cottage Grove, on the residential sides of the streets, not residents, the residential sides of the streets it’s no parking. You can drive around all the parks in Cottage Grove, and in front of their homes there’s “No Parking” signs. So, my question is what’s the parameter that allows no parking in front of those parks, but allows that kind of parking in front of this park? Vice Chair Kath said I don't know if anybody on staff can answer those questions for us. Director Burfeind said I don’t think we’d have it at our fingertips, but we could certainly just research our different parks in the area; I know Belden Park, which is right down the road, does have no parking on the residential side of the street, I believe, so that one I know. But I think as staff we could look at that and coming back to a future meeting, we could have that data, specifically, the number of kind of neighborhood parks and if there’s a no parking restriction adjacent to it. Vice Chair Kath said that, to me, would be a big one because you want to be consistent throughout the City at that point, then. So, I think that would be a good takeaway for sure. Vice Chair Kath said and then the other question about the facilities, I guess maybe Zac, you can answer; what’s the parameter for Porta Potties and those kind of amenities within a park structure. Director Dockter replied again, that’s a hard one, but I guess I’ll just say we’ve had one Satellite, one portable restroom out there, and to my knowledge, we haven’t had any complaints with it being underserviced or anything like that. So, it seems like it must be keeping up, and we do check them; and then obviously the vendor who services those tells us if they’re being overutilized. So, I’m not too concerned about that at this point, but obviously, if that’s something where it happens, then we would have to add another unit there. Director Dockter said one thing to consider with the one-sided parking, too, which I don’t think we’ve talked about tonight, but one of our concerns as staff is just that when we do the public process that the other residents are aware that if there’s no parking on that side of the street, there’s no parking for anybody. So, if you have visitors over or guests over, they would have to park on the other side of the street, too, so that’s one thing I think I forgot to mention. It’s just important to know that, it doesn’t influence the decision other than we’ll want to make sure that all the residents understand if there’s a “No Parking” sign in front of their house, that applies to them, too. Mr. Huberty said I’d like to address the one thing about the restroom in the park again. Vice Chair Kath said again, I’d like to stay focused on the issue at hand, which is the parking issue and not the restrooms. Mr. Huberty said I’m just trying to get my point across so that you can understand where I’m coming from. It’s not that the restroom is not being maintained, it’s from a public health standpoint. There’s a picnic pavilion there, people come, large families come, and they have picnics in this park. There’s nothing there health safety wise that would allow that kind of traffic and have no place to wash your hands, one place to go to the restroom for that many people, and I know that there are standards for that, and that’s what I’m getting at. That park is too small for the amount of people that use it; it’s a health hazard and it’s a safety hazard. Vice Chair Kath said okay, we appreciate the comment. Commissioner Alden-Rediske said I have a question. So, this may not be a popular opinion, but I’m trying to like grasp what’s going on here. It sounds like increased traffic and picnics and lots of people there, based on the attraction of the pickleball courts. Have there been discussions about removing the pickleball courts, you know, if the courts are going to be placed at other places, like Glacial Valley and other areas? Is there a desire to have those removed? Director Dockter replied no, we have not discussed that at this point. Obviously, when facilities are getting used, we usually see that as a positive thing, so this is not always the norm, so new waters for us maybe. Commissioner Alden-Rediske said and for me as well. I like that people are using the facilities, but it’s also nice when our facilities can accommodate the number of people. So, if it’s only once in a blue moon and you’re having a tournament and you’re like getting a lot of people there, that would be different. I don't know how they plan this out, I don’t know if there’s leagues or groups that get together, and if there are, could that group like reserve extra Porta Potties to like handle that and make sure they Public Services Commission Meeting November 18, 2024 Page 8 of 12 have hand sanitizer in there? I don't know, and I agree this is a parking conversation, not a Porta Potty conversation, but I would be interested to hear from more residents what are your thoughts on the pickleball courts? Do you want to keep them, do you want to remove them? Would that fix the parking issue? I don't know. And my only one other comment, a little separate, this is for the sidewalk that goes into the park; could we put up signs that say, “No Parking Between Signs,” which would then allow that open space for the sidewalk to allow kids and human traffic to walk through there? Director Burfeind said that’s a good question, that’s definitely something we could do, and that’s something that we have done in other areas. Even though it’s not a crosswalk, obviously people are coming and going from that location, and if you have some separation, you can see the cars more, and that’s something we could definitely do. We usually do it either 25-or-50 feet in each direction; we’d want to be cognizant of not taking away too much parking next to the park, but I think we could definitely look at that. Vice Chair Kath said and I think that’s where my head was; usually, it’s the other thing, we’re not using the facilities or the land and now we have the opposite thing, but we use it and now we have this other issue. I can appreciate having people park in their yard, I’d probably argue a little bit that I have the same problem in my neighborhood and there is no park, it’s just my neighbors like to park on the street in front of my house all the time. I have a boat, too, so I can appreciate backing boats in, so I can hear where you’re coming from there. I think, Ryan, what I heard this evening, and Zac, is that we want to definitely look at the stripe painting and get some options, probably that the Parks Commission would want to look at and obviously Public Service. We want to look at the Ordinance and make sure we’re consistent with the Ordinance moving forward. Looking at our other parks, staying somewhat in compliance so we don’t have one park one way and another park the other way; because then, as a resident, you’re like well, just because I live here, it doesn’t make sense to me. So, I think a lot of those questions are going to have to be answered before it ever comes to Council, so I think you guys still have a lot of homework to do is my feeling at this point. To me, this seems like a really good start. Obviously, as a resident, you’ve been probably bringing this all summer; has this been going on for a year, two years, or is it just kind of recently it’s really been getting? Mr. Huberty replied this summer. Vice Chair Kath said so this summer it’s been more prevalent than it has been in the past, then. And, again, we don’t know ’s going to happen when the other courts start opening up, too. From my point of view tonight, for our commission, I think we’ve asked some good questions and we got a lot of dialogue going. We took some feedback from the person that’s really affected by it, which I think is really good in a public forum. We have two Council people here this evening that are hearing this, too, so, I think that is really good, and I welcome it to come back to us. Again, I’ll go back to the sidewalk conversation, we brought up a lot of these different questions for you guys to do a little bit more homework before you bring it back to the two commissions. So, I guess as far as I’m concerned, commissioners, I think we’re at a good spot unless you feel we need to bring any other dialogue or questions at this point. Vice Chair Kath said to our resident, I’d definitely stay involved with the process, and again, we’ll get the other residents involved, too, as we move forward. With that, then, are there any other comments from staff before I move the agenda? Director Burfeind said thank you for a good discussion tonight on this, commission. I know it’s hard when it’s such a direct impact to specific residents; and speaking of that, I think we could as staff maybe get some more formal response, just in case folks aren’t able to come to these public meetings, just to hear their direct feedback, and if they’re for or against that restriction. Because that’s really who’s impacted here, it’s the specific residents, and by putting that in place, it’s a direct impact to their property any other way; so, I think we can also get that feedback and have that the next time we discuss this if you’d like that. Vice Chair Kath replied okay. And then, Ryan, you had mentioned before the meeting that the communication that’ll go out, it’s emailed normally to the residents or letters that get sent out to them? Director Burfeind replied it would be a letter. Vice Chair Kath said it would be letters to all the residents and they would know when the next public hearing or format like this would be, and they could give feedback at that point, whether it’s the Parks Commission or this commission again? Director Burfeind confirmed that. Vice Chair Kath said okay, great. Well, thank you, staff, thank you to our resident that came here this evening; I thought it was a really good discussion this evening. 9. COMMISSION COMMENTS Commissioner Jenson said just kudos to Public Works; I tried the Work Order for a streetlight that was out, and when I came out to leave tonight, it was on. So, I’m not sure if it was a coincidence or it worked, so, thank you, I appreciate that. It was an easy process and nice to be able to submit it electronically. Commissioner Lotts said I’m just happy to be here. Public Services Commission Meeting November 18, 2024 Page 9 of 12 Vice Chair Kath said I have just a quick question for Ryan, more for the public knowledge, you know, we’ve had a lot of work being done kind of on the corner of Jamaica and 80th Street. They’ve been putting a lot of utilities in there, digging up the road and putting pipes underneath stuff, which is amazing to me how they do all that. But it seems like the last couple weeks now there’s no work being done out there, but we still got some lanes going in a couple different directions. Can you speak to that this evening? Director Burfeind replied you’re 100% right that that project was wrapping up. They were still working down on the far west end, by Park High School, and they kind of had to leave a lot of those pits open just as a final kind of tie in and charging up of the line. But it’s my understanding that that work is all done, and they were intending to have the traffic control gone by last Friday; it clearly is not, so our engineer I know is reaching out to Xcel today to figure out what’s going on with that. Because clearly Public Works will be plowing soon, and then that stuff will definitely be right in our way, and we’ll be kind of flinging it off to the side of the road. So, we do need to get that out of there, and since it didn’t happen by last Friday, I’m hoping we can get it out of there this week. Vice Chair Kath said okay, perfect, that was the only question I had. 10. STAFF REPORTS AND MATERIALS Director Burfeind said I can go first, and I’ll let Gary cover more of the streets part of the Public Works update. Director Burfeind said maybe from an engineering standpoint first, we do have the River Oaks RCUT (Reduced Conflict U-Turn) intersection completely open to traffic now in all the different directions. There were some delays just getting the lighting operational, and that’s kind of a MnDOT standard to have that fully open and complete, so that is done. I think we’ve gotten great feedback, specifically from the school because with the busing, they see that as a major safety improvement; we heard from them right away that they appreciate that improvement. For the general use of the golf course, it takes some getting used to, but I think it really is all about a safety improvement and really just cutting down the number of traffic movements when you’re leaving there. When you have that median that’s open, it can really just be too enticing to be looking both directions, you’re trying to make it across the entire road in one shot, and that’s how major injuries can happen. When we install these RCUT intersections, there still can be incidents, of course, and bad decisions by a driver, but it changes from like a sideswipe crash to a rearend crash, which statistically is a much lower severity crash. So, we’re excited to have that open and operational, and we’ll see how it operates into the future. Any other projects, I think those were all pretty well wrapped up at the last meeting. I think the final one that’s new is we had kind of a realignment of Hadley and 100th Street on the east side of 100th Street, down in the south part of Cottage Grove. And then down the hill, under the railroad bridge, the realignment of Grey Cloud Trail and 103rd, those are all fully open. So, if you haven’t been down that way this summer, you should check it out because there’s major changes in those areas with those two roads realigning. I don’t think you see that very often in Cottage Grove, projects of that nature, to have two in such a close area, it's definitely a big change, but a huge safety improvement. We got rid of a lot of T intersections, really poor-functioning intersections, and made more of a through-road design, which follows a County plan, actually, because that’s going to be a future County Road going down to Lower Grey Cloud Island. So, we’re happy to have those improvements done as well. I’m kind of thinking from our Water Department, we took bids on a new water tower, which I know I talked about at our project update this summer, and that bid was awarded by the City Council. We have a new water tower that’s going to go along Highway 61, kind of just south of the Park and Ride; that construction will start next spring and be kind of up and running. It will be pretty much built by next fall, but all the painting and getting it operational will be in the spring of 2026. So, it’s a long process to build that water tower, and it kind of changes the skyline down there along the highway I like to say; and it’s a composite water tower so it has a concrete column instead of a steel-painted column like you’d see up at Meadow Grass and 70th, which saves us a lot of money because it’s an amazing expense to paint those water towers. If it’s $5 million to build it, it’s $2 million to paint it, and we can cut that in half by not having to paint that column every 15 years or so. So, we’re excited to get that project underway next year as well. Vice Chair Kath asked is it just me, when 100th Street got done, did the speed limits change a little bit? Because if my memory serves me right, it was 50 MPH all the way, and now it seems like I’ve seen where like half of it down to Andersen Windows, ’s where the 50 and there’s a 40 MPH speed limit there now, too. Director Burfeind replied it’s a good question. So, it is still 50 MPH all the way where it is a straight road, and then with those curves, so we had to build the curves to kind of realign it with 103rd, and right before you enter the curves, it’s a 40 MPH speed limit, which is more consistent with Hadley. So, Hadley and 103rd were always 40 MPH, so it’s more consistent with that. We just weren’t able to build 50 MPH curves, and this is part of the County’s plan, as it really would have made that entire property really Public Services Commission Meeting November 18, 2024 Page 10 of 12 undevelopable. Knowing we had to eventually go down to that 40 MPH before it went down the hill, that was the point where that new speed limit was put in place. Vice Chair Kath said okay, I didn’t know if it was just me, but at least I saw it, so I hope I don’t get a ticket going 50 MPH in a 40, that’s probably not really good getting into that area. I have to admit I’ve driven through there, and it is really nice, it is well done. Director Burfeind said thank you. Street Superintendent Gary Orloff said so down at Public Works today we finished calibration of all of our plow trucks, so hopefully the snow stays away a little yet, we still have some more work to get done. Weather permitting, we pretty much are done sweeping the town, but we still want to go back through the more mature areas again if we can, so the temperatures have to stay above freezing and stop raining. The guys were out staking, you’ll see all those orange stakes put out, so they went out and staked the routes, any kind of high iron manholes, catch basins, any obstructions we fixed. We finished up pothole patching. One thing to remind residents: They can come down to Public Works if they need a few of those stakes for their front yard if they have some areas that may constantly get hit, they can come down to Public Works and we can hand them out. They’re also finishing up tree trimming, anything that’s going to be hitting our dump trucks or sidewalk machines. So, pretty much everybody’s gone through their routes, we’re all ready for winter to begin and start a new season. I have another week of any potholes that may pop up before the plants shut down. Vice Chair Kath asked are we using that same chemical that we used before, that you had explained to us? Gary replied yes, so, with our cold temperatures, we actually are using the treated chemical, we already had 600 tons treated, and we’re actually having it treated at Public Works. Gary asked if there were any other questions; none were asked. Vice Chair Kath thanked Gary. Vice Chair Kath asked Brad if there were any things from the police. Captain Petersen replied yes, I have a few things, as it’s been a few months since I’ve had the opportunity to provide some updates to the commission. As you know, at the beginning of the year, we submitted a new Five-Year Strategic Plan with the help and guidance of the commission. After that was approved, we went hard at work at implementing many of those strategies and plans. I’m happy to report that we’ve made remarkable progress on a lot of that plan, we’re way ahead of where we thought we’d be; we thought many of these things would take a number of years to implement, and there’s probably 90% of that plan ’s complete within one year’s time, which is remarkable. It’s only possible through the support of the commission, the community, Council, and the rest of our leadership. We’re making remarkable progress by nearly every metric. One of those metrics that I like to bring up is our Community Satisfaction Survey, which we call our Police Services Survey. There’s a number of different categories that it measures, but in every one of those categories, we’re achieving over 90% customer satisfaction; in some cases, in fact, most cases, it’s in excess of 95% satisfaction with our services. So, that’s really exciting because we can judge ourselves against whatever arbitrary criteria that we want or we think is important to the community, but it’s most valuable to hear what the community wants and how they think we’re doing. So, that’s probably the metric that I’m most proud of, is to hear that the community is that pleased with our service. As you may know, we got a grant to add a Traffic Safety position, so that’s 100% dedicated to traffic safety, and that’s Officer Lauden Rinzel; he started in that position on October 1, and he’s doing an incredible job. I think at this point he’s got 19 DWIs and countless traffic stops and speed citations, and a lot of public education as well. I know that’s going to make a measurable impact on traffic safety by the end of this time next year. We’re working on our Annual Report right now to gauge our success on our Strategic Plan and evaluate success of a lot of different things that we’ve done. We’re implementing an Annual Report that would be available for public review here soon, so ’s something to look forward to. Our website is going under revision, just starting now, that will be kind of a lengthy process, but we started that. So, we’re really going to be engaging the public here in the next couple months to figure out what they want and need from our website, and we’re eager to make those changes. We’re implementing and evaluating a lot of different technologies; one of those such technologies is an online Crime Report, that went live about a month ago. So, if the citizens don’t know, they now have the opportunity to go to Facebook or our website, find the link, and submit police reports for what I’ll call minor crimes, nuisances, and ordinance issues, those lower level of concerns and problems. Obviously, we don’t want people reporting assaults and arsons and vehicle thefts and things like that, but property damage, ordinance concerns, neighbor complaints, things like that, they’re welcome to go to that link, and submit the online Crime Report. It gives them the opportunity to talk about the incident in a narrative format, lots of dropdowns that are very efficient to describe the nature of the incident; that helps us track and trend those problems. They can also attach things like documents, videos, bank statements, anything that supplements their case can be attached directly to it; so, it’s super efficient, and then at the conclusion of that report, they hit submit, and they’ll get updates periodically as that tracks through Public Services Commission Meeting November 18, 2024 Page 11 of 12 the investigative and documentation process. At the very end, they get an email where they can get a copy of that report or things like that. So, it’s been very successful, we’re looking for that to grow. Captain Petersen said I guess that’s about it, there’s a lot going on, but probably too much to share in this venue. Vice Chair Kath said thank you, Brad. Are there any questions? Commissioner Alden-Rediske said I had a couple questions. The online Crime Report, I’m just hearing about it for the first time right now. It sounds interesting. I understand it’s for lower-level reporting, but who follows up on that, and then has it been used yet? Captain Petersen replied yes, it has been used to a limited extent because this is pretty new, but we’ve fielded probably 25 or 30 Crime Reports at this point; it just went live within the last month. So, as the reports come in, they’re screened by the on-duty sergeants, and the sergeant decides on the most appropriate place for it to get routed, whether it’s a Community Service Officer or a certain officer with certain specialties. From that point, the officer takes a look at it; if they have all the information that they need, they can go ahead and file the report, do whatever needs to be done from there. If they need more information, they’ll contact the citizen or do an investigation, and then once it’s all done, it goes back to the sergeant for approval, and the citizen is kept apprised throughout that process as well. Commissioner Alden-Rediske said okay, thank you, so it’s another avenue for people to report stuff if they’re not comfortable calling a number; it’s kind of like the non-emergency number but online? Captain Petersen replied yes, it’s along those lines. We’re noticing and hearing that people want other options for reporting, it’s not meant to replace our in-person reporting or the non-emergency or telephone reporting, it’s just another option. Some people like to do things from their phone and their computers now. Commissioner Alden-Rediske said I’d like to know where you market that, because I didn’t know anything about it until today, so that’s kind of cool. And then earlier, when you started, you mentioned about a grant, you received a grant, but I didn’t follow what the grant was for. Captain Petersen replied sure. So, the online Crime Report was advertised on Facebook and our website, mentioned in a Council Meeting, I believe, probably a couple other places, too. So, it’s been out there, but by its limited usage, I know that we can do a better job of getting it out there. And, so, the grant was offered through the State’s Traffic Safety grant office, I forget the actual name; it’s the same office that Towards Zero Deaths and all the overtime and those monies come from. It’s a grant to fully fund one officer for one year; all his salary, wages, training, and that’s his sole job is to go out and do traffic. Commissioner Alden-Rediske said and that’s Officer Rinzel? Captain Petersen replied yes. Vice Chair Kath asked staff for a favor, if you could email out our 2025 meeting dates. I was just checking my calendar, and I don’t have it. So, if you could email that out to all the commissioners, then we can get all of our dates; they’re pretty consistent, but obviously they move one day as a new year comes out. So, if you could do that, that would be great. 11. COUNCIL COMMENTS Council Member Dave Thiede said all right, certain things were covered that we did in Council. I might mention that all of the labor contracts have been signed and resolved, I believe, so that’s always good to have done. A couple other things: We approved an updated Ambulance Purchase authorization; we’re kind of going back to the van front instead of the truck, more the truck front. I guess we got a pretty good deal and everything on that, so that’s good. We also approved a new Fire Tender, which needed to be ordered now, as there are long lead times on those things; so, it’s probably not until next year sometime I believe that that Fire Tender would come in. He asked Council Member Justin Olsen if he remembered anything else that we talked about that these folks would be interested in that we approved on Council? Council Member Olsen asked did you guys discuss the budget, do you know where the budget’s at? We do our final budget approvals here coming up; so, if you haven’t talked about that, I can certainly share where we’re at with the budget, but we’re at the end of the process now. Council Member Thiede said and again, I don’t necessarily have it, I’m not going to go into all those numbers for you tonight, but that information is available. As always, we try to hold the increases down as much as possible and such, but I think it’s looking pretty good; there’s different things that we’ve got to talk about this week in a workshop, and the final approval is actually in December, the first meeting in December, I believe. So, that’s probably it. Council Member Thiede asked if the commissioners had any questions for him. Public Services Commission Meeting November 18, 2024 Page 12 of 12 Commissioner Lotts stated I certainly appreciate how forward thinking you guys are, like ordering Fire Tenders, as the lead time is super long. It’s very refreshing, and Brad had mentioned the Strategic Plan and how fast you’re burning through it; that’s amazing to hear as a citizen, like I said, super refreshing. So, thank you. Council Member Thiede replied you’re welcome. I’ve always appreciated our planning efforts and taking a look at different plans and trying to anticipate what could happen in the future. Because a lot of times you get to a certain point in time, and even though something’s not going to happen immediately, you think, well, if we make this decision vs. this decision, and then if this happens up here, you know, this would be the better decision to make in keeping that plan. So, when things kind of mesh together in the future, it’s not necessarily always by accident. So, thank you for that. Vice Chair Kath said the only question I had is maybe it’s more of a Parks Commission session, but with the three questions that we just had on the ballot that didn’t get passed, is there any discussion now by Council what our next steps will be to try to move forward? Will it ever be brought back, or is it too early in the process? I mean, that just happened a week or two ago. Council Member Thiede said well, again, like we were talking about planning; those are kind of some of the things that we feel have some importance in terms of future planning and future benefit for the community. Personally, even though I tend to be a little bit more tight on the money than some others, I imagine people know that, but actually the sales tax would have been a good way to have not just the residents of the City pay for some of those improvements, but I don’t think a lot of people recognized that. So, we’ll be going over a lot of that, saying well, why weren’t we able to communicate some of that to the public a little bit better? But it is, there probably is a plan in terms of, besides the other things we’re looking at for different parks and so forth, of some of the major things that we’d like to be able to do in the future. You know, it just may take longer to get some of it done now. Vice Chair Kath said thank you. Well, if there are no further questions, thanks again for the update. If my colleagues will give me one little pass here, I do want to make one more commission report for you guys that I completely forgot; we probably should have said something at our last meeting, but Kelsey and I both did the public service filming here. Each commission was asked to get a couple volunteers, and they had a little production out here in the Council Chambers, and we got interviewed. I haven’t seen any final product yet, but we’re pretty excited about it, so other commissioners, it should be coming, hopefully; obviously, staff will get to look at it first and then we’ll get to, but I’m certainly humbled at being able to represent our commission. So, if you watch it and you have some feedback for me, I’ve got broad shoulders and I’ll take the feedback, okay? 12. ADJOURNMENT Commissioner Alden-Rediske made a motion to adjourn the meeting; Commissioner Jenson seconded. Motion carried: 5-0. The meeting was adjourned at 8:08 p.m. Minutes transcribed by J. Graf and reviewed by Kari Reubish. To:Public Services Commission From:Ryan Burfeind, PE, Public Works Director Genevieve Tester, EIT, Graduate Engineer Date:January 27, 2025 Re:Hillside Trail Sidewalk Proposal Background The City of Cottage Grove is continually working towards connecting the community’s trail and sidewalk network and creating safer pedestrian environments. The area along Hillside Trail, west of Woodridge Park has been identified as an area of interest for proactive pedestrian safety improvements. The inquiries staff has received from the community regarding a pedestrian connection from Woodridge Park to Jamaica Avenue in addition to the 600-foot segment being a missing link in the city’s pedestrian facility network, is the basis for the proposal of a six-foot concrete sidewalk on the south side of Hillside Trail. On May 20, 2024, staff brought four sidewalk routing options before the Public Services Commission, see Figure 1, seeking feedback regarding the installation of the sidewalk as well as the proposed location within city right-of-way. The four alternatives varied based on which side of Hillside Trail the sidewalk is placed (north side, south side, or a combination). Figure 1: Four Proposed Alternatives brought before the Public Services Commission on May 20, 2024. 1 The existing right-of-way infrastructure and the consequential interference of installing a sidewalk was discussed at the spring 2024 meeting; ultimately, regardless of the sidewalk placement, tree removal and sign relocations will be necessary. Because of additional pedestrian crossing challenges, current storm sewer alignment, steeper north side cross-grades, private utility infrastructure conflicts, and the overall longer length of sidewalk increasing cost and impervious surface, two proposed sidewalk design alternatives on the south side were pursued further. Those two alternatives differed in placement within the right- of-way: sidewalk right off the back of curb and sidewalk with a boulevard. Placing sidewalk off the back of curb will place pedestrians closer to the roadway and create challenges for plowing but will provide less disturbance to the adjacent properties (driveway, irrigation, etc.). This alternative—a six-foot concrete sidewalk on the south side of Hillside Trail placed off the back of curb—is what staff is recommending in an effort to accommodate existing residents while also providing a non-street pedestrian route between Woodridge Park and Jamaica Avenue. Discussion A safety and risk review for pedestrian accommodations was completed. See Attachment A. Lack of buffer zones between sidewalks and fast-moving traffic, and gaps in sidewalk networks are some of the challenges identified. Installing sidewalks, where non currently exist, is a proven safety strategy with a 65-89% reduction in crashes involving pedestrians. The clear zone is the area identified from which a motorist can recover from typical steering realignment and run-off-road events. It is the area away from the travel lane that should not include immoveable obstacles that can impact driver safety. On Hillside Trail from Jamaica Avenue to Woodridge Park, pedestrians using the shoulder, pedestrians using a sidewalk at back of curb, and pedestrians using a sidewalk offset by a 4-foot boulevard would all be within the 12-foot identified clear zone according to the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials Roadside Design Guide. A sidewalk offset by an 8-foot boulevard would remove pedestrians completely out of the clear zone. There is not enough public property for this application and therefore is unfeasible. The current pedestrian walkway is on the roadway—an unmarked shoulder; a reasonable solution, while weighing the pros and cons of property impacts, pedestrian safety improvement, and feasibility of construction would be a sidewalk off the back of curb. Shoulders are not substitutes for a well-designed pedestrian facility; there may occasionally be a need to design shoulders as walkways where roadside space is constrained and where it is not feasible to implement a sidewalk. There are no major feasibility concerns in the 600-foot stretch between Jamaica Avenue and the Woodridge Park trail. There is adequate public right-of-way space and no physical limitations or land use characteristics that render a sidewalk unsuitable. Sidewalks are appropriate for urban areas since they provide a positive separation from traffic, include an all-weather surface, and access for people with disabilities. They are readily identifiable for both pedestrians and motorists of where users are located. 2 A city-wide consideration Staff recognizes that the entirety of Hillside Trail does not have designed pedestrian facilities. The missing links in the city’s trail network go beyond this area. In a perfect world, the city would have the resources to place sidewalks along all residential streets to bring them to ADA-compliance and give pedestrians the safest routing options. In new developments, this is the standard. In existing neighborhoods, what city staff can do is field concerns from citizens and address the missing links over time, while making the greatest improvement with the funds available. Just because all pedestrian facility safety concerns cannot be addressed at once, does not mean, the city should not pursue an effort to give residents safer options. This project would not simply add a sidewalk to a segment of roadway, it provides a connection from heavily used pedestrian facilities on Jamaica Avenue to a major destination of Woodridge Park. It is also important to note that all work will be performed in city-owned property. It had been previously discussed that, currently, pedestrians utilize both north and south sides of Hillside Trail, walking on the roadway; the installation of a sidewalk on the south side of the street will pull all foot traffic to the south side where there would be more conflict at the Janero Avenue intersection, it also will pose a greater challenge to the residents entering and exiting their driveways. The value of enhanced pedestrian safety supersedes that of car traffic and comfortability. The intention of the striped shoulder on Hillside Trail South, west of Jamaica Avenue was to provide some sort of designated route for pedestrians. The 3200-foot stretch to get to the Hillside Elementary School sidewalk from Jamaica Avenue is a less feasible project. If the proposed back of curb sidewalk is installed between Jamaica Avenue and Woodridge Park, a striped shoulder could also be installed to explicitly designate the motorist’s path of travel and a clear zone. The reason to target this area, east of Jamaica Avenue, is to connect Woodridge Park, which is a notable point of presence for pedestrians, as shown in Table 1. Traffic Count Data Additional vehicular and pedestrian counts were performed after the May 2024 Public Services Commission to better understand the traffic on Hillside Trail. On a Thursday in May, pedestrian counts were taken as shown in Table 1. A limitation of this data is that it did not outline the destination of the pedestrians but rather their origin. The data shows that most of the pedestrians in this area are utilizing the city park. PEDESTRIAN ORIGINCOUNT Woodridge Park path52 East of Jeffery Ave.26 North from Jeffery Ave.14 West of Jeffery Ave.5 Table 1: Pedestrian Count Data along Hillside Trail South on May 30, 2024. th The 85 percentile speed—speed at which 85% of driver will operate—was 31 mph at the end of th May 2024. The average daily traffic “ADT” on May 28 (a Tuesday), highlighted in Table 2, shows that there is a higher concentration of vehicles between Janero Avenue and Jeffery Avenue, than east of Jeffery Avenue. Figure 2 displays the respective streets as they relate to the data and the proximity of the pedestrian route in question. 3 LOCATIONADT Hillside Trail east of Janero Ave.2628 Hillside Trail east of Jeffery Ave.1731 Table 2: Vehicle Count Data along Hillside Trail South on May 28, 2024. Figure 2: Location of Janero Avenue and Jeffery Avenue in relation to the Woodridge Park trail and Jamaica Avenue. The connection to a city park, the higher traffic volumes as one approaches the Jamaica Avenue intersection, and the notable foot traffic near the park, support the addition of pedestrian infrastructure to link this segment of Hillside Trail to the city’s trail and sidewalk network. Back of Curb Optics In new developments, it is the city standard to have a boulevard between the roadway and the walkway. As sidewalks are retrofitted into existing neighborhoods, this is not always achievable. Examples where walkways are placed on the back of curb are shown in Figures 3, 4, and 5. (Images courtesy of Google.) Figure 3: Back of curb sidewalk on the north side of Highland Hills Lane, westbound towards the Bailey Woods Development. 4 Figure 4: Back of curb sidewalk on the west side of Meadow Grass Avenue, northbound exiting the Pine Summit Development. Figure 5: Back of curb trail on the north side of 70th Street (County Road 22). Sidewalk at the back of curb is directly impacted by winter maintenance activities since it is the location most snow will be plowed to, resulting in ice and now buildup; although there may be some challenges during a snow fall for snow storage, the back of curb design is not “out of the ordinary” for Public Works to maintain, and the sidewalk during the walkable weather months, is a positive safety upgrade. Cost and Timeline The initial cost estimate done last spring has the back of curb sidewalk construction cost at approximately $51,000. For mobilization and contractor coordination purposes, the recommended Hillside Trail sidewalk construction should be done in conjunction with the 2026 Pavement th Management project (spring/summer 2026) which is the adjacent Thompson Grove Estates 11 Addition and Woodridge Park Addition neighborhoods. The project would utilize either roadway maintenance funds and/or park improvement funds. 5 Summary A sidewalk placed at the back of the curb would provide safety benefits and should be combined with a striped shoulder to increase clear zone spacing. A shoulder should be provided regardless of the pedestrian facility type provided but should not be considered to be used as a pedestrian facility except where there are physical constraints, in rural areas with low pedestrian volume, and in urban areas with low pedestrian volume, low vehicular speeds, and low vehicular volumes— none of which are applicable to the respective segment of Hillside Trail. Recommendation City staff recommends a 2026 installation of a six-foot wide concrete sidewalk placed at the back of curb along the south side of Hillside Trail to connect Jamaica Avenue and Woodridge Park. 6 ¸ ¸ ¸ ¸ ¸ p p p p ¸ p p p p p ¸ p p p ¸ ¸ ¸ ¸ ¸ To:Public Services Commission From:Ryan Burfeind, Public Works Director Date:January 21, 2025 Subject:Commissioner Terms Introduction/Background Below is a list of the new term details for each Commissioner. Each Commissioner may serve up to four (2-year terms) before their term limit. CommissionerTermTerm Expiration rd Kath3February 2027 nd Kons2February 2026 nd Rediske2February 2026 nd Moyer2February 2027 st Jenson1February 2026 nd Lotts2February 2027 nd Olson2February 2027 Recommendation No action required at this time.