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HomeMy WebLinkAboutPSC Packet 11.17.251 COTTAGE GROVE PUBLIC SERVICES COMMISSION November 17, 2025 COUNCIL CHAMBERS - 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 (2025-09-15) 6. Open Forum 7. Business Items A Snowmobile Club 8. Presentations A Fire Service Evaluation Study Presentation 9. Commission Comments 10. Staff Reports and Materials 11. Council Comments A Council Agendas 12. Adjournment MINUTES COTTAGE GROVE PUBLIC SERVICE COMMISSION September 15, 2025 City Council Chamber 12800 Ravine Parkway South, Cottage Grove, Minnesota, 55016 1. CALL TO ORDER Vice Chair Ron Kath called the Public Service 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. Absent: Chair Lisa Kons and Commissioner Kelsey Moyer. 4. APPROVAL OF THE AGENDA Commissioner Jenny Olson made a motion to approve the agenda; Commissioner Tracy Jenson seconded. Motion carried: 5-0. 5. APPROVAL OF MINUTES A. APPROVE MINUTES FROM THE JULY 21, 2025 MEETING Commissioner Lise Rediske made a motion to approve the July 21, 2025 meeting minutes; Commissioner Nate Lotts seconded. Motion carried: 5-0. 6. OPEN FORUM Vice Chair Kath said no one was present in the audience this evening to speak, so he closed the open forum. 7. PRESENTATIONS A. Sidewalk and Trail Snow Removal Review Ryan Burfeind, Public Works Director, said he’d talk about our sidewalk and trail snowplowing that we do in the City. When we went through the budget process this year, it was a discussion point because we had a few machines due for replacement; they’re quite expensive machines that we use, particularly for our sidewalks, because you need kind of special equipment that can be large enough to get it all done but fit on those narrow sidewalks. Several years ago, we took a look at this with the City Council to kind of see what it cost and see the pros and cons, but there was a request to bring that back just to have the commission actually look at it. Tonight, I’ll be giving an overview of what we do, our policies, and how we do that, and then I want to get feedback, more specifically on the residential neighborhoods; because the main roads are something we have to remove snow from, and those trails and sidewalks, and all the residential streets that we also do. I want to get commission feedback on that, weigh the pros and cons. I’m not looking for any decisions, but just want to get your feedback and see if there’s other information you’d like to hear about the process that I could bring back at a future meeting to kind of further the discussion. Public Service Commission Meeting With that, we remove snow from about 112 miles of sidewalk and trail throughout the City; that also includes County Road trails because that’s the way it works, not just with Washington County but really any County, the local jurisdiction, the City is actually responsible for the snow removal from County trails. About 25 miles of that is sidewalk adjacent to homes in residential neighborhoods; that’s a number that we’ve really seen climb because in about 2007 is when the City adopted a new standard to have a sidewalk on one side of every residential street. Before that, sidewalks were pretty uncommon in residential neighborhoods. There was one development in 2007 and we had the recession, so not much happened, but since 2013, probably most of those 25 miles have been built. It’s something that we’ve continued to do and it continues to add to our workload. On average, it can vary greatly by the winter, but we took a look at three winters in a row: A big one, a light one, and then last year, when we didn’t get a lot of snow, but we had a lot of small snowfalls, so about 1,000 hours of clearing total staff time every year is what we have to do that work. For sidewalk routes, we have four dedicated machines for that: Two of those I would say are used for sure year round, the other two don’t see as much use in the off season, the non-winter season. Then we have three trucks with plow attachments with which we do the trails. The trails are eight feet wide, so it’s really easy to have a pickup plow with an attachment. Those are very cost effective because the pickup we’re going to have with a staff member anyway, and then a plow is like $12,000, so pretty low cost to do the trail snow removal. Two routes of that I would say is the majority on road trails, think of like 80th and 70th, things like that, and another route is more of the off-road trails through parks and open spaces. Public Service Commission Meeting if you want to say, by residential sidewalk in front of peoples’ homes. So, this kind of exists all throughout our neighborhoods. We just took a couple of examples for now; if the commission wanted, we could probably look more at exactly how many locations are there, how many miles of sidewalk is it vs. the rest, we could get more information on that. This is definitely one of the challenges of asking residents to do it and what’s the benefit of that? Because we’d be driving through all of these neighborhoods clearing these small sections regardless. Public Service Commission Meeting the other cities paying for their fines? It would be interesting to know that. And then yes, we have a sidewalk, but we don’t utilize the sidewalk as much as other people do for walking their dogs or exercising and stuff. So, I bring that up because I have a question on assessments: If the roads in front of our houses are fixed, we have to pay assessments for that, which I get, but for sidewalks, is it just the homeowner who has to pay the assessment fees for that or is it the whole neighborhood that pays for that? Public Service Commission Meeting Director Burfeind replied no, and that’s good and I think working with our GIS Department, we can do that, because they did all the mapping for the sidewalks. So, they pretty easily can drop in all the school zones, create the radius, and we could figure out how many miles of that, especially the residential sidewalk, the ones that we’re more focused on for this policy, we could look at that. Public Service Commission Meeting lived on that corner lot, I have a snowblower, and if you came to me and said, hey, we’ll pay you a stipend just to do this little section besides the front of your house; so I throw that out as a suggestion that if Council comes forward and says nope, we’re going to bring this to the residents and dang it, they’re going to start shoveling their sidewalks, right? I thought of that idea, too, you know for those people that are going to be; that’s where I started thinking, too, is shoveling vs. snowblowers. You know, how many residents “have a snowblower” so it’s not as labor intense for that person than to a person that doesn’t have one, so that was the only thing as an idea that I thought going forward, moving at that point. 8. BUSINESS ITEMS A. 2025 Hunting Maps Public Service Commission Meeting Vice Chair Kath thanked Captain Petersen. He asked if there were any comments or questions from the commissioners. 9. COMMISSION COMMENTS - None. 10. STAFF REPORTS AND MATERIALS Public Service Commission Meeting that sewer-lining project. That will get wrapped up here probably in the next two weeks, and then we’ll get all the restoration done, and be wrapped up. With that, I’ll turn it over to Gary really quick for some street updates. Public Service Commission Meeting I was thinking of truck traffic coming in at the same time and trucks trying to merge onto that road with kids coming out of there. I didn’t know if you could tell the contractor you may not want your trucks coming in at this window of time, as this high school is either coming to session or releasing at the end of the day, too, but it doesn’t sound like it’s going to be that much traffic to worry about, though. Public Service Commission Meeting community, a huge benefit to the community, a great investment, but we didn’t realize how impactful they were until we actually put these numbers together. And, so, I want to draw your attention to Page 2 with the slide titled Outcomes; what this does is it compares the number of Calls for Service, Arrests, Hospitalizations in that client base before CMU and after they were enrolled in the CMU Program and given some resources and some extra love from the Police Department. Actually, I should also add the EMS Department because they play a role in our CMU as well. Public Service Commission Meeting Commissioner Lotts said you mentioned these were coming I think last commission meeting. On my way here today, I happened to look up and to the left, coming through the roundabout down here, is that one there? Captain Petersen asked which roundabout, Innovation and East Point? Commissioner Lotts replied yeah, it’s the roundabout at the end of 70th and Keats. Captain Petersen replied no, we do not have one there. So, currently, we have one at 80th and Hardwood, we have one at Innovation and East Point, and I’m going to have to look at my map to remember where the other is; we have one by the Wakota Inn, and then we have another at 80th and East Point. • Riggs, our therapy K9, was certified, he’s a really important member of our CMU team, so that was a huge milestone for us. • We just recently got approval to add our third Patrol K9, and the Public Safety Board is in the process of fundraising for that, so hopefully Cindy Whelan will get her new K9 in December, go to school in January, and come online in the spring with our third Patrol K9. • The Public Safety Board was generous enough to give us a brand-new drone, so we’re learning that new technology now, and that’s going to give us some new capabilities and replaces our outdated equipment. Public Service Commission Meeting were converting an all-way stop to a signal, and you have to do that like right away once you start doing that work, but yeah, they take about eight months to get all that equipment. So, they should be up by the end of October. Public Service Commission Meeting Chief Pritchard said no, and thank you, we appreciate that, and actually one thing we started last year, and now we’re going to continue as long as we can, we go to the East Metro Training Facility in Maplewood, and what we’ve actually decided to do is every 9/11 that we would do our live Fire training, where we actually go there, light fires, and do training. Because we feel also from our own perspectives as firefighters the best way to honor them is to actually do the work that they went to work to do that day and lost their lives doing. So, on top of those public displays, we’re also doing that internal display and really going out there and doing the work, that’s truly how we honor them and the work they did. So, thank you. 11. COUNCIL COMMENTS A. Council Agendas 12. ADJOURNMENT Commissioner Rediske made a motion to adjourn the meeting; Commissioner Olson seconded. Motion passed unanimously (5-to 0 vote). The meeting adjourned at 8:09 p.m.