This is the May 21st Cottage Grove uh 2025 Cottage Grove City Council meeting which I'm calling to order. I did want to mention that this meeting is being recorded by True Lens Community Media. You can view city meetings live and replay it on cable channel 799 and meetings are also streamed live and archived on the city of Cottage Grove's YouTube channel if you're interested. Uh so next item on our agenda from calling the meeting to order is the pledge of allegiance. So if you please rise. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right. Will the clerk please do the role? Council member Clawson here. Council member Olsen here. Council member Thei here. Council member Garza here. Mayor Bailey here. Uh, next on our agenda this evening is open forum. This is the opportunity for anybody who wants to speak on something that's not on tonight's agenda is welcome to do so. Uh we did have a signup sheet out in the in the uh entryway there. And we did have uh quite a few of you sign up. And it looks like you're all here for the same thing, which is all right. Um I would just ask that um I'll start uh I'll start at the top, go down the list. Um and I will just say a couple things real quick. If you want to speak, right, you can go up to the podium over here to my right. uh state your name and address for the record. Uh and you have up to three minutes uh to speak and then uh once we get through the list if there was somebody that maybe missed it and wasn't able to sign up or or such, we'll see if we catch anybody that uh still wants to speak after that. Okay. So, we'll start uh at the top with Cheryl. I don't have a last name on this, but I've got Cheryl. Yep. I know who you are. Okay. Um, I'm here proposal for an ordinance regarding cap on the rent in the city of Cottage Grove. Dear Mayor Bailey and the council members, we are here today as concerned residents of Cottage Grove, Minnesota to propose the development and adoption of an ordinance regarding a cap on rent. As a resident, we believe the ordinance is crucial for the seniors of Cottage Grove. We live in the cottages town homes here in Cottage Grove. We have seen our rent increase up to 7.85. 90% of our residents living in Cottage Grove town homes are seniors. We are all on social security. Some of the residents do have a pension and some don't. Some of the residents still have to work to pay rent. It is sad that they can't enjoy the rest of their life as they have to work to make ends meet. Some residents had to leave and move in with family members because they couldn't afford it and what and was unable to continue to work and really wanted to stay living in the cottages in Cottage Grove. We only received one raise a year on social security and it doesn't even cover the increase on our monthly rent. Cost of living has skyrocketed. Some seniors have to choose between getting their medicine or food. Rent here at the cottage is way above market value. Nothing is kept up. We had to get the city inspector involved many times to get things done. Our homes, garages, carpets, sinks all need something replaced or updated. Some residents have problems with mice and mice carry many diseases. Ants sighting missing from side homes and garages, refrigerator stoves, and so on. People had problems with and our grounds are not kept up. Property management doesn't think having mice running around your home in front of you is an emergency. Every winter between 8260 and 8280, the road between our homes never get plowed on the same day everyone else does. I have to call property manager every time to get it done. Ours doesn't get plowed until the next day and then a terrible job is done because people have drove on it, walked on it, and some of us have even shoveled spots on it. I also sent you, Mayor Bailey, a email and a phone call on it. We don't have all the amenities that the other rental places have here in Cottage Grove. The only amenities we have is a small community room and now they cover the thermostat. So now we freeze when we use the room. We are willing to live with nothing being updated as long as our rent stays low. The only time a resident's home is updated is when the resident moves out and they are updated only the inside of the homes. In an email from you, Mayor Bailey, to Julie and I, you indicated that you had talked to Chad, the homeowners, and our rates would be 4 to 6% back in June of 2024. Because of the section 42, we are in a protection period until December 31st, 2026. I haven't seen any protection at all. That did not happen. Mine went up 6.5% last year and this year it's going up 7.85. I believe mine went up the highest because I got the city involved. I truly believe that. I'm kind of the spokesperson for most of the seniors that had issues never were taken care of when they complained. Good example, one of our residents had to keep emptying the refrigerator because it leaked for about two years. I went with the residents to the property manager and he finally got a new fridge by putting a cap on rent in the city of Cottage Grove would keep people living here. St. Paul has implemented a rent stabilization ordinance that limits rent increase to 3% annually with exception for some situations. Minneapolis also has a rent control policy. We urge you to consider our proposal and work together. The mayor and the city council to draft and adapt ordinance addresses rent calf. This ordinance would be a positive step in keeping our senior residents living in the city of Cottage Grove they love and our city could be powerful voice in the fight against high rent and rent increases. We believe the ordinance is necessary and beneficial to the city. By passing the ordinance will show that people in Cottage Grove care about the senior residents. Most of the residents have family here in Cottage Grove and some were raised here and want to stay here and Cottage Grove they have many friends here also. Thank you for your time and consideration. We look forward to discussing the ordinance with you and hope that you'll sponsor this and we do have a few members here. Yep. And then if you see Bill and Cheryl on that list, you can cross it off. Oh, okay. Okay. You got it. You got it. Thank you. All right. Next I have on the list here is Rita. Good evening everybody. I'm Rita Escer. I live at 8240 East Point Douglas Road South Unit 4. Um, I'm not going to go over everything that Cheryl so eloquently already said because she speaks kind of exactly how we all feel, so I don't want to repeat everything, but I'm in support of a cap on the rent. Um, like she said, we don't have any amenities where we live. The garage is my my floor floods. I have to put everything on pallets to keep it from being destroyed in the garage. Uh, one of the residents, uh, her garage door broke. It took two days to get it fixed. Well, two days to me would be two days of lost pay because I have to keep working cuz the rent keeps going up. Mine went up almost 8%. And I've been here since 2009 and since 2009 totally my rent has gone up almost 250%. But that's all I have to say. I'm in support of uh limits on the rent. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Uh, next I believe it's Julie. Julie, thank you. Thank you. I'm Julie O'Brien. I'm at 8220 East Point Douglas Road South and I'm in the cottages. So, this is my first appearance with you. So, thank you for welcoming. Uh, in accordance to what we've all been sharing and being that we have lunches and breakfastes together, we share a lot. Uh what I understand is when you have an owner, which I'm glad you have an owner, but the owners don't even have, you know, for amenities, we don't have, they talk about comparables and getting us up to the all of the city of Cottage Grove, all the one, two, and three bedrooms, the Legends Grove 80 cottages that we off supposed to be in line. Again, we don't have the amenities. Uh, several of them have heated underground garages. Some of them have pools. Some have workout rooms. Some of them have plows that come on a regular basis. We don't have that. So, I wouldn't mind justifying a little bit of a raise. If we were getting seeing something come off of it, you know, the cola raise again, 2.9 this year. Haven't had mine yet. Mine's September. We'll find out what it's going to be. But, uh, you know, six and 7%. We've only been there four years. We've gone up $400. So it's $100 a year, 91 to 100. So for the record, you know, anyone on a fixed income, you know, I'm lucky enough that I have a pension, but several of these members here don't. So I'm a voice for all of them. Thank you for your time. Thank you. All right. I believe it's Nancy. Nancy. No. Uh how about Carmen? She's too shy to speak. Okay, that's okay. But she sponsors the cap on rent. Yep. Well, I assume that would be the case. They're all kind of You're all talking about the same thing, so I assume so. But no one asked to speak, but that's fine to have your name on the list. And then uh Sharon, did Sharon want to speak? I just I I do I actually Yeah, it's legally we need to do that. Just state your name and address for the record. My name is Sharon Tashner. I live at the cottages of Cottage Grove. And thank you for inviting us to your open form tonight. Um, my rent according to my calculations went up 9ome%. And I I was taken aback. I can't believe that it did, but supposedly it did. And I signed the lease to get it in by April 30th. But I just wasn't in agreement with that much rent increase. And I agree with everything that's been said so far. And I I love it there. I just can't believe the rent has to keep going up and especially by 9ome%. Thank you for listening. Thank you. Appreciate it. Okay, so that was uh that was it on who actually signed up. Uh was there anybody that would like to speak that missed the sign up? Yes, you. Yep. Go ahead. I don't know, Dad. [Laughter] Uh, hello. I'm Marjorie Williams. I live at the Legends, uh, 6999 East Point Douglas Road South. That's a huge address, but you have to add number 318. Thank you. Right by the elevator. Come for coffee. We're always open. Um, I want to talk especially about since The Legends is uh a uh low-income housing, some of it's low-income housing and some of them uh and our uh legends got a tax break from Cottage Grove. There is a bill in the legislature that caps the rent for at COLA, which is our social security rates. Um, they want to landlord wants to go with market rate. Well, when we moved in, the market rate or what our uh area was making, we had a Kohl's, a Culver's, and a daycare, and our rent still went up 12%. And uh now it's going to go higher because we have luxury condos just down the road from us. Not condos, but luxury apartments. If we could cap the rent at Cola, which was 2.5% to three 3.5%. If we could cap the rent at COLA, that would be great because our raise in Social Security is being taken up by rent. And I think we're all on a fixed income. Even people who are not retired and are working daytoday, we're all on a fixed income. And if rents keep going up, you're going to have a tremendous amount of homeless people and seniors living in their cars. And it's a shame because we have to make choices between rent, food, and medicine. What do we do? Thank you. Thank you. All right. Was there anybody else who like to speak on this topic or anything else this evening? Yes. You want to go up there? But it's really off topic. That's fine. Uh if no one else is speaking on this one, it's open forum. All right. Thank you very much. Thank you. Those stories were very good to hear. Thank you. My name is Bonnie Matter. Hello, uh mayor and council members. It's nice to be here this evening. Um, I'm here to talk about consent agenda items O and also uh just some other miscellaneous, not miscellaneous to me, but just some items. Um it has to do with Lockidge and uh Bolton and M submitted a letter uh you know their uh engineering consulting letter um to the planning commission and that one was dated January 17th of 2025 and uh that letter was also attached to the February 2nd and February 19th city council meetings. Tonight on the consent agenda, they're looking for uh the city to approve um the final plat for the Lock Ridge development. Uh the reason I'm here I'm concerned is there's now a May it's dated May 15th or I don't have the date right in front of me but it's it's a much later uh letter from Bolton and M spelling out issues around that development. And I just think the city might be more comfortable, the council might be more comfortable signing on that once whatever all those things were in that document were taken care of. Um, and there were quite a few issues. Um, there's issues around high water level, uh, wetland issues. There's just I just hope that we can avoid any cups or PUDs at a later date so that we address all the all of the issues up front. Now, it's a great piece of property. Um, and then my other question is who does the physical inspection or sign off on all of those items that are listed in that document? Who does it? as the engineering company that wrote up, you know, as Bolton and M send somebody out, does the city do some something and and who would that be? And where does that sign off document reside? And then my other question is how does the city interact with Excel Energy? I'd like to know who how when we bring in these developments, especially the new one that's going up on the south side, who interacts with Excel and I' I'd like to know who that person is from the standpoint of Excel. How do they know what these plans are for the energy? Those are my questions. Thank you. Yep, you got her. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Was there anybody else that wants to speak on anything in open form this evening? Um, yes. Go on. State name and address for the record, please. Tony Katada, 751574th Street South. Um, came here for roads, but um, with regard to rent control, um, I sat as the chair of government affairs committee for the St. Paul Association of Realtors for the last three years and one of our major uh, points of topic was rent control in St. St. Paul um and it has had some adverse effects on housing inventory and uh rents in St. Paul housing availability especially in the affordable housing sector. Um and I don't need we have Corey here so I don't need to tell her she knows I'm a lover of the revisor of statutes. Um so uh Minnesota statute 479.99 subsection 2 um states that a statutory or um charter city which is Cottage Grove is a statutory city uh does not have the authority to enact rent control without um basically a um a referendum vote in a major election. Um, so for for private property, the city's pretty limited in what they can do in the short term. Um, but, uh, in terms of property that the city had a financial interest in, they could have some control over how quickly rents are raised. In addition, for anybody who wasn't aware, state statute does say that uh any rent any rent increases over 10% um need to are required to have at least a 60-day notice before they go into effect. Um, so there are some there are some remedies that you guys already should be able to exercise, but um this is a big and complicated issue to try and do something quickly um outside of any any sort of property that might that the city might already have a financial interest in. That could be through the HR if they're putting up money for land or if um we're you know we're an investor or or part owner in in somebody else's project. Those would be the instances where you know the city could have authority to do something rather quickly. Otherwise, the process of um you know getting uh petition and uh legislation and uh getting it on the ballot um could take years. So that's my two cents. All right. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Is anybody else want to speak? Uh yes. Go ahead, Gary. Well, my name is Gary Spooner and I um live in the legends of Cottage Grove and and I've been working on this um rent control for since 2021 when our rent went up 12 a.5% uh based on the um AMI area meaning income uh HUD figure and COLA the the um uh the um uh social security number only went up eight and a half eight and a half%. We have introduced um laws in the reg in the legislature, the state legislature the last four years and they've uh and been turned down. We're not looking for uh rent caps. What we're looking for is a change in metric of how to figure out the uh the increase in in rent, which makes uh would make a difference because if you have a 12.5% increase and with um uh with HUD uh using the AMI and the cost of living adjustment only goes up eight and a half, there's a 4% difference there. and some people uh had to uh leave uh the legends because of it, but there's even a greater number that had to leave u in units uh senior units in the in St. Paul and Minneapolis. Uh this year u last year it it um it lost by one vote in the Senate. this year. Senate file 1652 and uh House File6005. Uh it was passed by the uh the Senate, but it did not make a pass in the House, so it didn't get out of committee. Uh but we're still working on it. So if uh anybody can give us some support on that uh I'm sure that next uh next year we'll be doing the same thing. Uh there's a conglomeration of u of people that live in the com in the Dominion apartments uh throughout uh the Twin City area and throughout the state. Actually, the Twin City area has about 14 or 15 uh Newmanium apartments that uh that we work with and out uh and there's about 50 of them in uh throughout the state. So, uh, if you're very anybody interested in in contacting me and how to, uh, you know, to, uh, get on the on the bandwagon, so to speak, uh, to, uh, get this done, uh, we certainly would appreciate it and thank you. Thank you, Gary. Okay, before I do close open forum, is there any other comments or any other anybody else want to speak? Okay. Um, I'm going to go ahead and close open form. Uh, so just for the public to be aware, um, and first of all, thank you all for, uh, coming up and sharing. Um, I, as Cheryl knows, I've been down to the, uh, cottages probably almost as much as I've been to the legends uh, in in Cottage Grove, uh, working on different options and things that we can do in those particular areas. Um, the process that we do with this um, is our staff takes all the information that that you have provided to us and then they will they will give us a well, they'll give you, but they give it to the council too, a response to answer some of the questions that you have. I do know what some of them and I I um you know uh uh uh Mr. Katada back there you know does speak uh the fact that there's a process. We can't just arbitrarily come in and say we're going to do rent caps. Um I will also say and I know and Gary kind of alluded to it just briefly here that in St. Paul Minneapolis when they they tried to do that and other cities were going to do that they got a negative effect of what was happening in those particular locations and so uh where you hope that you were going to have better properties and more options everybody pulled out and or they the loopholes that you're talking about where they'll say okay they're going to come in and fix your fridge or replace your fridge but now your rent goes up. Um, and so there's there's ways that I'm just saying there's unfortunate ways around it. Um, the bigger thing which I do like what what Gary was talking about is the AMI. Um, Washington County is one of the richest I'm just going to say it, one of the richest counties in the state of Minnesota. And AM AMI is based off of the county. Uh and so if you've got the majority of the county which has a high AMI uh that is having an effect on uh the rents that are happening at Cottage Grove. Um so I just wanted to share that with you. Maybe that'll be some of the information I'm stealing staff's thunder. And so um as Gary is is speaking about it. Um, that's one been one of the things that we've been looking at too is how do you make it I almost want to say like a level playing field across the metro because different counties the the the price is different. Um, and these developers that are coming in doing these affordable options or such, they're basing it on the AMI and the AMI, whatever the AMI is for the county for us is different than the AMI for the county of Ramsey or Henipin or whatever. So, um I just wanted to share that with you um on uh on those particular items. Um but thank you all for coming uh this evening. You're more than welcome to stay here and uh in a few minutes here uh we're going to be presenting something special to Gary Spooner aka Santa up here. So, if you want to stay for that. uh but we will get a response back to you both from our staff and our uh obviously legally so we can tell you kind of what the big step is or what part you can play uh should you decide to do that uh in in rent controls. Okay. And then I guess maybe Corey do I want do we want to I know um uh Bonnie had asked for some information on item O. Do we want to talk about that now or just just get it? Okay. All right. Sounds good. All right. So, thank you all. Um, next thing I'm going to move on to is number five, which is adoption of the agenda. Move the agenda. We have a motion by council member Olsen. Second, second by council member Garza. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. Opposed. Motion carries. Um, so this evening, number six is presentations. We have three this evening. Uh the first one is the one everybody is here for of course and that is uh the 2025 historic preservationist of the year and uh our um uh community development director Emily Schmidz is going to uh take us through this. And council, why don't you join me down in front and then we're going to have uh Gary join us up in the front too. Yeah. Mayor, council, uh I'm honored this evening to introduce the 2025 uh historic preservationist of the year to Mr. Gary Spooner for his work um with the South Washington County Bulletin uh which my understanding operated uh from about 1970 to about 1994 um here and uh preserved a lot of stories and a lot of events that that occurred here in Cottage Grove. Um and so lucky for you, however, Mr. Spooner was kind enough to sit down um and uh we put together a brief video, a short clip um of Mr. Spooner telling his story. I've never known Gary to be brief. Are you sure? The paper was originally started in 1958. It was a 8 and a half by 11. They called it Newport News at the time, but it went to the Washington County Bulletin and a fellow by the name of Larry Matson took it over in the early 60s and Larry died. So John Curl who was a realer in this area bought the paper from Bmatson and then hired John Herman as editor publisher. My wife was writing for the bulletin and John approached me to come in with him to purchase the the paper from John Curl. And then we were a tabloid at the time and then we went full width six columns across made of the fulls size paper. It was accepted by the community and um by all the communities Scott Cottage Grove, St. Paul Park, Newport, Great Cloud, and Woodbury. And I started out selling the advertising and also working with John with the books and then writing a column myself. And then in 1983, I bought John Herman out. He didn't want to expand and I did. And then we expanded to uh put out the Woodbury Bulletin in 1986, I believe. Back in those days when we first started out, that's where you got your information. We had people that subscribe to our paper, but we would deliver it on a Wednesday at the local milk store and that would sell out as practically as soon as we delivered them because everybody wanted it the day that it came out, not the day it came in the mail. When I first got into it, I was very naive. I I didn't think that people paid that much attention, but as as I got into it, I found that people really pay attention and they really wanted to know what was going on in the in their community. Some of the sections that people really read what was happening at the in the council meetings and of course the police reports. I sold it to the Redwing Republic Eagle in 1994 and they sold it to the Fargo Forum in either 1999 or 2000 and the Fargo Forum dissolved the paper I think in about 2005 or 2006. History is so important for our world, for our nation, and for our community. how we grew and what we had to do in order to grow and to elect people that could s foresee the future that could plan out that growth. We were very fortunate that we had people that were on city councils and on our school boards that saw that future and and were willing to to plan for it and be ready for the for the growth. I love this community. I've been out here all practically all my life. any award is is important to anybody that's been active in the community. If that's the reason that they're that they're giving me an award because of the fact that I've been active. I always felt that if you take from the community, you ought to give back. And you should give back. And time is probably probably one of the most valuable things you can give to a community is time. So you spend time trying to uh make the the community better. If that's what they're giving me this award for, I'm honored. But it's not only for me. But I had a tremendous amount of people who worked with me. They never worked for me. They worked with me. Being a business owner in Cottage Grove and having the support support of the citizens uh is uh is something that you prize because the you can't you can't make a living unless you have the support of the people that live with you. that was always important to me and I and I really thank them for all that they've done for me and um and I hope that I've done something for them. All right, so Gary, let's Thank you. Did you bring any of the red noses with you? Uh you know I didn't. Okay, thank goodness you don't want to hear me sing again. All right, so you got to see a little bit of history. Um, and it was really pretty cool to see Judy up there, too. Um, so his wife. Um, so I just want to uh small token of our appreciation here. just says uh uh Cottage Grove 2025 preservationist of the year presented to Gary Spooner on behalf of the South Washington County Bulletin for their work preserving history by recording and reporting on local residents, events, and places in Cottage Grove May 21st, 2025 by the city of Cottage Grove and the AD Advisory Committee on Historic Preservation. So again, on behalf of all of us up here, everybody out in the audience, uh, and the residents of Cottage Grove, thank you, Gary, for the many years of running that amazing newspaper. And I was one of those people that used to run to the dairy store to make sure I got that for 25 cents and got my paper. So here we go. Very good. Um, well, thank you for the the applause. I really appreciate that. Uh if anybody wants to uh sit down with me, it cost you about probably a cup of coffee and I'll give you a lot of stories about the uh about the the newspaper business and and uh what we did in those years that we had it. It was a great amount of fun. right now. Um I'm not very happy with the way that news is distributed, but um you might have to hear that too. But uh um once uh once an editorial writer, you're always an editorial writer. And there are a few uh uh politicians probably that sat on this uh das behind me that uh I probably referred to as barnacles on the ass of progress. Uh or a few other things. Um you know, that's a cleaned up version. Yeah. Uhhuh. Uhhuh. Or if jerks had to wear signs, they'd be dragging a billboard. Uh just a few of those other things. But thank you very much. Thank you for this honor. Uh, it is like I said, not only for me but for the people who work with me. Absolutely. All right, let's give Gary a round of applause. And we can't forget the license center, too. Uh, well, the license center is another story. Yeah, I'm uh I know that I'm 86 years old, but I'm still upright. Although you got more energy than me. Yeah. Yeah. Got a lot of energy. Thanks again, Gary, for all you've done uh for our community with that uh amazing newspaper. So, all right. Uh our next item under presentation actually is the proclamation uh for historic preservation month. And I've asked uh uh council member uh Theiti to read that proclamation and then we'll do a uh a vote uh to approve and second. Okay. So, Council Martha, so whereas people have been gathering in this area currently known as Cottage Grove, Minnesota for many years before and after recorded history. And whereas each individual family or group who has visited or lived in this community has in some form helped shape the rich and unique tapestry that connects our past to our present. And whereas the Cottage Grove City Council wishes to recognize the importance of learning in keeping the knowledge of our unique history accessible and relevant to current and new residents as well as the general p public. And whereas the Cottage Grove City Council holds deep gratitude for individuals and organizations that gather, interpret, and share information and stories about our past. Now therefore, the mayor and city council of the city of Kajgrove, county of Washington, state of Minnesota, hereby proclaim the month of May 2025 to be designated as Historic Preservation Month to be passed this Wednesday, the 21st day of May 2025. All right. So, council marted we like move that we proclaim May 2025 as historic preservation month in the city of Kash Grove. All right. So, I have a motion by council member Thei. Do I have a second? Second. Second by council member Clawson. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. I. Opposed. Motion carries. All right. And then we have one more proclamation this evening which is uh public works and it's public works week and I've asked council member uh Olsen uh to please read this proclamation. Thank you mayor. Again this is a proclamation declaring the week of May 18th through the 24th 2025 as national public works week. And as they do each year uh national public works week comes with a theme. This year's theme is people purpose and presence. The proclamation reads as follows. Whereas public works professionals focus on infrastructure, facilities, and services that are of vital importance to sustainable and resilient communities and to the public health, high quality of life and well-being of the people of Cottage Grove. And whereas those infrastructure, facilities, and services could not be provided without the dedicated efforts of public works professionals who are engineers, managers, and employees at all levels of government and in the private sector who are responsible for rebuilding, improving, and protecting our nation's transportation, water supply, water treatment, and solid waste systems, public buildings, and other structures and facilities essential for our citizens. And whereas it is in the public interest for the citizens, civic leaders, and children in Cottage Grove to gain knowledge of and to maintain an ongoing interest and understanding of the importance of public works and public works programs in their respective communities. And whereas the year 2025 marks the 65th annual National Public Works Week sponsored by the American Public Works Association/Canadian Public Works Association. Be it now therefore the mayor and the city council of the city of Cottage Grove, County of Washington, state of Minnesota do hereby designate the week of May 18th through the 24th, 2025 as National Public Works Week. I urge all citizens to join with representatives of the American Public Works Association and government agencies in activities, events, and ceremonies designed to pay tribute to our public works professionals, engineers, managers, and employees, and to recognize the substantial contributions they make to protecting our national health, safety, and quality of life for all. passed this Wednesday, the 21st day of May, 2025, signed by Myron Bailey, mayor. And mayor, I'll make the motion that we adopt this proclamation for National Public Works Week. All right. So, we have a motion by Council Member Olsen. Do I have second? Second by Council Member Theiti. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. I. Opposed. Motion carries. Thank you both uh for reading that this evening. All right. Our next on item on our agenda is number seven, which is consent. Uh is there anything council wants to pull off of consent? Um I am going to ask uh we're going I'm going to pull and just for uh there's a gentleman I think in the audience that would like to just introduce himself to us. Um so if there's nothing else, I'll move consent. Okay. Um let me hold that. Okay. The thought um is uh Derek Derek Lefort. Lefert is it? Yeah. Yeah, if you want to just come up and just uh introduce yourself to the the public and the council, that would be great and then we'll move forward. Yeah. Good evening, Mr. Mayor, members of the commission or council. Uh Dererick Leford here, head of government affairs for Gateway Fiber. Uh, Gateway Fiber is a fiber the home internet service provider and you guys have recently kind of undergone a uh RFP process uh which you know Gateway was a part of. I had a number of great discussions with uh with city officials and uh we're pleased to be uh investing here in Cottage Grove. Gateway Fiber was started in 2019. We were actually started uh to bring fiber to the forgotten. uh we were started to uh bring fiber fiber highspeed internet to a town of 270 people uh just outside of St. Louis, Missouri. And we've since grown exponentially. Uh we're based out of Missouri, but back in 2023. Uh we started investing in the in the MSP area and have built uh seven or eight towns up here in this area right now. Uh with plans to continue to aggressively build more uh and that includes Cottage Grove. So, we'll be making significant investments uh here in Cottage Grove to bring highspeed internet uh to the the residents and businesses here in Cottage Grove. Um I will say that that Gateway Fiber is not like a traditional internet service provider. We are laser focused on uh community partnerships and and investing in the communities in which we we serve. Um our pricing is very simple. We don't do um introductory pricing. Uh we we have a flat rate pricing depending on what speed you want. Uh and that's all that comes out of your account. There's no contract, there's no installation fees, there's no service fees. It's literally that that's what comes out of your account each month. Uh we believe that's a fair way of doing things. And uh with our exceptional customer service, we believe that people will stay stay with us as a result of of how the service that they get and the pricing that we that we offer. I would invite you to talk to any of the other uh seven or eight different municipalities that we have uh have built here in the MSP area. I think that they would would give you glowing recommendations on the process that we use uh as part of our community partnerships and collaboration. We are uh heavily invested in making sure that that we're working with not only the community uh staff, the the city staff, but also uh with the residents and the council members as well. So, you'll see us come in once we get started with construction. You'll see us come in on a regular basis and kind of update you on the progress of where we're at, uh, and answer any questions that you guys may have. We do realize that this process can be disruptive. Uh, anytime there's any sort of a utility project, it's disruptive. Our intent is to make it the as least the least disruptive as possible. Uh, and so you'll see us go out and we'll do a lot of we'll put door hangers on every neighborhood that we're going to be in. We'll put sandwich boards out uh and try to communicate with the residents uh as as we go along and progress in in the process to make sure that they're aware of it. Uh hopefully that saves some calls to the city staff. Uh and uh if you know we place a huge focus on restoration and making sure that we're being uh not not very disruptive because every house that we go past with a line is a potential customer for us. Uh so if there's any restoration issues, any of your constituents have any concerns, uh we want to address those as as quickly as we possibly can because that's a potential customer for us. Uh and that's a member of the community and so we want to make sure that we're addressing those as quickly as we can. Um I just want to say thanks to the the city. We worked with Crystal and and a number of others uh throughout the RFP process. uh and uh we we were received very very warmly and very hospitably and uh we're very very pleased to come to Cottage Grove uh and and serve the citizens and the businesses here uh in Cottage Grove and here very soon you'll see you'll start to see uh the the access that that uh they don't have right now. So uh thanks again for uh allowing us to kind of introduce ourselves. If you if you have any concerns, any issues, any questions, uh feel free to reach out to me and I'm more than happy to address those as they as they come up. All right. Thank you, uh Derek. I appreciate that. Um All right. So, council, um I do need a motion and a second. I know council member, you were trying to second. We have a motion uh to approve consent by council member Olsen, second by council member Garza. Any further discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor signify by saying I. I I opposed. Motion carries. So, if you are here for anything on tonight's consent agenda, all of those items have been approved. Number eight is approved dispersements. 8A is to pay the bills. Move the bills. Oh, who wants it? All right. I'll I'll give it to council member Thei to made the motion. Council member Oer the second. Uh, any further discussion on the bills? I. Seeing none, all those in favor signify by saying I. I opposed. Motion carries. Nine is public hearings. We have none this evening. 10 is bid awards. We do have one this evening uh which is the Oldman Park bid award. And our director um uh director of parks and wreck uh Zack Doctor is going to walk us through this one. So, welcome Zach. Good evening, mayor, members of the council. On April 16th, city council approved plan specifications and authorized bidding for the Elman Park project. Uh this portion of the project uh includes three uh construction of three full-size multi-purpose turf fields uh that include irrigation and drain tile, a parking lot, a large parking lot, trail connections, electrical service, and then running conduit for future scoreboards. Uh the engineers estimate for this work was at $2.2 million. We're happy to report that there was a competitive bidding return with Peterson Company submitting a low bid of $2,72,000 75740. Um Peterson's a reputable company in this field and they've actually done quite a bit of work in Crove Grove, most recently at Glacial Valley Park. So with that, uh staff is recommending awarding of the bid to Peterson Companies. Okay, council. Any questions for Zach? If none, uh, I'll look for a motion and a second. I'll move to adopt resolution 2025-075 awarding the Oakman Park project to Peterson Companies Incorporated for the bid amount of 2,72,5740. All right. So, motion by council member Garza, second by council member Theiti. Any other discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor signify by saying I. I. I. Opposed. Motion carries. Thank you, Zach. Good to have that one online. Yes, finally. Yep. Uh 11 is regular agenda. There's no items. So, we're now down to council comments or requests. And I will start like I normally do down here with uh Council Member Clawson. Thank you, Mayor. Just one thing I wanted to notice that I see sitting up here is we have new school um internet fiber sitting next to old school newspaper. Thought that was kind of ironic, but uh thanks Gary. You well deserved. Um, I was at a at a a planning commission meeting the other uh Monday night when the storms began to roll through. And when I came, there was a group of 20 people out here planting all the flowers. And I wanted to just give a shout out to the Pine Hill Garden Club. They uh work in our community planting flowers. They also do it in St. Paul Park. And it's just a a great organization that keeps our community beautiful. Thank you so much. Pineh Hill Garden Club. That's all. Mayor, thanks. All right. Thank you. Uh, Council Member Brolson. Gary, remind me. Was Judy part of Pine Ridge Garden Club? Was Judy part of Pine Ridge Garden Club? She I know she helped with some projects. I just don't Yeah, absolutely. Those ladies are amazing. They're phenomenal. Absolutely. Yes. Good call out by Council Member Clawson there. So, I'm going to start my council comments and requests with a Gary story and then I'll move on. Okay. I didn't think he'd still be here. In fact, I figured he'd be out the door as soon as we g gave him the the award. So, thank you for staying and thank you all for staying as well. When I first ran for city council in 2008, um, one of the, uh, conventional wisdoms about running for city council was you had to write an op-ed for the bulletin. Now, Gary wasn't responsible for the bulletin at that time, but um, you know, I was struggling a little bit uh, on what I should say and how many words it should be and all that. Anybody who knows me knows I can never shut up. So naturally a 500word op-ed became 1500 words and I didn't know what to do. So I turned to Judy and I said, "Help." And she and Gary took the time to sit down with me and help me condense my thoughts um which very few people in the world can do and um helped me to craft something that uh I'd like to think was pretty good because I was successful in that election. And I will never forget what Gary said tonight about um when you love a community, you give it your time. That is what people like Gary and Judy and so many others that uh I know I personally have looked up to in my lifetime as a uh young person growing up in Cottage Grove, whether it be coaches or teachers or uh members of the city council. um have impressed upon me and it's truly a privilege to give our time and Gary does it with joy. He does it with joy all the time. He's not golfing anymore, but when he was at the golf course, that man always had a smile on his face. I've begged groceries next to him for um you know the food shelf and raising funds for the holiday train in his Santa suit. More smiles and and and candy canes handed out to people. Um, you're a tremendous example of what uh a person who truly gives to their community should be. And I want you to know it doesn't go unnoticed. And I hope tonight's recognition was just a tiny little taste of the amount of respect that uh we all have for you and your family and all that you've done for this community over the years. And we still miss Judy. I know you do, too. She was a force of nature. Um probably the only person on the planet who could keep you in line. But um can you do it too? You have the gene. Okay. Good. It's it's DNA unfortunately. Yeah. Right. Sorry to hear that. So okay. So thank you. Yes. And and with that I'm going to turn my attention to Memorial Day next Monday the 26th of May. It's going to be a nice day according to the weatherman. You know, I typically don't trust the weatherman, but uh last year we got forced inside due to some pretty ugly weather and been a bumpy week from what I understand. Um but according to everything I'm reading, supposed to be 70° sunny. So I'd encourage everybody who wants to come out to pay their respects to the fallen on Memorial Day to join us here at city hall. our Mississippi River Valley Beyond the Yellow Ribbon team puts on a Memorial Day event that is truly memorable and uh we'll be out here right by the Veterans Memorial which is all polished up and fresh. There's been some maintenance on it here this year. Um we'll have uh a number of guests uh including Sheriff Star, Commissioner Bigum, etc. Uh the various city council members will be there. We may even have another special guest, but I'm not allowed to tell. Um, but I will tell you that this year's uh event is a salute to our Asian-American and Pacific Islander veterans. It is AAPI Heritage Month and uh that's a national declaration and so we have u some really great speakers coming from the Minnesota AAPI Veterans Association that I think you'd really enjoy. Typically we start about 10. We get done around 10:45 11. It depends how longwinded I get, but um you know, it's going to be uh a really nice ceremony and a great way to pay our respects to those who've given all in defense of this country and uh you know, allowed us to enjoy the freedoms that we get to enjoy each and every day. So, for those of you in the audience who may be veterans, thank you for your service and um you know, tell your friends, tell your family. Be great to have you join us on Monday. And with that, mayor, I'll turn it back to you. All right. Thank you, Council Member Rosson. Council member Theiti. All right. Well, I got a couple things here at uh Is Strawberry Fest one of them? Uh yes. Okay. Good. Good. Just making sure you didn't forget that that I forget. I didn't forget. So, um one of the things I'm going to mention first is is actually this this Mon'nique Garza started how many years ago now? This is our fourth year. Fourth year, Movies with Mo. And it's uh getting people together and you you put up a big screen and you show everybody movies. You got uh free popcorn, free lemonade, free glow sticks, all free. And uh it's it's just fantastic. So the next one is on June 13th at 7 PM in Highland Park and be showing the Wild Robot. Should be interesting. So, uh, it's a it's a great time, you know, to bring bring kids, bring your grandkids. Uh, it's, uh, it's, uh, it should be really fun. Thank you. So, the other thing that I'm going to talk about is Strawberry Fest, and it's a it's a mere what, five weeks away? Four weeks away. Five weeks away. Five. Five. So, uh, and I I did wear my shirt today, you know, so I I'm I'm, you know, got a lot of advertising space here for Strawberry Fest. And it's going to be a great festival this year. Uh, it's a berry is the the theme. And uh, we're going to actually have some additional things Thursday night for family night and everything. It's an actually that's June 19th. So it's uh Junth holiday. So you know you won't have to worry about people won't have to worry about waiting and getting home from work to come over. They come over earlier and uh I think we start at 4 on on Thursday and so uh that's going to be great this year. Something else new and I've mentioned it before is we're going to have a drone show on Friday night. There's going to be a hundred drones uh aerial and the name of it is people that are doing it if uh oops I hit the wrong button there are aerial illuminations and uh so it's a 12 to 14 minute drone light show with a 100 drones. It's uh it's they've got we've got custom animation designs that we had some input on. Uh it's choreographed music to the show and we even had some input on some of that music. Um also the the uh and so they're gonna that's going to be probably in approximately the same place. It's going to kind of come up. They're they're going to operate uh over kind of by where the fireworks they shoot the fireworks off and so forth. So So it's going to be a great view. Um should be interesting. It's uh really looking forward to seeing what that's going to be like. So these folks uh we've heard anyway do a good job at that. On Saturday night uh we will have our fireworks at at 10:30. Um, and uh, that also will be typically like we we've had in the past, uh, about a 15minute show. It uh, not quite as big as the Fourth of July. You know, we certainly wouldn't want to Appreciate you saving a little for us. Thank you. Yeah. But, uh, so uh, so that should be fun, too. So, we're we're hoping for, uh, you know, really good weather and, uh, we've put our order in for that. And, you know, we've got some great bands on on Friday and on Saturday. Like I say, Thursday night's going to have some additional things for for family night and so forth. So, geez, you know, you can go to um cottagegrove strawberryfest um.com and uh to see what all the other activities are and such and uh so uh be there, be square. There you go. Sounds good. All right. All right. Um Council Member Garca. Thank you, Mayor. So, I will mention a few other events that I think we have going on. And I actually thought Justin would mention it, but tomorrow the Lions Club is actually having a blood drive. It's from It starts at 1 PM and it ends at 700 p.m. So, it's our um at the VFW and you can register online at ww.red redcrossblood.org. So, if you're interested in giving some blood tomorrow between 1 and 7 at our VFW. Also um this um coming this weekend actually we are having the fifth annual Mung Memorial Sports Fest and Street Fair and that is going to be on Saturday and Sunday. It is an a spectacular event. My family went last year and I think there was maybe a thousand people a day or something out there. It was so fun. Lots and lots of food trucks. Lot of different types of food too. So if you can get out there this weekend it's supposed to not be raining. 70° and nice. So, if you are able to get out there, that's something else fun to do in our community. And last but not least, on June 7th at Hamlet Park, we are having our kids adventure mud run. So, that is going to be a ton of fun. It's 23 bucks to participate and you can sign up right online. So, hope to see you all there. Awesome. Thank you. Thank you. So, I just have two items real quick. Uh we'll start with fireworks on the 4th of July. Um we do have at least 25,000. We're working on a little bit more from uh another uh uh business in the business park. Uh but I want to recognize uh 3M, Renewal by Anderson, uh North Point, which is a developer in the business park. Uh Tennis, Sanitation, and HY uh have all donated uh $5,000 each for at least a $25,000 show. We're actually looking to see if we can inch it up a little bit better. uh and uh the uh and of course this is a huge event and I encourage everybody to to do it. The one nice thing that we learned from last year, there was rain on the 4th of July last year and when they did it two days later on the 6th which was happened to be a Sunday I believe or Saturday I remember Sunday. Um it uh the the crowds were bigger because I think Cottage Grove like empties out during the summer over the 4th of July. So uh they're actually going to do it on July 6th this year. So, the 4th of Fourth of July will be fun, but they're going to do the fireworks uh on Jul uh July 6th, but I believe is a Sunday. It is. It's Sunday and we'll have food and we'll have uh MickMart will be there. We'll have roasted corn, have all kinds of fun events for the family. We give away some bikes and some other cool things. So, please come join our Lions Club and have a ball. Last year was crazy busy, crazy busy. So, we've even staffed up this year. And normally this is one of those all hands on deck sort of events. Um but the good news is doing it on Sunday. We even get some of our lions back from the cabin in time for the event. So we'll have a few more people flipping burgers and making hot dogs and making sure everybody has a good time. Absolutely. So um just obviously you've got that going on for the 4th of July. And then um lastly, I'll just bring up real quick uh this um we uh this uh council member uh Olsen uh uh uh EDA member um Kada I'm losing my mind see it's been one of those long weeks and myself had the opportunity to go out once again this year to what's called the ICS and there's different terminology for it but I'll just basically tell you what it is is it's a a developers and retail uh convention in Las Vegas and there is 40 50,000 plus people there, businesses of all types and I just wanted to share with the public. I've been was putting I know our staff's been putting out some updates too. I know council member uh Olsson and myself were um just have to tell you it was an amazing event this year. Um we did get a lot of real positive feedback. Um, and uh, it's interesting because, you know, and a lot of people have asked, you know, well, why can't we get uh, certain businesses or whatever to be into Cottage Grove? The the answer, believe it or not, is more so uh, where do they go? Um, you know, either everybody wants to be on 80th Street or what are we opening up for the future? And so, I'll just share with the public what we've ended up bringing out there is a propo uh, a proposal down by Walmart. Uh there is a developer that has an option on all of the 73 or so acres down there uh in uh next to Walmart and um putting a project together there that would involve uh a mixed use also some restaurants and entertainment and so on. I will mention that the EDA did purchase um the home that's right on the corner there, the uh Ross's property. um she has sold uh Jim her husband passed away about just over a year ago um and sold it to the EDA uh for the city of Cottage Grove and so we're marketing that and did market that as a hotel uh site because what we're hearing uh from our business park is they need a business class hotel we need extended stay and so we got really positive feedback um uh for what we're going to do you heard earlier an RFP which is request for proposal we're looking at doing that on that site too and then we also the other side of the highway which as a Hunter Street eventually comes through uh the Langden area um in or in Innovation Village as we're calling it which is along Highway 61 in the opposite side where the old Majestic Ballroom still stands today. Um the fact of the matter is that whole area will be redeveloped and and roadway extended along the frontage road there. Uh will be also some mixed use with some opportunity for commercial as well as residential. And so I just wanted to share we were able to um um I wanted to just let everybody know we were able to uh market those particular projects uh and ideas out at the uh out at this convention and got very good reviews and very good feedback to us. So now I will say this, it doesn't happen overnight as we all know. Um but as soon as we are able to announce some of the people and the businesses both uh individual uh businesses, what I mean by that is um whether it's a national chain or somebody local uh these people that we met out there do represent both. It isn't all just you know your fast food places and that. So uh some very very good uh good options there. And just for the public so I can say it, um, when we go out, uh, the EVM members go out to some of these different conventions and such, it isn't, um, just so I can say it, it's not your taxpayer dollars that we're utilizing. We have an economic development trust fund that a business in our business park actually provides, uh, money into, and we utilize those funds to market the city. And so I just wanted to let everybody know that. So there's two separate funds. There's an EDA fund, and then there's an EDA trust fund, which is which is separate. So, just thought I would say that thank you to uh Council Member Brolen and obviously uh uh EDM member Kada and u and we'll keep the public obviously up to date when things are happening within our city and uh we really uh really have I think some great things and some amazing things looking forward to in the next probably yearish year and a half uh time frame. Okay. All right. Uh so that is it for that. So just for the public uh we do have um two workshops this evening. Uh we do have a workshop which is closed to the public. Um what I will share with the public is that is regarding Greycloud Trail staff recommendations and that will be a closed uh session uh under Minnesota statute section 13D.05 subsection 3B for attorney client privilege communication regarding Greycloud Trail. And then we do have a workshop uh which is open to the public that will be in our training room. And that is actually uh we're we're going to be reviewing with staff the 80th Street and East Point Douglas rehabilitation project and our public works director Brian Bervine will be walking us through that and and getting feedback. So uh thank you all for and those that hung around with us. I appreciate that. Um and uh we'll be adjourning in the conf or in the training room. So thanks everybody. Have a good evening and a a safe Memorial Day.