Village Board - Regular Meeting

All right, Lisa, are we just about ready? Yep. Let me just hit the record button.

Recording in progress. All right, welcome to the Village of Cottage Grove Village Board of Trustees meeting on Monday, April 6, 2026. This is a virtual only meeting via Zoom with the link at the top of the agenda. You can also watch the meeting on our YouTube channel. It is 6:30, so I'll call the meeting to order. We have a quorum and the agenda was properly posted. I didn't bring my flag tonight, but we're still going to stand for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance

allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, God, indivisible, liberty,

liberty and justice for all. We're on number um four, public's appearances. So, this is the portion of the meeting where it's the opportunity for community members to share comments or concerns, but this isn't an open dialogue with the village board. So, each speaker will have up to three minutes. Um I don't think we'll use an official timer tonight just so we can see everyone's faces as they speak for us, but we ask that you please respect the rights and viewpoints of others. So, we're going to begin with individuals who have submitted a request to speak form and are present on the Zoom. And we'll open it to the floor to anyone else in the Zoom call um if they would like to um to speak. So, in order to do this, you're going to have to go to the react button and raise your hand and then we're going to allow you to um turn your microphone on. So, we do have a few wish to speak forms. Um, the first one that came in was Casey Erlinson.

Thank you. Just quick audio check. Yep, you're good. Thank you.

Okay, just checking from the last ones. Um, thank you. Uh, so while it's obviously everyone's desire to lower taxes and control costs, that doesn't mean every proposal to do something about them is an effective one. The impact fee is an uncertain gamble for two big reasons. It requires high growth to function, and it only pays in a limited way. If growth in its revenue drops below what the fee collects, we actually lose money in a way we might never recover. The proposed $1,000 fee per unit would require, for example, 7,000 new homes to hit the goal of $7 million. Given that permits for the last 5 years have been between 20 to 50 homes each year, source 2025 development update. The much more likely scenario is that we recover a mere 50,000 each year. Looking at a project like Heyday with 900,000 per year tax revenue. If a single development with less than half that size finds another market, we fail to break even. Actually, it's worse than that because impact fees are a single sum compared to yearly tax revenue. So, if we lose out on something again half the size of payday, we lose 400,000 every year versus the one-time revenue of 400,000 over eight years. Another even bigger loss that I've yet to see mentioned, the largest driver by far of our property tax is the school district source 2026 village property tax mailer. These impact fees contribute nothing to close that gap. And again, any growth lost also fails to contribute to school district taxes. That is why I spoke previously about how we lack data to see their effects. The only comparable municipalities with recent safety impact fees are DeForest and McFarland source their respective public codes. Deorest just implemented their fee in March of 25. So it remains to be seen what effects it will have on their growth and it is an even smaller 736 per unit. McFarland is more dire with a 2091 joint safety fee implemented in February 24. Critical to note, however, McFarland's net new construction growth metric was already under 3% in 2021 and has been in steady decline since with a mere 1.3% in 25 source Wisconsin Department of Revenue. So they barely have any growth

to lose and are still missing out. It's clear from the limited data available that while we may be permitted to implement such a fee, the trade-off will almost certainly backfire. Steady, sustainable tax revenue is far less volatile and better supported. Regarding the debt subcommittee, I will only say that it would be extremely redundant and a waste of our actual money to run it. We already have a finance director administrator both with expert degrees and certifications, years of experience and a fiduciary duty to the village. We have an expert consulting firm unanimous unanimously re renewed by this board. We have an independent audit, not to mention standard and pores reviews. And finally, we have you, our elected trustees, who should already be diligently reviewing our budget and cost. To think that an ad hoc panel of everyday people with no specialized knowledge are going to find something they all missed is irresponsible. Barring the police station project, our debt is only used for necessary capital projects. Source 2026 village property tax mailer. Zero in operating expenses, staffing, or salaries. Nearly half of it is road repairs. Second biggest is parks and public works consistently finds the best bids, the most efficient and cost-saving processes, and I've heard them report as such. That leaves this hypothetical group with only one real potential action, deferring road and park maintenance. You can ask staff how well that spirals out in the long term, or just ask residents already complaining about potholes on Denturia, for example. I urge this board to be proactive instead of reactive. Plan for the big picture, make careful decisions the first time, and don't jeopardize our future just for the appearance of doing something. Thank you. All right. Up next we have Marissa Anders.

Can you guys hear me? Okay. Yep.

Great. Um, the creation of a debt reduction task force is unnecessary when the village board, finance director, and village administrator are already responsible for financial oversight and accountability. That is the structure in place and it should be functioning as intended. Adding an outside group to oversee elected officials and experienced village professionals is redundant, inefficient, and an inappropriate use of time and taxpayer resources. If there are concerns about financial direction, they should be addressed within the existing leadership, not outsourced. This approach risks creating distraction instead of solutions. It shifts focus away from the real work and introduces another layer that does little to serve the residents of the village of Cottage Grove. We don't need any more committees. We need leadership, accountability, and the discipline to make informed, data-driven decisions within the framework we already have. If you are serious about serving this community, then it's time to stop adding layers and start doing the job you were entrusted to do clearly, collaboratively, and without excuses. Thank you.

Right. Those were the two wish to speaks that are online. I also have um a handful that were submitted today. Okay. So, Stefan Wahi, 100 Co Quail Parkway is a village residence. Um is against the creation of a debt reduction task force. Opposes it because we already have the village management and public budgeting processes. Um is uh thinks that um it's redundant and um would rather see other strategies toward balanced stewardship of the finances. Melissa Reichmeer, 406 Michelle Lane is a village resident um is opposed to the task force um and is writing to acknowledge that um while a lot of thought thought went into the proposal um it isn't necessary and um to accomplish the goals. Um most of the go um responsibilities are already outlined in what um is done dayto-day and it appears to be reassigning responsibilities rather than addressing a gap. Um and the supports continue transparency and financial planning though. Uh Devin Anders um 312 Fox Circle is a village resident um is um against the discuss um the creation of the debt reduction task force. Um stating that we don't need this type of committee in the village. Um wants to know what departments you're willing to downsize or programs you're going to cut or lay who you're going to lay off. um it's not a manufacturing business. We shouldn't cut services and it's unnecessary. We already have the appropriate um people in place to do that work. Those are the Oh, I think I have a couple more in my email that just came in. Um Lisa Schwartz um is see2

St. John Street um is a village resident um is voicing opposition to both the law enforcement impact fee and the debt reduction task force. Um good intentions but don't feel it is efficient or worthwhile um as this is a municipality and not a business. And then JP Vivvenencio 702 Wheelbridge Road as a um Cottage Grove resident is opposed to 6D and 6E. Um feels that we have the necessary tools tied to measurable infrastructure systems um for water and sewer but not for the law enforment law enforcement impact fee. um would like to better understand the approach to the residential only fee structure that is listed in the memo and also is writing um in the um it's quite a long statement but the also the debt reduction um committee is opposed to that um and says that we have the um proper tools in place already and includes a long list of citations questions. Is there anyone else on the Zoom call that would like to speak? We just ask that you raise your hand using the function at the bottom of your Zoom. Lisa, do you see anyone?

I'm not seeing any hands. Okay. Um, with that, we're going to move on to number five. Discuss and consider the minutes of the village board meeting on March 18th, 2026. Those meetings are linked as a PDF in the agenda. Cindy, I would move approval of the meeting um minutes as presented with one modification under the public citizens that um spoke. Um, both Michelle and Kevin Steppins, I believe their last name is spelled with E NS instead of A. I'll second.

All right. There's a motion by Severson and a second by Murphy to approve with one small correction. Any other discussion on the meeting minutes? All those in favor? I opposed. Motion carries. We're going to move on to number six, unfinished business. So, first up is um a Lindstrom acres development concept presentation. This is for feedback only from the board. So, I think Steve and Brian um if we can let them speak. Thank you. Yeah, this is Brian. Can you hear me? Yep, we can. Thank you.

Thanks. Uh so, we asked to put this on. We appreciate it. in order to uh provide an update uh and seek uh some feedback on what might be the next steps. And uh I just want to start by saying um I see that uh B the Banigans appear to be on the call and I want to say thank you to them publicly. their in their willingness to get together with us, talk through their concerns, and uh as a result, I think it's fair to report that um we've we've reached an agreement on on the major deal points uh that allows um you know, both of us to cooperative work move forward in a manner that's cooperative and and productive. So, appreciate their willingness to do that. And if they um you know, want to add anything to the conversation, you know, I'll leave that up to them. But um uh beyond that we we you know with that in mind you know we we acknowledge that they have a unique parcel surrounded by 120 developable acres that uh was part of uh the comprehensive plan of a development within the the village of Cottage Grove. Um so there are a couple of options that we're seeking some feedback on in terms of uh annexation parcels and annexation sequence. So one of them option A uh as provided was a uh a smaller annexation to initiate the process and that area was selected because of its you know proximity to the sewerable uh the gravity sewer area of the development. does not um kind of open the area immediately that would would plan for the park that would plan for the um um a lift station that would serve this general area. And then there's option B which is a a larger annexation which does allow for you know uh more master planning of the park of

the um storm water of the uh lift station area. uh and as well, you know, in our, you know, uh pending agreement uh with with the Vanigans, a a path that we can plan out that um gives them, you know, gives more time, you know, to to to kind of maneuver around them. And I think that's a benefit to everybody. But, uh we're flexible. You know, we're looking for some feedback as to what that might look like before something formal would come forward. All right, I'll open it up to board members for feedback.

Yes, Pete, I guess I I'll go ahead. I mean, I appreciate you uh kind of mapping out a couple different options. It looks, you know, uh the first option obviously is is pretty straightforward. Um the second option you talked about working with the Banigans. Um we're still looking at a very small section of the end of Meyers Road that's essentially town jurisdiction. So I'm wondering can you explain a little bit more about where you're at with the Vanigans and like you you said something about you're close to a some sort of um agreement. What what does that agreement look like or is this reflected in this uh option too? Sure. I I'll leave the material deal points kind of private in our agreement, but I I will say that it uh allows for a um logical path to annexation of um all of the Lindstöm property uh as well as a future annexation of the Banigan property um in a you know kind of a sequence manner, but also gives them the uh the timing and freedom to either take advantage of of of a guaranteed buyout by us of buying their home from them if they so choose or um or to remain in place. So there, you know, that's kind of the the gist of it. And then um as far as a a segment of the rightway, we're we're understanding and willing to work with the the village on how they would approach that. But the conversation was at least put in place that you know pending municipal services uh the majority of that road within the development w would come under the villages control.

Paula, you have your hand up. Thank you. Um question for Rick. I think he's online or village attorney. Um, in your opinion, does rendering to or option two, uh, meet the Wisconsin rule of reason for annexations?

Uh, so that's a good question. The I would say yes. The um caveat though is because it's unanimous, the the rule of reason actually wouldn't apply in this case. Like let's say like the town were to challenge the the annexation for some reason. Because it's unanimous, the only like considerations that a court would look at if it were the town challenging is whether or not it's contiguous and contained in the same county as the village. But generally, yes, this is going to be um like let's just say like this was not in that context. Generally, I would say that this is following the rule of reason. It's not an odd-shaped annexation. And it's not like a a balloon on a string, which sometimes people um the courts have said you can't like just have a small corridor that's like 10 ft wide and connect that to um some village island that you're creating out in the middle of town territory. Um so there's a lot of contiguity there. There's a significant border. Um, honestly like the shape is um, you know, it's not egregious by any means from some of the annexations that I've seen in my time. So, generally I'd say this follows um, the the rule of reason requirements.

Thank you. Other board members? Heidi, go ahead.

Thank you. um thanks for bringing these um options you've been thinking about forward and working with the Banigans to find uh you know a mutually beneficial path forward. Uh, one thing that I've been thinking about as chair of parks committee is, you know, if you were to proceed with the first option, uh, that whole neighborhood, it was sort of planned as it expands, a park would be in the very early phases because that area is, uh, kind of underserved. So, I think one of the benefits of the second option would be there would be parkland for kind of that whole portion of of the village if you were still going to have the park kind of in that um more southwestern section of the neighborhood. So, I definitely want to prioritize some kind of parkland in in the early phases um that you know the whole the whole area would benefit from. So, I guess that's my feedback. Um, if you were to proceed with the the first option, um, I definitely want to see some parkland in that.

Thank you. Yeah, I would agree with that statement about the parkland. I was wondering if the village engineer could just weigh in a little bit on the infrastructure needs between the two um, and lift station capacity. Yeah. Hi, Sydney. Can you hear me? Yes, I can.

So, yeah, this is Josh. Um, you know, as far as a lift station capacities standpoint, a lot of this development, we may have discussed it before, would all be kind of a temporary lift station. Um, some of it can flow by gravity back to back to the existing system to the to the east or I'm sorry to the west, but some of it may have to have a lift station, which would be kind of an interrum um in the sense of that if the east side or the ridge ridge lift station was ever installed to the south as development took place and headed north, it would pick this it would pick this area up um eventually sort of thing. So, um, capacity-wise, this is planned into the overall larger reach of that eastern side of the community, and in an interim situation, it would probably have to have a portion of it would have to have uh its own lift station in order to serve and pump back to the west. Um, what was your other question, Cindy? You said was it about

It's mostly about utility infrastructure. Yeah, I mean, water the water side of it. I mean, there's a as part of uh some of the in infrastructure to the to the west of it, there's some some larger mains that would continue to be looped, but it it's a pretty standard system. It would it would come in and it would be a grid network for streets and utility wise um that we would see throughout uh community over in that area. So, it seems um in that case fairly straightforward. I think everyone's number one question is always about traffic and obviously that comes at a much later stage in the process.

Yeah, and it does. I mean, if this was a large piece of it, you know, they're bringing in, if they were to bring in kind of the concept, the smaller concepts a little bit by a little bit. Um, we'd have to kind of look at traffic as it grew. If they were going to do a larger piece of it, we might ask for a traffic impact analysis. It's all really residential development. Um, there's nothing there that overall right off the bat makes me think like, oh my gosh, they're going to generate that much traffic. um residential development is a little different than your commercial side, but yes, it may be some things we want to consider in the future and how it how it impacts to to the west and to uh kind of um the main thorough far over on some of the signals and and some of the intersections as they get over to highway.

Yep. Thanks, Josh. Um Renee has her hand up.

Oh, you're still muted. Sorry about that. Um this um thank you for that Josh. This my uh question really leads off of kind of uh where you left off is that um the the intersection of VIS road and access point near Bachan Park. They're already points of interest for traffic safety. So um doing a traffic impact study I think is important. Um the other concern that I wanted to bring up is that the Lindstone uh Lindstrom project proposes adding up to 800 um units to our village. So if we annex these 80 acres uh without the ordinance of the impact fees, we're essentially asking our current residents to pay for the privilege of having their traffic doubled. Um and we need to really listen as a and as was mentioned early on in the conversation that they have uh been working with the neighbors. So that's great. But um concern about certainly density and to ensure that again growth pays for itself before um uh before we really make some solid decisions. Thank you.

Any other um trustees with feedback? Pete, do you want to talk?

Yeah, I I'm having a little problems with multiple screens here. I'm just looking at the at the plaid. And I guess the question maybe for Josh or maybe Kayla, Kyla. So the the Meyers Road access up to the the non-anexed Banigan section, which boy, it'd sure be cleaner if if we we annex that because you don't have a lot of things going on as far as multi multiple jurisdictions responsible for roadway. But I I think we can overcome that. The question really is going to the south. So from on the south of Myers Road all the way to BB, would that be then maintained by the town? And then once you get to this boundary of the annex property, then the culde-sac would be under um under village maintenance. Is it's I'm not quite clear how that would work.

Indeed. Forgive me. This is Josh. I'm on I'm only on my phone tonight, so I'm a little little access-wise and share-wise is a little hard for me. Um I'm not sure if Kyle's on. Um but as far as like Yeah. what would be in the town and what would be in the village that would those would have to be agreements and and discussed. I think, you know, a portion of that would still be Township Road as it headed to BB like you like you're saying, right? There would only be potentially a culde-sac or the upper portion of that would that would be village unless a bigger piece was incorporated in as part of this and Rick and Kyla might have to answer to that. But I know Kyla has some um some arrangements in a few other spots, Pete, where there's like some of this that goes on where hey, we'll we'll take care of we'll maintain, we'll plow sort of thing. But I I I don't know if I don't know if those details have been worked out.

So the way it's referenced on the way it's referenced on the on the uh conceptual plat is we've got Myers Road ghosted in. I guess the question maybe to Brian would be would the roads and and I I I forgive me I can't remember what the way it was laid out before but would the road any of the the properties or the plot the the lots tied in would would be serviceable then from village roads from either the north or the west so that there would kind of be this boundary between town and village and there wouldn't need to be this crossboundary service.

Uh ye yes to I guess um we didn't reprovide the the original concept, but Meyers Road would no longer be a dead end culde-sac. It would connect into other um village network of road structure. Um but and like Josh mentioned, there are, you know, often neighboring municipalities come to certain agreements when when municipal boundaries kind of cut across the road as to who maintains what and what, you know, what transition point. Those are all to be determined in kind of future developers agreements, I think, as far as I would guess. But um yes, the but guess to answer the other question, it'll all be connected and the road network will will make sense. um and not just be left standing.

Gotcha. Thank you. And then Brian, while you're on, can you just clarify this is about a 250 um unit subdivision, correct? Yes, about 250 is what were proposed in the original concept. Okay, Heidi, you had your hand up before.

Thank you. Um the one question I had was sort of answered in that road conversation. Um, the other question I have is I guess following up on that 250 about how long do you think would you estimate and I know it's hard to tell with um, you know, the market, the housing market, what's going to how fast um, absorption will be, but about how long do you expect the build out of that to take?

Of course. Yeah. Hard to always predict, but that is the business we're in. So, um, uh, 250 single family, all single family homes is what we've proposed for sale. Uh, and my best estimate would be build out of about eight years. Give or 30 to 40 a year would be probably the the the most uh the fastest pace. Um, I think it's very reasonable to kind of pencil out about 30 a year.

Thank you. If I could just make a quick comment on the the road question that Pete had. Um, so basically, so the culde-sac, I guess that exists now all the way to that southern sort of like boundary line of the parcel. So that would all be in the village, right? We I don't think we would um ask or require that they um bring in the whole road that extends all the way to BB. I would just have a little little concern about just sort of that little remnant, I guess. Um, but I mean, typically for something like that, municipalities will enter into like some sort of road maintenance agreement just to cover that, especially where it's like it's a dead end road. Well, it's a dead end road right now, but it it's basically like one little portion is going to be in the town. In all likelihood, they're not going to want to maintain it. Um and they would probably ask the village to snowplow it. Um would be my guess. But um yeah, typically some sort of road maintenance agreement um would would make sense. But because there's other connectivity um it may um concerns there might be lessened, but um we can certainly have that conversation with the town if this were to move forward. Any final feedback from any of the trustees or from staff? All right. Well, Brian and Steve, thank you for joining us tonight.

Thank you all for your feedback. We appreciate the time. All right. We're going to move on to discuss and consider a request from the Manona Grove School District for approval of the site plan amendment for an addition of a paved bus loop around CGS. There's a long list of attachments in um in the agenda and there's a couple new ones which includes the presentation for tonight and then also we had solicited um trustee questions and the superintendent Dr. Frederick is on tonight and she provided us with written answers but is also here to kind of walk us through um the site plan. So do you have are you able to share your screen for your presentation?

I am. Yes, I am. First of all, thanks for um allowing us to be here. I'm Tanya Frederick, the superintendent of Manona Grove School District. Um did prepare a couple um documents. I shouldn't have said I could share because now it's not letting me share.

You should be able to share, Tanya. Uh I think that because I'm not logged in in our system, it's blocking me. It's Let me try one more time. Otherwise, Lisa, I might ask you to pop them up. I apologize it's not letting me. I should have tried earlier. Lisa, is there any way that you could open that very first one, the slide deck? I'm sorry. Yep. I just asked Ingga if she could get that up. So, we'll we'll work on that for you.

Yeah. Okay, perfect. Um well, in the meantime, um my understanding is at the last meeting there were some questions related to some of the operational um aspects um by the school district. So, I am joined by um Anna Blake and Bill Miller are back with you tonight to answer some of those more technical questions. Um but I wanted to talk a little bit about obviously as we're doubling enrollment at that site. Um it does require some physical changes to the physical plant, but then also procedural changes um as we're moving forward. And so lots of people on the call have either had kids at that building or in the past or currently. So kind of have a vision of how it's worked. Um obviously we have to make some uh strategic changes to that so that we can accommodate. So, wanted to walk through some of those things um that are kind of more the operational parts and then as we um move through that any technical questions that you have for Bill or Anna around the um site plan, thank you. Yeah, if you just want to roll it forward to the second slide. Great. Um, so some of the things that we'll talk about tonight are some of the start and end time changes as long and also the exit and um, entry process and then any questions that you have about the site plan. So multi-layer approach anytime we do anything around safety it's you know how do we layer on multiple things because we want to have um you know reinforce as much as possible um how can we keep things safe so as I said we have an infrastructural change with the physical loop and then also some procedural changes obviously our number one goal is to eliminate any of those unmon unmonitored times of kids coming and going into school and then also to def

de de um fragment cars versus possessions um versus um buses when we think about those transit zones. And then also, you know, obviously the physical design is one thing, but it the safety part of it really comes down to our staff and the the practices and policies that we have in place um to move forward with this. So, a couple different things um around how do we separate students and vehicles. So, um, we'll walk through a couple places where there's some perimeter, um, permanent fencing that is put in place. Um, I think now people envision we're going to have a bus drive through the playground. Um, which is not not the plan. Um, that lower playground that people think about, we'll have a fence between that and the bus lane. Um, in addition, there's gates on each end of that bus loop um that would a market that it is for bus and emergency um, vehicles only. and those gates would be open for um drop off and pickup. Other than that, those gates would be closed on both ends of those loops. Um and I know there was a question around a retaining wall that um would sit on the south side where there would be a guardrail um well playground fence, driveway, um another f guard rail, fence, and then retaining wall. So, we can walk through that, too, because I know there was a question there. And so, hopefully walk you through what that looks like will be helpful. So, in the morning, um, one of one of the things that has been a past practice and, um, not not a great one, is that kids gather on the playground before staff is on site. And so, there's a chunk of time that is unmonitored of students because staff hasn't even started their workday yet. So, um, as we move forward into next year, uh, 7:25 support staff would arrive. 7:30 is when we would um say that's when our doors

open and we take take possession of kids. Um at that time, that's also when um the gates would open for the buses and from 7:30 to 7:45 is that soft sp start because our bell rings at 7:45 for the start of the school day. So that 15 minute window to accept kids in um coming into the classroom they wouldn't be on any of the playgrounds because the playgrounds would be closed um because the buses coming through and then um we would get that get that morning off to a start. So um pedestrian traffic you know would come right to the front door um car traffic to the front of that circle and then obviously bus traffic to the back to come into the back of the building. Um again the controlled access really being able to um have those uh exit and entrance loops stopped. Um in the middle of the day we would have the uh 4K buses midday routes would come to the front of the building because we do want that traffic loop closed um during the school day to prevent you know any cars coming through there. Obviously, it would only be used for emergency vehicles um during that time, not to be considered a public shortcut for any reason. Um afternoon kind of backwards process. 2:35 we would close the playground to um and then open those gates. 2:45 is dismissal. And so um kind of working it backwards. Uh playgrounds would be will close the loop would be opened. car traffic would be coming in. Um, you know, we use that double lot because we can queue many cars off of the road and then the buses can line up to the back and then 245 dismissal and then after everybody's cleared, then those gates can be closed again. Um, and that allows for, you know, as we talked about, we do have um repare and after school Yare there. Um, again, there will be a a

fence on that lower playground to keep it from that route, but as another layer of protection, but being able to have that um for community use as well as those other, um, entities. And then, um, there was a question about the loop versus the cultist stack. Um, we were able to have a very large meeting with all of our emergency services and the city as well with the engineers. Um, and it was it was really determined that that loop around the school um is a much safer um perspective for emergency and EMS vehicles. And the other thing is to separate the bus traffic from from the student traffic um and being able to have that um gate restriction and then the um perimeter fencing. Um, all of the fencing would have visual transparency so you can see through it because we still want to have that sight line. And then again thinking about that infrastructure paired with any of our procedures. And then um if you want to click open that map, Ingga, this is a scaledback version of the map that has many of the technical things taken off of it because I think it's easy to get lost in um you know all of the different components of the grading and and those different things. So wanted to be able to show show that so we could talk through a few of those things. So, um, starting on the north at the top of the map, that is where, um, the the buses would enter. Oh, wait. Sorry, Bill. Is that right? That's the

Yes, they would enter from the north.

Yeah. Okay. My my arrows are a little dark there. So um gate would be opened entering from the north. Um there is a fence that would um be between that loop on the north and um where the cars come in the other direction. So fence in between there. Buses would come looping around. They would e uh line up. Kids would exit about the middle of the back of the building um and then come around and exit um on the south end. Um, and if you can see, um, there at the bottom of the map to the south, um, that small playground on the bottom, um, that would be fenced in from the time of the curve all the way to the other section of the building. Um, and then there would be, um, on the other side of that would then be the guard rail, um, fence and retaining wall. And then the buses would exit out the other end. And then as I said in the middle of the day for those 4K routes, I think there's two that pick up and two that drop off, they would come right into the front um so that we can continue to leave that playground closed. So that is what we prepared as as far as walking through what will um entry and exit to the building and kind of changes to staffing um with the the boarding and having kids come directly into the building um when we take responsibility of them um starting at 7:30.

Thank you Tanya. Um Josh, do you think you could just um give us a brief overview of because you hadn't had a chance to complete your um engineer reports um at the last meeting.

Yeah. And and just seeing kind of what they have proposed here, I think it addresses a lot of our when it was kind of engineers talking and and Kyla and her staff and and Aaron talking with with their staff. um you know, separating on the northern entrance now separating it just to be the bus loop um and then having just kind of the car loop to the south and having the bus loop on its own gated on both ends like um the superintendent mentioned and then having a sidewalk connection in the north. I saw that on this new this new exhibit. Um having a little bit of two-way traffic as they come in going north south into the lots. I think they've addressed a lot of our comments initially. I think we we as as always in all the staff we have minor uh recommendations and they come back for final plans with a little bit of ADA access and some connectivity but overall this is this is kind of from my first glance really kind of captures what um some of those conversations that we had with them earlier. So um on on on the transportation and kind of in access wise side of it it looks it looks very clean. So,

all right. Open it up to trustee comments and questions. Chris, you have your hand up. Yeah. Um, can you guys hear me? Yep. Okay. Um, first of all, I apologize if you have answered this question. I have kids in the background who do not want to get ready for bed, so um, I may have missed it, but uh, the permanent fence from the lower playground to the upper playground. So, does that mean that there's going to be no way to get from the lower playground to the upper playground? Um, no. So, the um fence that comes around on the lower playground will be, let's see, west of that loop. And then there's a gate that you would go through to get to the upper playground.

Oh, okay. Okay. And the gate will be closed at at drop off times or drop off pickup. Yeah, a couple different gates. Um, I think we're talking about what are the gates that are at the end of the loop right from the streets. And then there's the internal fencing that you think about that lower playground where the littles all go. Um, how do that be fenced in? And then in order to go from that lower playground to the upper playground, it would be a pedestrian gate.

Okay. Okay. Uh, that does make me feel better about this loop. Yeah. Um the fences on the end is are those going to be like locked with a key and emergency services are going to have keys for that or is it just going to be like closed and they can you know bust through it with their vehicle if they need to in case of emergency at this point that what it would be we're thinking the manual ones. Okay, that's all I have. Um I I definitely feel a lot better with the fence there um separating the playgrounds. So um something we really need to get done. My daughter's going to be going to that school next year. So, um, I know we're on a tight tight time crunch, so um, yeah, I don't have anything else to lose time. Thank you. Thanks, Chris.

Anyone else have questions? Pete, go ahead. Um, Tanya, thanks for walking us through um and and working towards solutions. some of the questions we had. I guess as I look at the the the the the layout you showed us, you have the Eastern playground and in the morning if there's older kids that walk to school and they go play in that playground, how do we you you mentioned uh closing the playground, how do we manage that so that those kids that come early aren't there and then there's this cross traffic that could potentially h when when they're trying to get in the building and the buses are still maybe in in the eyeway.

Yeah. Uh, I mean, I think one of the things we have to think about is um really making sure that our families are clear about when there are staff on site. I think one of the things I've come to realize is, you know, because right now those are first and second graders that are at that building and they, you know, some kids are unsupervised there at that point. At 7:25, obviously there will be um staff that come in. Um, some are stationed in the back. One of their jobs will be to clear that playground and then obviously we'll have to begin to have some conversations. We don't want kids walking to school through that back playground. We want them to go to the sidewalk and come up to the front. It's going to take us a little bit of time and it's probably going to take us a little bit of re retraining and thinking about uh routes into school. Um but I have to say the majority of our our kids are so little that parents are are very heavily involved.

Yeah, that's good. I mean it's it's just those exceptions. So you're saying that you would have staff involved with working on that because you know obviously if it can it will it's a matter of when. Um okay. Exactly. Yep. So the the other question I had was um prior to all the reconfiguration school what was the peak enrollment at Cottage Grove Elementary back several years ago? What was that peak at and how does it compare to where?

I I can't speak to that. Um it's it's not full. It'll be at like 80%. Um, I do believe when before Granite Ridge was built and they reconfigured, it was it was pretty full and there was some uh trailer classrooms. I think um before my time, Pete, I wouldn't want to answer that question. No problem. Happy to send you an email.

No, no. I I was just sort of curious as it relates to kind of the the surge. I mean, enrollment went down and then we're back up and now we've got, you know, all sorts of infrastructure issues. But, um, I I guess the other question I had was kind of revolves around the first one. So there will be kids that walk to school and you've got a really good plan with timelines, but you know a lot of times the that timeline per the minute it's not going to align. So how do we keep kids that arrive early that walk from going towards the back of the school or will they be able to get to the small playground that's behind the fence or how do you envision that handling?

Um we would expect them to come up to the front and they would wait. You know, first of all, we don't want parents to be bringing their kids unsupervised before 7:30, right? We're going to have to work hard at that and then work with the families that um you know, are are trying to do an additional plan. The kids are going to have to come into the front and wait in that on that sidewalk where before the vestibule. So, walkers will enter the front. Yes, everyone. Yes. The only people that come in the back would be those buses. Okay. And and so those fences that are on the end of the the loop, is there more barriers to prevent pedestrians from actually walking back there if they come early? Just in terms of a a control?

No, there's not. It's going to have to be human control and and signage, right? Where it's like buses and emergency vehicles only. There's not any walkway and so it is road. I know it is path. So that is something in our back to school video of how to approach school is going to have to be clear. And again, I mean, it's gonna it's going to take time. Gotcha. Um, and then the last question I had was on the car queuing. Looking at the document that you shared, and we've talked about this before,

there's there's an expectation of 134 drop offs, give or take, based on a lot of the assumptions that have been done. Correct. That's what was in the in the memo. So, if there's 71 cars on site, that leaves 63 potentially, and they're all not going to come at once, but 63 cars queued up um coming all having to come from the south would actually extend towards actually through the intersection at Taylor. Now, again, they're not all going to come at once, but if it did, it would and it would cause some traffic issues. So, I guess the one thing that that I would ask is, you know, there's a lot of people that live on the north side and if everything has to come from the south, is there a traffic plan that shows where they should go, where they make a U-turn, what neighborhoods they would go through if they're coming from the north side of town and they need to come up and and enter this process from the south.

Yeah, I know. Um, when we had originally sat down with the municipalities, there had been lots of different ideas about mapping that out for families to show that as part of the back to school. Here's kind of what we're looking at. Um, so that will be something that's going to have to get penciled out.

Yeah. You know, and I I'll be honest, I kind of feel like that that's really important, right? because we've had a lot of issues with that Taylor um and intersection and now we're talking about because of this plan coming from the south. It puts more pressure on there and I don't know Josh if you've done any topline work but there's going to have to be cars coming to the south and doing a U-turn or coming down through the neighborhoods and taking a left at the wheelbridge and intersection. I mean, I think traffic input or a traffic impact assessment is absolutely critical in terms of the traffic flow that's being proposed to prevent all the neighbors that are east of N on Taylor to be able to get out to work at the same time all this activity is going to be going on.

Yeah. And Pete, I haven't done a, you know, a full level kind of traffic analysis of of that overall. I've looked at the stuff that they've proposed and I agree with you. I mean, I I had that comment early on and in and some of the reviews of there's going to be people coming from the north that are going to have to take an alternative route, right? Ali Street is probably kind of a natural alternative route. A U-turn somewhere to the south if they're if they're heading down N and and don't take Ali is going to be another one. Um, so it will take a little bit of of training and teaching and and um you know, there'll be some queueing and and some understanding of how that takes place. The one good thing is they do have quite a bit more the way they have that that parking lot laid out. They have quite a bit more space to queue in than they've had in the past.

Is it more than the 71 that was laid out in the memo? Um I think they may have a little more now, but I don't know if they're engineers or they could speak to that. I did not I did not look at it since the revisions to see how much extra space they have. I thought it was in the hundreds. Yeah, I think it's more than 70

15 or something. The memo said 71. So on the 1.6 million, the option C, it said 71. And I know there was a little bit of work on on uh the traffic flow in that lot, but it showed 7134 cars at 63 extra that would have to come. And that's going to be about 1,260 ft, which if it all happened at once, and I know it will not all happen at once, but it goes well through the Wheelbridge Taylor intersection at end, which is one of the most challenged intersections that we've got for a number of other reasons. So, I think we did add we got additional cars into the parking lot because the queuing wraps around that median. Yep.

And that's how we added so many extra vehicles. That was part of the workshop that happened at plan commission and meeting. Yeah. Bill, Bill or Anna, can you address that question? And then Renee and then Heidi, I see both of you.

Go ahead. So right now um in our current layout we have queuing for approximately 34 cars. Um we would be bumping up to the 71 that was in that um initial proposal. So we'd be essentially doubling um but it did not expand beyond that with our most recent changes. So we'd be sitting at approximately 71 still. And then how many cars could go from the entrance of CGS down to the wheeled bridge? Uh, great question.

Because if that is going to be a problem, like Pete says, we're going to want additional signage like not blocking the intersection or something there. Um, from the concept, it was about 34 cars that could stack from the entrance down to Taylor Street. Right. I mean, a lot of times you'll stack about 20 feet a car, right, would be kind of a an average measurement. Um, and and forgive me, Pete, again, I'm on my phone tonight, so I can't make I can't gauge that distance. Um,

from the entrance uh of CGS to Taylor Street, it's 768T. So, that's like 36 cars. Yeah. and we're gonna have 63 cars excess. So, I mean, there's going to be some potential for some crazy congestion there.

I I got a lot of concerns with that and unless we've got a real good plan. Um, and you also got all the traffic and I don't know if we've done that. How many cars would be coming from the north that have to somehow get northbound on N coming from the north side? Are they going to come down N and U-turn in people's driveways? Are they going to come down Ali Street? I'm not quite clear how that's going to flow. And if they come down Ali, then you're going to have, you know, this kind of crazy u convergence of the cars from Taylor coming from Wheelbridge, the north traffic all coming into that intersection.

Renee, do you want to go?

Yes. I just wanted to make sure that um um I didn't want to interrupt Pete. So, I also had written down um my concern for a trafficked impact study, I think, um for many of the reasons that we've discussed tonight and and previously. And I have um a second, and this is maybe more of a Josh question. So, if I'm looking at this correctly, the retaining wall on the north and residents to that area, and the retaining wall is obviously there to um prevent water and and for safety, but is there any concern at all with water pooling um or or in neighboring uh residents um yards. So that that was a question and uh so maybe Josh if you could speak to that

Renee you said to the north or the south. Um I might have my corrections mixed up here. I'm sorry. So like it's to the to the south. South. Sorry. The the other Yeah, exactly. That's the um cemetery. Okay. Is what that abuts.

Okay. And Okay. Okay. So, I'm I'm looking at that from I'm sorry, my my mistake, but I just I just want Yes. So, I guess those neighbors won't complain too much. Um the other question I have was so there's an exhibit that shows the capacity for uh 10 buses in in a queue. So, you know, I guess what is what is the outline plan if there's another bus that's delayed or um or maybe um garbage or pelletary or somebody uh one of those larger vehicles. I guess what's the safety traffic plan or uh protocol for that? And then my last question would be um where's going to be a designated snow storage if this um I if um there's on-site queuing. So does that mean that there's going to be reduced capacity to the point that traffic will be uh forced back out into the public roadway? So maybe if you could speak to how that will be handled because I guess snow in Wisconsin is something we have to think about. Yeah, as far as the um more buses um that that loop cues more than 10 buses. Um you know, they would just be backed up further and wait to drive forward to drop off. Um you know, in all of this, we are hoping that more people will be willing to put their kids on the bus because we're no longer crossing um between families between the two buildings. And I know many many families had not want like weren't putting their kids on the bus because of the length of the route and because it was crossing town. Um, and so we are hoping to, you know, we want to eliminate as much car traffic as possible. Um, Bill, do you want to talk to where the snow goes up on that end?

Yes. Um, so obviously that was a concern of mine being in the facilities department as well. Um, along the south end where we're going to have that retaining wall, it will be a open guard rail so to speak, so there will be some passage for snow to go off to the south along that stretch. Um, but the bulk of that would go to the upper athletic fields and to the south of the upper playground. So, if you're looking towards the athletic fields, that would be more of a think of like a gutter system, like a rolled curb, something we're able to push snow off of to keep that away from the sidewalks where students would be released from the buses and allow us to stack up more during our heavier snowfalls. Thank you.

Renee, do you have any other questions? I do not. Thank you. Heidi, you're next.

Thank you. Uh, we've been talking a lot about the Taylor Wheelbridge Main Street intersection. And I think that these um are very important um updates to make to the site plan. And I don't want to hold that up because we do have this, you know, this needs to happen. Um, so it's ready for the school year next year. But I do I would like to send, you know, not just because of the school traffic and we have made improvements at that intersection with the um rapid uh flashing beacon for pedestrians. Um but continue to send this back to public works to continue to monitor this intersection, kind of make it a priority that we stay on top of um you know improvements that we need to make um in the future. So, I guess I would like to see public works continue to talk about that and continue to uh evaluate and make recommendations up to the board for um any other considerations we should have with in the total traffic impacts.

Yeah. And Heidi, I wouldn't mind adding to that. I don't know if we fully addressed Pete, you had, you know, you had some concerns about the traffic side of it. And, you know, it's hard when you come to these these traffic impact analysis. Um, you look at them, you see the amount of traffic they're generating, you see the time period over when they're generating that traffic. Um, a lot of times it's on those peak hours and then you the intersection um that we've all been talking about, right? It's it's been the main tailor well bridged intersection for quite a while based on different types of developments. And you look at well, okay, it's a two-way stop today. Does it need to be a four-way stop or a um signalized intersection? And you got to look at like traffic warrants for a signalized intersection. And the warrants are are kind of hard to meet. You know, you need an 8 hour peak or a 4-hour peak or a 1 hour peak or school special traffic peak with with pedestrians and others. But I'll tell you in in a lot of communities it's really tough around almost all schools because the peaks are so small they have a hard time meeting the warrants. They're within 15 to 20 minutes it's chaos and then it's clear. And everybody always kind of goes back and forth of what's needed, what's not. And I'm not I'm not trying to sway people in saying something is needed or something is not, but it may be one of those things that we do need to monitor as Heidi's saying, and we do need to look at um you know, limiting eliminating parking on on that side of the street obviously and understanding how people are going to come to and from traffic and having the district talk to their to their um families and how they drop off and when they drop off and to see maybe if more people start to ride the bus. It's it's not it's one of those things that you may have to monitor to truly understand. U I'm not going to say it's going to come without a little bit of heartburn at first, but it may be hard even with some traffic analysis at this point to even say that anything else is warranted. You know, I fear they'll go

through that and they'll probably say, "Well, it probably works and it's only 15 minutes in the morning and 15 minutes at night that it's really bad." Um, and it's hard to make a major traffic improvement that impacts the other 23 and a half hours a day um, based on those 15 minutes. I'm not saying that's a definite that that wouldn't happen that we need to do something, but sometimes it's hard to to warrant if that makes sense. All right, Chris, you have your hand up. Yeah, I guess my question is about timeline. Um, do you know how long um from approval of the site plan it's going to take to vote to bid and then construction until it's completed?

We uh if we can get going right now, we will be complete. Our goal is by the 26th of August to have all the cleanup done because that is open house night.

Okay. Uh Josh, do you know how long a traffic impact study would take? Um it you know most of them won't take that long. It's a matter of counting doing existing traffic counts at some of the intersections both north and south and having like a traffic engineer look at the amount of added traffic to that. I would say a month at best uh a few weeks if if they act pretty fast, but um it's something that would have to then be reviewed afterwards as well and then kind of um spoken to at one of these committee levels. I'm gonna let Paula ask her question and then I'm going to turn it over to Rick to keep us on track with this agenda item.

Did Chris not have followup? Okay. Um so my question actually was going to be for Rick. Um so let's say and first of all um Tanya I want to thank you for the extra work that you all put into this and and taking our comments and the fencing and I think it's gone a long way. So, thank you for that. Um, so for Rick, you know, we we have a good plan, right, that the school district has put together, but what happens if it doesn't work or what happens if um it maybe works for a little bit, but then Amazon opens and traffic becomes a bigger concern? Um, what recourse do we have if we approve the site plan to be able to go back retroactively um on this decision? Yeah. So, I guess just a a couple of things. So, once the site plan's approved, I mean, it's it's approved going forward, but um so, you know, as other developments happen and traffic increases, the communities have different strategies, I guess, for how they they sometimes address um public infrastructure upgrades. So some have a um a system basically where you know you you pay for the anticipated future impacts of your your development. Um others will use like the special assessment process. So you know let's say that the um in the future we determine the there needs to be upgrades to that intersection. any properties that are benefiting from those um improvements, you can impose special assessments against those. And what's interesting about special assessments is they're not technically

taxes. So, they would be um you know, the school would get a you know, usually it's not paying taxes, but it would get a special assessment bill if they would um found to be you know, their property is benefiting from intersection upgrades from there. Um one thing one thing I do want to mention is just to sort of keep in mind of what what decision making you know um discretion we have here. So when we think about like reszoning that's a legislative decision where we've got sort of a broad dis a broad array of discretion and we can impose a lot of um sort of requirements on reszoning decisions. site plan, your discretion is more limited in basically we're looking at this to see does it comply with all of our ordinances. We're really focusing sight specific. Um so, you know, other intersections and traffic, you know, we are looking at how do we impose conditions on the site plan itself to address that. So, if we have a a traffic impact study, let's say I guess Josh or maybe you would know, but like let's say it says that we need like there's a warrant for upgrading the Taylor whe there the I don't know like how that would affect the site plan though like how does that you know the warrant for the increased intersection you know traffic improvements How does that affect the site plan? Um I I don't know if that would say like there needs to be, you know, better traffic control on the site and I don't know how, you know, we would impose conditions on trying to improve that, right? And so, but I guess to your point, Paul, that would not be like something we can do retroactively to say we're changing the site plan afterwards.

Thank you. And I know both Renee and um Chris mentioned a traffic impact analysis um and you know the idea that it would slow it down by a month. Um I just I wonder you know from the other trustees if there is a desire to require that. Um I think it would probably behoove us to do so especially if we don't have recourse um on the back end but I' I'd love feedback on that. Renee has her hand up. You're still on mute.

I have a question regarding um EMS. So, I I remember the memo that Chief Archable sent out on I think it was right around the 1st of March. Um but I'm I'm I'm thinking and I could be wrong so correct me that um his memo um um pointed out that um that was provided early in March that this was after the initial traffic designs were created. So I'm curious if these current designs have been updated to reflect the fire chief's uh recommendations. Um, and if not, does that put anybody in any liability position to be not in compliance with fire codes?

Would you like the fire department to weigh in on it? Yes. Fire department leadership online. I'm not sure, Anna. That was feedback that um you guys got and used, correct? Yeah. So, the feedback we received from fire and EMS was that they needed a 20 foot wide drive lane. So, we had updated that, but I believe um that was the only comments from that initial review. I believe that is correct as well.

Hey, this is April from the fire department. Chief Archbald's here too. Um if you'd like us to comment, we can. Yeah. Can you please provide your opinion?

Yeah. So there's a variety of different requirements related to access roads that we included in that document and that included width, included depth, it includes heights, it includes grade. So all of those items were included in that document. So, it wasn't it wasn't just with it was a variety of different items um that would have be included in access roads, but I believe Josh and Aaron both went through that and and have kind of identified those needs also. I'm not sure if Chief Lang is on. He might be over at another meeting.

No, I'm here. I'm hoping my headphones work. Can you hear me? Yes, we can. Yeah, we have no specific guidelines for that and would follow what the fire department said with 20 or 24 feet wherever it landed at. Um, and as far as I knew, those adjustments were made through the review process. I do want to add

um the uh in November when we had kind of our all hands- on deck meeting in the very beginning of all this, we did ask Kyla to do um a traffic count at Ali Street and I think it's Donna Road. Um and so we do have those traffic counts that um I know that she's looked at. Um, we could, again, I think Heidi's suggestion of sending some of these items like the um intersection monitoring, maybe those traffic counts and the I would still like to see the no parking during the school um drop off pickup times um along end there too. Um but I think that that would be appropriate to send that to to public works. Those are my comments. Um Heidi, you have your hand up.

Yep. Thank you. Uh, I guess I I just want to be realistic about the timeline that we're working with and the school's ability. Not that we should rush a decision because I think we have made a lot of great improvements on this. Um, but I just want to kind of take a step back here that this this school district has made an operational decision to consolidate the schools, move uh, you know, 4K through 2 grade to Cottage Grove School. This will be happening next school year. Um so we need we have a responsibility to make this the safest um possible. Um you know according to the recent projections um that I've seen as of March 16th uh we're going from 295 kids at the school to 447. So that's an additional 152 kids which does sound significant. However, I don't feel that even if every single one of those kids that's moving to the school, 152 cars, I I mean, I would be interested to hear Josh's opinion if 152 additional cars is going to make a significant difference um in traffic counts that's going to suddenly require, you know, a signalized intersection or something along those lines. I think that this is probably a more long-term situation um to monitor and have public works determine um what would be the you know the traffic threshold to um continue. And as we heard earlier from Rick that we do have ability to special assess properties that are benefiting from um an improvement in an intersection. Um, I think the biggest risk is that we do nothing here or we don't have it done in time for the school year and then we're trying to educate people how to access the school once without the without the project done and then how to access it after. Um, I think it would be best if we start out on the right foot and um monitor this intersection. We can't

charge the school for traffic that may or may not result from an Amazon project in the future. Um, I think the in my opinion the best um forward would be to make this project be safe for the start of next school year and continue to monitor this intersection um through our public works committee and assess as appropriate um in the future for any needed improvements. Are there any final thoughts um from any other other trustees? period.

Um, yeah, I guess you know, a couple comments. So, so Josh, you said it's a 15-inute period. Periods are short. Totally agree with that. But it's those times of chaos is where the risks go up. And there's a lot of things that we don't know. As I look at the at the village map and I look at where the most of these cars are going to come from, most of them are going to come from the north. There's very few that are going to come up in. So, I think some of the requirements and and I don't disagree with some of your comments you made, Heidi. Um, this is an important initiative for the school. I mean, there's some other issues I have with the loop, but that really the safety elements I'm going to leave to Tanya and her team. Um, but I do think that no parking lane is absolutely critical. So I would say in terms of what we do with public works because if you've got cars stopped on N queued up 30 cars, we can't stop normal traffic from going up N. Particularly with the advent of the opening of Amazon and everybody else trying to get up to the interstate to go to work or whatever the case may be at that time in the morning. We just cannot allow this thing to turn into a traffic nightmare. And that's where I firmly believe that we should have done a traffic impact assessment before we actually ma make a motion or move on this just because we owe it to our residents to make sure that we've got good safe flowing roads. And right now there's there's a lot of unknowns as it relates to where this traffic goes, where they're supposed to turn around. There isn't a good flow. They're going to come down in they're going to have to be making a U-turn which is going to create, you know, other exceptions as it relates to traffic flow. So, I mean, the one thing that I do find and and I I don't know Heidi if you said it or Cindy, a no parking lane during this period is absolutely critical so that we don't have um the type of uh traffic jam that's just inevitable. My two cents.

All right. So, I think we've heard quite a bit on this. It is a discuss and consider tonight. If someone can put a motion together. Um, I would make a motion to approve the request from Nagrove School District for approval of site plan amendment uh for the addition of the PA bus loop um located at 470 North Main Street uh with associated improvements within the existing parking lot with staff conditions and the uh no parking zone during school hours um south of the school to the intersection with Taylor.

I'll second. All right. There's a motion by Murphy and a second by Stowa. Um, any other discussion here, Chris? I guess my question here is, uh, could we proceed with the site plan and a traffic impact analysis at the same time and get the results before construction's completed? because I don't want to delay this because I know we have a pretty tight timeline. Um, and pushing it back by a month for the traffic fact analysis is not going to help that at all.

Yeah. So, I guess to Chris's question, I believe we could impose a condition like that, but I guess the the question would be is what's the the end result, right? So, if we impose the traffic impact analysis, um I guess I don't know if it it would actually like have site plan suggestions. I mean, likely it's going to be like if there's any sort of relevance, right? It's going to be the the N uh Taylor Wbridge Road intersection. So like as far as like imposing conditions on that I mean that is uh yes

maybe I mean let's let's let me let me throw out the scenario right um

I I looked at the DOT traffic numbers for N and in 2015 there were 7500 vehicles on N. They put out strips they put them out for a week or two uh every five two to five years. They put them out again last summer in 2025. There's 7,300 vehicles. So, there really hasn't been that many growth and it's pretty steady over the last 10 years on end right at the school, almost right at the school. When you look at their traffic maps, you can do look at it online. Um, let's say we we do traffic impass analysis and it shows that 70 I agree with Pete, there's going to be more people that go down alley or other places and have to loop around and come back up through through that intersection. Um maybe it's not 152 extra students, maybe it's half of that because some riding the bus. Let's say it's somewhere between 70 and 150 extra trips um over that peak period. Um usually a peak period when you look at traffic numbers of that 7300 vehicles that are going past that school during a day, usually an hour peak period is around 10% of that. So 700 and let's say you're contributing another 70 to 150, 10% to 20% more. Let's say the TIA comes back and says, you know, it doesn't need a signal, but it's close to a signal. I mean, is a school district going to have to pay $300,000 for a signal, or are they going to come back and say, hey, we're producing 10 to 20% more traffic, and is the village going to kick in the other percentage of that because it's not our traffic. Um, usually that's the same thing a developer does. And I guess everybody's under that understanding. That comes back to Rick. What's the commitment? You know, how much traffic are they contributing to an intersection, right? Of, you know, is the village then ready to move forward with it or is it all in the school district? I think they would need to know that moving into a potential signalized intersection that could cost them. I'm just spitballing $300,000. Do you know what I mean?

Right. Because I don't think we could require the school district to cover the whole cost, right? Because we're just talking about a site plan amendment. So really we're focusing on the site layout that they're proposing. Right. Right. They may change traffic impacts, but it's probably not going to be more than 10% during a peak hour likely. You know, just my gut take on on what I'm seeing on traffic numbers here.

Yeah. But today, Josh, we've got traffic from the north, traffic from the south entering the site. and the proposed the site layout and then the the the site plan is forcing all the traffic that enters the that site to come from the south. So that's a little bit of an amplifier to the numbers you're throwing at and it adds directional change on vehicle traffic which I don't have a flavor for it and I just feel we need we we owe to our our residents and the people that use these roads coming through here that that we don't create a 15minute train wreck every morning and it's that that's my concern and you know I know we need to move quickly in order to support the school district but um not having a good handle on on some of these questions on traffic is very concerning. I don't disagree with Pete. I mean, it was one of my first comments um that you can see in some of my correspondence back was what kind of traffic information does the district have and where is it going? Right. So, I'm not disagreeing with you on that. There is a motion and a second does not include a traffic impact analysis, but it does include some other um staff direction. Are there any amendments to the motion? Otherwise, we're going to do a roll call vote.

Can you um can we repeat the motion, please? Sure. Oh, and Heidi has her hand up. Sorry. Um, I guess before Oh, sure. Go ahead, Lisa. Sorry. Uh, motion by Murphy to approve the request as indicated on the the agenda with staff conditions and no parking zone during school hours south of the school to tailor intersection.

Go ahead. I would be, yeah, I would be um willing to add a traffic impact analysis to that motion um if the board feels that's a strong um I don't want to hold up the approval because I do think that these improvements would make the site significantly more safe for access for this coming school year, which is not that many months away. Um, and so I don't think that we should hold up the site plan and we can't, it sounds like we can't require um, you know, that off-site because it's a site plan approval. Is that right, Rick? We can't require those off-site improvements. But I, you know, understanding that traffic could be important. And if that's something the board feels important, I could amend my motion to include that as well.

Yeah. I I don't know if we could necessarily require the offsite improvements just because we're we're amending a an existing site plan. I mean, if we were talking about a reszone or or something along those lines, um you know, we can certainly evaluate it, I suppose, but it it's it would it's not something that would typically be in um included in like a site plan approval. Sure. But the information we could require the traffic impact analysis and then that would help inform us later if we want to do an assessment to the properties. Is that kind of

correct? I think that would be the way to do it to kind of recover those costs in the future. Sure. Well, then I would

Oh, can I just ask about the traffic impacts? Um, is it appropriate to do it before the changes are made or would it be more appropriate for us to uh, you know, because you're dealing with human behavior here. We need to know how everyone changes their routines come September 1 and then see how that you know changes the traffic in that area before we start going down the road of making additional changes. understanding that we don't want there to be upfront issues with that intersection, but I think we're going to have to extrapolate data and is that worth doing that now versus getting real data in the future?

I think that um doing the traffic impact analysis now is a wise move. Um it sets the um parameters that we have right now. Um I do believe that we will have to do monitoring and that's something that as many of you have mentioned public works can do after and so we can take traffic counts after once school opens we can do it repeat it again once Amazon opens but I think to be proactive um and and set a baseline um we do the traffic impact analysis now so I would I would support that Heidi if you add that to your motion. Heidi add it to the motion. Yep. I would add that to the motion if

you second that. All right, there's motion and a second amended. Would you like it read back to you? All right, roll call vote, please. Lisa Benzo, I Nelson. Hi, Murphy. Hi, Severson. I Stowa. Yes.

All right. Motion passes. Thank you Tanya and um Belle and Anna for being on tonight. All right. We're going to move on to presentation regarding the villages S&P global ratings report for 26 2026 note issuance. Two documents listed in the agenda. I'll turn it over to Cameron and Greg from Ellers. Thank you, uh, Cindy. I'm actually gonna let uh, Greg take the presentation on this. Um, and then we'll both be available for any follow-up questions.

Thanks, Cameron. I'm just share my screen and bring up uh, one of the primary documents and put it in your packet. This is an overview of the Kaj Grove uh rating uh with standard and pores. A copy of the full rating report was included in the sale day report from the village's most recent debt issuance. Uh just an overview of the village's rating. Uh the village's rating is doublea stable. Uh the village has had the same rating since 2017. It's a very strong and favorable rating. Uh the way the rating scale works with S&P is you start with AAA then you go to double A plus then you're at double A. So the village is two notches from uh the highest possible rating which is AAA. Uh the credit strengths which S&P notes in their credit report and these have been consistent over time is strong reserves or fund balance. uh the village has had very good uh reserve levels consistently and also the village has good uh consistent budget performance typically ends the year favorably with uh revenues exceeding expenditures and then these are S&Ps word sophisticated financial management framework and proactive policies. Um, so the village has completed an annual financial management plan since 2016, which looks at capital improvement plans over a multi-year period and projects out uh the village's operating budget over that same planning period to kind of look at the overall tax levy and impact for the villages operating budget and capital budgets. Uh those are provided annually to S&P. uh and they view that as a very strong management practice and tribute that as one of the main credit strengths of the village. So

that's been noted over several years as uh part of the main credit strengths of the village. Uh the primary credit weakness that they identify in the report is kind of the gradually increasing elevated debt burden over the past few years largely due to increased infrastructure investment and facility expenditures. Uh so they do note that as the primary weakness as far as upside downside potential. This is kind of S&P's assessment at a high general level in terms of what could move the rating up, what could move the rating down. I just want to say there's never one factor that's going to move a rating up or move a rating down or one metric that's going to tip the scales. There's a broad methodology that I'll speak to in a moment uh that S&P uses to determine their ratings. Um but as far as moving the rating up, some factors they did site were if uh income metrics within the village aligned with um higher rated peers. Uh that's really not only a statewide comparison but also a national uh comparison but also a factor that the village doesn't have a lot of direct control over. And then if the reserve levels were materially higher, uh they don't define, you know, a specific number or a percentage of revenues or expenditures that they deem materially higher. Uh but it would have to be a substantial, you know, improvement in reserves over the current levels. Uh what could move the rating down lower um is if uh the reserves deteriorate substantially or debt burden becomes highly elevated. uh same comments on the upside factors on the on the downside factors. They don't define what is you know a significant deterioration in reserves or what a debt burden becomes highly elevated. Uh but these are just general trends or factors that they would consider along with others in terms of movement in the villages rating. But again the village

has had the same rating since 2017. So how is the rating determined? Uh SNP has a local government rating methodology that they apply nationwide. Uh similar to other rating agencies like Moody's um they have a detailed uh credit methodology that they use to kind of help determine their ratings. The uh rating criteria from S&P has five kind of general factors. Um economy uh financial performance reserve management and then debt liabilities. they assign a 20% factor to each of those and then kind of assign kind of a quantitative metric of one to six uh one the lower uh the better in terms of those metrics. Um so each of those rating factors have kind of primary anchor factors that they evaluate in that methodology and then they have subfactors that they evaluate to kind of determine those scores. And again, it's important to note that when S&P is doing this comparison, they're not just comparison comparing the village to communities in Wisconsin or communities in the Massro area. This is a rating methodology that they apply nationwide. Um, so they have certain data points and metrics that they use uniformally across their rating methodology. So they have a consistent analytical tool to evaluate communities nationwide. So those quantitative metrics uh that they cite in their report and use to do their analysis, they uh compile a variety of sources. Some of them from the village directly in terms of audited financial statements, other data sources in terms of demographics uh and other broader economic metrics they're citing from nationwide uh sources that they consistently reference uh in their report. So they're, you know, they're very adamant as far as their data sources because again, they have to apply their criteria nationwide.

So in terms of the process, there's always a rating analyst that is assigned uh to each credit. Um, and typically there's two analysts that are assigned. Uh, the village has been fortunate that for the past couple of years, the rating analysts have been fairly consistent uh year-over-year. There's, you know, the village can't request uh a particular rating analyst. We can't request a particular rating analyst that's entirely uh determined uh by S&P and you know they kind of uh obtain and do the initial quantitative analysis and they have initial uh dialogue uh with uh staff to kind of get other input on financial information, economic development trends, policies, things of that nature. Um you know we participate in a lot of rating calls at Ellers throughout the state. Uh in my opinion, the village has built up substantial credibility with S&P over the years. Uh to evidence that this past spring when we were doing the rating prior to the most recent debt issuance, uh the village has had an annual rating the past several years, uh S&P just did the uh initial outreach and and information gathering through a Q&A done entirely via email. Um that's not typical but uh that shows the confidence consistency that the village has demonstrated over the years that they just viewed it as a regular update to their process because they can see consistently uh the village's financial performance has remained strong year-over-year. Um so I mean that's credit to the village over the years in terms of you know having that consistent performance. So once the rating a an analyst kind of completes their analysis and uh obtains their information from the village, they take it to an internal committee, the rating agency which can consist of other analysts and others familiar with local government nationwide and that committee assigns the rating. Uh so that and that's standard for how all the rating

agencies uh determine their rating. It's not done just by the analysts, it's done by a broader committee. So in terms of the village's rating history um as I mentioned the village has you know been in the debt market uh annually uh going back for the past four years. Uh the village didn't issue any debt in 2021. Um so I mean there's been there's been an annual process that the village has gone through. Uh really the rating reports have remained very consistent. Uh the village's strengths uh and weaknesses really are quite similar uh going back over the past um several years. If I have to pick one characteristic or trait that the rating agencies look for they're doing rating assessments is is consistency. Uh that's what they like. Uh they like to see things consistent. They like to see forward-looking projections and that, you know, decisions are are well documented and all those things the village has been able to demonstrate for many years. Uh for the past several years, you know, potential borrowing for municipal facilities was first discussed with S&P in 2024. uh that was based off of the fact that the annual financial management plan first started factoring in extensive village facilities that would require borrowing uh beginning in the fall of 2023. So you know the first major financing here kind of took place you know with recently with the police station and you know this has really been shown to them for several years. um they could see that this was part of an annual process that not only was looking at capital over a multi-year period, but also was looking at operations. Um so this wasn't something that was done in a vacuum. It's something that we've been talking to them about uh for several years. Uh obviously the police station with this particular borrowing kind of was a large borrowing, the village's largest borrowing that it's undertaken in in recent years. Um, so they knew

that that direct debt burden was going to increase as a result of those facilities. They knew it's been part of a long-term plan discussed for several years. Bottom line, this was not a surprise to them. Uh, they we had documentation going back over multiple years that showed that this was coming. Uh, this was being planned. It was being timed in conjunction with the closure of the village's largest tiff district. uh it was all something that could be shown that was being presented discussed uh well before it occurred and that's really what uh the advantage to the long range planning is that these things can be you know shown there was never any you know promise or commitment that the village was going to do any of these projects but could demonstrate that it was part of discussions part of capital improvement planning um you know we didn't just drop a large facility on them on a rating call and say hey we decided to do this project they knew about this several years in advance. Uh and that really is what kind of plays into again the long range planning that they cite in their report. So in all you know the village is um credit rating with S&P is very strong. Um the credit strengths that have been documented particularly fund balance budgetary performance and planning have remained consistent. Um, you know, the elevated debt burden has been noted, but that was expected and anticipated, uh, kind of based off of capital plans that S&P had been seeing for several years. Uh, and so certainly that, you know, stability and that rating, you know, uh, translates in terms of, you know, the market interest rates that the village receives on not only existing debt, but, you know, going forward. Um and again with this rating even factoring in a larger debt issuance you know maintain the villages uh doubleA stable rating which is which is a very solid rating. I mean that's uh a tribute to you know many years of of good financial work by village boards and village staff uh to really put the village in that position. Um so that's kind of a highle overview

of kind of the rating factors that S&P looks at specifically how uh the credit profile has uh you know been consistently communicated from S&P for the village. Um and you know happy to answer additional questions or certainly if staff has things they want to add uh can certainly do that as well. Yeah. Cameron do you have anything you'd like to add?

Um yeah just a couple things. Um so just just kind of a reminder a critical part of the discussion today um is going to be the pre-sale report. Um previously we presented a little bit of an ele more elevated uh overall general obligation uh burden. Um with the new report with the final sale result which included some premium on on sale um that the we c kind of cap out at that 46,936,794 of general obligation debt or 48.8%. Um following the next year that jumps down to to 41.3 41.52% and the year after that 35.89%. Um so just kind of wanting to paint the picture there that kind of returning back to below historical norms from a debt capacity perspective. Um in addition um a lot of what you can find on do um you know when we're comparing community only includes general obligation debt. Um and again what is presented in the packet is and and the percentage of limit is only general obligation debt. And so we need to make sure that we also are including revenue debt when we're kind of looking at overall debt burden. Um and and really the only difference is how that how the debt is pledged to be repaid. Um so revenue debt is pledged on future revenues or user fees. Um whereas geo debt um should all else fail be pledged on behalf of the the full faith of the the taxpayers. Um so so sometimes there's a lot of there's some strategy when the water and sewer utility are taking on projects. Um oftentimes it's it's cheaper for the village from an interest rate perspective to take general obligation debt um because the

market views that debt as less risky uh because it's pledged on the full faith of you know the taxpayer the property taxpayers um in the village. Um so that's where um I when I you know when I take a look at um the village of deforest is is a good example. Um they may have a slightly less geo debt but significantly more revenue debt. Um whereas when I'm looking at Windsor for example um which is another growing community much more comparable go debt but they also because they have similar levels of revenue debt. Um, but that's all I had for this this discussion point. Um, and kick it back to to Cindy.

Okay. All right. I'll open it up for comments and questions from board members. So, Paul has got her hand up first.

Thank you, Cindy. Um, and thank you, Greg, for the presentation. Um, Cameron, I'm I'm glad that you added that in. Um, and that our um, you know, that we've has some cost savings in this debt. um so that our projected debt is only 46 a little over 46 million instead of 48. So I appreciate your hard work on that and do appreciate um that you know the strengths listed in there are a direct result of our staff's work. So that's fabulous. Um question for Greg. Um so it noted that um rating strengths and weaknesses remain consistent for the past several years. Um, so how do we address or what needs to happen to have this the debt be removed as a weakness and even potentially move us to a a double A+ rating?

So when over the past couple years as some of the debt issuances have been you know a little higher as more infrastructure in the facilities here came online um you know S&P kind of noted that that debt burden was becoming elevated. um even going back when it wasn't as elevated as they're noting now in their reports, you know, the village was still at a doublea stable rating again going back to 2017. Um and so, you know, if the debt burden is reduced, I don't want to say that's necessarily going to result in a change in the rating one way or the other. Um because the rating didn't change even when the debt uh became more elevated. It's kind of gets back to those five factors that they look at and you know singling out one of those factors that's going to really move the rating one way the other you know as I I wish it was that simple. It just it unfortunately just isn't in terms of how S&P kind of does that methodology. So I mean I think it's it's holistically kind of looking at everything in terms of uh you know how that rating is going to be impacted. So even if the debt burden becomes less elevated um you know there's going to be other all these other holistic factors still go into the picture in terms of whether or not the rating moves upward or moves downward

but it is a piece of the pie right as well. It's a it's a piece of the pie. Yeah. Okay. Thank you Chris. Go ahead. Oh I'm sorry Renee. You have your hand up first. It's in the light bulb and so I have a hard time seeing it and you're still muted.

Sorry about that. Thank you. And thank you Greg again for walking us through this. So I I have several comments and a couple of questions. So I guess I just want to underscore too that the the most significant hidden concern in this report is um the explicit listing of elevated debt burden as a persistent weakness. Um the infrastructure impact and this debt is directly tied to increased infrastructure and facility expenditures. Um, I just really want again to point out too that when we're looking at revenue versus debt, the village certainly is growing, but it really appears to me that the debt is currently outpacing the rate, which income metrics align with higher rated peers. I want to um point out too that the downside scenario risk of this is that the S&P has issued a clear warning uh regarding the future of this rating. Um so the rating could be lowered if reserves fund balance deteriorate as we mentioned um or if the debt burden becomes more elevated or highly elevated. So a cumulative effect if I'm understanding what I'm speaking to is that because the debt the village debt is is definitely and currently in a phase of facility planning and potential borrowing every new expenditure adds to the cumulative total that the SNP monitors. So if the total debt service begins to significantly squeeze our annual operating budget, the AA rating could be downgraded. So I I I want if you could speak to that and and clarify and then I have a couple more comments I'd like to make.

I the one thing I want to clarify is when they talk about, you know, what can move the rating upward and what can move the rating downward, upside, downside, one's not more severe or more positive than the other. Uh they're not warning any more of a downgrade downgrade than they're advising of the potential of an upgrade. Uh they're just general factors that they're citing that could move the rating one way the other. So I don't put any more strength in the downside than I do the upside. They're just general statements that they're identifying that could, you know, result in changes to the rating. So um you know that being said, I mean it's, you know, the debt burden along with everything else, all those other five factors that that are make up the rating criteria, you know, everything kind of gets evaluated. I think the main thing that and I've said this before that you know I think the village should continue doing is the long range planning that you have done consistently since 2016. Uh that is not something most communities are doing on an annual basis. Certainly not many communities that have a 10-year track record of doing it. So I don't want that to be lost in kind of this as well. I mean I think the the main reason the rating has been able to remain stable despite changes in debt profile but all these other factors is you know the planning has kind of shown that coming and so I think you know all these things need to be you know everything's a piece of the puzzle um in terms of how the rating is going to be impacted going forward. Uh so the upside and the downside they're just they're not waiting one more than they're waiting the other.

Yeah and I'm gonna touch on two things quick Greg. Um so so the first thing um to kind of keep in mind in that um debt and liabilities is also metrics that you know we don't have any control over. So one of those factors is is the Wisconsin retirement system on that pension liability. Um they calculate a li we you know obviously the Wisconsin retirement plan is one of the best funded uh retirement plans in the state. um SNP um doesn't look at the assumptions that the that WRS uses as favorably. Um so while a liabil actuarily determine liability exists, it's not a real you know it's not real cash flow going out the door. Um obviously unless you know at the end of the year the the pension stopped you know and there was that existing liability out there. Um, and then secondly, just wanted to make sure we're very clear on the intram income metrics. That is actual median household income. It has nothing to do with with revenue on the village side. Um, so that's where, you know, communities like uh Maple Bluff and and Fitchburg that have highly elevated um median incomes, they they actually see that as a benefit. And it is something that's actually pretty difficult for us to have any control over from a village perspective. Um you know obviously um you know the you have companies in that bring high you know highpaying jobs that's that's one way to help. Um and then kind of lastly I just want to make sure um from a levy perspective and a and the ability to pay debt service and principal um that's a that's a specific levy adjustment on the the worker. So that would the incurring debt will never directly reduce the ability to fund operations from our base levy. That is a that is a separate line

adjustment on the um levy limit work paper. And so but you know kind of to that point when we are kind of working on our annual budgeting process and the f FMP that's why we look very closely on annual tax impact because debt service has an certainly has an impact on um whether or not taxes are increasing and decreasing and we look to make sure that the overall tax impact is acceptable uh to to the board and then obviously the community. Um, so Greg, if you didn't have anything else to add to that, then I'll I want to give Renee kind of the mic back.

Yeah. All right. Okay. Thank you, Cameron and Greg. And so, and I might need some more clarification on this, Cameron. You just started to touch on this, but it was another question I had was that um debt service versus the operation. So, as we continue to issue debt uh for our our municipal facilities, what percentage of our annual tax levity levy, excuse me, is now dedicated strictly to our debt services and how has that percentage changed over the last 5 years? And and I looked this up too, and Greg spoke of that in 2021, uh we didn't have any service debt, and now we're at 48 million. From a 2021 perspective, um we didn't issue any debt. We we did have obviously in principle and interest payment. Um GFOA kind of uh gives a general guideline um that roughly you know 20% of your governmental uh governmental expenditures. That's kind of like that threshold that if you're above that threshold there there kind of needs to be a reason for that. So, one of those obviously reasons would be this, you know, one-time large expenditures. Um, so um Amanda will actually be presenting on this on May 4th. Um, when she comes to present the audit, we have been between 14 and 17% um from a from a debt service perspective from an interest payment. So, right under that, it wouldn't surprise me for the first year or two under the new debt that we would be slightly above that 20% of governmental um expenditures um threshold, but something definitely we will want to keep kind of an eye on.

Okay. Thank you. But sorry, I don't have the the I don't have the exact numbers in front of me.

Okay. All right. If if you can maybe send those to the board or at some point in time share that, that would be great. So I have another question. So let's just say that we do end up maximizing our borrowing capacity. And so what what's our emergency financial cushion? Say we we face a un um unforcasted infrastructure failure or there's a significant economic downturn that impacts our tax base. So if you could maybe help me process through that thought. Yeah, I think there's I think that I kind of will answer that in kind of a two-part. There's what is the um tax will because if we got to 100% of our debt capacity, I mean, we we would be almost, you know, 5x what our current taxes are. Um so, so we aren't anywhere near our general obligation um capacity. we're um even after the full borrowing um I'm we're projected to be at 48.88% 88% of our general obligation capacity. Um as for uh something happens that that this is why um SNP evaluates reserves or liquidity. They want to know if something happens both from the short-term, moderate and long-term. Do we have enough reserves in place, capacity in place and other things to take care of um said need? And you know obviously that there's insurance involved with that. There's general fund. what are what are our you know reserves and expenditures as a percentage of expenditures and so that's why they view it both from a percentage perspective and from a nominal perspective. Um so you sometimes you have a smaller community they might have 3540% reserves but it's only $500,000. Well, $500,000 isn't going to be able to

replace a road being washed out or address a, you know, an intersection that needs to be completed um because some major accident happened. Um so, so that is why, you know, we would we would likely intentionally dip into fund balance in in that in that respect um should an emergency happen. Um uh from a utility perspective, um there certainly could be if there if geo capacity was ever an issue, some some communities with electric or communication utilities don't issue geo deck because it would take up far too much of the capacity and not leave enough geo capacity available for infrastructure projects. So kind of when we're looking here 2027 and and and beyond, we really have as part of that financial management plan that$2 to4 million investment incorporated into kind of what the future spending would be. Um S&P was given the the last capital prioritization and financial management plan to kind of evaluate what those needs would be. Um so so they kind of already know that there is planned borrowing future borrowings um for or potential future borrowing for projects all all kind of wrapped into their their analysis.

Thank you for that Cameron. But I appreciate that input and and I I too just want to you know reiterate this that in 2021 we were at zero. Today we're at 48%. um which is you know it's it's enough to raise eyebrows. Um so and I I'm curious um so so staff obviously are are providing the information for the S&P anal um analysis. So, are we also including like the full picture of things like uh declining enrollment trends in the community and does that affect our S&P rating and um in the view of um our long-term facility needs and management uh sophistication?

So, a couple things in 20 in 2021, we were at 38.49% of our debt capacity. Um so, we weren't at nothing. Um just just wanted to make sure that was out there. Um as far as enrollment, enrollment would not likely be tied back to our S&P analysis that that is heavily relied upon on the school district side because it is part of their revenue calculation. Um I will tell you um kind of in some conversations with the rating agency, they do look at the asset the state of our assets. So if you look at our financial statement footnotes, um they would tend to look at a community that has heavily depreciated assets worse than a community like us where all most of our most of our infrastructure is relatively new. Um because that would be, you know, that would be a situation where yes, you weren't taking on debt, but you also weren't doing road repair and maintenance. So that kind of creates that deferred road and infrastructure liability um on on work that that would essentially be done.

Thank you Cameron and and thank you for correcting me. Um I I should have said that new debt issued in 2020 one was zero. So thank you for pointing that out. No, no, thank you for uh pointing that out. And you've answered my questions for the moment. So thank you. All right, Chris, go ahead. I have two questions. I'm curious about the 2021 debt. Did we not take on any debt because was it COVID funds or was there just nothing that we needed to fix or build?

Um I I started in September of 2022. Um I believe there were several major projects that were in different stages of improvements. I know there was in 2022 was a significant infrastructure year uh major improvements on N. Um obviously Bakan Park, Wheel Park. Um so it could have been a pent up of improvements in one year that was done over the course of two years. Um the you know we started very lucky community with the growth we have in the base. the formalized while we always did the financial management plan, the formalized capital prioritization plan was implemented post 2022. And really what that did was really hyperfocused on infrastructure, making sure infrastructure needs were taken care of first and then kind of defining the the the remaining buckets lower on the prioritization scale. And so when we're kind of lining up projects really heavily focused on Whistler ratings for roadway um kind of state of roadway um and then kind of identifying major major projects for the for the board because there were there's just too many projects that there there were more projects than funding available. Um if that makes sense Chris did I that answer your question? Yeah,

I can jump in a little bit further, Chris and um Cameron. The in 2021 there just were not any identified um major projects. So there at that point, we still had um our fund 410, which was a a levy levy funded cash funded uh capital fund. And we were able to utilize uh any capital assets that year through that fund. Okay. Thank you. Uh my second question is uh I saw a chart on social media comparing municipalities over the weekend. So I'm just kind of curious when you're evaluating the strength or vulnerability of um the financial situation of a a community. Is is debt per capita a useful measurement?

I think every metric has its place. I mean, if you're looking from a repayment perspective, repayment is done based off of property assessment. So, kind of if you're looking at the community as a whole, if 35% of your tax base is commercial, um you know, that might disproportionately kind of change uh the per capita metric because obviously commercial building isn't attributing to population. Um so so from a purely repayment perspective um I would recommend looking at equalized or assess assessment. Um you know it's also important to kind of note too when that equalized and assessment is. If it's if it's TID debt TID repayment that's obviously not as as big of a concern if it's um TID if it's non-TID debt. We want to make sure that we're only looking at all the properties that are not within TID boundaries because ultimately that's going to be the repayment source. So every once in a while you kind of have a slight delay in bringing on like for example TID 5 now that TID 5 is coming off significant property tax relief is kind of on its way to the community. Um, and I guess from a compare benchmarking and comparing to other communities, it's something that's constantly done. Um, if other communities are doing something well, um, trust me, those conversations are being had. Um, you know, all the finance directors and treasurers in Dayne County and beyond are very open to sharing ideas, um, opening what's working well, what's not working well. Um, kind of under the the levy limit constraint that we're all in. um you know, unfortunately with the way that the levy limit is is structured, it's really forcing um you know, communities to take on debt because of the kind of automatic levy limit adjustment that is

is made. Um so if you want to enhance or provide additional uh operating cost to public safety, um typically what you see is things that haven't historically been borrowed for are borrowed for because you can increase your levy by that. And then those those funds that are provided um that are in the current but base of the levy can be released into operating expenses. Thank you. All right. Any other um remaining questions for Greg or Cameron on this agenda item?

Yeah, Greg, I had a question or Cam. You know, obviously we're AA stable. We would like to be AA positive rated on our way to AA plus or even to AAA. Uh obviously that would reduce the interest rate on our debt, save us uh interest expense and get more for our taxpayer dollars. I guess the question for you is when I look at the S&P report and I look at the strengths and the weaknesses, they point out the weakness is our debt relative to our peers. The statement was debt and liability profile is weaker compared to peers particularly the debt burden which is anticipated to worsen based on debt plans over the next five years which is pulled out of our our our FMP. So when you think about what do we need to do, what should we be doing to try to improve our rating with SNP and we have a great financial management plan. You talk about the strengths, we do have a lot of strengths which is attributable to Cam, you and and the rest of staff. Um but I guess the question is when I look at that report and I look at the magnitude or I look at the weaknesses that that's where we need to focus. Is that correct? I think that's the that's the weakness that they're citing in the report. But again, if you're to get back to your earlier statement about moving the rating up or moving the rating down, when the debt burden in their report was just not as noted as elevated as it is presently, it was still doubleA stable. So, while that can help your overall credit assessment and profile, I don't want the message to be just because if you reduce your debt burden, uh your rating is going to move uh upward. It's just that's there's not just a single correlating factor that's going to move the rating up or move the rating down

because they the other question, Cam, you you'd said you obviously uh in the report we're at 48.8% 8% in 2026. Uh $46.9 million dropping to, you know, 35 million by the 2030. But that's assuming we don't take on any more debt. Is that realistic?

Nope. That's that's we that that is included in our our future, you know, our future capital plan. Um so a couple that's that's why we oftent times are more aggressive. You know, I think sometimes I get the complaint is why are you guys using such conservative approach for projects? Because oftentimes we're coming back with projects that are less expensive than originally forecasted. Two reasons. One, SNP sees that we're not we're having realistic budgets. We're we're meeting we're meeting the meeting or exceeding the forecasting um amounts. But but two, we can also make sure that we we would be better if we're on the lower end of our geo capacity than being on the higher end. If we're constantly two or two to 5% more on each projects, that that accumulates quickly in an overall geo um perspective. One of the the problems I have with the term peers is it's peers across the country. So it's also and it's also peers that are significantly higher in population. And so for us it doesn't make sense for us to have 50 60% reserves which would probably get us nominally where S&P would feel comfortable increasing our reserves. Um, you know, one thing that I I I just want to point out, if you look at 25's rating and 26 rating, our debt and liability score actually improved after taking out 15 or 16 million of debt. So, that really speaks to some of the actuarial um liabilities for deferred maintenance. So they they knew they they knew this outstanding liabilities of facilities

was an issue. So regardless if you you you spend the money or not, they they know that in order to serve a community at your ser at the current service level that um the investment has to be made. And so when those numbers continue to come back better, that's where we see those improvements. So, that's really what my goal is, is if we can keep improving those scores, even a couple um basis points every year, that will just continue uh to, you know, potentially get that double A+ status. So, maybe I jumped ahead. Are you going to go through the the sale day report and then we'll have questions on that or

uh we Greg is if there's if you want to present that kind of high level you can um or if there's if we just want to jump specifically to questions I don't want to steal any of your thunder. Well, I I I mean, I was asking questions on that and I I guess my question and on table six, uh you said we hit $46 million in debt, 46.9 in 2026 and then it drops and you said we'll hit 35 and by 2030. You said that that that assumes all the incremental debt that we've got forecasted in FMP. I don't see that here. No, that's not in this particular chart. I think the but the the long range plan financial management plan it's in the financial management.

So when when we say it's going to drop to $35 million by 2030, that's assuming we take on no more debt and that's not realistic. So okay, that answers that question. So I'll let Paula go. I have other questions, but go ahead Paul. Um just a quick question for Cameron. I know we have a financial management plan. Do we have a formal debt management policy or plan that I haven't seen for the last year I've been on the board? That's just in relation to that, not part of the FMP or

the So, we have the capital priorit prioritization guidelines that defines what annually is acceptable by the board to take out on debt. So for 2026 to 2035, um we knowing that we were going to build uh take out debt for the police station, that was reduced from $6 million annually to $4 million. And but part of that $4 million is $1 million annually on road maintenance and $1 million for vehicle maintenance. Okay. But we don't have a segregated specific plan or policy outside of the capitalization where we just mention that.

So yeah, and I I caution having a plan that says don't exceed 50% of your debt because that creates an artificial limit that S&P will look at that you're close to your own internally imposed debt limit. Um yeah, I'm not advocating for any percentage. I'm just asking if we have a plan. You know, City of Fitchburg, City of Sun Prairie, you know, they have those um debt management plans or policies. So, I was just asking if we had the equivalent. So, thank you.

Any other questions from the board or comments? I guess my my only question is or comment would be when I look at the um the uh sale day report, I'm looking at the comparisons uh or the summary of the sale. So, we borrowed 19.2 million which includes the the the um the geo debt that was taken on for utilities, right? There's an underwriter discount of 222,000. Pretty expensive to do it. But the question that I have is what is the nearly million dollars of reoffering premium? What what is that? What do we get for it? Why is it there? Because it's another million on top, another 5% on top of the total debt.

So a reoffering premium, the analogy I always use, it's similar to if you buy a car and the dealer gives you cash back that you can use to lower your loan to purchase that car. So when the underwriter put their bid in for the bonds, they submitted a bid that a bid that was higher than the par amount or face value of the bonds being sold. That excess cash or premium gets used in two ways. First, it goes to pay the underwriters discount. And then second, whatever is remaining from that premium under state law is deposited into the debt service fund and used to pay your interest expense. So that's where that cashback analogy that I mentioned kind of comes into play. So if we look at table four in the sale report of that reoffering premium, the money is getting and this has been the case for the past several years. The village's debt issuances that money gets deposited into your debt service fund and actually gets used to pay interest expense uh for each portion of of the bond. So the reoffering premium is split uh proportionally between each of the purposes. Uh so it's money that you will have available to pay some of the interest expense in 2027 uh and 2028 which reduces what you need to levy to make that interest payment.

So it's not an expense. It's it's it's basically cash because they paid more than the face value. So I mean net correct. So at the end of the day when I look at the principal 192 and the the total principle and interest of 28.6 million we're effectively paying $9.4 $.4 million in costs, interest and other related costs for this particular initiative. Yeah. So, your net debt service expense is the 28.6 million, which principle and interest less the premium, the cash that you're using to offset some of that interest expense. 9 Okay. 9.4 million. Gotcha. All right. Thank you.

Any other questions or comments on this agenda item? All right. Thank you, Greg, for being here. You're welcome. All right. We have moving on to uh uh DE, which is discuss and consider the creation of a debt reduction task force. And there's a memo in the packet. Um before this discussion item can happen, there were some questions raised about parliamentary procedure. Um so there needs to be action first to um remove the item from the table. And Rick, if you want to jump in, you're still on. Um, and just also clarify and just make sure I said that correctly.

Yeah. So, I can't remember if this one had a motion to table as well, but basically um the there was a motion to table at um the first meeting in March. And to take it to discuss it, we still we would need a motion to remove it from the table. Um that is a non-debatable motion. So basically there has to be a motion made seconded and then it's a majority vote to remove it from the table. Um and then the discussion and any action on that item could occur. Um and that would be the same for the um impact fee discussion as well later.

So I I'll make a motion to untab it for open discussion. Second. Right. There's a motion by Doll and a second by Severson. Um, it's non-debatable. Roll call vote. Benzo. Okay. Can you please clarify that for me because I want to make sure I'm fully understanding this before I vote for this?

Yes. So, there's a a motion to remove it from the table. So, we can't actually do anything with this agenda item until it's taken from the table. So the motion right now is to remove it from the table. If this passes, that means the village board can then discuss and take possible action on this item. If the motion fails, it stays on the table and basically we move to the next item.

Okay. Um I am sorry my head is swimming. Um, say that one. Claire, say that to me like I'm in kindergarten. My head is over overfilled.

Yes. So, part of this is just the quirkiness of Robert's rules sometimes. So because at the March meeting the the motion was to table discussion of this item um and the impact fee discussion. Um so when an item is tabled it stays on the table um until there's a motion at either that same meeting or a subsequent meeting to take it off the table. So until you have um approval from the board to basically bring this forward again. So

um it's going to stay on the table. Um so with the motion and second that Pete um or that was just made basically if the motion passes all that it's not like taking any action on the item. It's just saying yes the village board is taking it from the table so we can discuss this item. Yes, I would like it to remain so we can continue to have this discussion. D. Yeah. Not allowing this to be debated is is an insult to taxpayers. So I Cal Nelson. No. Murphy. No. Severson.

I Stowa. No.

Three. Motion fails. Um so we're going to move on then to the next item which is discuss and consider ordinance 052026 impact fees for water and sewer and the law enforcement impact fee. Um this also needs to be removed from the table. I move that we remove ordinance 04-2026 regarding impact fees from the table and approve. I'll make

I'll second that. Motion by Severson and a second by Benzo. Uh non-debatable roll call vote. Benzo continue the discussion. Yes. Doll. Hi. Cal Nelson. No. Murphy. Unbelievable. Hi. I'm sorry. Was that an I? Yes. Thank you, Severson. I Stowa. No. All right. Motion passes. So, it's back on. Um so, we can move on to discussing the um impact fees.

I move I move approval of the ordinance 04-2026 regarding impact fees. I'll second the That's the agenda item. There's a motion by Severson, a second by D. Uh open it up for discussion. Um, simply stated, I am moving the approval of the ordinance as it's written, as it's presented by our financial management experts, ers. I'll second that. There's already a motion in a second.

All right. Is there any more discussion on it? Uh, so can I just clarify that that's for the uh approximately $2,100 for a single family home for the law enforcement portion. The motion was to approve the ordinance as presented, right Paula? Correct. Oops.

Yes. And the ordinance Yeah. The ordinance as drafted includes the sewer, water, and public safety impact fees. You know, you know, and I would just like to make a comment. The need for a larger police station itself was created by the growth of the community since 2020. That that's why it happened. The growth did not pay for itself. The population increased 30% through that time from 2020 to 2025. And it didn't cover the full cost of public safety. In fact, the growth didn't just create the need for a new police station. It also created incremental needs uh for other departments, including public services. that's going to absorb some of the vacated space in MSB. So, you know, when you think about the law enforcement impact fee, which was proposed on July 7th, which was before the police station was approved, the station was designed to accommodate the growth for the next 15 years. And according to our expert experts, Ellers uh in their report, 52% of that building or 7.6 million is space needed because of growth. because that space now makes building that space now makes sense instead of adding on every year. But what doesn't make sense is asking existing taxpayers to pay for that growth. On August 18th is when the police station bids and the contract were approved and unfortunately the law enforcement impact fee was not completed. The analysis was not completed until recently because it was combined with the water and sewer impact fee assessment. But given the amount of controversy around protecting taxpayers, I personally regret approving the police station before approving this very important impact fee to protect taxpayers. The impact fee framework was recommended by experts financially by others and legally by our attorneys. This issue comes down to one simple question. Should existing taxpayers pay for growth or should growth pay for itself? Voting against the law

enforcement impact fee means existing residents and taxpayers will pay for growth.

Heidi, you have your hand up. Yeah, I'd like to call a question.

Roll call. Well, I I guess if we're following Robert's rules, if we're calling the question, there's actually a vote. I'm calling the question to end debate and go to a vote. Um, so it's not just an automatic vote. There'd be a separate vote to call the question

Okay. Again, this has been this has been very complex and uh a lot of back and forth. I want I want to again ask clarification. What exactly um are we am I being asked to vote for? Rick, can you explain?

Yes. Just give me one second. I just have to um verify whether the calling the question needs a second. Um yeah. So calling the question requires a second. So, um, if there's a motion to call the question, we would have to or calling the question requires a second. So, before we could proceed with that, there would have to be a vote on calling the question.

There's a hand up. I could withdraw my calling of the question. Withdraw the motion. Yeah. Okay. Chris, you have your hand up. Yeah. I just wanted to clarify that the financial experts did not recommend we pass this. They gathered information and said if we wanted to pay for the certain amount that we were able to pay for, this is what we would need to charge. There was no um there was no recommendation either way. That's true, but it is a datadriven analysis.

I think we do have John from Ellers's on here if it's helpful to have him clarify his recommendation. Um we prepared the uh calculation of the impact fees as requested. The decision whether or not to adopt an impact fee uh is a policy decision by the village board.

All right. There are is there any other comments or questions?

Yes, I I have a comment. I um so I'm I'm going to make a statement. I've thought about this for a while. Um and uh given the complexity of of what's occurring right now, um I want to say that I I want to provide an explanation um to our current residents regarding my yes vote um on the police station. By the time I was sworn in as a trustee, the previous board had already spent over a million dollars in architectural and engineering fees. The police station budget had essentially moved to the point of no return, even before I had a seat at the table. As a new member, I felt backed into a corner. A no vote would have meant watching a million dollars of taxpayer money go up in smoke with absolutely nothing to show for it. Many people also came to the board meeting expressing their support for this project. To avoid that loss, I voted yes. But that vote came with some concerns. In hindsight, I should have voted no as this project should have had a spending cap put on it from the very beginning instead of leaving it wide open. However, owning my mistake of not voting yes means I will not sit by while watching some continue not to face the fact that we do not have the income to cover everything that is brought before the board. The financial evidence is clear as Aaylor's study proves that over half of this uh this police station is necessitated by new growth. Yet, President Cal Nelson and Trustee Murphy continue to oppose these fees along with Stowa without providing a single shred of counter evidence. By

obstructing these fees, they are choosing to protect developers and salesmen while shifting the entire burden onto the backs of our current residents. We have clear evidence that over half of this project is driven by growth. I want to um um go on and talk about the wasteful spending that finally um addressing the conduct of this board. Uh during our last meeting um discussing the village debt when I was attempting to ask legitimate financial questions about our $ 48 million debt obligation, I was interrupted and silenced by President Kell Nelson. I was shut down for asking hard questions about this debt. Just as the conversation is clearly being backhandedly shut down, although by Robert's rules, I am here to tell you that I will not be silenced again. If we're going to fix the financial trajectory of this village, we have to stop playing these political games and start making the difficult, transparent decisions that our residents deserve. I'm here to tell you that I won't be silenced again. If we're going to fix this disastrous financial trajectory of the village, we've got to stop these games and start making these difficult decisions that are transparent and that our residents deserve. I know I repeated myself, but I'm going to say that. I said it twice. Madame President, your role is to facilitate transparency, not to misuse your power to suppress a trust's questions. I was elected to ask the hard questions and I will not be intimidated into silence. Our residents deserve a board that prioritize prioritizes fiscal

security and sanity. And done. Heidi, you have your hand up.

Yep. Thank you. Um, you know, I I understand these fees will go to offset the costs. However, if our fees are so high that we deter any commercial or residential growth or investment in our community, the point of having these fees is we'll be shouldering the the burden without the growth where the building has been built to withstand some growth and we still are expected to need an addition onto this building in the not all that distant future if our growth grow continues at the rate which it may or may not. It it kind of we we built it with a little bit of room but not so large that um not so large that you know it's it will last us 50 years for example. I mean it may if we don't grow but setting the fees to this level is going to outpace our peers. It's going to make us not competitive and losing out on $2,000 worth of fees versus decades of tax base, diversifying our tax base, making our economy more stable, um bringing in additional cur development, which will take pressure off residents. I think I wanted to to talk about this to come to a consensus that um that would still make us be in a reasonable place, competitive place regionally. Um because I think that the level the fees are set at will increase our housing to even higher rate. It's already very unattainable for entry-level home buyers and we're making that even more expensive by implementing this level of fee and it'll make create barriers for

small businesses to report to locate in the village. You know, they know we have a very mobile community. We already drive outside of the village for a lot of our things. And so if the fees are less for a business to open somewhere else, then they're probably going to do that when we would benefit from having that commercial tax base here. Um so I wanted to open this conversation to come to a point of um consensus where we could um you know come together and find a reasonable rate um to charge for a fee. But um it seems that we're not going to get there. Pete.

Whoops. Um, yeah, two things. Um, first thing is, uh, Chris, the March 2nd, 2026 presentation on page seven under the law enforcement impact fee there, it it does spell out the recommended fee and that was from Eller. So, that was one. The other thing was um, when we spoke last time, our park our fee in le of parkland and park fees combined were are among the highest in the area. And I know Cam, you were going to look at that and and advise as could we offset some of these fees with that without setting ourselves up for additional levies. Is there any feedback on that?

Yeah. Yes. In the the packet there's a document called uh building permit update. Um, so I was asked last time to a add uh Fitsburg, Verona, Stoton, and Oregon um to the the table for for single family and with the addition of also adding commercial. Um I do want to point out I did have an error in the last page um for Wan key um which which both versions of the document is included the building permit update and and so WA key is now corrected to show um the the correct amount and then Windsor actually amended their um fee uh impact fees um on March 13th. So, as part of this kind of updated process, I went through again all the communities we had and made sure that we had the most updated information um to to to make decisions. Um, and so I was

in the packet. I don't I have building permit. PDF. I don't have building permit update. So, there's another file should be the CNN. PDF. Yeah, building permit. PDF. It does. It just has it. It looks like the file we had back on March 2nd should be building permit updated PDF. It should be the very first attachment. And then attachments two and three are the park and open space plan and then also the historical document on parks fees. I'm sorry, we got too many agendas open. So, yeah. But again, I guess that that was the question taking a look at that. Yeah.

And the comparables because we're significantly higher on those two uh fees than our peers.

Yeah. And one of the things I I did add to um and again um I want to give the board information, but I also don't want to overwhelm the board um with information. So, I did break out Cottage Grove East, Cottage Grove West. I broke out Windsor, Windsor East, Windsor West based off of where different fees were were charged. Um, again, trying to make sure all the information is is available. So, if we're just looking purely at at park, let's just kind of take a step back and look at residential homes. Um, so pretty consistent. um from a fee in Lua Parkland um dollar amount. Windsor is a little bit low just kind of in general for for both park improvement and park um park improvement fee. Um the what I've found in my research is the park improvement amount is kind of different all across the board, which leads me to assume that they're driven based off of specific identifiable projects. Um, so like if we look take a look at kind of the general planning for for park and park spaces. Um, now that I believe the the the Houston large park is the the next kind of developerdriven park outside of areas that would need to be annexed. Um, we would need to put probably a cost to what that would be and and have the the board evaluate how much what percentage uh do we want to try to recover through um the the park improvement fee. Um, also from just a pure policy perspective, um, we're kind of talking about what what would what would based off of the le essentially what just would come to levy. Would we rather collect fees that are paid used to pay debt service right away which obviously carries interest costs or are

we and and then obviously if we don't collect park fees that's going to be an additional cost that we'll have to invest at some point or do we save up for park fees kind of like what we've done with Shady Grove and other parks and that's purely a policy perspective. Um I did um reach out probably late later than I I I should have with getting some feedback because we we did we did ask the utility commission to provide feedback on the the utility impact fees. I I have not we have I have not been able to get feedback yet from the parks and recck committee um on on kind of what a reduction in the fee could mean as far as future park improvements. Um, but I did try to include enough information in the packet for for discussion. Nope, you're you're muted, Pete.

When you look at the combined inlue and and the park fees, I mean, that's over 50% of our total impact fees, which is higher than just about all the other comparable communities other than Stoton, right? Correct. And I do think your recommendation of, you know, saving up for some of these park improvements um versus taking on debt's important. And again, if these fees are reduced, then that fund grows slower. I understand that. But certainly, it's the fiscally prudent thing to do.

I think always when we're talking about fees, looking at it in the whole always makes sense. So, it's a strategic analysis on fees in general. So, like what does what does it cost to build a home? Um, so it's all kind of push and pull. Pete, are you done? Yeah, go ahead, Paul.

Am I next in line? Okay. Um, I guess just a comment um to uh to Heidi's comment about wanting to try to come to some consensus. I guess I wish that would have been your approach to the last agenda item. Um, you know, when we first discussed this agenda item and the last one at that village board meeting, that was my first board meeting back after surgery. And if you go back and watch the meeting, you can see that I clearly was not feeling well. Um, which is one of the reasons why I I tabled. but also we were late into the evening already and I knew that we couldn't have the rigorous debate that we needed to have on these two agenda items. So in good faith I made a motion to table and then in even further good faith when I emailed Cindy and requested um you know talked about our last meeting agenda being very long, I agreed with her to postpone these two tabled items to this agenda. I did that in good faith. And while what you did on the last agenda item was legally permissible, it was highly unethical and not in good faith. And so I think um not even allowing to have a debate on an item that was brought forward when I said we could postpone it to this meeting. Um you went back on your word, Cindy. Um so that being said, regarding this agenda item, um if we truly want to make an impact and um not have our fees be as high, um I would be willing to amend my motion to reduce the park fees um to be uh to balance out the safe the law enforcement impact fee, the police

station impact fee. So, if that is the wish and there is a true desire for consensus, I'd be willing to amend my motion. And I'll rescend that. There is a motion and a second with a re for to is it to reduce the park fees? I think that's not on the um Rick, you're going to have to weigh in on

I didn't I didn't make I didn't make that motion. I just suggested it that if there was a desire to come to some form of consensus that I'd be willing to amend my motion um and we can take the fees in the entirety and and quite frankly if it's not allowable then we take it up again at the next agenda. Um but if the desire is truly to have balance and to put taxpayers first this is a good step forward.

Yeah. So just a procedurally. So I don't think we could adjust the park fees tonight. If we were to move forward with like some sort of compromise like that, I think with the ordinance could be approved subject to like future board action to reduce the park fees or something along those lines. Um so that way this would only go into effect if that second condition happens. So that's how I think this could be handled tonight. just not like actually reducing the park fees tonight.

One of the things I just want to make sure um just because I get even confused with building permits in process. Um so commercial properties do not pay park fees. Um so I just want that to be part of the the discussion that if if we balance it out on the residential, I don't have a lever to pull on the on the commercial. Thank you for that clarification, Cameron. I'll just move ahead with my motion as presented. All right. There is a motion in a second. Is there any more discussion?

So, what is what is the current motion? Is it back to approving the impact fee ordinance or is it I guess I'm confused which motion. As presented. Motion by Severson to approve the ordinance 04-2026 as presented. All right, we'll do a roll call vote, please. Benzo, yeah, I want to point out that even a a $3,000 impact fee on a new $450,000 home is less than 1%. My vote is yes. D

I. Cal Nelson, no. Murphy, no. Seaverson I Stowa no right motion fails

if there's no other entertaining of any other motions on this agenda item we're going to move on to new business I'll pause here all right we're going to move on to number seven discuss and consider the special event permit for Madison United Rugby. There's a series of um special event permits listed for a bunch of dates um as long as as well as comments from staff. Not sure if Brad is on tonight. Um

yeah, hi guys. I've been hanging on here. Uh yeah, so happy to I think it's pretty straightforward, but happy to field any uh questions or statements on the on the five I think it's five uh requests. Brad, is this your list of um events in total? I know staff had a couple of comments about some that maybe um were on your website, but you didn't submit some special event permits for. I just wanted to make sure that this was a a comprehensive list or maybe more.

Yeah. So, I I originally had only submitted uh two of the larger ones and then uh spoke with Sean and and Lisa and a couple others and we decided it was best to submit um all permits that included uh additional shelter or field use. So every all five that were submitted are uh all the events that we operate outside of our enclosed um area. Comments or questions from village board members um or comments from staff as well? Pete, go ahead.

Yeah, I had a question. I know so there's five uh events here and the big one is the May 30th event. I think there's a 500 participants and 500 spectators, so about a thousand people. And I think that was the event last year that was problematic. And since then, we've taken action to come up with additional parking, etc. I guess my question is to Sean, are there any other events going on during that big that big event on that weekend of the 30th?

Thanks, Pete. Um the pickle ball tournament is happening on Sunday. Other than that, there's nothing else going on at the park um short of possibly soccer game Saturday morning. So any concerns given the incremental amount of parking that we added given the attendance that we're talking about for this event having the the other uh event going as well or do we need to take other actions to make sure that we're you know adequately and appropriately uh preparing for the type of uh traffic and parking we need.

From our perspective, no. the the pickle ball tournament on Sunday will be coming in going traffic and with the addition of the uh with the additional parking that'll be available in front of the ball diamond on on Grove and Clark, we can get easily um a thousand cars in there if needed. Okay. So, it shows that event is May 30th, which is Saturday. Is it Saturday and Sunday, Brad, or is it just Saturday for the for the big

Yeah, and I was I was that was what I was going to ask too. We're we're just we're Saturday and Sunday this coming weekend, but we are only Saturday on the 30th for the big one. So, if that's a totally completely separate day than the pickle ball, which I actually may didn't maybe didn't even know prior prior to this. I thought it might have been the same day, but that's yeah, there won't be any problems um there. And Sean, the pickle ball is just Sunday. Nope. Nope. It is Saturday and Sunday. We were when we originally talked about It is both. Saturday was the the the question that we brought up before as well was could we handle everything on on that one day,

right? Yeah. So, so, so, okay. So that clarified it, but um we did talk about that coexisting and again through what we tested and and set up for those two, three or four events last summer to um offer that additional parking. I think that we're pretty confident that that will make things comfortable um in addition to uh the additional staffing on that Saturday from our side of things. So, uh, yeah.

So, Sean, are the um are the tennis courts going to be open as well? Is is the is there any way for us to like like temporarily close the batting cages or do something to limit the activity? Because what there's 350 some odd spaces. We've got a thousand participants for the for the um rugby and then of course I don't know how many participants you're going to have for pickle ball. Is all eight courts going to be used or is it partial?

No, it'll be all eight of the pickle ball courts. Um the tennis courts, those are sporadically used. Uh so I I don't think that we would be limiting a lot of traffic in that area if if um we we just closed the tennis courts. We we could uh the batting cage would be open, but again that is very sporadically used. Um, I don't believe that there's any home talent games or anything scheduled for that weekend either. So, there there shouldn't be much traffic there.

There's there's um I'm sorry, there's no home talent and there's no um Miracle League games scheduled for that weekend of the 30th and 31st. There is certainly not a Miracle League game. To the best of my knowledge, there is not a hometown game either. So, does Hometown just schedule when they when they want or is that something that we would need to approve given the the amount of activity that's going to be happening at the park?

They submit their game schedule to us once um once that's been approved by the the the league or whatever. And then we just um we just plug it in. So, I can check on that, Pete, and have an answer for you tomorrow if you'd like like to know that for sure.

Yeah, I I just think being proactive is important here given how things went last year. We just want something to be seamless and we want people to enjoy uh that weekend and in Cottage Grove. So, I guess if if there's anything that can be done, I think communicating to them that hey, we're going to have a lot going on. if there's any latitude for them to negotiate with where the game would be that weekend that if we could avoid Farman's Park, I think that would be very beneficial to the community. We did also approve the 5K run from the Mona Grove High School which is that Saturday morning Chief Gary and then I'll get back to you Heidi and Pete's hand up.

Just gonna throw out there um the five Manon Grove 5K is on Sunday. Sunday

on the 31st. Um, so that does not conflict with this. I have also staffed up. I have a supervisor working that day plus an additional officer that's going to be focusing on the southern end of the village, uh, particularly that area. So, we have it staffed up and are ready for the fun and festivities and the crowd that comes to patronize the village of Cottage Grove. So the the one thing the one question I had as I'm looking at the the diagram. So for that particular weekend that potential that area noted uh as potential as needed overflow parking uh I think needs to be set up needs to be planned to be set up.

100% Pete we already have that that is part of the process for sure. Um Pete any more questions? Heidi. Thank you. Um Brad, I was wondering, do you need um any help with a map or copy of a map to make sure that that's included with participant and spectator um information that's sent out or posted about the overflow parking or or do you have something? I know that's relatively new. You don't you don't you don't like my my MacBook scribbled. Uh,

well, as long as I have something that that the participants can use to to figure out where to park, so then they aren't panic parking on Vio. Yeah, I think um I I thought I maybe included one there, but yeah, I I usually try to send um similar uh visuals to attendees prior. Um whether they listen to me or not is a different but no. Yeah, we always try and even for the college college um college seven's events this coming weekend um the person who organizes that competition for me uh has sent the same for this weekend. So um Okay.

Yeah, we always try. No, whether they listen is a different story. Yeah. All right. Thank you. Yeah, thanks for offering. Yeah. Uh Sean, you had your hand up before. Anything else to add? Yeah, Pete uh just pulled up the schedule and there is a hometown game scheduled for Sunday uh the 31st. Nothing on uh Saturday the 30th. Great.

All right. This is a discuss and consider. I would make the motion to approve the special event permit for Madison United Rugby. I'll second motion by Murphy, second by Kell Nelson. Any other discussion on the special events permits? Do roll call, please. Benzo, I do. I Nelson. Hi. Murphy. I

Stowa. Yes. Right. Motion passes. Thanks, Brad. Yeah. Thanks, everyone. Right. We're going to move on to reports from village boards, commissions, and committees. The first up is the law enforcement committee with a couple of discussion and considers. Um, and I'll let Chris take over and handle that report.

All right. We met uh Tuesday, March 24th at 5:30. Uh we uh approved the minutes. We talked about a bicycle ebicycle e scooter ordinance proposal which is a discussed and concern tonight that we can go over in a little bit. We reviewed flock uh uh data from January and February 2026. Got an update on the police station project which broke ground about a week and a half ago. Um, we talked about National Drug Takeback Day on April 25th from 10:00 a.m. to 2 PM. We got the chief's reports and we adjourned. Um, so we have the discuss and consider about the ordinance proposal. Chief, did you want to discuss that at all? happy to add in. Um, so the first one is the alarm. Actually, I'm going to kick that to Rick uh because he's done the heavy lift on that and then I'll go into the bikes, ebikes and scooters,

right? So, with the the false alarm system, I guess this does two things. First, it creates a permit system. So every year the um anybody that has an alarm system that directly connects or has like a a call that goes out to the the villages um um I don't know what the correct terminology is chiefs but uh basically if a call goes out for emergency services um then the person has to register that system with the village. Um, so that would be an annual permit that I think the initial permit fee is set at 25 bucks. Um, and that's just so that we know who has these systems and um, if there continues to be an issue, not only can we site the um, whether it's a homeowner, uh, we can site them, but also revoke a permit if need be, if issues persist. So on top of that we have sort of a revamp of the um penalties for false alarms and sort of some clarifications added. So on the false alarm um like if we receive a false signal um from any property we have sort of this stepped progression system with um basically you get two warnings a verbal warning written warning and then after that the fine amount increases. We had a meeting between the chiefs of the various departments to talk about okay how are we going to keep track of this what makes sense um because there was obviously discussion about do we do it on a calendar year do we do it from the date of the first offense and essentially what we arrived at is kind of a mix I guess where if you have um at the start of the calendar year if you had three or more violations in the previous calendar year those will carry

forward So, um, it's kind of a a mix, right? So, if you had two or fewer violations in the previous year, that would get reset at the the start of the year. Uh, but three or more, your progression, your scale prog where you are at the scale is going to remain. So, if there are any more um so if you're on your third offense and the new year starts, you get a fourth offense right the start of January, you're going to be charged as the fourth offense. Um, so that's what we arrived at as sort of our our way of keeping track of this for um for the village.

Comments or questions? Um, from the Pete, go ahead.

Yeah, I guess my question revolves around um well, two things. Yeah, first of all, I appreciate you guys working on this. I know you've worked on it for a while. I think obviously false alarms are a problem for not only uh the police department but also our volunteer fire department. Um so the first question is when I look at I mean obviously we don't want to find people we want people to understand false alarms are are troublesome for public safety. Um so it doesn't really explicitly say that but part of the permitting process is an education process right I mean that I so it's not spelled out here it doesn't need to be but that's critically important. Okay.

The second thing the second thing is and I do like the existing systems have until December 31st. The the one thing is not really clear in here is um if I don't get if I if I if I don't get a permit if I if I don't if I don't have a permitted system what is what are the ramifications? It's not clear here.

Right. So there are um basically any violation of this would fall under the um the general like there's I forgot what section it is like the overall code but any violations of this chapter we could cite them with a citation of basically failure to get a permit. Um, it's not. So, what what are the accountability measures for for making sure that that happens?

Well, the as far as like if somebody installs an alarm system, right, and we don't know about it, they don't get a permit. Really, the only way we'll know about it is I don't know if there would be a building permit pulled at some point or if we get a false signal. I mean, that's really what's going to be the

the way that this ordinance is written, Rick, it's and I could be wrong, but my my interpretation is I don't get a system. I have a false alarm. If it goes to the violation and penalties, first alarm, verbal warning, and then on top of that, hey, you need a permit. There's really no penalty to make sure this happens. And I really don't care about the penalty. I care about getting a permit and being educated how important is that false alarms are a burden on our public safety network. Yeah. So, I guess there would be separate offenses. Um, so one offense would be the false alarm, which first offense, you get a warning, but there would also be um a citation issued for um not having the actual permit that you need. So, it's two separate offenses at that point. If you don't

So, is there is that covered under a different ordinance? Because it's not covered here as far as um any sort of citation for not having a permit. Yes, there's a a general like section one um 19 or something in the code that basically is our sort of catchall for um violations. I'm just double checking the existing ordinance here. um 119

section or it's chapter one like section 19 or something along those lines but I wanted to see if we have a different section in the 106 general penalty I see $500 fine okay yeah so then there's also a section 106-4 of the existing ordinance which I don't think we've actually never mind that um Um, no. I think that does apply, doesn't it?

Yeah. So, 106-4, we're amending that to include the violations. We could add a section that just says any person that violates the permit rule is subject to penalties under section 1-9. Clarification. I think that would be a good clarification. It's not that we want to find people. We we want them to get a permit and get the education. Yeah. So, I guess what I would say is we add a um subsection C under that 106-4 just to say that if you don't have a permit, you'll be subject to um that one- other comments or questions on the ordinance. I think that's a good change.

Otherwise, this is a discuss and consider. I'll make a motion to approve um ordinance change 07-2026 regarding false alarms with the addition of a explicit penalty for not having a permit after the uh dates that are identified. Second a motion by doll second by I missed it. Someone's got it. I missed it as well. Oh, it was me super. Thanks for clarifying. Um, roll call vote. Benzo, I d I

Nelson I Murphy I Severson I Stowa Hi.

Right. Motion passes. And I just want to add I think that was a really collaborative effort between all the chiefs and legal um and staff. So job well done on bringing that all together. You know it's taken quite a bit. All right we have the second discuss and consider which is a recommendation um from LEC regarding a bike e cycle bike ebicycle and e scooter ordinance. Um chief if you want to run us through this one too. So just uh obviously these are becoming more prevalent modes of transportation uh throughout the area. Um this has even been brought up at the Dayne County traffic safety committee. Um and city of Madison and other communities are exploring uh creating ordinances. So brought this forward to see if the village would like to proceed in creating said ordinance. Um, what you have in front of you as a draft is truly a draft. Has not been to legal in any capacity at this time. I know Rick right now is uh probably shaking his head at me. Um, but uh trying to see if the village board wants this to be forwarded on to legal for them to craft and draft a ordinance to address these matters.

Heidi, have your hand up.

Yep. Thank you. And I really appreciate the work on this because um living next to a middle school, I see a lot of young people on their electric scooters. Um so um one question I had was about the class three bicycles because they can go up to 28 miles an hour which is you know fast although many people or I think that yeah 28 miles an hour. Um, so a lot of people aren't riding it that fast, especially if they're riding in a crowded area. Is there a enforcement mechanism that doesn't also doesn't require a huge burden for officers to address like reckless behavior on you know if they're driving fast in an unsafe situation but also you know write it so it's enforcable but not that you have to sit there with a radar to track how fast every bicycle is going that may or may not be electric because now the batteries are so small it's hard to you know, when they're traveling quickly.

So, some of this language uh truly came from uh current state statutes and how they break out the classifications. So, that's why it it references that way. Um so that again someone goes out and as it sounds they purchase a class 3 electric bike and then they go and modify it and now it's beyond its true classification by manufacturer. So, um, you know, I I truly hope we don't have to take a lot of enforcement action. Um, and it's more an educational component, uh, and just the safety factor for the commuters out there.

Okay. Thank you. Um, I guess the other question I had was about the commercial um, aspect and commercial rentals because we do have the Glacial Drumland trail head. Like I could I could see that a business may think it's a great idea to rent out bicycles including electric bicycles. So I guess how that but also then there's the, you know, scooters you see in some places that just get dumped everywhere. So those are kind of two different sort of business models. Um so this would require for any type of business model a permitting process. Do we need to lay that out or just reference a permitting process for rentals?

So due to the fact we don't have this type of business right now, that's why things are written the way they are. If we had a business come into the village, then we would need to make the appropriate changes to put things into place so that one, they could be successful, but two, that we also are addressing any concerns that are arisen. It's hard hard to write something now for a potential business in the sense of you referenced the the commercial businesses that are out there with the scooters. they have to come in with certain agreements, certain regulatory things that the village board gets to put in place uh to meet and if they don't meet that then they can get their permitting process revoked.

Okay. Thank you. Um yeah, I had um just kind of a follow up on that and then one other question. Um so in our ordinance that'll be written out that the village would expressly authorize any kind of agreement with a commercial entity and then that would be determined the agreement at a later date for the ordinance purpose. Okay, super. Um and then the last um question I have is kind of about implementation and timeline. Um because we are getting toward the end of the school year and the weather's starting to get nicer. Um we do have opportunity to catch a lot of kids with, you know, the school resource officer or with the school district before they head out. Um do you think that that's a realistic timeline to turn around that we have something that we can get out to kids to educate them before summer break? We're already going to be working on education component for whenever this does get finalized and approved. Um, but we're already addressing those things and it'll be brought up at um, like May 9th is the bike rodeo. So, we'll be talking about it for anybody that participates in that. So, they're starting to get that education component um, and try and capture the school before they head out and then during summer camps and things like that. Okay, great. Yeah. And whatever information can get I'm not sure how they work with the school, but get get sent home with students perhaps um to so their parents know kind of the boundaries they need to express to their kids for the summer. I know it's it's going to be an ongoing um educational um thing that some kids may need more reminders than others, but I really do appreciate the work on this because I think um anything that we can help create what the rules of the road are

for more users is beneficial. So, thank you Renee.

You're still muted. Gosh, sorry about that. Uh for the fifth time tonight or so. Thank you, Chief Gary, for looking into this and and starting this process. Uh so I in reading through this, I just noted that there's several safety and legal gaps. um especially when we compare it to uh the strict regulations and the collaborative spirit that we previously noted with the ATV supporters in the village. Um while um Trustee Murphy and President Kelm Nelson historically pushed back against the ATVs despite the high level of regulation for the ATVs, this ordinance for the electric bikes seems to be uh uh much more loose. So I have some concerns about supervision. So, this current draft allows children as young as eight uh to operate a motorized electrical bike and scooters on public roadways with like um was just discussed adult supervision which is pretty loose. Um so supervision definitely is not defined. Um and you know in contrast and ATV regulations often require specific safety certifications and strict agegating road use. So, this current ebike would allow a 10-year-old on a class 3 ebike capable of 28 m an hour where it was noted that ATVs um can't go more than 25 m an hour. And so, you're looking at a a 10-year-old on a class uh three bicycle going 28 miles sharing a road with 2,000 lb cars. So, um the safety issue is that there really is not any requirement for these um ebikes to have any mirrors, turn

signals. um yet they're expected or um given rules by parents and even as Heidi defined um you know depends on the parent that they're expected to navigate traffic, make left-hand turns, yield to oncoming vehicles. um and addressing the sidewalk conflict is that um this draft would allow these ebikes on sidewalks unless prohibited by a sign which also can create a risk for our older adult residents who may not be aware or able to see. So um as you know obviously an ebike is going to travel much faster than walking speed. So then I I guess that would bring um maybe pull Rick into this with the legal issue is that um oftentimes pedestrians they don't see they don't hear these ebikes approaching especially from behind. Um so there's you know how how would this be enforced as was just brought up a few minutes ago. Um and there's also a headphone loophole, right? I mean most kids have headphones on. Um, the ordinance does prohibit headphones in both ears, but technically that would allow an operator to have an earbud in one ear when you know there's high traffic, noise volume, which can also be seen as a major safety distraction and and um uh you know, we maybe need to address that. Um, so I I guess when it comes to parental liability, um, the ordinance places liability on uh, patients, but really relies only on warnings for individuals under age 14. So, you know, a legal gap, say a 12-year-old on electrical scooter causes a multicar accident by failing to yield. Um, the

warning system really does nothing to address this civil liability. So I, you know, just several comments that I noted, um, reading through this. So truly, if the board's concerned about the safety and noise of ATVs, which were backed by a group willing to accept heavy regulation, why are we now considering a light touch ordinance for these ebikes that travel up to 28 miles an hour and can be operated by eight-year-olds running around in our village? So I will just say that the information that you have in front of you as I said was a draft. This has been accumulated by several communities throughout the state of Wisconsin following state statutes as was referenced related to the ATVs and UTVs that we were uh when you that was brought up to the village following the state statutes.

And Rick, I think there were some questions in there for you as well. Can you please answer address them?

Right. So, I guess I haven't um really spent any time digging into the ordinance draft, just waiting to get feedback on if this is something the village board is interested in. You know, we can certainly look into those issues with enforcement because that's always what we need to think about when we're putting ordinances together is how are we actually going to enforce it? um or is it just sort of something that we say don't do but we don't really have a way of actually stopping people from it. So, you know, if the the board wanted us to work on putting an actual like draft together for its future consideration, we could certainly do that. um and you know look at ways that we could maybe tighten it up and and frankly I since we didn't have board direction we haven't spent a whole lot of time thinking about you know what are the um you know what's our flexibility here to to regulate these things as far as like equipment goes and things like that. But we can certainly take a look at that to you know try to figure out what are we restricted by state law in any way? are can we be more restrictive in certain aspects as far as what we require. So if we get the direction to to do that tonight, we can or to move forward with some sort of ordinance. We can certainly take a look at those things.

All right, Chris, you have your hand up and then Pete, I see you. Pete was first, I believe. Oh, go ahead.

All right. Well, um, yeah, I think this is very timely. I mean, these scooters, they're racing around in in my neighborhood. I've seen them all over the village. So, I think it's an emerging hazard that that we really need to take action. I appreciate you guys putting a draft together and I certainly agree with some of the comments that have been made, particularly, you know, the acknowledgement of potential commercial businesses given the Glacial Drumland Trail. I think the language is set up well for that. So, Heidi, I appreciate your comments on that. Um, I think the timing of this so that we can do education as far as what the re what the uh rules are with with kids before they break for summer because these these scooters are becoming more and more prevalent is really key. So, I'm 100% line with proceeding with this. I guess just some feedback that I had. Um, under operations on roadways, it talks about that that it can be they can't be operated on roadways with a posted speed limit greater than 25 unless there's a designate. I think there's another piece that you need to cover here. Particularly like highway N where it turns to 25 all the way down. We we don't want scooters on N's. We don't want scooters on the four-way on on BB when it goes to 25. So, I don't know how the language needs to be written, but I think that's got to be covered. The way it's covered right here is a little bit generic and I think there's some exceptions in our village. Um the other thing that that and I agree with um with Heidi in the sense of age limit eight to me seems pretty young to be operating electric scooter in a roadway. I think as I look at other ordinances within the state I've seen anywhere between 14 and 16. So I I I mean I'd leave it up to you guys to dig further and come back with an ordinance, but eight is way too young to be racing around with these things. Um I think uh I like the the helmet requirement at 16. And I think some of the ordinances have up to 18 years old. So I' I'd look for you guys to to get some best practices. And then I'm not quite sure that that you know a lot of spots it talks about parents or

guardians shall not knowingly permit such things from happening. And I don't know uh what the accountability measure is because even at the end under penalty it's not really clear and I know it's a draft. So I appreciate the draft. I think we need to do it. And I'm not sure what what we need in terms of motions. It's it's a discuss and consider, but I'm 100% for moving forward with a draft with some of the comments that have been made, and I'm sure Chris, you've got some as well. Go ahead, Chris. Yeah, I I was actually just going to resend what I was going to say. I think Pete said it pretty well.

Yeah, I think tonight the discuss and consider is to give staff direction on whether we want to move forward with an ordinance and then obviously feedback for what we'd like to see. And I think it sounds like we're interested in an ordinance and we've given Rick a lot of feedback. Um, so we can formalize that with a motion. I'll make a motion to uh give direction to staff to put together a uh ebike scooter ordinance with feedback presented uh at tonight's board meeting. And I'll second. Right. Motion by Doll, second by Murphy. Any other discussion or feedback for the team? Otherwise, roll call vote, please. Benzo,

no. D, I Nelson, hi. Murphy, hi. Severson, I Stowa, that was an I, Chris. Yes. See, that's why I just say yes. Thank you. Yes. All right, motion passes. Um, Deer Grove EMS Commission.

All right, we met on Thursday, March 19th at the uh EMS or ESB building at 6:30 p.m. Um, we did not have any public appearances. Approved the minutes. uh we discussed and considered revision of the minutes from the January meeting which was a discussion around allowing the chief to use car 79 until the end of its useful life. Um so that was something that we had offered up to him. We discussed and considered the February financials. We approved the bills. Um we discussed and considered uh write offs and age accounts. There were no hardships. Uh accounts are are fairly stable in terms of age. staff report we went through. There was no correspondence. Um there was really no update on the PAAA uh study other than the the meetings with the one-on- ones were going on with elected officials. Uh more to come on that. And then we did discuss and consider doing a a Deer Grove staff survey. There was a survey done a couple years ago. We looked at those questions. There was one of the me one of the board members, Paula, had put together some suggestions and that was shared with the group. Uh we plan to revisit that probably not this month. There's a lot going on here as it relates to some of the deer grove issues. Um but uh we then adjourned and uh that was it. Any questions?

All right, there's no questions. We can move on to landfill. Oh, Rene, you're on mute. Um, we Let me see here. I don't have that pulled up in front of me. Um, we met on Sorry, I just had that pull up and then I got rid of it. Sorry. If you want to move on to somebody else and then I will come back.

Let's pop down to fire and then we'll come back to you, Pete.

All right. We uh we met on Monday, March 23rd at 6:30 uh in town hall. We uh did not have any public appearances. We approved the minutes, went through the chief's report. Um, we did discuss to consider using funds from Pleasant Springs to cover um a fire vent uh prop. And and this fire vent prop is a hydraulic table that allows different angles to simulate roof lines and allow training sort of what was done on the corner at 101 East Cottage Grove Road. Um, but it allows them to do that continuously instead of waiting for a building that's going to be demolished that gets offered up. So, I mean, I I think it was very clear to the commission that it's important for training. Originally, it was going to come out of the association funds. It was $92,000. They had they had asked if we could uh go 50/50 and use the Pleasant Springs funds. And I know Cam, you and I spoke, but I think the commission was aligned and in light of the Pleasant Springs agreement with uh the department that we approved splitting that 5050. So, they went ahead. We have a fire vent prop that should be delivered here shortly. Um we did talk about update on generator maintenance. Uh it was recently survey serviced and there are um definitely low hours on it but it is aged. So at some point that's going to need to be earmarked for approval but at this point no action was taken. We did talk about the town and village ordinances regarding false alarms which we talked about tonight and um talked about uh future agenda items obviously uh having that fire vent prop available for the commission whole commission to view firsthand in light of the investment and the importance for their training and then we adjourn. That was it. Any questions?

Well done. Uh Renee, how about we move on to landfill?

Yes. Um, so we met March 23rd at 6:00 p.m. Um, there were no public appearances. Approval from the previous meeting, um, discuss and consider the, uh, landfill monitoring bills were approved for both, uh, January and February. Um, recent landfill testing and monitoring results from August through January 2026. gas sampling report analytical report was approved along with the January 8th groundwater analytical report for monitoring the wells as well as the January 8th groundwater exceedence report and uh we adjourned.

All right, any questions for landfell? How about parks wreck and for wreck and forestry Heidi?

Yep. Thanks. So we met on Thursday, March 26th. Uh we talked u we approved the minutes. We talked about um mower and slope safety policy which um was brought up as part of the insurance um about our safety with our current equipment that we have um kind of restrictions to keep our employees safe of I believe it's 15 degrees. Um so wanted to enact um staff felt it was important to have a policy that shows how we're going to maintain those areas um moving forward unless we have equipment that can handle that um angle. So that's I guess something that we'd have to think about in the future if we want to be able to maintain these in a different way. Um otherwise staff has the guidance that they need um for these areas on how they would maintain just have it written um to make sure all of our staff are are safe as they're working out in the field. Um the Shady Grove park update they are currently working um out in Shady Grove. Um substantial completion is end of May with final completion by June 15th. So that'll be done for the summer and the Miracle League playground update is still on schedule. Uh so we just again went over the ADA parking, the fence around the playground. Um anyone that had sponsored equipment can talk to Sean about um you know what's what's happening with uh sponsored equipment from the Dream Park. Um, and then of course maintaining the tile wall and honoring all the work that set the stage for such a beautiful park

um that we have as such a great community um asset that really started with that dream park and all the work that the people did there. So, um, we just went over that timeline again and Sean's report and our future agenda items. We'll kind of continue on with the updates of the two park projects. And then we adjourned. Our next meeting is April 23rd. Oh, we did have um uh we will also be talking about a pickle ball season um for Bakan Park as a result of um neighbor comments um you know that we should establish a season um that it wouldn't open until April 1st um until you know October 31st or November 15th or whatever the the committee is going to talk about that um defining a pickle ball season um at our next Any questions for parks? All right, let's move on to reports for village officers. Village attorney.

Uh nothing to report tonight. Thank you, village administrator.

Yes. Um we have a a few uh years of service anniversaries um for staff. most notably Lisa Colada, village clerk. It's a big month for a big April is a big month for Lisa. Um, April April Fool's Day. April 1st is her birthday and she has her 10year service anniversary here and then she also gets to administer an election every every April. So, um, cheers to Lisa. But other than that, happy to take any questions from the tracker or report. Thank you.

Um, assistant administrator, finance director Sawyer with a discuss and consider and a budget amendments.

All right. So, um, relatively straightforward amendment. Um, concluding each debt issuance. Um we have a amendment that trs up uh because at the time when we approve the budget we are not approving um or we do not estimate debt issuance cost premium or anticipated interest on investments which would be the interest that we hold or that we earn until um the funds are drawn upon for eligible project costs. Um so that's the biggest part of the amendment shown. Um at the one of the last board meetings we talked about um the Jonathan Health Tech trail replacement reduction um in an overall project cost. Um I also have included in here uh favorable bids with the the BB bus bike path reduces our obligation by 53,000. uh the originally when we discussed the fire and EMS study um we had budgeted for the full cost uh which is now budgeted only or the recommended budget amendment is for the 17,500 and then um for the squad that was totaled in 2025 we received those proceeds and and put it in equity uh for the planned replacement in in 2026 and this is just reflective of collecting that um we will only receive around the $24,348 um in 2026 once once those final uploading bills are submitted to insurance. Um so with that said, I'll take uh any questions.

So Cam is this essentially a $1.2 million amendment to the budget? Um, are you talking about when I add up approximately when I add up the changes, $1.2 million difference from budget to amendment.

Yeah. So, so um difference might not be necessarily apples to apples here. So like here um like proceeds is is going down. So it's a negative change. So like where whereas um a positive change for debt issuance cost is a is a plus. So, if you're talking about like net effect on the budget, um overall it's a net positive effect. Um and I we could go kind of fund by fund by fund um because ultimately we're reducing um project cost in here and then the premium on debt issuance um offsets largely the uh debt issuance cost.

Okay, I see that now. So like premium and dentage we had nothing but then we're getting 614 just in terms of the total cash. So it's one it's plus 1.2 give or take. Gotcha. Correct. Yeah. I got you. Other questions for Cameron? Make the motion to approve the budget amendment 2026-002. I'll second that. Right. Motion by Murphy, second by D. Any other discussion? We'll do a roll call. Benzo,

you're on mute.

No. Doll. Hi. Hel Nelson. Hi Murphy. I Severson. I stole. Yes.

All right. But motion passes. Um D, police chief. We have discussed and consider options for video documentation of the police station project. So what you have in front of you um is related to the the construction project of the building and options for documentation purposes. uh the process uh for historical purposes and also um as a a way of documenting any matters that may come up uh during the construction phases that may need to be addressed. Uh the proposals that you have in front of you uh one was re received through a company that Riley Construction has utilized before. Uh the second option is an uh business that the village has used uh on prior occasions and then third option is internal staff. Um again just seeing where the board sits uh and if they if you'd like to proceed.

Open it up to comments or questions from the board for some direction. You know, I guess my my question, Chief, is, you know, if there's if there's something needed for construction, I would have thought that would have been part of Riley's bid, etc. Um, you know, I it's not budgeted. I'm I'm struggling a little bit understanding the purpose. I don't know if if I I'm missing something. Again, uh it's like I said, partially the historical records for you. uh the process um for the future. Uh it's also to be able to provide out to the community as the process is going. So um some would refer to it as a time lapse. Um again it was not thought of during uh the initial

though you're right that's why it was not uh through Riley initially. Um we Certainly change or sorry

no certainly um option one I mean I just I unless there's a a solid reason why we would need that high definition and and some of those things in terms of making sure we do it right I understand you know wanting some historical you know progression photos I mean I would lean towards if we could have staff do it otherwise you know certainly the question would be is if we went with option two how would we fund that I mean obviously it's not a lot of money But death by a thousand cuts. We just got to stop digging into, you know, these nice to haves until we kind of write the ship.

Yeah. Just to kind of to to anchor on that. So So that's exactly why it hasn't it it wasn't part of the original police station um project. We were asked to reduce cost as you know anywhere possible. So So really though, we didn't want to be as staff the ones responsible for saying no. we weren't going to do a time lapse or historical or have this kind of showcase of the project as it progresses. Um so that's why um when Riley had brought it up, it kind of had us thinking again, oh well, we should at least check with the board to see what what the pulse is if if that's something that the board is is interested in. Um if the board's not interested in, um it is yes, a way to minimize costs.

Heidi, you have your hand up. Yeah. Um, I was just wondering if we I I think because of staff change maybe in our media then we lost the person that was credential to fly the drone. Is that am I remembering that correctly? That I mean you need to take a test and be certified to fly our drone. I was just wondering if we have a timeline that maybe we could designate someone that might be able to do that instead of spending. I know it takes a little time to study and you you have to know all these FA regulations and things, but um it's

we passed in we passed in the budget process for somebody to for two people to get certified. So um Sean's Sean's one of those individuals. Um we just regardless of what goes forward from a a videography or picture perspective, um there will be cameras on the work site. Um so obviously we can do our own um investigation you know to make sure that you know there aren't any issues and our kind of way to have eyes on the site you know at any given time so we can kind of independently you know review the progression as it's going on to make sure it's lining up with pay requests. Um so that will happen. I think really the ask here what's in front of the board is do you want a do you want a professional firm or or individual responsible you know or is something that staff does sufficient. Um so obviously the the quality is going to significantly vary depending on who's doing it. Um the cameras that are going to be used for the site um historically have 30-day memory on them. We can we can extend that at minimum like at minimum cost, but but it's just things that somebody has to actively be making sure they're downloading the footage and you know we have the right angles and such.

Chris, yeah, I think we should just go with staff on this. I don't think the cost for this is worth paying for when we have staff that could do it a sufficient job. Other comments?

Yeah, I remembered to unmute myself when my hand is raised. I agree with Chris and Heidi that we have staff who are able to do it and uh that item was not budgeted. So, I'm I'm wondering um I don't know if I missed this piece at all, Chief Gary. So, when when were you approached by a vendor to do this or was that um can you can you fill me in on that gap?

The discussion came up uh with Riley Construction uh and documentation of the construction phase uh after they were awarded the bid. So, that's where we and got the information related to the vendor that they had previously used. Um, and then I reached out to the villages prior uh business that they had used. And then again uh I have staff that are working on their their drone license also. Um so again, if we're doing it internally, I have no problem with that uh decision by the board whatsoever.

Good. This is just again bringing it to to you to see where where the board what the board felt about it. Great. Thank you for that. I just think this is another clear example of a a salesman prompting Riley or or whomever when we have adequate staff who can do this. So, thank you.

And can you just clarify that? Do we have someone that can operate a drone now or they're still in the works? Like the idea is to get drone footage on a monthly basis to capture it this it's the first time we've done a facility in 35 years. So for historical documentation that's the idea behind it. But are we going to miss out on several months of construction because we're getting our license or how does that work?

I do not currently have anybody that uh has their drone license. Um hopefully I I don't have in a specific time frame when they will. Um I know they're adamantly working on it. So hopefully they'll be up and running here sooner than later. Any idea what sooner versus later it is?

You know, the one thing is it's like I I think in retrospect you can never go back and take these pictures. So, I understand that there's definitely some, you know, it's the biggest project we've taken on in probably the history of Cottage Grove. It is the biggest project. Um, so to get get some uh quality shots, if we don't have someone to operate a drone, I'm wondering if, you know, Robert Barer Photography is a local Cottage Grove business and he does extremely good work. And I'm just wondering if maybe there's a split there. we're going to have our own drone operator. Maybe he could we could pair down his scope and he could do them until we can do them. It's just a thought.

I'm also happy to donate my stipen to cover the cost of this. I think it's an important documentation. I tried to get my husband to volunteer. He has his drone license, but said he didn't have a lot of time to do extras. We borrow a ladder truck. I'll donate my stipen too smaller, but I go I think it's important. I think I agree with you.

I think that going with a local photographer and having it done well is does a a small tiny service to the project and so I'd be happy to contribute to that and not use village funds in that capacity. Um, Rick, I guess just procedurally, um, is this something that obviously if Cindy and Pete want to want to cover, what does that look like on the village side? Um, as far as accounting, I I don't I don't know.

I can I can I I can handle the accounting. If if if it's just a payroll deduction, that's pretty easy. I can work with them, but I I just want to make sure if we are oddly Oddly enough, there's a um there's like a specific provision. I don't remember what it says about like because sometimes officials just say they're not going to accept their salary, but that sort of has to be like like before the year or something like that. So basically like it would have to come back as like a check to the village or something like that rather than a deduction. Okay. Like a donation.

I can I can write a check to the village. I can bring it there tomorrow. How about that? You're talking about the Bob Rivera. Uh yeah, that's I'm with you, Cindy. I'll go 5050. I'll go 5050 with you. Okay. I'll make a motion to um use Robert Terra as the vendor for the photographic video documentation of the police station project with Cindy and Pete splitting the cost 50/50. I'll second that motion.

All right. Motion by Kel Nelson, second by D. Any other discussion? All those in favor? Roll call, I suppose. Sorry, we're roll call. We're online. All right, Benzo. Thank you Cindy and Pete for uh donating for that. I D I Kell Nelson I Murphy I Severson I Stowa yes. All right motion passed. Thank you everyone.

Yep. So, Cam Cam or uh Cam, if you could just email me h how or what the check should look like, just so I know. Yep. Thank you. Moving on to communication and miscellaneous business. We're almost done. Commu consider approval of vouchers, bills list is in the agenda. Comments or questions for Cameron.

Oh boy. Cam, we didn't have a chance to talk about it. I did have a few questions. Not a problem. I do want to make one comment. Um we did renegotiate um our internet bill here at Village Hall. Um so there will be um you know roughly about $150 a month savings um on that bill. Um it might be a little bit that savings might be a little bit deferred on when exactly it starts, but just wanted to um kind of mention um as followup from a previous bill's listing um we are still looking at um the alliant bills um as far as per meter basis as opposed to reducing the amount of meters at MSB into one meter which would involve some rewiring of the master panel. Um, so then eventually the board can make a decision about if that's if that rewiring is worth the the cost of compared to the monthly fixed charges on at the MSB building.

Nice nice work on that, Cam. I mean, it's it's just these little things. Just a little here, a little there, and it makes a difference, right? Um, so I did have a question. I wasn't quite sure um on on page one under uh Kurico aquatic resources management agreement. What are they managing? Sean, do you want to take that one if you're still on?

You betcha. Um, Pete, what we get a a a four-month management agreement that we set up with Carico and what they do is they provide us with guidance and 247 um support should we need anything quickly with the SP with the splash pad. They come out monthly and do testing and just make sure that we're following all sorts of all of the regs that are needed. Okay. So, that's a splash pad maintenance thing and that's not anything that we can do internally. Uh, not to not to get the breaks that we get on the pricing for for um um chemicals and and and have their expertise. No.

Okay. Gotcha. The next even the next line item red key vest. I'm assuming that's bulletproof vest. I thought we we bought a bunch of bulletproof vest last month. Is that what that is? $2,600 if you're on the

Yes, those are uh best uh for the two that are in the academy right now. Okay, gotcha. Um All right, let's see. Then the other question was um so when we do events, it's really cool that we do this. So like the um the pasta classes, Claire did these classes. So we pay Claire is that are you know there's there's um fees to participate, right? So how does that work?

So yeah, we pay Claire for her services. Um that is basically a money in money out um okay transaction. So uh they the participants register through us and then we contract the service out to CLA. Gotcha. Um, under ground force solution. So, the excavating work at 101 East Cottage Grove Road. So, it was $9,300 to grade that out and seed and and put straw down. Wow. Correct. Wow. And I see I see that's charged to TID 9509.

Yeah, that was that was at either last meeting or the meeting before, Kyla. So, we there was a couple bids that were brought forward. Um, so the ground force solutions LLC was the the the cheapest of um the solutions. So we felt, you know, when that was presented, we just felt like cleaning up that corner and creating it. Um, just because of the visibility of that corner was important to be professionally done.

Yeah, it looks good. It looks a heck of a lot better than it did. When the grass grows, it will, but it's crazy what a little bit of grass seed costs. And I know there was some grading, etc. Um, then the last question I had was tree work. So, there was a tree removal for about $4,000. It was $3,950. Was that for trees there along the um the new path? Where was that? Yeah, hang on one second, Pete. Let me catch up here. Um page six towards the bottom treework.

Um I'd have to look up that. No, that was not for along the the uh the BB path at all. No, that was a a removal that was too big for us to handle in house. Okay. Cuz no, that was my other question is is could we have done that in-house? But you just answered that. So that that's all the questions I had. Other questions on the bills list. Make the motion to approve the vouchers as presented. I'll second that. All right. Motion by Murphy, second by D. Ask once again any other questions. Otherwise, we'll do roll call. Benzo, I

D I Kell Nelson. Hi. Murphy. Hi. Severson. Hi. Stoa. Yes. Right. Moving on to correspondence. Anyone have anything? All right. upcoming community events. Hopefully everyone is signed up for the uh newsletter because there was a special sustainability uh issue that went out I think last night, yesterday um which has all of the things that are happening in April and sustainability wise um throughout the village. Otherwise, who has other things to add?

I'll I'll just put a plug in. Uh National Drug Takeback Day is April 25th. We'll uh be holding the usual collection here at uh the MSD building with drive-thru service. So, anybody needs to get rid of unused medications, don't hesitate to come on by and drop them on off and we'll get rid of them for you. Ecycle event is April 18th um from 8 until noon. Come and drop your uh electronic recycling off. I will be there as one of the people collecting the the waste and um hopefully we can make the event successful again and keep that stuff out of our our landfills.

That's a great Earth Day event. Thank you, Cam. Anything else? The RA future agenda items. Um, Baker Tilly will be here on May 4th uh to present their audit results and um answer any questions on the financial statements.

The um plan uh comprehensive plan interviews are al will also be on May 4th. Um there's a a professor that I met at a conference that um has offered to provide some uh orientation related training for um uh he does that for for new boards for free. Um so something to add to our orientation process. Um, so we we'd look depending on the time that he would uh be looking to do that, we could time it for a lesser agenda or or maybe a special meeting, but might be something good for um everyone to attend versus only uh potential new board members. But um something to look forward to ahead if not in May, maybe in June.

And then everybody's favorite topic, budget. Um so uh because the second meeting in April follow fall falls before the new board starts the first meeting in May will be the budget timeline uh the capital prioritization process um and then um possibly mission vision value consideration um just again depending um so what what will be in front of the board will be what is currently in place um So, I'll likely send an email out this week of what the the current guidelines are and and pro and old timeline. Um, so certainly uh I can collect feedback between now and and and May 4th on the process.

All right. Otherwise, we can move to number 11. Make the motion to adjurnn. Second. Motion by Murphy, second by D. Non-debatable. And I don't think we need a roll call. All those I All right. Thanks everyone. Have a good night. You too.