Village Board - Regular Meeting

recording in progress.

Okay, we're ready. All right. Welcome to the Village of Cottage Grove Village Board of Trustees meeting on Monday, April 20th, 2026. This is a hybrid meeting both virtually on Zoom with the link at the top of the agenda and in person at Village Hall and also streamed 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. So we'll stand for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right, we're at the public appearances, public's opportunity to speak. Um, we'll start with individuals in the room and then move to anyone on Zoom and just ask that you keep your comments to three minutes. Does anyone in the room would like to speak for public comment? Is there anyone on Zoom? Can raise your hand using the react button at the bottom. All right, we'll move on to discuss and consider the minutes of the village board meeting from April 6th to 2026.

I'd make a motion to approve the minutes as presented. Second motion by Murphy, second by Severson. Any discussion, comments, or edits? All those in favor? I opposed abstain. Motion carries. Move on to new business. Discuss and consider resolution 2026-07, appreciation for service to Peter Dell. I would move approval of resolution 2026-07, appreciation of service to Peter Dell.

Second motion by Murphy, second by Severson. I would just like to express my appreciation to the village village staff um for the two years I've been on the board and certainly to everybody on the board itself. I mean the last year has been tough and I would just hope that the village board never has to go without with an empty seat moving forward. So uh hopefully that doesn't occur. But again, thanks to the village, particularly Cameron, for all the um assistance and time that you spent uh helping educate me on public finance to complement my private sector finance. So, thank you. Yeah, thank you, Pete.

I'd just like to say to Pete, um obviously thank you for your service to the board. Um it was fun watching you do math in your head that would have taken me days to do. Um going to miss that, but also thank you for all the time for EMS. um because you also served as EMS commission chair this year so that was an extra load. Um so I wanted to say thank you for that as well. All right, all those in favor I opposed. Second.

Motion carries. All right. Discuss and consider fireman's festival parade route and timing changes. We have festival chair Laughenberg here. Um why don't you just give us an update? I know we all we had a meeting about it, but tell the board about some changes.

Pleasant greet greetings everyone. Uh when it came time to reserve the parking lots for the parade this year, um the Caj Grove School will be using those parking lots for the construction they'll be doing around their school. Um try to think of several other ways to to set the parade up. I know in years past we've used Ali Street, we've used Taylor Street, but with what happened in Walka and other concerns and whatnot. We didn't think that that was quite feasible. Uh the Manona parade, they do shut down the parade route, Mona Drive about an hour early and then they put up all the parade floats. You find your number, parade starts, everyone just kind of flows out and you know on the parade route. Um ran we ran it past the fire board. Uh got approval of one plan. And we brought that plan to Cindy and to Chief Gary. We ran it through them at the safety meeting and kind of fine-tuned it a little bit. Uh we'll be shutting down Main Street or or hoping to shut down Main Street. Uh instead of 11:30, shut it down at 11:00. Uh traffic would flow in. So like the prey participants would flow north to south uh from Cottage Grove Road. Um, we would shut down from kind of BB to Taylor Street as a soft shutdown. Hard shutdown would be Chief Gary could could figure it out too just south of the authentics um entrance to Lake Taylor. Kind of creating a safe box where the parade participants can go get line up and order um kind of a safe zone. At 11:50, everything will get shut down. And then at noon, the parade would start from Taylor Prairie and proceed south. Um, kind of like what Monona Drive does in sort of a smaller type aspect. Anything you want to add, Chief?

No, you covered it. Okay. So, because it's a deviation from the special event permit, you just wanted to make sure the board was aware. Yep. And then Cindy had the idea of putting a sign up, big sign up that says parade starts here, right at the corner of Taylor Prairie and Main Street. So people would line up from there and kind of go south. Questions or comments for Kevin?

I guess thanks for the flexibility and problem solving ahead. Um, and yeah, that's a good idea. So then participants like spectators know where to start lining up. Um so I would make a motion to approve the parade route and timing changes for fireman's festival parade. Second motion by Murphy, second by Severson. Take the whole night tonight, ladies. Um any other comments, questions? There's all those in favor? I opposed. Motion carries. Thanks for coming, Kevin.

Yep. All right, moving on to letter C. Discuss and consider requests from Summit Credit Union for a temporary no parking on Landmark Drive for their Shredfest events. That's in September. And there's a document in the agenda as well. And Alison is online if she wants to say anything. Hello. Hi, Alison.

Hi. Um, I'm the events manager at Summit Credit Union and Paula, I had no idea you were on the board here, um, in Cottage Grove. So, nice to see you, co-orker, friend of mine. Um, but yeah, so I'm willing to answer any questions or discuss this further if there are any questions or need for more information. And there were no comments from village staff on it either. Not from public works either. Okay. I would move approval of the request from Summit Credit Union for the temporary no parking on Landmark Drive on Saturday, September 26th as presented. I will second.

Motion by Murphy, second by D. Any other discussion? All those in favor? I I opposed. Abstain. I abstain.

Okay, motion carries. Uh D, discuss and consider black party application from Randy Becker at the 200 block of Maria Lane. That um application is in the agenda. I Oh, I just wanted to point out um previously you you may have seen where you had the actual application in the packet. We are trying to go away from that for the reason being um that information isn't put out onto our website unnecessarily. So that's why you saw a memo instead of the application. So I just wanted to explain that.

I would move approval of the block party application from Randy Becker at the 200 block of Maria Lane. I'll second. Okay. Motion by Severson, second by D. Any other discussion? All those in favor? I

I opposed. Motion carries. All right. Reports from village boards, commissions, and committees. Um so we had plan commission that met on Wednesday, April 8th at 6:30 and we um have one discuss and consider in the agenda tonight for the approval of a zero lot line application to split a dup duplex. Um the during the actual plan commission, we also had um a presentation from a W professor um for planning and landscape architecture on the Door Creek Greenway project. Um, and if you have time, I suggest going and either watching that presentation or kind of looking through the agenda and um, clicking on some of those documents. We then also had a concept presentation from LAR for 162 unit single family home um, for feedback only. And this is the um, subdivision on Ridge Road going out on Taylor. That was pretty much it for plan commission. Aaron, did I miss anything for plan commission? Otherwise, you can tell us about the zero lat line.

No, I think we can just go to the uh zero lot line. Um pretty straightforward, just the standard conditions. Um one that they record their maintenance agreement at the register of deeds. Then the second condition was getting approval from the utility commission, but that has happened since the plan commission met. So that's already taken care of. Yep. I'll make a motion to approve the zero lot line um duplex application by Majestro. Second. All right. Motion by D, second by Severson. Any other discussion? All those in favor? I I

opposed abstain. Motion carries. Um the library board. So the library board met on Wednesday um April 15th. We um discussed our ongoing edits to our FAQ document which is really large and needs to be kind of um paired down a bit. Um also happy library week, find your joy 2026 um to all those who are celebrating this week. Uh we cancelled the August 19th meeting. We have a small change in how we're going to um operate with vendor payments just to make things a little bit more efficient. And then we discussed programming and our summer reading program. Um, and our next meeting is Wednesday, May 20th. That's all for the library board. If there's no questions, we can move on to EMS. Okay. Um, EMS met in Deerfield on April 16th at 6:30. Um, we did have Dan Barker, the the Deer Grove EMS attorney on on um or present at the meeting because we did have a number of items that we certainly would have dragged on if we didn't have his council at the discussion. So, we did start off with his items, which was item 11. We talked about the Deer Grove um EMS IGA and um there there was or has been over the last several months some questions on section 202L um which is regards to uh the request of commission members for um legal counsel and the way the IG is written it's less than two hours it can be forwarded and you know I think I've spoken with you Rick and we did speak with Dan and it's not super clear. Um I think some of the commission members were of the opinion that it needs to be approved by the commission and other feedback that we've gotten is less than two hours does not

similar to um the legal support that we get on the board. Um so we did talk about that. There is some um plans to bring that forward and modify the to clarify that language. Um what what I had u proposed is that less than a certain amount of time, half hour or whatever, that that commission members could make a request and the push back by some of the other commission members uh from the other other communities were just use your your your village or your municipal attorney. So, you know, I think it'll be interesting to see where that goes and because that's going to be coming forward. And I do think that since we do pay nearly 60% uh of the costs um to operate the Deer Grove EMS, I think uh it's it's I think um reasonable to say that commission members and it's not just the Cottage Grove Village Cottage Grove commission members, but uh also the other communities to to have a certain amount of legal guidance on issues as they pop up before it actually goes to the board for approval. So we spent a lot of time talking about that. So there will be um a potential modification of the IGA which obviously would need to be approved by u all three municipalities uh as a part of the IGA. So then we moved on and we spoke about um the pet policy. So, um, Chief Lang um had had been um I think he sort of adopted or he was awarded a um a service animal and um he had put together a policy that we talked about at the at the meeting. There is obviously a lot of issues surrounding that because you have uh the animal policy, but then you've got two um two departments sharing a building and that department and that building

itself essentially um has two communities as the landlord. So there was a lot of discussion around that. I think the commission arrived at at this point in time no pets. We're not going to have a pet policy where you can bring your pet to work. Um there was um some some strong support around having a service animal or a emotional not emotional support but a um um a service animal

a therapy dog. Right. So Chief calls it a a a um a service dog, but essentially the purposes of what he's going to use it for is a therapy dog. for him for him himself it would be um um a personal support animal. So, as far as this topic goes, the plan was the three chiefs. That would be the the Deer Grove Chief Eric and the the um town, I'm sorry, the village of Deerfield, Josh, and the village of uh or the town, our joint chief uh Nick, to get together and talk about how a policy would work, how the both departments could support that. and that would come forward in the next meeting from those uh three chiefs as an agreement to potentially allow a service animal or or a therapy dog. So, it was a good discussion. It went on for a long time. Uh but I think we arrived at the right next steps and then we went on and and talked about the typical items of the the bills, the financials. There was one hardship writeoff that was approved. Um and then we had a presentation on the draft financial audit by Johnson Block. Things look good. And then uh EMSMC did a an overview of um their uh process and uh then we adjourned. Any questions? It was a long meeting. The longest Deer Grove meeting I think I've been in. I didn't realize you had a presentation too after I h I was on the call for a little bit. I hung up at 8. So I don't know what time you guys got done.

I can I just follow up? Um so I think one of the things and

um I don't know who Heidi were you on the board when they re renegotiated the last IGA. So, our the EMS attorney kind of said that he thought the clause about contacting the attorney was kind of what the village was wanting. Um because obviously in our case, we have the ability to reach out to our attorneys and he thought that that was some of the language that the village was wanting. Um but I I voted against um limiting that and rewriting that piece because um two reasons. One, I think the EMS commissioners should have the rights that we do, right, to be able to utilize our legal counsel and particularly for new new members. Um, but two, it's also the cost of doing business as an EMS service. Like, we shouldn't be paying an assessment and then paying Rick to answer the question that really is for the EMS attorney. So, um I think there's going to be more conversation um about this, but hopefully somebody can dig back um as to those negotiations and and the recollections. I think some of the concerns were how the Deer Grove EMS attorney is. It depends on what they're being asked about. If it's really something that a municipal attorney should be answering on behalf of how, you know, each entity as a, you know, elected body feels about Deer Grove EMS versus if it's a Deer Grove EMS issue, that should be that attorney and whether the village should pay for a question that another municipality has about

the IG. So I think I think yes it could be clarified further but I think the whole that you know if we're paying 60% are we somehow supplementing another municipality's legal advice. I think I think that that was probably more of the concern at the time whether you know how we you know hindsight's 2020 you know you you keep that's why you keep renegotiating IGAS to

was the spirit of the language back when it was put together and as you read it it's it's not the cleanest language that I've ever seen was the spirit to allow commission members to have an initial consult on a legal issue no matter what before it would go to the board for approval because it this talk if it's more than two hours it needs formal commission approval. So it's really nebulous. Um so we have to be a little bit careful on how deep we go into the conversation. Um I did take a look at previous versions. So when we I think when we renegotiated it in 2021 or whatever that was already an existing piece of it. So I think it predated carried over.

Yeah. It was just something that was from previous agreements. So, I don't know when it originally came from, but um that was just something that stuck in. It sounds like maybe some edits will come back to us just in that portion, but not revisiting the whole IGA. No. Okay. Just also put that out there that there was some concern about that and I received some concern about that and that we're really on board with just minor edits to that one specific section. Yep.

Okay. Anything else for EMS? Reports from village officers. We village attorney. Uh so nothing for tonight. Um next meeting I'm going to have a little bit of a legislative update just because there were a few bills signed into law at the end of this session that affect local government. So um and some of them are pretty significant at least on the the planning side of things. So, um, and then I think after that we'll just have sort of like some refresher presentations that are we'll see what the agendas are like, but just some updates on open meetings, records, things like that. Just uh because we have some new board members coming on. So, always good just to get a little tuneup for everybody. And then Matt's administrative report and tracker, he's um out of the office, so he is absent and excused from this meeting, but it'll return at the next meeting. um communication and miscellaneous business. Consider approval of vouchers.

You you have an attachment um one related to a a police station pay pay app. Um one of the things that Matt and I talked about was including kind of a summary of regardless if we've accepted a change order that we describe if we've reject accepted or rejected one. So there are uh four or sorry three change orders that are listed on the bottom of that summary of which one the board denied and then uh two pay pay request number one and three or sorry change order one and three that we denied as as staff. Um really the only effect of denying the third pay request was potentially with how wet it's been. um we didn't feel like it was necessary to spend $30,000 and for a temporary road and and stone to keep on a specific timeline. So, we ultimately thought that um passing on that would be in the village's best interest. Um it has since dried out. So, not as concerned that the timeline's going to be materially affected, but we'll keep the board updated. Um, other than that, there was a couple questions that came through um on the bills list um that I sent out earlier today, but I'll any other questions that you have.

What was the $61,000 site logistics change uh change order for? I didn't quite understand. So, the the first pay request uh or sorry, the first change order that we rejected um they originally the plan was to try to keep the traffic, the construction traffic off of the newly constructed Bonnie Road. Um at that price tag, that slight change was not worth it. What we can do for patching and and repairing that section that was repaved um is much cheaper than that. So, we ultimately decided that that was not in the village's best interest.

That's great. You know, the thing is, I mean, obviously questioning all these change orders and they're going to keep coming. Absolutely. Keep coming. So, um, it's just good to see that you're thinking through them and Yeah. And I think setting the tone that you're you're not we're not going to say unless it's in the best interest for the village, it's not Yep. All right. Let's discuss and consider. I would move approval of the vouchers as presented. Second. All right. Motion by Murphy, second by or motion by Severson, second by Murphy. Any other comments or question on the bill's list? All those in favor?

I opposed abstain. Motion carries. Um correspondence. Cameron, you want to give us an update on the school board meetings? Yeah, so uh the school board um the last year they kind of piloted having board meetings uh here at Village Hall every other month. they reached out and requested to do that similarly for the upcoming year. Um we responded and said that that's not a problem at this time. Um if it becomes an issue we can we can reach out to them but as of right now um we don't have any concerns. Um any other correspondents or I was just going to ask did we resolve the issue with okay with the recording and their media folks?

Yep. We're we've finally kind of got a solution to making sure there's no that doesn't cause any disruptions at village board and committee meetings. Any other correspondents, upcoming community events? Um the Cottage Grove area Historical Society has a um presentation about Camp Randall Civil War II on Wisconsin. It's on Tuesday, April 28th at 6:30 p.m. at Drumland Reserve. Um, and the speaker is Robert Block and it's a free event.

Um, the safe screens for tween and their caregivers is on April 30th and that was rescheduled from last month and so hope we have a good turnout for that. I know there's a lot of community partners behind that one. Anything else? Just a reminder, this Saturday is National Drug Takeback. Um, so we'll be in operation from 10:00 a.m. to 2 pm. Come on by and uh dispose of your uh leftover medication properly.

And it was a past event, but um the e e-waste recycle was great on Saturday. Um it was nice to see Lisa and Cameron and so many of the staff um out there. Um when I showed up at 10, there was I mean the semi was already a good chunk loaded. So, um, this is definitely something worth repeating. So, thanks to everyone who was out there. All right, future agenda items. I feel like there's a long list for maybe the beginning of May, but we've got the, um, interviews for the comp plan revision, um, which will be on May 4th. Um, there's a whole bunch of other stuff, too. But

my only um request is you mentioned the you're going to go over the new laws that have been passed from a legal standpoint. I was just wondering if Aaron could also come at it from a planning standpoint as well and what that might mean for us if that's okay. Of course. Anything else for future agenda items?

Um we will be asking for feedback on the ecycle event and our kind of our bulk disposal program. Um, I know there's been interest by residents on possibly expanding to a bulk item drop off zone. Um, I had somebody ask about if we would be doing like for people who don't have vehicles or seniors, maybe if they we have so many slots that people can sign up that we actually go get get the items. Um, so just a couple different things that we'll investigate and bring back to the board. Were you soliciting feedback from residents or Okay. additional feedback or what that was the feedback. Okay.

Recycling and garbage people are very passionate about. Yes. Otherwise we have number 10. Trusty doll. I'll make a motion to adjourn. Second. Motion and second. Non-debatable. All those in favor? I I Thanks.