Village Board - Regular Meeting

Recording in progress. All right. Welcome to the Village of Cottage Grove Village Board of Trustees meeting on Monday, May 4th, 2026. This is a hybrid meeting taking place virtually online um via Zoom, which is the link is at the top of the agenda, also in person at Village Hall and streamed on our YouTube channel. It's 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.

Right. We're going to move on to the public appearances. Public's opportunity to speak. So, this portion of the meeting is the opportunity for community members to share comments and concerns, but it's not an open dialogue um between yourself and the village board. Um each speaker has up to three minutes. Um I'll use the timer on my phone so we don't have to put an official one up. Um we just ask that everyone respect the rights and viewpoints of others. So, we're going to begin with individuals in the room who have um submitted a request to speak form and are present um and then we'll open the floor to anyone else in the room and then anyone else on Zoom. If you're on Zoom and you'd like to speak, ask that you um hover over the react button and then use the raise hand feature. So, we do have one um wish to speak form, Mark Speos. Mark Spose, 242 Chateau Drive here in the village of Cottage Grove. Good evening. I'm here tonight to speak plainly about responsibility, priorities, and trust because right now I don't believe some on this board are honoring any of the three. First, let me start by addressing the proposed study to potentially combine or co-mingle our fire department with neighboring departments. Let's be honest about what this really is. You're asking taxpayers to fund a study that puts our volunteer fire department on the same path as unionized full-time departments with entirely different cost structures, obligations, and incentives. Now, there is a legitimate conversation to be had about the future of our village as it becomes comes to EMS and fire services. As the village grows, we absolutely need to examine how we can continue to provide premier fire and emergency services and how we will pay for that growth response responsibly. But that is a completely different discussion than what's being I believe proposed here um with this study. Planning for growth is about maintaining excellence while staying fiscally responsible. The study is about, I believe, something entirely

different. The co-mingling of equipment, coingling of funding, and ultimately tying our fire protection not only to our own financial stability as a village, but to the financial stability of other municipalities. This introduces risks, risks that we do not control. Our department is not broken. We're blessed to have the department we have today. It serves this village with dedic dedication, efficiency, and at a fraction of the cost of a unionized fire department. So why are we studying ways to change it? Studies like this are rarely neutral. They create momentum. They justify decisions that some already want to make. And once that train leaves the station, it doesn't come back. If it's not broken, don't study how to fix it because what you're really doing is studying how to replace it. Second, let's talk about fiscal responsibility. The village is carrying, as I've said many times, roughly $48 million in debt, give or cut take a million or two. And yet, we are considering purchasing additional property specifically in Tint 9. And this is in despite of the fact that there's already a private developer interested in the same parcel we're looking at buying. Why are we competing with our own developers? Why are we risking taxpayer dollars to play real estate investor when the private sector is willing to step in? TID funds are not a slush fund. They're not a game for experimentation. And this isn't monopoly. These are real dollars, real risk, and real consequences for our village of Cottage Grove taxpayers. And there's a warning sign we should not ignore. Our local school district was just downgraded by Moody's in part due to extraordinary levels of debt. That's not abstract. That affects borrowing that affects borrowing costs, taxes, and long-term fiscal respon fiscal responsibility. If this village continues on the same path, taking more and more debt without restraint, we are putting ourselves at risk of facing the same very same consequences. This is how it starts. Not all at once, but one decision at a time that normalizes more borrowing. Government should not be competing with private investment. It should be encouraging it. Finally, I

want to address something more serious than policy. It's consistency and integrity. Last year when I sought appointment to this board, I was told very clearly that letters of support could not be read even from my own wife. I was told there were legal concerns, that words not spoken directly by the individual somehow created risk for the village. You can review the meeting from last year. It's still on YouTube and shows exactly what I'm stating is the truth. So in the moment I thought, okay, fine. I accepted it. But since then, on several occasions, we have witnessed multiple meetings where letters and emails were read aloud in support of agenda items by sitting village president with no objection, no warning, no legal concern raised whatsoever. So, what changed? The law didn't change the risk. Did that change? What changed was who benefited? And that's the problem. Rules that shift depending on the outcome of not are not rules. They're tools. And when people start to see that, trust erodess quickly. You cannot ask for public trust while applying standards selectively. So tonight, I'm asking for three simple things. Stop funding studies that push us toward more expensive systems we don't need. Stop putting taxpayer money at risk by competing with private developers and start applying rules consistently. No exceptions, no favoritism. Because at the end of the day, this board just doesn't make decisions. It sets the standard. And with that, I thank you.

Thank you, Mark. Is there anyone else in the room that would like to speak? Is there anyone else on Zoom?

Right. With that, we're going to move on to number five. Discuss and consider the minutes of the village board meeting from April 20th, 2026. Those minutes are linked in the agenda. Go ahead. I was just gonna ask a question. Um Oh, it's your microphone. What?

I could have projected extra louder, but no, that's better. Um, so do you want to turn your gonna echo? Um, just a question that I noticed seems different. Didn't we have six people at our last meeting? No, we didn't. Who was missing? Was Oh, that's right. Okay, never mind. We're good then. That I would make a motion to approve the minutes as presented. Second. All right. Motion by Murphy, second by Severson. Any other discussion, questions, or comments on the minutes? All those in favor? I I I abstain. Obsession as well.

Absention. Do you have that, Lisa? All right, we'll move on to presentations to the board. Um, I'll let Matt do an introduction for our first presenter. Sure.

I'd like to welcome uh Dr. Michael Ford. He's a professor of uh public administration at W Ashkosh. Um uh both Eningga and I have had the opportunity to hear Dr. Fortsby a couple different times at our um state conference for uh city managers and um uh really good discussions there. And we learned that uh he goes around the state and and helps uh you know kind of um during orientation of new boards to to do some discussions on governance and roles and responsibilities um and uh you know all and you uh welcome the opportunity to come here and do the same. So, thanks for coming and uh

perfect. No, thanks for having me. I know that you have a lot on the agenda tonight, so I'll try to be quick, I guess. Who are the new board members? Congrats. Then we have the one online as well.

Okay. I always joke. I served four years on the Oshkosh common council. And you might have heard the old joke about, you know, when you buy a boat and sell a boat, those are the two best days. It's kind of how I felt about public uh service. Uh best days are when you get elected, and the best days when you get to step off the board. That said, I'm on the school board again at Oshkosh, so I just can't quit it. Uh, if you want to go to the next slide, just real quickly, as as Matt said, I'm a professor of public administration, but I also run the Whitburn Center for Governance and Policy Research at W Oshkosh, which is an applied research center attached to our Masters of Public Admin program. So, basically working directly with uh folks just like you all across the state of Wisconsin and folks like Matt all across the state of Wisconsin. I've been doing presentations like this for several years. um always been a practitioner. You see a list of cities there as cities and villages there. Excuse me. Going to be in Lake Mills uh tomorrow doing a very similar thing. But as I said before, I I served four years under a city manager. He's actually sitting right there. He was the city manager in Oshkosh at the time. Um so certainly have some applied experience here. Uh but more importantly, I just want to take a few minutes to learn a little bit about you and how you you all see your role, what you're hoping to accomplish during your time on the board. Because really what I'm here to talk about today is how to get uh how to get the most out of your board service so you're actually getting getting done what you want to get done.

Who wants to start? I'll open the floor up so you can just feel free to talk freely. Not all at once. I'll start calling on you. Yeah, Heidi. Um I've been on on the board for a number of years now. So, um, I've had the opportunity to see a lot of different topics that we've talked about and served on many different committees and, you know, really establishing that kind of framework and overall guidance so the staff has clear direction on what what are, you know, overall guidance, processes, um,

budget, capital development policies and processes that we want um, to go through. So that's, you know, over my years on the board, you know, it's it's given more in general than details. I like it. Second. Yeah. Go ahead, Chris. I was just seconding everything. Yeah. Um yeah, Paula Se. This is actually my second tour of duty on the village board. I was on the board about 14 years ago, 15 I guess now, and um reelected last year. What made you come back?

Um great, great question. Um, I think it kind of ties into what I hope to accomplish, right? So, uh, making sure that our community is safe, um, through strong emergency services, um, wanting to reduce our debt and reduce the burden on taxpayers, and then really enhancing the quality of life for people who live here. Awesome. Anybody else? Hello. Yeah.

Yeah. I really feel like the next year, I think the theme, at least that I see the theme is planning. So, it's fire and EMS planning. It's comp plan revision. It's our storm water plan. Um, you know, looking at our bike pedestrian planning and planning obviously for budget season. So, how about the new ones? The new members. Yeah, I'll jump in. Um, I just think in addition to what's been said, one of the other elements that I see my our role as is planning for the future as well. So, a lot of times we can get caught up in the short term. We also need to have that forward-looking uh vision as well. Yeah, Casey, feel free to chime in.

Yeah. Um, yeah, I'll echo the the forward planning and then looking in the future. Um, and I also think uh I said this, you know, sort of on the campaign trail. It was my first dip into politics. Um, I see my role as as a bridge between, you know, our residents and uh, you know, our staff and uh, and workers at the village. Um, it it's supposed to be, you know, representative democracy, right? So, I want to look at what residents want or need and bring to us and figure out how we can do that with the staff and the resources we have.

Nice. Nobody's saying power and glory. I'm hearing a lot of or what's your salary? Can I ask that that's public? No. School board, we make $2,600. So, people are always like, you should donate your salary back. I'm like, gladly. If we could solve a fiscal crisis with with that, we'd do that in a heartbeat. Um, but no, that's that's interesting, right? A lot of you have mentioned planning. A lot of you mentioned future. And I always asked those questions not one because I'm a professor and that's I just like asking questions. But early in my career, I worked as a lobbyist and I was always struck by the fact that people that are working in uh in public service, they they're human beings. They're doing it for a reason. Um many of you might be doing it for different reasons or have different specific goals, but bottom line is you want to improve uh improve your community and and want to want to have a lasting impact. Um so how about the next slide? This is the depressing slide because then you're like, "It's going to be really hard to do this." Um, resources are finite, needs are infinite, values are contested. What that means is that most of you will not get everything you want done. Uh, what that means is that your community might not be in agreement about what what they want to be done, and you're here to sort it all out. Um, and you're doing it in an environment where you have a lot of constrictions. Um, one of the most unsatisfying answers you can give to a constituent about why something is happening or not happening is because, well, the state says we have no choice. But it's still true. Um, so there's always limits on things that you can control. So I love talking about governance because governance is one of those few things that you really do have direct control over. How you operate as a governing body, how you give advice and direction to your village administrator, um, how you conduct yourselves in these public positions. So the next slide is about as artistic as I get uh in that that vin diagram here. Uh but the the core of your your form of government here where you have a city administrator that operates as the chief um operations officer um and you as the political arm is that these are these are separate but but connected functions um you engage in the politics. I forget who said it but someone mentioned the

fact that they I think it was it Casey on online uh who's virtual to me and from my point of view you're looking at the back of my head. I apologize for that. Um, but if you're here to serve as the bridge between uh the public and uh the governing entity, the governing body, the the the village, um you need to go through the political process of understanding what they want, building coalitions, trying to get things done so you can give clear direction to your village administrator. Uh but you're not the one here dayto-day actually managing employees. Um it's going to be up to Matt to actually get something done. And if Matt can't get something done, it's going to be up to you to figure out why. Figure out what accountability means to you. Take action, not take action. Again, things you got to figure out. But the key thing to understand is those different those different role separations. And we'll talk a little bit about that in a second. But I do want to spend a real quick second just talking about, and this is mainly, I think, for the public. Something I always encountered when I was serving in Oshkosh, where people would say, "How come we're the only city in Wisconsin that has has a manager or an administrator?" And I said, "Well, that's not true." Um, people would say, "Hey, isn't the mayor the one who's supposed to be in charge?" We had a mayor in Oshkosh. You might think the village president's in charge. No offense, Cindy. You're in charge of a lot of things, but you don't run the day-to-day um of the the village of Cottage Grove. I think the most relevant thing here is one that um the the you know, huge amount of cities and villages in Wisconsin do either have an administrator or a manager. So are based on this premise that we have these large complex organizations we cause call municipalities that we want someone who's trained and has the operational knowhow to actually serve as a as chief operating officer. Um so it's very common but I think the the one I want to point attention to or the the data there is just the size of the uh the municipality. Um am I right? Cottage Grove is about 800 8,800 people

9,000 9,000. See you're growing. That's exciting. Um, but if you look at the average size of villages that have an administrator, um, it's it's yeah, 6,91 that have some type of administrator. So, you're actually a little larger than that. Um, and while you can look on there and say that the majority of villages don't have an administrator, the overwhelming majority of villages, 306 of the 415, have fewer than 2,000 residents. So, they really don't necessarily have the population to justify and maybe not the financial resources to justify hiring a full-time administrator. Um, but you certainly fit the profile of the type of community that has a professional administrator, especially with the type of growth that you're experiencing here, both both economic and population. Next slide, Matt.

Well, can I jump in with a fun fact that Paul was on the board the first time and actually hired Matt? Really? Yes.

I know. When Matt told me how long he'd been here, I'm like, that's not right. You don't look that old. Like, how old were you when they hired? He must have been a wonderkin, right? So, I know I promised you no more art, but I have to play my game of linkages here. Um, anybody ever play a game of telephone? I realize you're adults, so you probably haven't recently. Uh, but I like to compare governance, board governance in particular, to a giant game of of telephone. You're trying to take a message, develop a message, you as as a seven seven individuals as a collective, translate it to the village administrator so that he can translate it to his department heads so that they can implement it. And how does a game of telephone get get messed up? Yeah, Paul,

details get kind of mixed up. Yeah, details can get jumbled. Yeah, Heidi. Um, if someone um isn't listening or isn't communicating what they heard correctly. Yeah. So, maybe the message isn't clear at the beginning. Yeah. Go ahead, Rick. Oh, I was just going to say people can make assumptions. Yeah, people make assumptions. I think I heard that. I think what they really meant to say was this,

right? Making assumptions about others intent. Uh, sometimes the message isn't clear at the beginning. Uh, sometimes there's background noise. Sometimes you get distracted. Sometimes there's just, you know, that we all had that punk friend who was like, I'm going to make Mike say a dirty word at the end of this, so I'm going to go ahead and screw up this game intentionally. Um, all of these things can occur at once. Uh, and it may seem silly, but if you look again, you look at you look at those those linkages up there. Um, everything starts with your group dynamics. Are you able to actually trust one another as a governing group? Are you able to take one another's intent as as true? Um, are you able to feel like you can speak honestly and not withhold something? One of the most unhealthy board behaviors is when somebody feels like they can't talk. So, they leave a meeting thinking they're upset. they they preserve their right to be outraged and nobody even knows about it. That kind of thing can absolutely sink um a governing board. So you get your group dynamics right where you have conflict but it's productive conflict, not just relationship conflict like I don't like you, you're on the other team, so I'm not working with you because then you're not working for your citizens you represent. But you get that part right, you start to improve the quality of your deliberations, meaning your board meetings have more meaning. You actually start making progress. I think we've all served on boards in some capacity where it feels like we're talking about the same things over and over and over again. That's usually a sign of a deeper problem because you're not having quality deliberations because maybe you haven't gotten that first part right. I don't trust where you're coming from or why you want to do this. So, we just keep talking about it and not making progress. But when you get to the point where you're actually able to make progress, then you can give clear guidance to Matt. And that's a hugely powerful thing because one, it enables him to do his job well, but just as importantly for you as a governing board, it lets you hold him accountable if he doesn't do it well. I mean, that's where your power lies. Um, and I'll talk about it in the next slide a little bit or a little bit like a few slides up, but you seed all of your power as a governing board if you're not able to speak as a collective to your village administrator. doesn't mean you all agree on everything, but it means you

understand that rule of four that once you get agreement on something among a majority of the governing board and you can translate that message to your village administrator, you have all the power. You're actually directing things. Um then implementation, that's up to you, Matt. You got to do your job well. Uh and depending on how you do, right, the evaluation piece, then that comes back to a collaborative activity between the two of you. Now, we all know that sounds really interesting, right? and it rarely works that cleanly but at least the research behind it and some of the uh some of the applied lessons behind it work on these uh these rules of linkages. So it starts with uh with knowing your role knowing your role definition who does what. So you see a list of things here and I don't mean to insult your intelligence. You probably all all know this but right the board's in charge of setting goals for the organization. You serve as that bridge between your village government and the people you serve. You're figuring out the size and scope of your government services to be provided. I mean, we heard the gentleman up here talking about debt, talking about how you want to structure your fire services. I mean, those are all questions that you all have to work through. Figure out what what your community wants, what you value, and how you want to provide these things. Uh, the budget approval process. I'm really boring, and I always tell my wife that budgets are romantic documents, and she's just like, "Don't say that ever again." Uh, but I do think they are. They're the contract between the government and the and the govern. I mean, that is where where you can really see what your community cares about and you can demonstrate to your community you're putting your resources that are finite into these things. Those are your priorities. Um, you approve legislation, then obviously you you evaluate Matt. Now, admin, managing, hiring, firing, deploying resources, making sure that you're getting the information you need to make the decisions uh that you need to make. Um, reporting on progress, developing the budgets, implementing policies, etc. And once again, it's not always so so clean. There's always going to be those gray areas. But I think you have to begin with a clear understanding that everyone agrees upon. Okay, this is

what the board's responsibility is. This is what the administrative responsibilities are. Then you can start mapping out how should we communicate and what do we do when things break down? Because so much of being a high functioning governing board is being ready to deal with things when it kind of hits the fan. I'm not going to swear in a public forum. Um, but right, most of the stuff's not too not too complicated. Um, I shouldn't say that too complicated. A lot of things we do in government aren't that controversial, but it's the controversial things where some of these role definitions start to break down and the governance process breaks down. Yeah. Next slide, Matt. If you've seen the movie Office Space, I'm a child of the 90s. Um, you think about it, if you I guess I'm a child of the 80s technically, but I enjoyed the 90s. That's where I came to came to came into my own. Um, if you think about it, if if you're just seven individuals trying to give individual guidance to Matt, he's not going to act on it, right? You you posting one thing on Facebook or you telling him that I think you need to work on this, that's really not direction. That direction only comes from that rule of four. So, you got to figure out what is your process for giving clear, clean direction to your village administrator because a couple things are happening. If people are operating, not that you don't operate as individuals, not that you can't suggest something to the village administrator, not that you should, but in terms of official guidance and actually dedicating staff time to something, you need to have a board majority. Um because if if you don't, you're directing unilaterally the village administrator to do something that's taking power away from all of your colleagues. I don't know how everyone here got on the board, but usually it's the same qualification. You got one more vote than the other person. um or I know you do at large elections. So, as my kids are keen to remind me, they're like, "Dad, you've never actually won an election. You always come in second or third." I'm like, "Yeah, I know. I know." And that's okay. Uh but right, I'm here. I'm here. Um so, how do you how do you make sure that you're not you're not crossing any lines. Um it's communication. You know, if you have concerns about something going on in your village, talk to the

the administrator first. you know, don't go directly to to the individual working uh you know, line staff. One, that puts them in a very strange situation. Um, how would you like it if you were working at your job and suddenly, you know, one of the one of the CEOs, you know, bosses or board of directors starts asking you questions and telling you to do things. You don't really know what to do. Uh, who's your actual boss here? So, you're putting your your staff in a in an awkward situation. Uh, but you're also putting your administrator and your colleagues in a in a difficult situation. Um, when you go do speak, and you're obviously all going to be speaking as individuals, uh, don't represent yourself as speaking on behalf of your local government. You can certainly say, "I'm a member of this governing board. This is what I believe in." But you don't want to be out there making official proclamations on behalf of the village uh, as an individual without the village actually having an official position on something. And when in doubt, always bring it up. There's always going to be gray areas, and you're always going to have to find your rhythm about what works for you. Um, but once again, you get that foundational element of being a high functioning group with a good relationship with your administrator. Then you can navigate those gray areas when they arise. Next slide. So, what happens when it's not addressed? And I think we have over like 600 graduates of our MPA program, most of them working in local government. So, I get a lot of phone calls from graduates that are either working as city managers, administrators, department heads, uh sometimes as elected officials when things do break down. So I a lot of this is based on based on real things that have occurred in Wisconsin over the last uh last 12 years when I've heard from heard from friends. Um but the biggest one is board losses power because operations have to continue. If you're not able to give clear guidance to your administrator, he still has to has to run the city. Fire protection needs to go on. Police protection needs to go on. The garbage needs to get picked up. I assume you guys do it yourself or do you contract that out? Ah, see that was a horrible example then. Um but right that the the basic functions of the municipality of

the village need to continue and they're going to keep going but they're going to keep going without your clear guidance and your clear direction. You've essentially seated all power uh to the administrator but you've also given him a really difficult situation because by definition he's going to be screwing up in the eyes of some of you if you haven't given clear guidance because it's just not there. Um inefficiency and in action. Um, if staff are not clear about who to listen to, if if the board hasn't given clear action, they're going to they're going to slow roll things. They're not going to make big decisions because saying that maybe the board might come in next week at their next meeting and change course because they haven't given clear guidance in here. So, one of the most frustrating things when you're serving on a board is when something doesn't get done, but so often doesn't get done because there's no clear direction given. Board conflict. a negative relationship conflict occurs, you know, a subset of board members can start taking up staff time and not go through the board and then that just kind of snowballs. People start having hurt feelings and say that, okay, yeah, the administrator is only working with these three or only with these two. Uh, we're not all getting equal information. That leads to the next bullet point where administrator starts losing credibility if they're acting as the eighth board member um and seen as playing politics. So, I guess this is a really long way of saying that this dysfunction tends to spiral. Um, and you want to be able to recognize it early and do the foundational work to avoid it. All right. And I mean, moments like this, right? I mean, I appreciate you having me in. Um, one of the things that has frustrated me in uh in Wisconsin and frankly in other states is when we do orientations for new board members or new new councils, new boards, um it tends to be things like Robert's rules, which is important, but if you butcher that, someone's going to call you out on it during the meeting. Um if you're doing something that's blatantly illegal, uh someone's going to call you out on that during the board meeting. And we we have a lot of these trainings set up around the state about how to run for office, but not enough about what do

you do when you actually get there on day one. What's the actual work? What does it actually take to get something done in these positions? So, I really appreciate you bringing me in to to talk briefly about this. Um, I think it's healthy to do this every time you have an election, especially when new people are are coming in. As I mentioned, I'm doing in Lake Mills tomorrow and I've worked with all kinds of different municipalities and just getting a nice nice clear refresher. Uh because as the new folks are going to learn, you're going to have tons of stuff coming at you very very quickly. Uh so anytime you can have a little bit of a cheat sheet to to get kind of the ins and outs of how how this governing board functions, that's going to be really helpful for you. Um don't rep weaponize role separation. Um that's another very unhealthy thing to do. Anything that goes wrong, well, that's the administrator's fault for the administrator. anytime you get a complaint, well, that's the that's the board's fault. Um, that's a sign that you aren't working cooperatively. You're using each other as convenient scapegoats. Now, don't get me wrong, operationally, strategically, I understand sometimes the administrator makes the big bucks to be the bad guy. Uh, and that's just how it goes and takes some of the arrows, takes some of the Yeah. takes some of those some of those hits. Uh, but when it becomes part for the course where you're all blaming each other for everything, that's usually a sign of a relationship that's not working. Um, having clear guidelines for communication. I know Matt, you said that you you have done some work on this. Um, just making sure that folks know how how to contact you if they want to talk to a department head, you know, making sure they copy you. Again, just making sure that's known to everybody and that the same guidance is given to every board member so it doesn't even give the hint of appearance that some board members have access that other board members don't. Uh, because again, that's one of those root causes of conflict. Um, if you do get to the point where you want to get really formal with it, I've seen some some uh boards and councils that have a formal manual where they define things like what accountability means um and other key concepts and they actually vote on it as a resolution. Um, but that leaves up to you, right? Unique

situations arise and ultimately it's not about what works, it's about what works for you. Um, when we talk about governance, there's a lot of search for kind of the holy grail like what's the perfect model, the perfect way to do it. Um, I've I've worked with dozens and dozens of municipal governments and there is no perfect way to do it. There's many different governments doing it very well and many different governments doing it very poorly for entirely different reasons. There's no structure that's going to save you because the end of the day, you're seven people. They have to figure out a way to translate all of those different values your community members have into some clear message for Matt uh to move your municipality forward. Not easy to do, but it's the job you signed up for. And if you go to my last ugly graphic, I won't go through this in detail. I just want to show you that all of these things are mutually reinforcing. Um, performance, legitimacy, trust, stability. Ultimately, you want performance because nothing solves all those other issues like conflict and lack of trust like a municipality that's doing really well. That helps with your trust. Um, that helps with your stability. That makes you know, you feel legitimate or the the community feels like you're a legitimate governing body. That's really important. But the problem is those exact same factors are also the reasons that a governing board can fail because they also reinforce each other in a negative sense. So once again getting that foundational steps right, understanding what your role is, how you do it well, how you address things when when when something goes wrong, that's just hugely important. And once again, it starts by understanding what's your relationship with one another as board board members. How do you increase trust with one another? How do you identify those negative conflict types? and how do you build that clear relationship with your administrator? So, I think I'm at time here, so I'll I'll shut up, but I'm happy to answer any questions. And I guess my larger point here is if you see my email address and our website there, I'm always happy to always happy to help any way I can. Um, if anything, anything comes up that's specific. Um, and not just me, we have all kinds of resources there at WO and the Whitburn Center and

have access to other networks. Um, and always again, always happy to be a resource. And with that, happy to answer any questions or let you get on to the rest of the night. So, thank you. Yeah, thank you so much for coming in. This kind of kicks off our new board. I know there was um a lot of orientation and then we'll have our mission, vision, values at the next meeting along with some um legal advice. So, thank you for kind of kicking off the Yeah. the new season. All right. Well, good luck to you. Good luck to you all, especially the new ones. Oh, Casey, you've got your hand.

No, I'll just um yeah, echo the the thanks. This is um as you said, you know, there's lots of um there's more resource about how to get elected, but then not as many about what to do once you get there. Um and so, yes, things like this and and your workshops are are really helpful um and and really important because it's not just about, you know, the election and and getting on, it's about, you know, the the years of service after that. So, thank you. No, thank you, Casey. And and anyone who's really a glutton for punishment or is an insomniac, um all the research that this work is based on is listed on our website, and you can go you can go read all about that, too. So, thank you. All right. Thank you.

All right. So, move on to presentation number two. We have our state representative Joan Fitzgerald here.

Hello. Thank you guys for having me here today. I am Representative Joan Fitzgerald. think I've met most of you before. Um, but I appreciate the opportunity to come back and just give you a little update from what's been going on in Madison. And I think this is a really nice transition from what we just talked about, right? Because communication, transparency, working together, all of that. I think when I was on the county board, um, that was one of the things I learned, right, that all levels of government, not just mentioning the people on the board you're on, but all the levels need to also be working together. So, um, we have been, um, off a little bit in Madison for a while. After the holidays, we came back. We had a really busy month and a half there. We met 10 times in January and February. Um, and haven't done much since then. I don't control the schedule. Um, but, um, we were done then. There's a few things we'll get to um, in a minute here. I'll tell you some maybe possible updates, but we got some really, really good things done in Madison. um that I think the people of Wisconsin should be really happy about. Postpartum Medicaid expansion and Gail's law were two bills that the women particularly of Wisconsin have been advocating for um for years. It's been on our agenda for six years. I think it's been floating around between the assembly, the Senate approved it. Um we finally pushed and pushed and pushed and got that done on like the very last day of session. So really proud that that happened. Those were good bipartisan bills um that finally made it to the finish line. The other really good bill we passed right at the end um two years ago in the budget there was $125 million um designed to help communities and individual well owners with PAS remediation. That money sat there for two years uh because we couldn't come to an agreement on how to get it out the

door. Uh so we finally did that again almost on the very last day of session everybody came together. Uh the one good thing about it and people ask me this a lot when that money sits there like do you invest it like so it makes money and it did. The 125 million became close to 132 million with the interest that we earned. So as that money sits there it continues to earn interest and that will just continue to keep going into PAS remediation. So, there are some municipalities that are incredibly thrilled with that. Finally, um the federal budget bill put some responsibilities on the state that we had not had before related to SNAP, um and Medicare administration. And so, um we finally got a bill passed to sort of take care of that. So, we are now aligned with what we need to with the federal government, which is good news. Um, and one thing I was, um, I was a high school teacher, so I always like things that are good for kids and good for teens. There was a task force that came up with some really good internet bills for um, internet crimes against children, some of those bills, extra staff, education, some more resources, upping those penalties. U, so I thought those were all really good bills that we were able to get through. Um, at the end of session, I think Governor Ivers probably signed, I don't know, 40 bills into law. Um, also vetoed a bunch of bills, but there was a just a flurry of activity right at the end. Some veterans bills, a housing package, um, just a whole variety of stuff. So, if there's like a particular thing you're curious about, um, you know, we can kind of delve into the specifics of all those bills, but there were, um, just a lot of really, really good stuff. Unfortunately, we ended the session, um, with some things left on the table. We did not come to any agreement on Nolles

Nelson stewardship. That program is effectively done at this point, which I think is a a real shame for the state of Wisconsin. Um it was an incredibly popular program and we just could not come to any agreement on that. Um we left data center regulation on the table. Again, there were bills out there that I thought were pretty good. Thought we were going to come to some agreement. Nothing came of that either. I think people are a little disappointed that that didn't happen. Um I'm particularly disappointed that not yet. We haven't come to any agreement on how to use some of our budget surplus to fund public schools. That's uh left on the table for me that I am hoping we can still come to some agreement on that. Um in my mind, funding our public schools is directly related to property tax relief, which is what we hear from people all the time. I'm sure you guys are well aware, right? The more state aid we get, the lower the tax burden is on property taxes. So, um, that is still something that's out there. Um, if you follow the news, the Republican leadership is possibly still negotiating with Governor Ivers. We don't know where that's at. Um, but there might still be something coming related to that. There is, um, a $2 billion budget surplus. Um, unfortunately though, that's a budget surplus that we don't really It's not like extra money, right? we have all these bills we still have to pay and in my mind things we have not funded that we should have funded with that. So um I think we have to be really careful with what we do with a budget surplus. Um one of the other things that was just brought up and many of you did right is that forward thinking. What do we want to be able to fund in the future? It's like having a savings account at your house, right? you can blow it all on the trip to Disney World this year or maybe

you need to save it because you have house repairs coming up or something else you need to have done. Right? So, I think that's where the state is. We have this money and we want to make sure we're spending it in the best possible way um and be as conscious as we can of um taxpayers money. So, budget surplus, pay attention to that. We'll see what happens. Um, and then the other thing, maybe if you've been following the news, Governor Ivers did call us all in for a special session to talk about gerrymandering. He proposed a constitutional amendment that would ban political gerrymandering. Um, we have yet to actually meet to talk about that. If you follow politics at all, you kind of know how special sessions go. When Governor Revers calls them and the Republicans are in charge, there's not a lot of um agreement that we should be having those conversations. So, we have not had we have not met to talk about that yet. So, if you've heard about that in the news, that's still out there. We haven't officially ended the conversation, which means we could come back and and talk about that a little bit. I think people in the state would like us um to do something about gerrymandering and make sure that doesn't happen. We have a um huge support to have those conversations. So, I certainly hope we do that in the future. So, we'll see what happens over the next couple months. We've got lots of opportunities to still do some things. Um, but like I said, some things I think are are probably dead at this point. Um, I am always happy to answer any questions or look up a specific bill if you want any extra information about any of that. Happy to answer questions, which is why we decided to put me on the agenda today instead of public comment. So, if you wanted to react or share something, um, also happy just to take back comments. If there's something you think should be in the state budget, something that's underfunded, something you want, happy to hear all of that from

you guys. Open it up to anyone with comments. Go ahead, JP.

Again, thank you for coming and providing those updates. Um you I know you kind of alluded to this uh with your updates regarding the budget surplus how that um particular schools is one of the main points of conversation. Um but I also have known over time that lots of other things have been discussed including uh a mix of schools property tax relief and potentially aid to local municipalities in there. As far as you're aware, and I understand you're not part of those conversations at the moment. Um, are any of those things still being discussed or potential um as part of the funding for that budget surplus?

Um, my understanding is funding for public schools is something that's being talked about. Uh, funding for municipalities. Unfortunately, I don't think there's a lot of traction for that at this point. I think it's a need and I hear from people all the time about increased funding to municipalities which would also reduce property taxes for people. But I would say in general overall in the session there's been very little um kind of political will to do that. Not on my side by the way. Like I am all for that. I have proposed an amendment that would send more money back to municipalities when we had the the budget surplus and it didn't go anywhere. But I hear you and I hear that from everybody.

If if not more money, just a exemption on levy limits um for public safety for example would be helpful. Yeah, thank you. I agree.

Go ahead, Paula. Um, in terms of budget surplus, I know one of the things that um, you mentioned veterans package and so anything that you can do more for our veterans. For instance, there's a gap where the VA doesn't cover dental costs for veterans and there's a local nonprofit started here out of Madison called Objective Veteran Smile. Um, to help kind of fill that gap. Um but that would be one thing for instance that we could really do for our Wisconsin veterans um in providing them dental care. So that's just a thought.

Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Um I think we have a fair amount of people who have either served in served and retired from the military or in the National Guard right now that are in the assembly. So I think those conversations keep happening. But um that's a good one to keep in mind. I had not heard that. So that's great. All right. Well, thank you so much for coming. Yeah, no problem. Thank you guys. And as I said, feel free to contact me whenever you have a question. Always available to help.

All right, so we're going to switch gears a little bit and uh move on to the Baker Tilly presentation regarding our 2025 audited financial statements. Um Cameron, I don't know if you have any intro statements, otherwise just turn it right over to Amanda. I have no intro statements.

Well, thank you. I'm so happy to be here on such an educational night. This has been great. Um, so we'll talk about finances now. Um, so my name is Amanda Bloomberg. I'm a managing director at Bigger Tilly. Been working on the villages audit for quite a while now. Um, in your packets, you have uh some financial statements. You have um an audit results letter. Um the financial statements are prepared by village staff. We put an opinion on that. The opinion was a unmodified opinion or or a clean opinion. Basically means what's in there we believe to be accurate. Um the audit results letter is something that we produce. Um it kind of talks about a bunch of different things including you know internal control um other communications uh that are required by auditing standards to go to the governing body. Um so there's a a bunch of different things in there. What I would like to point out um in that audit results letter I believe this is the first year that there has not been any u material weaknesses or significant deficiencies reported in um internal controls. Uh basically uh the the village staff has gotten to a point where um you know internal controls and processes and procedures can be adequately segregated um which helps in um you know maintaining the integrity of the data and the information that is in the accounting system. So that's all really good and then you see that in the financial information that you get whether it's the financial statements on an annual basis or in the you know regular reports that you get from the staff. So that's really good news. Um the other thing that I want to talk about are the graphs package. Um so the financial statements are long. Um there's a lot of information in them. So, we try to boil it down to what we

think is helpful for you kind of to assess where are we as far as, you know, the the village finances go. Um, you've probably already heard some of this from your staff, but um, this is just kind of some highlighted information. Um, the first thing we'll talk about will be the general fund and the fund balance. And feel free to jump in with any questions as we go along here, but I'll try to keep this fairly brief. Um the general fund is the main operating fund of this of the village. So it's kind of gets a lot of attention. A lot of the tax levy goes there and the fund balance is essentially the equity. So take our assets minus our liabilities what's left over. So that fund balance um gets a lot of attention in the general fund and um based on the uh the information and the results uh back in 2025 uh the fund balance of the general fund in total increased about $138,000. So uh we had a little bit of a net income there. Um that fund balance is divided into a number of categories that you'll see in this chart here. So starting at the top is a total. It shows that increase of 138,000. Then we go kind of in order of liquidity. So I'm actually going to start at the bottom and work back up. The non-spendable is really uh reserves or our equity that's tied up. We can't access it. It's um tied up in uh either long-term type receivables or an asset maybe we already paid for. you know, if we made an advanced payment on insurance for the next year or something like that, the non-spendable went down uh about $75,000 um which was a result of um some of the tiff advances getting paid off. So sometimes when the TIDs are running a little short on money, the general fund will float some money over there. Those have been repaid. Uh I believe it was

eight and 10 uh the TIDs that pay that off. What happens then is that that money gets freed up and it can drop into a different line like the unassigned line. Um uh moving up that chart, uh you'll see that assigned line uh stayed relatively similar uh to the prior year uh increased just a little bit which is just um it it moves along with what the water utility pays over to the village in the form of that payment in le of tax. So that kind of moves along with that, but then everything else falls down into that unassigned category and that that represents the reserves that are really just free and available to be used uh for anything um in the future. Um let's see here. We'll skip uh to the next page. And this shows uh the fund balance as a percentage of your annual expenditures. So in this case it's budgeted expenditures for 2025. So if we take that assigned and the unassigned portions that we saw on the previous page and we compare that to your annual expenditure budget for the general fund, we get this percentage or this ratio. And what that means is that we have uh at the end of 25 for example, we're sitting at about 35%. That means we with our reserves on hand that are available for us to use, we can get through about 35% of our year. So about four months of our uh year with what we have on hand. Um the village has a policy as far as where we kind of want that to fall. Um and that is between 20 and 30%. um you'll see it's kind of bumped up a little bit above there and come back down. And so that'll kind of fluctuate over time, you know, as those reserves

are used for something or applied to um something specific. But good news is is that that's a healthy place to be. Um the minimum I mean you don't the minimum recommendation is down to like 16 17% which represents about 2 months. you have about double that which I think is really comfortable place to be. Gives you some flexibility on how you might fund certain things going forward. Any questions on the fund balance so far?

So the 16% too is a national average. Um and so just a key point to point out there is obviously in a state that's heavily property tax based, we don't receive all of our in uh intergovernmental aid or property taxes uniformally throughout the year. Um so that's why Wisconsin municipalities tend to be on the higher side of that. Um in addition um last year kind of artificially decreased with the budgeted uh increase required for the expense related to the Amazon permit. So we had a onetime revenue onetime expense artificially drove down the percentage with that not included we were sitting about 33%. So just kind of keeping in mind um if you also look at this chart too um S&P kind of indicates you know we're above our policy but nomally below higher rated peers. Um this is where we kind of fight that balance of having enough fund balance to weather the storm um in between revenue collections but also not having too much revenues where we're essentially taking uh tax dollars out of residents hand. Um there is going to be a recommended uh policy revision um hopefully some point this year that will um likely increase the recommended percentage um but we'll get some board feedback um throughout that process. Um but I'm very comfortable right now at that 35%.

All right, any questions? I just have a comment and thank you for um answering questions and correct me if my interpretation is wrong. Um so when we're uh uh discussing the debt service spike so um the debt service is roughly about 28% of the non- capital expenditures. If I

okay figure that correctly if I'm wrong please let me know. And um I I noted to Amanda that the benchmark median is between 14 and 17%. So translation meaning that um we're spending about double on the typical share of debt and um so is that more structural pressure? So if you could speak to that and I guess my concern to a further question would be um if you know how this leads to budget overall budget strain um delayed maintenance and other um uh tax increases.

Yeah, I would I would say um well there I think there's a couple things in play here, but um the the debt has an effect on what you can levy. So there's definitely some adjustments that go there. Not a complete expert in that area. Um but knowing that you know your debt obligations are factored into what you can or cannot levy um you know might help in that situation. The other thing that I wanted to point out is that um I think you might be on a subsequent page as far as a debt spike. What I think what's important to remember is that um those median numbers are kind of like this is the middle. You know, this is not an average necessarily, but it's kind of where that middle municipality fell within that population range. Um so they are a little bit lower. you the village has a lot of active tiff districts, a lot of you know development going on where debt is issued, debt is then repaid by those tiff districts. So that principle and interest gets factored in to these numbers as an overall um you know ratio. So it may look kind of high um sometimes and it might be just that's the way the debt was structured for a specific tiff district or we know we have this revenue coming in so we're going to pay a little bit more during certain years but I would say a lot of um the clients that I have worked with uh that do have a lot of development do tend to be on that higher side um as it relates to that to that specific ratio. So,

thank you for that. And and my my concerns were just you you address them were the budget strain, delayed maintenance um and tax increases.

Yeah. it um if you know kind of related to that if we jump into the um page three here for general obligation debt I think this is kind of goes handinhand with the the other topic we were talking about like well how much are we paying compared to our annual expenditures well when we look at what you know how much debt we have outstanding as far as general obligation debt goes um there is a limit as to how much you can issue it's 5% of your equalized value. So, this chart is actually really nice and helpful in that that black line represents, well, this is our limit. This is how much we could issue. No one recommends you go up to that limit, but 50% is pretty standard. I mean, no one really bats an eye if you're under 50%. Um, so you'll see at the end of 25, you're at 41%. That's because your equalized value keeps going up over with all of the development. Therefore, it opens up additional capacity uh to issue more general obligation debt to, you know, fund those types of projects. The the red line is the actual amount of geo debt outstanding and that actually went down a little bit since last year. So, we paid more than we issued. So you see that spike in what we paid on the subsequent page, but that kept the debt actually, you know, kind of even compared to last year. Uh because there was an issuance of of geo debt as well in 25. Um, so it's just kind of that balance, you know, just getting the right uh um mix of, you know, what are we going to pay for with funds on hand, uh, with reserves, and what are we going to issue debt for to kind of smooth all of that out. Um, the geo debt just um is is uh the

most of it is uh owed by the village. A lot of it is owed by the tiffs. I don't have specific numbers on that but just you know with the active uh tiff districts out there the utility owes some of it as well uh about three million according you know to this table here. So just know that a lot of the debt that is getting repaid as far as geo debt goes is not necessarily a burden on the tax levy either. So the tiff increments are paying it the utilities paying a portion of it too. I And can you clarify too that utilities just generally don't fix the general fund fix if you will the general fund um problems.

Right. Right. The utilities are meant to be you know their own little businesses. So they charge a rate that's supposed to cover their costs and um you know their infrastructure improvements. So we need to put in new pipe or replace something. the user fees are supposed to be able to cover that. Correct. The PSC would not probably like it if you used uh water funding or water money, you know, to to use it for the municipality. Great questions. All right, we kind of already talked about page four. Uh that was the percentage of of principal and interest payment compared to you know the non-c capital expenditures and kind of you know some ups and downs there just again depending on you know how the debt is structured or if there's any prepayments or or so forth. Um any other questions on the debt before we move on to utility results? Okay let's go to the water utility. So, as I mentioned, um, the PSC regulates a water utility, which means that we're trying to make enough money, you know, to cover our costs and our our future improvements. So, that's what your rate of return is. And so, you have a goal of making about 6.6% rate of return. That's your revenues essentially that you make from user charges divided by uh your plant that's out there. What is the cost of all the assets we have in the ground? um the the pumps, the stations, the you know all of that stuff that make the water flow. And so uh the actual rate of return from last year and and into this year was about 5.74 up to 6.24. So getting close to that 6.6%. So that's I think that's fairly uh you know that's positive. If you look at the

operating result graph right below, um you'll kind of see, well, your revenues are in blue, your expenses are in black. Obviously, we want a gap there so that we're making some money that we can then be using for future improvements at some point. So, you can kind of tell I'm I'd be willing to bet that back in 23 that rate of return was not so high. So, we're probably closer, you know, to two or 3% just based on what this graph looks like because those, you know, we didn't have quite the operating income that we had these last couple of years.

I do just want to point out on on this chart specifically, so why you kind of see the dramatic increase from the 5.74% to the 6.24%. Um, we implemented that rate um after the first quarter in 2024. So we weren't anticipating to realize that full rate of return of the 6.5 authorized rate whereas in 2025 we had the effect the rates effective for the entire year. Um so that's why we're much closer to that 6.24%. Um in addition with the way that the PSSE calculates rates um a big factor on why it wasn't closer to that 6.5% was the investment the massive uh upgrade to our SCADA system both on the water and sewer side. So obviously if we add more assets and don't adjust our rates that's going to create a large a smaller rate of return. Um through the budget process this year the board ha or the utility commission has um indicated that they would like us to go out for another uh rate study following the completion or start of uh well two project and gas and road project. Um and that will just make sure that we have sufficient revenues to cover um the rate or capture on those two projects. All right. Um there's a couple other uh figures on this page uh talking about unrestricted reserves. So basically how much cash do we have? Kind of like the fund balance analysis that we looked at earlier for the general fund. This is kind of what we're doing for the utilities where we see well how much cash is available to us and how does that uh compare to the revenues that we collect on a regular basis. So you have about 10 months of revenue on hand uh based on what you would collect over the course of that 10 months. Um, you know, generally you want to have, um, I think, you know, they I guess billing cycles can can differ, but, you know, anywhere

from three to six months is is definitely appropriate. So, you're you're well over that. Um, the next uh figure is the investment in capital. So, this tells us how much of our again our plant for utility, our pipes in the ground, our our wells and and all of that. How much do we own versus owe on those? And so, um, you're at 81% equity, which means that there's, you know, debt outstanding for about 19% of those at this time. Um, 50/50 is a great place to be. Um, so again, you're well over that, you know, kind of that benchmark.

Why we see that that number that c that months on hand a little bit higher at the 10.21? Um, we have principal payments due in March, March 1st and April 1st. Um, so typically what we're looking for is about 3 months of operating cash plus principle of debt service is kind of our target at the utility level just to make sure if for some reason there were a bill we weren't able to bill for two months for whatever reason um we would have may have enough uh funds on hand to make sure we were continuing to meet our obligations.

Can I just ask a quick question on that? Um so you know the bar where it says equity 81% debt 19%. Is there um an equivalent for the general obligation? Um and if so, what's the percentage of that? Because I would be curious to know what that is. Do you have a response? It's it's about the same. Um we have a tremendous amount of contributed capital in the village. So, typically when a developer comes in, we ask the developer to do a public improvement. So, obviously, we didn't pay for it, but it gets included in that equity portion of that graph. I can get that sent out. I don't have it calculated, but but yeah, it's it's around it's I think the last time we looked at it was around 75%.

That'd be great if you can send it to us. Thank you.

All right. Uh final page, we'll jump into the sewer utility. So, we're looking at things uh very similarly as the water utility with the exception that uh the PSC does not regulate the sewer utility. So here we're looking um at operating results and they tend to be a little bit more uh focused on cash flow, making sure that there's enough cash to again pay the operating costs as well as the debt that's coming up and then you know determining how we're going to fund improvements. Um so in this case um a lot of the um expenses for the sewer utility get are payments to MMSD. Um so those a lot of that is out of your control. you kind of have to pay what they bill you and so you know just trying to keep up on you know those rates to make sure that you're again meeting those obligations is appropriate. Um so those those numbers have been a little bit closer together over the years. So um something to consider as you're looking through and making sure that okay what are our future plans for the sewer? Are we generating enough income via our our rates to to pay for that? So, as we're looking kind of at those lines, um I mentioned at a previous board meeting, um so our the barrier system at Hydrate was down for roughly four months. Um so, we budgeted a a 10% increase in our utility rates as of January 1 of 2025. Um so, if we would have collected revenue for all those months that that system was offline, um there that gap would be much more significant. Um we're currently right now targeting about roughly a 2% rate of return um on our sewer assets um that are that are in the ground. But um that is being proactively managed. Um and again with uh Representative um Fitzgerald here um today um one of the things that we've also been advocating is just making sure the clean water and safe water drinking loan program is fully funded. Um while

we typically don't qualify for those programs, u Madison Metropolitan Sewer District is um and that could have significant costs for us as a village because they obviously have to pass those capital costs on to us. Um so please, please, please reach out to them um because they're probably getting sick of hearing from me. Um because that's the difference between if you look at our our kind of our debt profile, some of those loans are 1.6% 6% 2% and right now we're issuing debt between four and 5%. So that makes a huge difference especially when you're talking about 100 plus million dollar projects. All right, the last couple of figures here uh looking at the unrestricted reserves um again uh were the the sewer utilities at just about 10 and a half months. Um that went down from the prior years. I think there was a planned usage of cash on some of the the projects that uh occurred in 2025. Um and then when we look at the investment in capital, we're sitting really close to where the water utility is where 83% of that is you know uh you know uh owned uh there's no debt on it where 17% does and and the sewer is very similar to a water utility where there's a lot of contributed assets there too from developers. So that kind of explains uh you know why it's so high. All right, that's all I had. Any questions? I just have well maybe questions, comments. So obviously the village is growing at a super fast rate and pace and it's I'm interpreting too that um that financing growth with debt to some extent a big extent and we're not yet seeing revenue that offsets the debt. Um so growth really is not paying for

itself at the moment. So I guess a question would be which developments are we expected to see offset this debt?

Um well there's always a bit of a delay you know when uh when a project you know is finished a new business comes in um you know by the time they get on the tax ro they could have been operating for you know a year or 6 months or something like that. So there's a little bit of a delay there. um the tiff districts as they are getting developed and that tax or those property taxes go up, they stay within that tiff district until it closes and then once it closes, all of that property goes back on the general tax role. So that's where it's a lot of it's getting held right now to pay for the debt and the improvements that go in there, you know, for each of those developments. Yeah, just to kind of feed off of that. So, um, TID five, TID 7 and TID 9 have been able to completely pay for their debt service um, related to the projects. Unfortunately, TID 6 has not. Um, so there's been a couple memos and there'll be another memo towards the end of this year on kind of that bianial um, forgiveness for the the debt. So basically what happened in that instance is there were it was kind of a a build the infrastructure first and that that development income there there hasn't been development like that that we haven't tied to some type of guarantee to make sure we could pay those payments in in some time. So, with with T district number five closing this year, we are still anticipating that roughly $1,300 decrease um related to the the the growth. Um and that's even with the debt service added with the police station. So, it's still looking pretty pretty solid. I'll know a little bit more how the revaluation affects the um distribution between commercial and residential. Um, as I've mentioned before, I I think I've seen in other communities, uh, residential is

appreciating at a much faster pace than commercial. Um, so again, causing but but we'll see. We'll see what how that shakes out. It's just a waiting game in the tiff districts. So, wait for 20 years for TID 5 to close and then and then there's $1,300 of relief there. um when TID 10 closes that where Amazon is and with just a couple more projects you'll likely see double that relief. So it just takes some time.

Yeah. So if we you know TID TID five is roughly 20 if it's you're talking about gross cost savings if you're not talking about the police station at all. You're talking about $2,200 on the average tax bill. So if you average that you know divided by 20 that's about what your cost savings per year but unfortunately it can't be realized until the closure. Go ahead. Hopey that's helpful.

Oh, I Well, Matt, you and Cameron went on to clarify, but yeah, I wanted to get that clear so that the So, TID 5 as an example um is is providing tax relief next year. Uh even though the police station project is is you know adding a large amount of debt, it's it's still going it's still providing uh in so much revenue with that closure that it is still lowering taxes despite the large amount for the project. Correct. Correct. Okay. So, okay. Thanks. Just wanted to clarify that for everybody. Yeah. Thank you.

Yeah. and and you know to to add to that um we're talking about a district that's also giving the school district roughly $1.8 million um paying $600,000 towards the police station. Um I don't know what the county and uh tech college portions are. So that that's really the goal. Um you know we we obviously don't want to keep the district open longer than it's required to recover the cost. um actually by state law we're required to close the district once it's recovered the cost um of the district. So those are those are when we start managing to 8 n and 10 to make sure um when we hit that and there's no other opportunities that we close those districts as soon as possible.

Thank you and thank you for the your presentation. Um I think it's it seems that it's an accomplishment that no material weaknesses our internal controls have improved. Um and I think that as a reflection of the board prioritizing um you know staff having the resources to make those improvements. So um I commend the staff on that. So further kind of on that line, what as a board can we do to help support a clean audit process and can you know continue to do that? Um I guess staff and administration are you know what are they doing well that we should recognize and make sure to continue.

Yeah, a lot of Yeah, there's a lot in there. Um you know the audit is really focused on the financial aspects. we're really focused on, you know, the accounting software and the controls over the information going in and out of there. So, um, you know, I'm sure there's a lot of other great things happening, you know, that we don't really touch on a regular basis, um, as part of the audit, but I would say, you know, just, um, you know, keeping, you know, enough staff, uh, you know, having capable staff of, you know, knowing what to do that has a good background in the accounting, you know, world and understanding, you know, what the impacts are of every decision that is made by you guys and you know knowing that every time you do something there there's some accounting impact and what does that mean and what rules do we have to follow as a result or how does that look in your financial statements how does that affect your results and your fund balance and all of that so just kind of you know working um with finance to understand all of that um you know that every decision kind of has an impact like that and I think that's how you can best kind of manage um what your expectations are and how that then ends up in your results in the end and which is subject to you know your bond raiders and you know the public and everything.

So getting um from my side getting good quality information from people we work with. So whether that be alers whether that be departments um you know we kind of hold a pretty high standard for information that's getting to us um and and obviously everybody has a part into it. We also on our side do a lot of you know for lack of better terms you know if I get hit by a bus you know can you can you survive you know without me and and making sure that you know all key processes uh a secondary backup can can do it without any warning. So there might be a time when I'm like all right Cassie you're not doing payroll this this this week. Um Sarah it's your turn to do that. And and I think that's important too to have some unpredictability in that. Um from a governance perspective, um a detailed review of the bills listing is is where this this body can come in hand. Asking good questions. How how how has it been appropriated? Um and just making sure you're getting involved because as Amanda has said, her role isn't it's not a forensic audit audit. They're not trying to identify fraud. they their their role and responsibility is to just make sure that our financial statements are free of material misstatement. Um so making sure if if something doesn't make sense or there's word action that doesn't make sense. Um making sure you're asking the questions and and never being afraid to to voice, you know, your opinion just to make sure everybody gets a answers.

Any final comments or questions? Thank you, Amanda.

All right. Thank you, Amanda. All right, unfinished business. Um, we have discuss and consider Cottage Grove Fire Department training at 612 North Main Street. There's a presentation linked in the agenda and we have our representatives here to give us a run through on National Firefighters Day. So, all right. Well, good evening. My name is Lance Severson. I'm one of the assistant chiefs with the fire department in Cottage Grove. Um yeah, we're here to talk about Wow, touchy. Uh we're here to talk about the 612 U North Main Street. Um there is a presentation. I don't know if it's up.

Yep, we'll get it. Okay. Um Oh, hold on one second. First off, thanks J.

Thanks, Lance, for for coming in. Um, so I met April and and team over at uh 612 uh North Main to kind of investigate what they could use the property for, what are their what other opportunities could they possibly use this the space for. Um so kind of as the process or what current guidance is is whenever there's a training opportunity reaching out to our public safety providers to see how they can utilize that space um for future training opportunities. So um I appreciate all the time and after that goes into putting the presentation and a plan together. Um as a reminder like we're we're just really looking for feedback here. So, um, if you have questions on the timeline and other expectations, please, this is the time to make sure that, um, we're communicating what those expectations are so we can deliver.

Okay, that's okay.

Hold on. Excellent. Um, so I don't like PowerPoints. I actually hate death by PowerPoint. Um, I teach a lot with PowerPoints, so I get tired of them. I hate making them. I like talking to people. I'd rather talk anyways. And this feels really uncomfortable for me for whatever reason. The mic, not talking to you. Um, okay. So, our goals with the fire department if, uh, so, um, we try and train and provide the best services that we can for you guys. Um, so our mission statement is up on the board there. Um, and we do train to that standard. We we'll risk everything we can to save a savable life, savable property, risk nothing for the environment. If you don't know what the environment is, it's everything else. Um yeah, so we train so we can uh provide this the best services to everybody in our districts. Uh we serve the village and the town of Cottage Grove as well as the town uh portion of the town of Pleasant Springs. So we trained to make sure we got a qualified people to provide services for that. Um training uses for 612. If you don't know what 612 is, that's the old Chase Lumber building, which is now Newk. All those brown fancy steel buildings minus the really big one on Cottage Grove Road. Um, so we're looking at using for like municipal water movement, um, wide area searches, difficult rescues, uh, hazardous materials or hazmat responses, and rapid intervention teams. Uh, municipal water movement is what it

sounds like. It's in the village. We use hydranted areas. We lay out our large diameter hoses, connect to the hydrant and flow water. Practice deploying hoses in a timely fashion. We try and set a record of time, but takes a little bit of refresher sometimes. So, um, but that would have uh because it's off of the main roads, we don't have to use roadways, anything like that. Um, we usually send out a a Facebook blast when we do this so people don't get concerned because we usually go to some of our members houses and use their houses as uh training props for the day or we'll go down to deadend roads like in the industrial park and use hydrants down there. But there is uh plenty of opportunity to do it off the roadway there. Um so search to rescue uh wide area search with the inception of big open areas of searching that building provides a great training tool for open areas and certain developing new search techniques and re reinforcing others. uh with the addition of the Amazon building that's also going to be a very large footprint that could have a very open concept or if you haven't walked through it, it's a very open concept. Um so by training these wide area searches or using a different type of search technique than we normally do, it would give us that opportunity to use a building that's vacant and then we can also add different things in there like shelving and people other things of that nature. uh difficult rescues. Uh if again, if you haven't been inside, there's definitely some areas in an attic space that we can rescue people out of using

ladders, ropes, and stuff like that. Um as well as other types of enttrapments or medical issues. Um because as we know, people work in construction high up on different areas. We can use some of those facilities to simulate or assist in rescue off of a higher or elevated platform. Uh, as far as like a hazardous material response, we're talking about uh not actually like having a hazard hazardous material there. I want to be clear on that. Um, it would be a prop inside of like a storage unit or something like that. um identifying placards so we know making our our staff use the emergency response guides, setting um zones based on what they read and what they see and then going from there and responses and our response to that and how to mitigate it. Um, so, uh, come on. And then, so if you haven't seen the our rapid intervention team, uh, it's exactly what it sounds. It's, uh, a team of our firefighters that go in and rescue down firefighters. Um, it's one of those other things where we can do search and rescue again from this. And we talked about opening this up to other municipalities to allow them to train in here. uh because we have the ability to modify certain things inside and add floors or add walls because it is such an open concept that we can make it a fun training environment and a challenging training environment. Um with the other house that we had at 101 East Cottage Grove Road, we definitely

made that challenging to our staff. If you didn't come in and see it, it was I had fun with it. They made I made them drag me out. So, um, and I didn't get hurt. So, no, it was a good time. They learned a lot and it's a a definite good opportunity for people to take a look at themselves and see what their capabilities actually are. Um, so as far as if there's any like structural damage, it's going to be limited in scope. If there is, it will be to the walls on the inside. We're not predicting any exterior damage uh just because it's all steel and we would have to basically practice cutting all that stuff and we don't want to do that cuz that's not what we're going to use it for at the for the most part anyways. Um so it would be pretty much just breaching through drywall again teaching how to do uh wall breaches or opening up a wall to do a rescue through. So, it would all be on the inside and if there's any door damage, it would again be from teaching forcible entry or just how to open a door. So, with that, I open up any questions. Um, in your packets there's this is my email address and um one of my subordinates uh Justin Lico, he's one of our captains. He provides training also. He's actually our training officer. I just get to oversee and I get to do all the presentations because he doesn't like to talk. Um, so if you guys have any questions or if you want to email me anything or concerns or if you have anything, by all means, please. I'm here for questions. If you want to email me, you guys, I do open it up to you guys coming down to tra our trainings. We train on the third and fourth Tuesdays of every month. Um, minus June, that's a little bit

busy for us. So, can you talk a little bit about the timeline for use of the structures? We are open to whenever. We're just looking to get in. If we can get in there, we will. Um, it'll be probably next month at the earliest is when we start our our water movement drills. So, knowing that there's no rush for us to demolish the building, um, what is kind of a maximum timeline that you guys would be looking for? So, like let's say if you get can be in the property until February of next year, would you guys be able to utilize it for the full time or or do you have a recommendation for how long you guys could utilize the property?

Uh, we can stretch and add trainings as needed. Um, we're pretty flexible in how we delegate our our timelines. Um, and if we have a building, we will use the building as much as we can. So if we have till February, we will use it until February. And obviously if we want to do uh cooperative training in some way, shape or form, obviously everybody's going to be invited in that. So yeah, just with restoration, I think one of the things that we learned on the corner property is we would likely not try to demolish the property before the end of the year. So that just gives us a little bit more of a runway for training opportunities. So, we would want to make sure when we demolish it, we're able to restore it fairly quickly. Um, so that's good to know. Also, I just want the board to be aware there is loose wood and lumber and drywall and things in there. So, assuming we would go forward with this this project, we would be giving the fire department full authority to take use whatever wood and other things that they can use in their training props. Obviously, we have no use for it um because it's going to be torn down, but I just want to make sure it's crystal clear. And if there's any board members that have any concerns with that, now would be the time to to voice that.

So, along the lines of that, then if we're seeking that, we also would like to ask if we could also take some of the structural steel on the outside for training purposes because we do have a lot of steel roofs showing up in the neighborhoods. Um, and that would be one thing to cut and save costs for people and especially our taxpayers is if we can repurpose that instead of it ending up in the landfill and use it for training, that would be beneficial as well. But again, that would be right before you guys tear it down, we would reclaim that, not until that point if that would be nodding heads. So that see that's fine. JP,

um I know you mentioned this during um the rapid response team portion, but uh just to be clear, you and I really do appreciate how you all have been leader in during the trainings in this area and I anticipate that again you said you would be interested in opening it up for other municipalities. Would you be doing that for just the rapid response team or would you be doing these trainings for any and all municipalities based off of um the needs trainings that you're being offering in in there? that was more geared for the rapid intervention teams um because a lot of other our neighboring agencies like Marshall, Deerfield, McFarland, Stoton, they all look to train at that, but sometimes they don't have the best like I don't want to say people involved in there. Um to give you a little bit of a history, our department was one of the first trained rapid intervention teams other than the city of Madison. I'll just point that out. Um, but we would literally get called just for that purpose to go to mutual aid departments for rapid intervention teams. So, I think we're opening it up to help train others. So, I get all the knowledge I have up here to somebody else. Um, as far as other topics, yes, we do sometimes open it up to other, but we want to make sure that our staff gets the the brunt of the training first. Um, and then we open it up after that. That answer your question? Okay.

Before we move on that, do they have their own insurance for staff during training if it's on our location? If it's not like is that are we going to have some kind of like contract to do this or like how does that work?

There will be we do have a we do have a contract form that we we had with 101. um we all have the same similar but they'll have a little bit different language I think if I'm not mistaken is what we were talking um if we do open up to other agencies it's not going to fall it shouldn't I'll say this in my my only know is it should fall on that municipality it's not we're like hosting this it'll fall to their workman if somebody's injured which we very are very to be clear we're very cautious not to injure people and we actually take the steps to provide enough safe training to people not get hurt.

Yeah, I was I observed some of the training um at 101 and I was yeah very impressed with you know the I don't know how in depth every all you know it seemed from my outsider perspective it was um what seemed to be very good training. So I think very beneficial for the staff. Thank you. And like I said, I do encourage you guys to show up if you want and if you have questions or if you want to have more questions, shoot me an email or get a hold of me. They know how to get a hold of me as well. So with that,

so my my only ask is if the board approves this today, um that we'll be getting a just to help with the communication that we'll be getting a tenative schedule for when you're going to be on site. Um, in addition, if for some reason you need any other resources like lane closure or something, which I it doesn't sound like that will be happen that were let know. Um, and then um I know last year we were interested in um you know, how do people become volunteers? And so if there's any material like that that you want help pushed out as part of those communication efforts, just making sure Inga has the updated communication,

we'll do. Um, yes, we're always looking for people or you can apply on our website. Um, and you can even go to the Facebook page and just go from there. Do we arrive on an end date or is it going to be kind of like a flexible end date? I will leave that to you. I would be fine to have a flexible end date with like enough like a notice of some sorts and that gives you I mean if we push this out and you use it for an entire year then so be it or you know however that works but I don't want to commit to something tonight and then have it sit not used.

The only question I would have is the Cameron's point about not doing demolition with restoration at the end of the year. So, if we need to add that caveat into whatever motion we do for that,

I have a question. Um, first of all, thank you and all of our volunteer firefighters. I truly have no idea what you all do, but greatly appreciate it. And, um, another question I have is, well, that wasn't a question statement, sorry. um what what services are available to firefighters when there has been an actual event and you all are human beings too. So I'm asking like what kind of um support u mental health support do you all have when there has been um a significant fire or accident? So, we actually have a contracted um agency that's called the employee assistance program through the state. Um they come out uh when we ask them to or whenever there's a tragic event or a significant event. Um we also have staff that is trained into the peer support roles. um they've gone to trainings, they've gone to um conferences on how to do this, how to recognize certain things. Um I have two different EAPs that I have available to me from my normal daily work to the fire department. Um I actually just met with um my other works chaplain today. Uh they were doing their EAP check-in just to see how things are going. um and they know our our chaplain that we have on the fire service uh very well and speak very highly of him. Uh he comes to all of our like our generally our first meeting of the month is our association meeting. Um and then they come and he talks if we need to. Um otherwise if we see somebody having issues or if we know they're admitting that they have issues, we direct them

right to there. If we they can't make that call, we make it for them. Um so we try and provide an a service to them to make sure that their mental health is a priority because like you said, we're all human at the end of the day. Um and it changes you. I'm not going to lie, it does. So, yep. So, this is a discuss and consider.

So, basically what we're looking for, um, if the board chooses to go forward with this, you're giving me direction to work with the fire department, get theou and or contract in place for the facility. Um, and then we can provide updates, whether that be in Matt's tracker or a board requested agenda item on how it's going. I'll make a motion as stated. Uh if you're open to a friendly amendment um with the condition that um we do not set the timeline to where d demolition would be towards the end of the year. So within that time period in there.

I want to make sure I'm understanding you correctly. If you can Yeah. So Cameron made the point that uh we don't want to have demolition and restoration towards the end of the year that we want to push that beyond. So I would just say one one of the amendments to that or caveats is directors. Yes, I agree to that. Thank you for clarifying a second. With that I will second it. Okay. All right. We have a motion. I'm not going to say your last name. This is for the next year. Um motion by Renee and second by JP. Um, any more discussion?

I just have a quick question um to Cameron. There's no fiscal impact to this in terms of we're providing extra funds or anything of that nature. Uh, nope. None that has been requested at this time. Thank you. All those in favor? I I opposed. Motion carries. Thank you. Thank you. Fireman's Festival, June 12th through the 15th. Is that the right dates? 11th through the 14th.

Yeah. Okay. Um then we have discuss and consider availability for joint town village board meeting on June 30th at 5:30 occurring at village hall. And this is for the um final PAAA fire EMS um study. Just if you all can confirm that you are available at that night or at least have a quorum moving forward anniversary, but you can bring Brian. Yeah, I'm sure that he would love to spend the evening doing that. I am not available. That's the night of the Dayne County Regional Housing Strategy meeting. So, is it okay if we meet without you?

It's like the only time out of the list of times that we could come to with dates. All right. Will we be hosting? Okay. And then it will be recorded and all of that. Yep. just like last time. So, it's a discuss and consider. I would move that we um schedule the join town village board meeting for June 30th at 5:30 p.m. Oh, Casey, you have your hand up.

Yep. I was just going to confirm, Cindy, I have definitely available. Uh Connor's youth soccer ends a couple weeks prior on the Tuesdays, so that's perfect. Motion by Severson. I need a second. I'll second. Murphy, I'll second. Um, all those in favor? I I

opposed state. Motion carries. We're going to move on to new business. And I realize we have a lot of guests in the house, but I think we're going to keep it in order. Um, and we're going to do discuss and consider participation in a feasibility study regarding shared consolidated fire and EMS in the region. We have Mark Roloff here. Um who's the consultant, but I'm going to turn it over to Matt to kind of run us through his memo first and then there's other attachments in the agenda and then um open it up to discussion um with the consultant.

Sure. Um I think my memo kind of lays out um how this came about. It's my understanding there's been discussions by Fitchburg and um Village of Oregon and um it turned out to be many many others but they've been discussing this for for quite some time. Um but more recently it started working its way east and um uh we were reached out to and and so uh part of the um part of the study that was approved and and McMahon Associates is who is um hired by Fitchburg in Oregon. um they kind of saw it coming that others may want to um join in a study effort and take part in that. Um so they had a provision in there for how those um cost quotes would come about and and so we were provided that by um McMahon and um basically tonight is just up to um you all. We can hear a little bit from Mark. Feel free to ask him uh any questions you may have. Um but just a consideration because they Fitsburg and Oregon want to get going on the study. They want to complete it before budget time this year. So they were just asking for uh decisions for municipalities by um actually it was late April. They extended it a little bit to early May. But so that's just a decision point for the village board. From a budgetary standpoint, um before we were looking into the PAAA study, we had allocated um up to about 40,000 uh in fire EMS related studies and the PAA study for our portion um was a little over 17,000. So this would be um

11,000 to cover both the EMS and fire districts. um to date um in discussions with the village Deerfield and Town of Cottage Grove, they were not interested in in participating. With that, I can turn over to Mark and any questions that board members have. Matt, just real quick, um isn't it on the town board's agenda for tonight? They're discussing it, but my understanding is they're not interested in participating. Yeah. Well, yeah. I I would add the town didn't approve participating in their meeting tonight. Hi, Mark.

Well, thank you for having me. Uh I'm Mark Rolloff. I'm the uh uh manager of the public safety and municipal management division with McMahon Associates. We're a consulting firm uh based out of Nenah, actually Village of Fox Crossing. So, uh, as, uh, Professor Ford outed me a little while ago, I was a a 42-year career in local government, last 17 as city manager of Oshkosh. So, I have a little familiarity with um with local government, and I I have a passion for public safety and how important it is uh to all of every different community. um the village of uh Oregon and the city of Fitchburg approached us about doing a study for them and it just kind of took off from there. Uh they've been having some meetings uh every few weeks to just kind of see if anybody else is interested in being on board and I think Matt did a nice job of summarizing uh who's in and who's out in terms of this. Uh if you take a look at it geographically, it's pretty much the uh US Highway 18 corridor fire study right now. Um and uh you know Stoton and McFarland and Village of Brooklyn have also added themselves to that discussion. Uh so uh Manona is considering it uh I believe tonight uh as as well as this board. Um I can tell you that this is probably one of the most studied items these days. Uh it started a little bit with uh the uh innovation fund grants that were uh started last year. uh and you know is this something that uh that the different municipalities are interested in? Uh one of my colleagues, Tim Shabble, uh he is a former uh fire chief. Uh he will be the project manager for this. If he was here, he would tell you that about half of these studies result in something moving forward. This is not for everybody, folks. Um, but I would tell you I think it's worth looking at. Uh, and I think that's why

five municipalities have already gotten on board. And I respect any governing body that makes a decision that they're not interested because it may not be the time for you. Uh, there's so many different things. It really is an issue of stars being in alignment. Um, but I would say that part of the stars being in alignment are that you have other municipalities that are interested in in having this discussion. and it if it's a 500 batting average, then you may or may not uh result in it, but at least you've studied it. The work that you've had PAA do, um I happen to know the uh person from PAA who uh is doing your study, he was my former fire chief, and I have a great deal of respect for him. That will serve as a good uh piece of groundwork for for us to analyze. Um they will have already done a lot of the advanced research. Uh, and I think Matt was expecting a higher price. I was happy to to give him a to give him a lower price. Part of it is because you've already done some of the leg work with the PAAA study. Uh, and I'd certainly if if you choose to proceed with us uh uh being part of this uh shared services study, that would be the very first thing I will be anxiously looking for the results of that study uh to uh to use as a a benchmark. With that, I could talk all night because I love this topic, but I'd rather have uh be be able to answer any questions you might have.

Can you maybe just speak to timeline a little bit? I know unique decisions are being made by municipalities. Yeah. Today, and then moving forward, um where do you see this?

Yeah, we gave Matt an extension on his deadline. Um, but part of it is because both Fitsburg and Oregon, as Matt said, they want to be able to have something to look at for the future. Uh, in terms of the 2027 budget, that doesn't necessarily mean that it would be about doing any type of merger, but if there's any preliminary work that needs to get done, uh, we're doing one for the cities of Wawaossa and West Alice. That'll be uh the largest uh merger in in the state's history. that is there's a lot of work that gets done because it's not just as simple as putting logos on the side of new trucks. Uh that's that's that's clearly the easiest thing. Things like dispatch um details that I can't even begin to tell you all that will come out, but dispatch is a big issue with West Dallas and Matossa. So, we'll have to take a look at that if uh is if this is something worthwhile. And that's why I think they want to get it get going on it. Um they want to have a kickoff meeting in a couple of weeks. Uh and that would bring everybody together. And we're uh they're scheduling a meeting Thursday just to see who's on, who's who's not on so they can begin that scheduling. Typically four to five months though. So we're getting I mean you know you're in the thick of budget right in October. So, we want to be able to get done so that um whatever next steps might be there, they can budget for it in 2027.

Questions for board members.

Thanks for being here tonight. Um, I think one of the questions I have is, you know, coming in as, you know, being invited sort of unexpectedly, like this wasn't on any of our radar. Um, I guess is this, you know, trying to see what the intentions are from the original proposal. Like, is it designed to evaluate whether consolidation in some form makes sense or how a consolidation would work or kind of both of those? So I guess you know I don't know that we would have the same intentions as other people in the in the study

and that's why we are having individual agreements because it's going to vary based on the community. It might be it might work for you and not work for somebody else or vice versa. And those are the things you really have to uh pay close attention to because like I said, I mean using my analogy of the stars being in alignment, stars may be in alignment for say Fittsburgh and Oregon, but it may not be for Cottage Grove and uh and and and there has to be some geographic um you unity to that. So let's say that all of a sudden McFarland, it didn't work out for McFarland. That might throw you guys off too. So even if it might be okay for you, if it's not for McFarland, then how is it going to work for you guys? And all those questions need to get answered. So if it's feasible, then it's like here are the things that you'd have to look at. So it's really a little bit of both to answer your question. We we discussed this matter at the recent JFC meeting and um I I appreciate your comment about if the stars are all aligned and so Stoton is not participating at the moment. Correct.

Stoen is.

Stoen is okay. All right. Um I guess my I have several concerns. Um, one to begin with is our fire department, volunteer fire department right now is fabulous. So, my view is why if it's not broke, why fix it? And and I don't mean this in any disrespect or any other towns or other u municipalities that are looking at this. I'm just looking at this from the village of Cottage Grove at the moment. Um I don't think that this is the time to pursue this. I know that we are looking at the PAA study. Um but um I'm I personally am not um interested in pursuing this at this time.

Other comments or questions? JP? Yep. And then Casey, I see your hands up.

Okay. Um, so I I also listened to the fire commission meeting and there's lots of great points that were brought up and I think many of those would also be addressed as part of the study as well. So, um, and I know we're very proud of our fire department and then part of it is if you look in their annual report, we have an ISO score of three for the village and a four for the town and Pleasant Springs, which is amazing when you consider our model. uh being a volunteer fire department. And that's one of those kind of unique things uh with being volunteer, especially in this trend that we're seeing uh where there are many municipalities, it's hard for them to fully staff and maintain a volunteer fire department. The fact that we are pretty much almost at full staff or at capacity, what the desired amount is speaks to that. But at the same time, we're also kind of going towards things like paid per call, which eventually could go to paid on call. Um, which again goes in that road map to eventually professional. And again, that's not a knock at our volunteer model and where we are moving to the paid per call, but it's just a recognition that fire has been the only like public safety group that has had this volunteer model for so long. you don't you no longer see that with the police or EMS. Um and so when I look at this in the long term and again very long term eventually I wouldn't be surprised if the village ends up into a fully paid on call or full professional firefighter model maybe way way way down the line. But at the same time, I'm also looking at this from that standpoint of if debt is a concern. We have lots of capital investments that could be coming up for the fire. Ladder truck is one that's

going to be in the near term in here. But then depending on the PA study, we could have the need for a satellite station. Well, if we go into a regional model, that might not be necessary to have that second location uh in there. Um, I also know that there are some combined uh districts that don't need the same level of uh vehicles. For example, uh for example, I know one or two uh towards Walker County that have only one ladder truck that serves their entire district in there. So, not every municipality would need a multi-million dollar ladder truck. That could be a potential savings for us in there. Um, and so the other thing that I've seen, um, back where I grew up is getting in at the beginning, being part of the conversation can also go a long way in helping us draft what the agreement is, being part of that table to help protect us if we want to go uh, with that model in there and can really, again, goes back to a lot of the concerns that were brought up in the um, fire district meeting in there. as an educator that loves data, I'm all about data. Um, so I want to make an informed decision. That's one of those things I ran on and we this we have a kind of unique opportunity to have the PA study combined with this. So you get to see both of those at a pretty reasonable cost in there. So while I hear some of the questions and concerns, I feel like there is plenty of opportunity. we don't get this opportunity to really explore it to see what could be doable to help protect the village not only for the short term but also in the long term in there. So one of the con another concern I have too is um if this would move on towards um us uh consolidating is that we would

lose a lot of local control and and not only local control about decision making but also about things like equipment which can actually end up costing more in the long run. And if we think out in the future with this consolidation, you know, if we think out even past 5 years, I don't know if that's very realistic because in 5 years, a lot of things change in emergency um world along with medical information, technology, um how things are run from that aspect in terms of like electronic medical and and um bill collection etc. Um Mark, do you think you could speak a little bit to whether you'll be just uh looking at governance um of the district?

Yeah, governance is a portion of what we would do and that is that is it's a legitimate issue. Um, I would say that when you have um a situation where you have a much larger municipality and several smaller ones, that can sometimes be awkward because the the challenge if you form a district per se is that how much say does the the municipality has more than 50%. They basically if it was a corporation, they'd have all the say and everybody would be a a silent partner. um the alternative to that and I think you've probably seen it in some of the area fire departments around here. None of these in this corridor that I'm talking about, but there are some in this area where they're arguing because there is a situation where the city has the you know 70% of the population but only about 40% of the say and that becomes a frustrating a frustration point. So those governance issues, those are the things we take a look at. Generally, when you have pretty much some uniformity across the board and I think that's one opportunity here. Um it's uh the one that we just did for Wawaos and West Dallas was very easy because they're almost identical in every way, shape, or form. It's 50/50. They aren't they aren't worried about that. But when it's 50/50, they have to have agreement because one can't overrule the other. So you really work on developing, you basically bring Mike Ford in to tell you what he told you tonight and you have those people think for the entire area, not just for your individual municipality anymore. But that is easier said than done. But that's in theory how it works.

Casey, you have your hand up.

Thanks. Um, yeah, so I think I mean, you know, initially on the face of this, this makes a lot of sense to do. We can't make good decisions without good data and this seems like a trove of good data especially with all the municipalities that have uh that are already to participate are going to participate. Um the cost seems like it's pretty modest and still comes well in under that 40k allocated budget. Uh I also like Mark that you have that uh that 50% moving forward batting average rate that that kind of implies that municipalities only do this if it if it genuinely makes sense for them. So that's um that speaks to stability for it. Um I do have I have two sort of questions. Sorry about ask them one at a time and then if you can come back to me. Um uh so is the the the PAA study that we're doing already is that going to be completed or completed enough in time for this and then is there any like uh any action we need to do or any cost or something to like share their data with you? We have every expectation that we will be using the PAAA study and even though your meeting isn't until late June, I know we're going to get, you know, we'll get uh an early bird look at it.

We'll have a draft in the next couple of weeks. That's what I that's what I thought Matt had said. So, yeah, I think we'll be okay on that. Casey, second question. Okay. Yep. And then with uh so with the town of Cottage Grove and Pleasant Springs, sounds like they're choosing not to participate. Um, is there potentially like a gap in in the data in the the analysis you'd have since there are current, you know, district partners? Matt, you want to take that one?

Um, so the the way that the the way it's uh drawn up is right now the village of Cottage Grove. If the board wants to move forward with this, we'd be um we'd be paying for the whole district. So, the fire and EMS district. So, it covers it covers the whole area. Okay. Sorry, I I didn't mean uh cost-wise. I meant like is there um I don't know. Is there is there information you wouldn't be able to get because they're not participating or is that not an issue? Well, we have the data from the fresh data from the um Okay. from the PAA study. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think I think the PA stud

that makes sense. Thank you. Paula, go ahead.

Sure. I guess I I have a lot. Um so, um first of all, JP, I just want to one note, um that you said about not having a professional fire department. Um we do have a professional fireman. I I just the words matter and they matter to the people here. Um we have the highest credentialed firefighter in the state of Wisconsin. So, I just paid and professional are kind of two different things. So, I just wanted to make that um comment. Um, also in terms of data-driven decisions, you know, you mentioned that it would lay the groundwork, our PAA study, but when we're looking at data-driven decisions, I think, you know, there's some um, it's difficult to make clear decisions when you have one study that's got one set of parameters and another study that has different assumptions. And because these studies are different, um, I truly believe that we should do these sequentially. So, we get done with the PAAA study first and then do the study after after we've analyzed our current regionalization with um fire and EMS. Um, you know, I don't even know, I mean, you guys are brand new if you even had a chance to review the IGAs for both entities. Um, but you know, there's a lot of potential downfall that comes with those and disillusion and when those agreements are through. So, I think we should take a measured step forward to that. I also think that for us, I mean, just fiscally, we should preserve our volunteer fire department model for as long as we can. Um, because a full-time fire department is going to be probably in the neighborhood of a million dollars. And so, that is a big that's a big jump to make. And we have different um as you noted JP, we've got the paid, you know, per call or the paid on call. So, we have a ways out. Um the idea of trying to get something that's going to

be ready for the group and I totally get it with, you know, the other entities for a 2027 budget, that is not I don't think that's our timeline for our particular fire needs or EMS EMS for that matter. Um, and honestly there's a fear that I have and I think this will come out in the PAAA study, but when we look at the municipalities that are participating and us, the big difference between the two is they all have paid fire departments and we have a volunteer fire department. And I think the PA study is going to show us um in many ways that we are in a similar arrangement as Sun Prairie was with Marshall as we are with Deerfield where we pick up 60% of the cost. Um and really I think we're subsidizing um ambulance coverage in Deerfield. And then there's the governance piece that's already kittywampus there in terms of us paying 60% of the cost and we we're only onethird of the vote. Um so I think we should tackle those issues first. Um and then also I think um obviously if the town doesn't participate we have that you know um issue about being geographically contiguous. But for me, the bigger thing is when we talk about not having to build a station or something of that nature, if the town were not to agree to this model and they say, "Go ahead and join, but we're going to stay uh a volunteer fire department," there's a whole another situation there um with that fire department. And so, one way or another, we we're going to need a fire station. Um the response time from the McFarland Public Safety Building to this address is 14 minutes and from the Stoton Fire Department to here is 23 minutes. So I think those are things that we need to consider whether it be a first truck out um or a second ambulance out or whatever that is. Um we

need to think about that. And then one final thought um in terms of finances. So in 2025, we paid $80,000 for fire protection, $633,000 for EMS, and 2.6 million for law enforcement. So if we are looking at regionalization for fire and EMS, we probably should also be looking at it for law enforcement because that is our biggest expenditure. So if we're really keen that this could be a cost-saving measure for us in the future, I think then we put all three on the table. Um, but I am not in favor of doing this. I would like us to get um the PAA study done and where we can process the data. We can have the conversation with our municipal partners um and put that to rest first before embarking on something new.

Other comments or questions? Yeah, I just want to meet.

Yep. Thank you for being here and waiting. Um otherwise this is a discuss and consider or if no interest we can pass. I'll make the motion to further discussion on uh moving forward with the study and covering the full cost of the district in there.

I'll second.

Motion by JP, second by Casey. Any other discussion? I don't think I've said my piece. Um, I've obviously I've sat down and met with a lot of people over the last handful of weeks and I think um, yeah, I was I mean that's at the fire commission meeting. There's a lot of questions. Um, I think Paula brought up a lot of good points. I've been kind of on the fence with this kind of in general. Um, but I do think that it is it's in the right order of giving us all the information and I think that, you know, we don't have to it's not like we're going to be taking action in 20 on January 1st of becoming a consolidated district and we're going to be able to then work on those plans, those long-term plans, which I think are really important. um and whether this and then we know for sure that if consolidation is not if we're in the other 50% um and that we're not going to do that, we know exactly what kind of resources and planning we need to do for for the future. So, I think I'm in the I've had a hard time all weekend going back and forth, but I I think I'm in the camp of getting information. I'm just wondering, could we ask I mean, we have our subject matter experts in the room in terms of our fire chief and our EMS chief, you know, what their take on this is. Um, I I would like to hear from them.

I mean, if the chiefs want to come up and give their opinion on this study, um, they can do so. I've also put a lot of thought and effort into considering the ramifications and the information contained in the potential study and consolidation. The first thing I look at is that this was originated by um municipalities that are largely western part of the county. Um we have opportunities to regionalize in this area but haven't been studied. And this might be a perfect opportunity to say, "Hey, let's check into what local regionalization looks like in regard to our partners that we're already working with uh in this part of the county like Marshall and um Deer Grove is already a combined district of 100 square miles that includes village and town of Cottage Grove, village and town of Deerfield, and and the town of Pleasant Springs. Um I I wonder how their data will coincide with the information that you're looking at all of our calls but not having possible access to any of the facilities that are part of our our district. So that's that's part of my struggle as well. Um along with I I think if if it wasn't the big district and largely south and west of us, it'd be a really good information gathering feat to go through. But you're looking at um potentially uh creating a a bigger district and maybe even limiting future resources to your own municipality given I'm making assumptions based off of what I see for the future, but I see better

opportunities to collaborate with those just to the east of us than with those far south and west of us. But I agree that there needs to be information. I don't know that this is the proper pieces of information to gather. I think this while the money is available um I I think it could be better spent in a different location in a different scope.

Um fire chief want to come up and give their opinion on this? So, our opinion would be very similar to what Chief Lang just said that we're already working along the east side of the county with several municipal partners including Deerfield, McFarland, and Stoton. And looking at regionalization, that would seem to make more sense. if you're talking about regalizing, they would be the more logical choice as opposed to municipalities that are on the far side of the county that we don't really interact with. So, our opinion is pretty much the same as what he just said. I don't want to copy what he's saying, but it's we're pretty much in line with our position on it. Yes, information can be helpful, but like you said, are we looking at the right information is I guess what our question would be. So,

okay. All right. This there's a motion in a second and if there's no more discussion, we can do a roll call vote on this one.

I just sorry, one piece of discussion. I think I think the comments and the reactions of the two chiefs that just came up and the things that they weren't saying, the body language, um I think we really need to pay attention to that. There are subject matter experts and I think we've got to give that as much credence as as the person who's here with the study. Um so I'm strongly opposed to moving ahead. Casey, you've got your hand up.

Um, can we get some clarification on which municipalities are and are not participating that we know at this point to to clarify this the west east difference here? Yeah. Matt, can there it's in the first page of the memo, but Matt, can you just list them for us again? Um, city of Fitchburg, village of Oregon, city of Stoton, village of McFarland, village of Brookfield, sorry, uh, village of Brooklyn. Um and then u excuse me um city of Manona is considering tonight Matt. Is it the village of Brooklyn or is it the Brooklyn Fire District? Fire fire district. District. Yeah. Because that's different. Yeah.

Mhm. All right. And then Yeah. So from that memo, so Verona, uh Deerfield, city of Verona, village of Deerfield, and town of Cottage Grove had declined. So, uh, you know, with Stone and McFarland, there is some east. Pitchburg and Oregon, there is some west. So, there's there's a mix here, it sounds like. Okay. All right. Roll call vote, please. Benzo, no. Erinson, I. Kell Nelson, no. Murphy, no. Severson, no. Stowa,

hi. via Vasencio. You got it. I All right, that's 43. Motion fails. Thank you for coming tonight. You're welcome.

All right, we have um up next in our very long agenda is our interview with consultants for updating the village of Cottage Grove comp plan. And I'm going to turn it over to Aaron and let him kind of run the show tonight, our three interviews. I don't want to keep them waiting too much longer, but the RFP went out earlier this year. We were in the fortunate position. We have three really great firms that want to uh work with us on the plan, and they're all here to join us. Uh the order was randomly uh generated, and the team from Vanderwal is up first. So, if you guys want to come up and get started, that'd be great. talk. Great. We're on. All right. Good evening. U my name is Hillilary Rottman. I'm with Vanderbal and Associates. We have Ben Roar and uh Jeff Maloney with us.

It's not clicking. It's okay. Um, so on our first slide, we are going to show our uh our project team. We're a diverse group of people with experience in uh planning, communication, uh, graphic design, um, and implementation. And we would bring that all toward all for you guys uh, on this project. Uh, why choose us? Delay. Delay. Yeah.

All right. um because of our uh comp our communication approach um our understanding our expertise of the area and long-range planning and our uh proven record with results and implementation. Um so just some experience at a glance. Our firm has done uh comprehensive planning um for the past 40 years. Um and we have a long history with Cottage Grove over the past decade or so. So we have some experience and are knowledgeable about the community. Um, and we also have worked along with some of the partners of uh Dne County Regional Housing. Um, and also work with Vidian a lot, a frequent flyer in the community. Uh, along with uh we're really good partners with Strand and have had a really long working relationship for the past 37 years who also is your village engineer. Um, our communication approach is a three-fold approach. internal communication with staff. We feel we treat them as also a member of the uh of the project team. Um we try to utilize graphic communication to communicate a lot of the complex ideas so that it's understandable to the average person. Um and we also take a really robust public uh in input and stakeholder um approach. Um, lastly, we put our public input um up here that these are the things that you guys had suggested that you'd like to do in your RFP, but we've also suggested some additional add-ons that we feel are helpful uh to continue to get collaborative, inclusive, and diverse uh public input. Um, last slide I have for mine before I hand it over to Jeff. Um, this is just an example of some of our public outreach um events that we've done. Um, and I just want to point out that Ben and I are in all of these photos. So, your management team goes out and actually does work with the community and talk to them and communicate them. We feel like it's a really important quality of the plan and we want to make

sure to take it seriously. So, Jeeoff, I want to hand it over to you.

Well, thank you everyone for having us. I'm Jeff Maloney, principal designer with the firm and Bandan Associates, you know, is a mix of planners and designers. So I represent mostly that design team and what we plan to do for this document is to bring as many graphics as possible make it an an accessible document. You know comprehensive plans have changed especially over the last 15 years or so and gone from very dense technical uh word documents to more accessible documents for the whole community. You still have all that data and everything that'll be in the back. Um, we have a team of designers and graphic designers who can create graphics like this to explain different elements of your plan. So, you might have a something like a housing diagram which is on the the top left there or a diagram that shows the goals of the chapters and anything that's quickly accessible for both the public to see and the decision makers as yourself to to look back for reference. One of the additions to the RFP that you sent out was to look at different development scenarios for the corner of Cottage Grove and Main Street. This is what I personally do pretty much every day and have done for the last 27 years. Uh redevelop communities. We work for both private and public sector doing this. So we would prepare three different concept plans for this corner and also host a design threat with the public. work with all of you to understand what future land uses could go on the corner, what type of development is desired, densities, heights, forms, bulk standards, all that fun stuff that we like to get into. Public gathering spaces, um environmental features, all those different things. We'll explore, prepare three different concept plans and then refine that through the process into a preferred concept that we can include in the DI in the plan. And what that does is it you know it helps the development community understand what is a community supported idea or development proposal

for that corner. We also negotiate you know development deals. So we understand the market. We understand what's market feasible and we think it could really help you with understanding how that corner could cash flow from a development and a land planning perspective. One of the additional optional tasks is a perspective sketch just to show what that site could look like in three dimensions. We still do handdrawn sketches. We still take that approach. It's more of a personal touch. Also, it relates to the public that this is an idea. This is what we like to see, but it's not a computer drawn where they start com start arguing about the brick color and the railings and things. It really gives an idea of generally it should look like this. Thank you. Uh good to meet you all. Uh so in conclusion on our communication approach, what we aim to do throughout the entirety of the process is generate meaningful input for all of our interactions and we use this input to inform decisions throughout the plan planning process and create consensus building around and alignment around key topics and ideas. Generally, we want to communicate using graphics because they're easier to consume. We want to make a compelling document that people want to pick up and use. and we also want to meet the statutory requirements of the comprehensive planning law. Obviously, that is the the core goal of what we're aiming to do here. The third sort of prong within our uh approach that we think uh brings an opportunity for us uh that's a little bit unique is the results of our planning process uh can be seen, they can be viewed and we pride ourselves on that. So we aim to create a vision through that planning process everything that we do, but we come from an implementation lens. So on a day-to-day basis, we're working with municipalities to actively implement their comprehensive plans and that's an approach that we take when developing the comprehensive plan. Uh we take that approach in mind because that helps us

bring the plan to life. What do I mean by that? I mean that by that in a variety of different formats. So you can see these different images. What could what that could mean is you create goals for housing and you can see those houses being developed in neighborhoods. That means you could build consensus around certain projects, build those projects into your comprehensive plan, seek grants to actively do and implement and study those things. You could also make policy changes based off your comprehensive plan. We write a lot of zoning codes. You're working uh with Dne County on that housing chapter. uh those are direct implementation tasks from an implementationoriented comprehensive plan that we do on a day-to-day basis and we work with a variety of communities to do that. And so that's our strategy when it comes to development of comprehensive plans and focusing in that spec specific area on the implementation action item that goes in the last chapter. So in total uh what we aim to do throughout our type of uh planning process and why we think we'd be a good partner to work with the village of of Cottage Grove on this particular project is generate meaningful input throughout the process collaborate with you all with staff and utilize the knowledge and understanding that you already have but build upon that with the knowledge and understanding. We work in Dne County on a day-to-day basis. We do comprehensive planning all the time. So we're going to bring that expertise, the local knowledge and the understanding and we're going to partner with you on this particular project to create a driven actionoriented comprehensive plan. So we appreciate the time here this evening. We know you have several more interviews. Uh we will take any questions or discussion. Appreciate it. Thank you.

Comments or questions.

Thank you. Thanks for your presentation. Um, guess I'd like to learn a little bit more about um an example where you helped bring together divergent um kind of ideas and views about the future of a community and how your process helped bring those views together to like kind of a consensus um to put into our plan. Yeah, I think a really good example of that is a couple of years in the city of Boote. Uh we did their comprehensive plan and one of their core focus areas was uh public engagement and specifically trying to reach voices that had not necessarily been heard in the previous planning process. And so we aimed to do is a lot of public engagement in a lot of different ways to try and hear voices that we hadn't heard. And from all of that input that we got, which was uh almost 2,000 uh different comments throughout the project, that led to these core set of topic ideas, focus areas, if you will, and the core plan goals. And what we used is those plan goals to direct the vision statement. And then we went to the elected officials. We went to the steering committee that we had formed and we said, "We heard from this many people. These are the general consensus items that we got from them that not everybody agreed, not everybody's going to agree, but you have to do some level of synthesis from that that input and generate it through a meaningful way. And so between those two period or two strategies, uh we came to the the council at the end of the day and they unanimously supported it even though it was a very I would say progressive plan in relationship to their previous versions because it was supported by that community input and data.

Thank you.

Do you have a comment JP? Uh I appreciate uh your thoughts and comments on how you want to integrate graphics in a way that can really help convey uh understanding in there. Um my question is with the new accessibility standards that are set to go forward next year, what are some of the steps or options you're going to take to ensure that those graphics and uh the whole entire document is fully accessible and in compliance with those new rules that will go in effect next year. Well, we uh I think built into this project that there would be a project website where there's full accessibility throughout in terms of transparency in terms of what we're doing in terms of the documents being produced and then uh there's opportunities through the website uh to do things like translation um and use tools that we have available in terms of software to make communication possible uh to a broader and wider audience. Uh I am by no means the expert on that type of thing. We have u um some other people within our firm that specialize in more of that technology. So I'm speaking a little bit from outside of my realm of expertise. Uh but we do have opportunities to leverage software out there to make things more accessible and make things uh more broad and transparent and that would be our goal.

Casey, go ahead. Yes. Um so I know that uh in early 2026 uh Wisconsin passed the um got the truth and planning law the exact number on the bill. Um uh I wanted to ask how uh if any that's that's going to you know in would inform your kind of your kind of approach to things.

Well we have to uh don't really have a choice on that front now. Um, so, uh, like everybody else, we're wrapping our head around that, uh, legislation. Uh, we're addressing it with a variety of our client communities and we're exploring, uh, what it means to fully address that. I think it's an opportunity, uh, because you're doing your planning process to build it in. Um, throughout most, uh, or through a lot of our comprehensive planning, uh, we're building, uh, future land use that have density tied to them. And that's sort of the core core component of the truth and planning law is that there's a density tied to the future land uses. If there's a zoning proposal that aligns with that, then you have to approve that zoning proposal. So, we're going to take a keen lens as to looking at specifically what that means. And maybe that means we have more future land use categories with a more broad spectrum of densities. I don't know the answer at this point, but I know that we're exploring different ways and opportunities to do that. And I think because you're doing a full update to the comprehensive plan, you've already started this process and you're going to be doing it. You're sort of going to be perfect in line with the legislation versus having to uh maybe, you know, for the example, the city of Deote, they adopted their plan two years ago. Now, they're going to have to go back and make sure it fully aligns with this law and potentially amend it. So, I think you're in actually a really good position versus some other communities at this point in time.

All right. Thank you for coming tonight. Yep. Thank you.

Right. Next up is the team from MSA. Um I don't know if they're they're out in the hallway. Can you guys send them in orgas maybe going out to get them? How's it going everybody? We got an audience tonight. Perfect. Thanks. Here we go. While we're we're getting booted up here, um we'll just do uh quick introduction on our side. uh and Olivia here, my team members joining the call. Um but we're excited to be here and represent MSA uh for the interview for the comprehensive plan update for Cottage Grove. Uh and I'll pass it over to Olivia.

Let's see. And she's sharing our screen. So close. I think we can see it, huh? Perfect. Here we go. Okay, great. Cool. All right. Hi everybody. Um, thank you so much for having us tonight. My name is Olivia Bolton. I'm an assistant planner at MSA Professional Services out of our Madison office. Been there for about two years. Um, and then I'll pass it back over to you to introduce yourself and also our firm.

Yeah, I'm Brian Weedenfeld. I'm an associate planner with MSA going on four years now. Um I'm the surprise guest uh representing two of our project team members who are not able to make it tonight. U Emily Soderberg, our project manager who's on maternity leave and then our principal uh Steve Tremblelet who is out of town. Uh we also have uh our client liaison here for Cottage Grove, a familiar face, Kevin Lord, a team leader engineer out of our Madison office, as well as John Schwarz, uh our assistant planner, and Sarah Morrison, one of our GIS specialists. Uh we've been honored to be a partner with Cottage Grove for for many years across uh a variety of different projects. I look back in the records at least until since 19 the '9s of having some some projects right here in Cottage Grove. Uh so you may know MSA already, but if you don't, uh I'll reintroduce ourselves here as a multi-disiplinary engineering firm. We're based out of Madison, Wisconsin, but we've uh now grown across the mid Midwest. Uh so through our project team, you're not just getting urban planners and urban designers, you're also getting uh a team of 500 MSA members who are representing engineering, GIS, survey, uh landscape, architecture, and comm community development. So really a strong uh emphasis in variety of disciplines and emphasis of of Cottage Grove experience through our firm. Um, now that you know a little bit about MSA, we want to emphasize our understanding here of Cottage Grove and and what uh the village is facing here as it updates it its comprehensive plan. Uh so through our relationship with the village, we've had the opportunity to observe and

witness this uh this huge growth that the village has experienced over the past 20 years um through the number of significant developments that have occurred. Um but also just the explosion and population that Cottage Groves has seen as as well in this larger Dayne County area. The huge population increase that is projected um only to to increase further um here in Cottage Grove projected at 20,000 people by by 2050. So understanding with with other communities we worked with in Dayne County who are experiencing this this rapid growth um we we know and understand that community members can really be uh strugg struggling with what has occurred in terms of development. So maybe a a member of the community who's been here for 20 30 years who is who's questioning um maybe the loss of village character that that Cottage Grove has had and maybe some identity concerns there, but also maybe a newer resident who who's saying um there might be some lacking of of of amenities like a traditional downtown that they might be looking for in the community they live in. So really uh at this crossroads really represents the importance of an opportunity to update the comprehensive plan and establish uh and answer the question with the community of of what growth should look like over the next 10 to 20 years. So excited to have the opportunity to do that.

Yep. Um so with identifying that vision and direction for future growth, public engagement is going to be the core of our planning process. Um and we are proposing truly a people centered planning ensuring that the comprehensive plan is by residents of Cottage Grove for residents of Cottage Grove. We know that engagement fatigue is an issue um in just about every community that we work with. Um and we know that the best way to counteract that engagement fatigue is to ensure that residents feel like their feedback will actually find a place in the decision-making process. Um, so with that in mind, we've proposed a public participation plan that includes a lot of engagement very early in the process to ensure that we're getting that community buyin, which will then lead to that building of momentum and action and imple implementation of the plan that we're hoping to see. Um, so we'll have a community openhouse very early in the process to get some of the visioning and establish the goals that'll be carried through the development of the plan. Um, our focus groups will be really essential for community feedback and that could be with the Chamber of Commerce, local businesses, high school students, seniors, ensuring that we get a good cross-section of the community. Um, we'll have an online survey to ensure that for accessibility we're providing both in-person opportunities for engagement and remote capabilities. Um, a popup booth event, which is my personal favorite thing to do. um which is taking the comp plan process to the community at a local event to just not only inform but also provide that um in-person tactile opportunity for feedback um to urban design Tourette's which I'll get into in a second. Um and then we have some add-on opportunities for some online community input mapping um and additional pop-up booths, community openhouse or focus groups as desired. Um, so with urban design, uh, we are, uh, we have an understanding that the village owns parcels on the, uh, northeast intersection of Maine and Cottage Grove. Um, and we really see this site as the opportunity to be a

catalyst for redevelopment in that area and kind of build up, um, that intersection and that, um, area um, on the north side opposed to the more uh, economic core kind of in that uh, block to the south. Um, so we we'll make sure that we provide engagement opportunities for this visioning exercise within the engagement that I just described. So we'll include issues and opportunities mapping and discussions within the openhouse. Um, we'll ask questions specifically about the site and visioning with the pop-up booth. We can provide opportunity for um, design feedback within the survey. Um, but the real feature of that visioning for redevelopment process will be um, the these two mini sharets. So we envision the first will be with land owners, development specialists and kind of be some more general redevelopment opportunities getting a sense of the overall desirable vision and character for the site. Um and then the second mini sharet will be with staff village board and plan commission. So getting more specific about the feasibility of different land uses really defining what that character would look like in terms of setback scale masking etc. Um the end result will be three concepts um which could either be broken out into a preferred concept with that key design elements or if we wanted to provide a little bit more expansion and just um keep all three but provide uh uh language within the body of the plan about benefits and kind of like pros and cons to both. Um that's another way that we could look at it within the plan as well. So public engagement, plan development, everything. The end desirable goal is a lean comprehensive plan. So not just kind of throwing everything in the kitchen sink in, but making sure that we're providing something that's concise, visually appealing, uh, understandable, especially in an online format, knowing that that's the prominent way that this is going to be consumed. Um, and creating a user-friendly document for decision

makers, um, and the broader community as well. So making sure that we're emphasizing voices of the community throughout the plan in sidebars that show that the strategies, policies, actions that we're proposing are directly related to public engagement that was conducted. Um providing a snapshot of the community within each of the different elements. Um, and then just frontloading our strategies and policies and action items to make sure that we're getting right to the bones of what will make this plan successful and usable for the community. Now, I'll pass it back over to Brian.

Yeah. And we want to take a second to touch on um a specific part of the comprehensive plan, the future land use plan. um really here the most important uh element of the overall plan itself here to capture that 20-year vision of what the community wants uh the land and development patterns to to look like. So at MSA we have an approach um here kind of based in flexibility uh starting with the categories that that we develop for our future land use map and and those category descriptions. So we know C cottage Grove currently is using more of a density based residential category system. Um so we are flexible in ability to stick with that or also provide um what is more best practice now to provide uh smaller number residential categories and providing some more flexible uh density within those specific residential categories as well as pairing that with our category descriptions. Um, and additionally providing uh the ability to use an overlay like a highintensity density overlay to really target where the community wants to see some um more increased density within the development pattern. We also pair that with our best practice design strategies. So, those are additional materials providing uh standards compatibility across the the various land use categories. Um, and and do align with with some of that recent uh legislation to really uh target those densities that the community is looking for for each of those categories. And then we'll we'll touch on here uh what we saw in the RFP, but also showed within our proposal the ability for um some additional add-on elements of the plan at the village might be interested

in here. Uh touching on environmental sustainability and climate resiliency. This is something we've created standalone plans for the village of Wanaki and also city of Madison. Um but here serving as either a chapter within the plan or um across the plan just kind of bringing forward highlighting goals and strategies that uh identify and highlight sustainability best practices. We also can provide financial sustainability um insights more of a deeper dive in maybe the land use section to focus on uh comparing the different development patterns and and what their fiscal impacts might represent. Uh focusing say on value per acre or unit uh or just looking at the infrastructure costs that development patterns might have. And finally, um, looking at implementing the next step of a future lands map, looking at their zoning code here and identifying possibly through a diagnostic report some of the potential changes that could be made within the code or the zoning map uh, as the village implements the plan. And then I'll finish here with our our schedule and process. So here committing MSA to uh the schedule we've represented in our proposal. So over that 12-month process that we've outlined above, showing all the different steps and tasks and communication through that process here, committing to not only provide a final plan deliverable that meets the statutory requirements, but also is providing a robust and inclusive public engagement process and uh a process that also is effective and efficient, respecting uh everybody's time from staff members to to the public, to the village board and plan commission to

really outline um a process that is is seamless review through staff and delivered to the plan commission and village board. um and outlining that process there and on the right to to kind of show uh what we stand by and and providing both a word draft copy of our elements but then also showing how that plan might unfold in its uh graphic design format there. And now we'll we'll touch on uh bring it back to you guys and thank you so much for having us and and ask if you have any questions for us.

Thank you. Thanks for your presentation. Um, I'd be interested in hearing a little bit about an example community where there were some divergent views about the future and how your process helped um bring people together to find consensus and a plan that um you know is is well supported. I've got one. Yeah.

Um so uh this p um last year we wrapped up some neighborhood plans for the city of Fitsburg. Um, so we worked on two neighborhood plans um at the exact same time, exact same staff um on our end um and through the city. The only the really defining difference was the existing context of the two neighborhoods um and the members of the community of those two neighborhoods of what they wanted to see for the future. Um so one of them is currently an active quarry site um and there it's an area that's in need of a school and so that was something that we looked at. Um it's something that's going to expand drastically in residential in the next um many years and so needs a level of density. Um so we had that kind of get carried in a certain direction that had a lot higher density, some neighborhood mixed use, that kind of thing. Um versus the other neighborhood that we were working on was kind of built in and around an existing residential single family development that did not want to see anything like what we were showing for the other neighborhood. So, um, it kind of in a way like really supported the success of our public engagement process and our the different interactions with the committees and making sure that even though it was the same process, the final result was two different plans and making sure that those plans um adapted to exactly what was needed for those areas and how they're going to grow over time.

Thank you. Again, thank you so much for the presentation here. Um, comprehensive plans are typically very graphic in terms of the details they provide in. Um, at the same time, there are new accessibility standards that are going in effect next year. Uh, so can you explain some of the steps you might take to ensure that the final product that we have meets or would be able to meet those new accessibility standards? I can take this one as well. Sure. We're dealing with this right now.

Yes, indeed. Um, so I've um worked on a couple plans and proposals in the past that have um included some of the new accessibility standards in Inesign. Um, and this is the perfect timing for you guys to be starting this process because it is infinitely easier to make a document accessible if you start it that way. Um, and so it's something that we can embed into the design of the final product um, throughout the entire thing. making sure that we're doing the captioning for any additional photo the alt text for photos and even ensuring the way that we design headlines and the way that the text is written is just clear and organized and precise so that at the end and also including things like hyperlinks and everything just to make the document really user friendly um especially through an online platform um even go um I've previously downloaded a screen reader um plat uh app just to make sure that the plans that we're producing can be run a screen reader successfully. Um, which is

tricky but fun and very very important to be doing. And so definitely something that we um have the ability to take on. And again, perfect timing for us to be getting started knowing that that's coming down the pipeline. All right, thank you for coming. Thank you all.

Awesome. Thank you all. Have a great rest of the night. Have a good night. Right. And then our final group is the team from grief. Hello everyone. Let me get it pulled up here hopefully quickly. Recording in progress. Is it there? No, you're seeing the email. Sorry. application. That's better, right? Possibly.

Yes. Hey, there we go. All right. Thank you. Microphone. That's a little person technology. I'm an expert.

Uh, good evening. My name is Craig Hebner. I'm uh the practice team leader for our grave planning and urban design team. Uh with me tonight is Doug Seymour, our economic redevelopment specialist. Um if at any point in this presentation, Doug or I bore you, you can pull out your smartphone here, scan that QR code, look at our full proposal, if you'd like to see more detail. Otherwise, we're very excited to give you a short overview of our presentation here. Um I got it here as far as um who our team is. So I'm listed as your project manager. Um, with us at Grave is a full-ervice engineering planning and design firm. We have zoning specialists, sustainability specialists, urban designers, GIS, landscape architects with comprehensive plans. There's a lot of things that can come up that we need to be ready to respond to, and Grafe has all of that in-house. Our team is very excited about this opportunity to work with you. Uh, if you don't know uh about Grafe, uh, just a little overview, we are a full-ervice planning, engineering, and design firm. We're headquartered in Milwaukee, but have a Madison office as well as other offices across the Midwest. Um, our planning group specializes in comprehensive plans. U, but you can see the laundry list of other planning services that we also provide. I'll note we're rewriting about five different municipalities, their zoning ordinances right now. So, it's another aspect of our grave planning that really turns plans into implementation and into reality. Something that we pride ourselves on. All right, comprehensive plans. Uh, I like showing these two images. Um, comprehensive plans can be confusing. U, maybe it's you as a village board, hopefully not. Uh, to your constituents, to the general person. Nine statutory requirements. Is it a policy document? Is it a zoning regulation? Is it a 5-year plan, 10 year plan, 20-year plan? Does it have to be this confusing? Our voice would say no. It doesn't have to be this confusing. But often times it can be portrayed that way uh by a typical comprehensive plan approach.

Also, with comprehensive plans, a lot of times you get stuck in your silo. I'm worried about my property. I'm worried about the rural area of Cottage Grove. I'm worried about the developed area. I'm worried about economic development. I'm worried about this specific statutory requirement. Comprehensive plans are meant to be comprehensive. We want to talk about the place that is Cottage Grove. What is the future of this place? And that's our Grafe approach that we'd like to talk about. We use what's called a placebased approach to comprehensive planning. What does that mean? Your future land use map uh a big part of your comprehensive plan is all about the future use. And typically this will be a very parcel by parcel jargon term. It's a R1 future. It's a C1 low density. It's a mixed use. Instead of using those planning jargon, what our approach is, we try to identify places working with you as a village uh village board with your staff with constituents. What is the place that you live in that you work in that you want your place to be and how can the future land use map you can see some examples here on the screen how does that come to fruition in in your actual plan documents. So the future land use map is a series of different neighborhoods, districts, and corridors that have future use recommendations, land use, densities, character, design requirements, all the different like that can be with those placebased solutions. And this helps people think not just in their silo, but from a bigger picture, what's best for Cottage Grove. All right. As village trustees, do you ever hear passionate people talking about you? Maybe as staff as well. uh as planners we hear that passion as well and what I would say you know we're all the consulting firms you've probably heard you know they're experts in engagement you know that's probably not untrue but we really pride ourselves and we're passionate about engagement and the different stories that unfold you know as part of this comprehensive planning process really want to be based

in place we use unique touch points not just your traditional meetings in uh boardrooms like this but going out into the community how do we soften that us versus them mentality when you're doing the different engagement to make it feel more approachable and just allow people to share what they truly want for their place that is Cottage Grove. So, in the proposal, I won't go through all these, you know, we had eight different touch points, ways that we feel like we can reach reach your constituents. What I would say as far as how to mediate or kind of mitigate uh differing views, we want to ensure first that we're listening, making eye contact, writing down what people are saying, repeating back to them when they're having the different comments. When there's differing views, is there different education or empowerment data that we can give people to help them better understand why we're proposing something? Um, at the beginning of every one of these touch points, we want to have a clear outline. What's the goal of this meeting? What's the goal of the comprehensive plan? What are the key objectives that we're trying to do? So that when there are differing opinions, we can go back to those goals, go back to those desired outcomes, and everyone can be in that same alignment. Uh with that, I'm going to pass it to Doug and he's going to talk a little bit about redevelopment planning. Thanks very much, Craig. And just before we get started, just thank you all. I know we've got a long meeting. I've been on the other side of the podium as well. So, I appreciate your your passion and and your your efforts this evening. And what I want to talkly briefly talk about is continuing that discussion about place and the power of place and how thoughtful comprehensive planning and economic development can help communities uh achieve their vision for making those great places. You know, every community is unique uh and you've got your assets, you've got your challenges and and and opportunities. and we partner with a wide variety of of places throughout Wisconsin and you they're listed here. I won't go into those, but at the heart of econ economic development and redevelopment planning,

it's all about positioning your community to quickly respond decisively to opportunities that may be out there. as a development director for a former development director, excuse me, with over 35 years of experience, uh I can tell you that we kind of approached uh development redevelopment from the perspective of opportunities. And I heard this really great quote about opportunities and I think it's I chased it down and it was from 60 minutes someplace. So it said that opportunities are never lost. Someone will always take the ones that you missed. And that's really how I approached in working with my council and with my my uh we had council members and I worked in a village we'd have trustees but it's it's really about positioning your community to be in a position to respond to those opportunities once they present themselves in the marketplace and and they will. Now, keep in mind that every proposal is not going to be the right proposal for Cottage Grove. And uh uh land is such a precious resource in our communities, and I'm sure it is in Cottage Grove as well. And short the market and other short-term pressures, whether they be from state statutes or from a variety of places, uh really can put you in a sort of tough positions with respect to making those development related decisions. And we just want to make sure that your comprehensive plan and that economic development portion that puts you in the best position position to be in to respond to those opportunities, the ones the good ones that you really want uh as part of your continuing efforts. So it really all starts with a reliable process and uh proven and reliable process and it again identify your community act assets and and leverage those resources to really help you to achieve those community goals. And here at Grave, uh, we do that through a series of investigation, ideation, and implementation. You know, big words, you know, what do they mean? Uh, but essentially, our professionals will collect and analyze the data and work with you and the community to have real discussions about where the community is at and most importantly, where the

community is going. Uh, together we'll develop a framework to create different development concepts and scenarios for some different sub areas. And I know for example uh your your your TID areas are one of the areas that you wanted to focus on and then we have experience in doing that. And finally the adoption of the comprehensive plan is not the end of the process nor our partnership with you. At Grafe we have the resources to really help you further those development goals or redevelopment goals and have done so by successfully writing zoning codes, detailed area development plans and redevelopment districts and plans. Okay, good. I didn't like that one anyway. So, but perhaps the most rewarding aspect of that is is the end goal. And uh earlier Craig talked about the power of place. And when you think about the most desirable communities, what visual image comes to mind? You know, what is a postcard image of Cottage Grove? I'd venture to say that business parks, retail centers, multif family developments, however well-designed, aren't the lasting image that you want to leave with your residents and visitors. Again, as the former development director for personally attest to the power of place and how that can be transformative for a community. So, let me talk briefly and I can talk a lot longer. So, if you stop me please about Drexel Town Square, a project that is near and dear to my heart. So like Cottage Grove, Oak Creek began began as a farming community on the outskirts of Milwaukee. Um and as we experienced a period of rapid growth mainly in the 1990s, there was a real concern that was being expressed that the community was losing its character and that this rapid development was resulting in a lack of a sense of place and that we really didn't have a downtown or a town center or anything that anyone could identify as being Oak Creek. And what was happening is that

our identity was being defined by others through market forces and whether it be retail, residential or industrial. So Grafe was important in and that they worked with our community and helped us create a plan and regulating the document and design for Drexel Town Square. And for for those of you who haven't heard about Drexel Town Square, Drexel Town Square is an 85 acre redevelopment of a former automotive manufacturing plant that was in the heart of our community. They phased out operations and back in 2008 I think they finally closed up shop and we were left with this big gaping hole right on our main and Maine in our community and again rather letting letting market forces dictate what that would have been where because it would have been more retail could have been self storage a number of things that did not add to our one of those places or what our postcard image of what Oak Creek would be but working with Grave they help us to define a vision for a new town center And Drexel Town Square is it's a mix of residential, retail, hospitality, commercial, government, uh, what am I missing? I'm sure I'm missing a number of things, but it it really has been successful in the sense that it creates that postcard image of Oak Creek and provides a community that really never had a downtown with this cultural heart, this economic heart, and this civic heart and something that that I'm very proud of. And then Grave really was very integral in helping us to make that happen. So not every community can can didn't can do a Drexel town square. I mean it's it requires a lot of resources and a lot of land. But I the one one thing I really wanted to stress is the importance of the process and how great helped us focus our vision and really partner with us to make that vision a reality through a series of planning documents. One of them being a sub area plan for for Drexel Town Square itself and creating a new zoning code district just for Drexel Town Square. But every

community is unique and every community does have a vision and really what we love to do is we help love to help you uh find your vision and be your partner in achieving that through not only your comp comprehensive plan but be your partner bring that plan into reality.

Great. So in closing expertise in comprehensive planning we really uh are ready to commit resources you don't have any other comprehensive plans right now that Grafe is working on. So we can fully uh devote our attention uh to Cottage Grove. Um we are passionate about engagement as I mentioned as part of this. And then we have very much expertise in economic redevelopment as Doug passionately uh mentioned as well with Draxville Town Square and several other examples. Uh we just finished two different uh RFPs uh for different municipalities where they are releasing their lands that they own uh for public RFP. So we're well versed in that expertise as well. Wish that. Thank you and we'll take any questions. Thanks for your presentation. Uh, and you kind of touched on my question some, but I wanted to uh, maybe get a little bit more information um, from you about an example community where there were some divergent views about the future and how your process in particular helped uh, people come to find common ground and uh, get a more broadly supported uh, plan in the end. Um couple projects come to mind. Um maybe village of Germantown would be uh relatable. Um it's kind of 50/50 splits, very developed and then the rest is complete agricultural rural preservation. So as part of the future land use process, uh we helped refine that agricultural land and specifically defined it as one of the uh districts uh rural preservation which had very specific kind of limitations on density. um to help kind of craft that because Germantown is also very growing. We help them with different development scenarios for how different densities could take over different size land areas. So if it's you know a traditional subdivision or versus a conservation subdivision, what the difference in land area and how that could achieve

different goals uh would be. So with that it was a lot of visualization of kind of what the impact would be to traditional development and how uh the village should really support in their kind of urbanized sewer areas more of that slightly higher density development. Thank you. Good question. Yeah Casey online. Yes. Um, with the state legislature passing the the truth and planning law uh just recently, I wanted to ask how that is going to inform your process.

Great question. Wow. You you are on top of it as as are we. So, this is an ongoing conversation that really almost, you know, I've talked to several other consultants too and we're all, I think, figuring this out would be an honest statement of exactly how this works. With our comprehensive plan approach, as I mentioned, you know, we use more of this placebased approach. all those kind of places still have very specific again densities that we recommend within those different neighborhoods. So the key part of this legislation is make making sure that you're clear on what the residential densities are going to be so that it's a clear path to zoning. So in our opinion it doesn't necessarily change that. I think there's some municipalities that were much looser on that, but you know, we're definitely ensuring that we're um in alignment with what uh state legislation is showing.

So, comprehensive plans are very visual documents in there. And my question is with the incoming uh accessibility standards that are set to go in effect now next year, what are some of the steps that you would take to ensure that the final plan is accessible and meets those standards?

Yeah, so um good question. Wow, really good questions. Uh I I say that because we don't always hear those specific questions. Um, Grafe has a specific marketing and uh, communication team that we work collaboratively with before we kind of export or kind of produce any plan. They do almost like a fact check or kind of consistency check for accessibility. A lot of that software thankfully is being built in, you know, with with AI and with InDesign, you know, is the typical platform that we'll utilize. So, that's just as a baseline starting point, but then we really do vet that through, you know, our in-house uh communications team to ensure that we're meeting all accessible uh standards that not only maybe are mandated from the state level, but each local municipality will also have sometimes more added, you know, accessibility desires as part of that. So, we'll want to work closely with you. What are your goals, you know, and metrics that you want to hit? And I'm confident that we can do that.

Uh, okay. So, one of the biggest issues I have with um planning and land use in general is singleuse zoning. So, I'm uh I'm wondering how your placebased approach um takes into account designing places that let people live near the places that they want to go instead of siloing them off from each other.

Yeah. Um so you know as far as each of these places you know different color on the map will be a different place and that map will correspond to a table that basically says here are all the uses here's what your community wants as a desirable use we call it an allowable use or an undesirable use and those again are very specific that they're not a zoning you know it's a permitted versus conditional use but it's a general character what do we want generally for that future use. And then each one of those neighborhoods, districts, and corridors again will kind of relate to either an existing zoning district that you have or possibly as part of this comprehensive plan process, you're going to want to create new zoning districts or new, you know, zoning areas that allow for maybe more of a mixture of of different uses that either your code doesn't allow um or that you want to make sure that it does support. So the comprehensive plan comes before zoning and we want to make sure that the comprehensive plan clearly says what that future use desire is. Does that answer your question or not really?

Okay. I'd love to talk with you more if you're around here at 11 p.m. be happy to stick around. Oh, we will be. Sorry that was not funny. Um, any other questions? Otherwise, thank you for coming tonight. Thank you so much. Yep. Thank you.

Stay in touch. Is there any discussion that would um happen on this item in open session? Otherwise, we do have the close session item to discuss and select. Okay. Right. We're going to move on then to discuss and consider resolution 2026-08 recognizing public service week in the village which is a week honoring all of the amazing people aside from the board members in this um in this room and then also the people that serve our community um and work here and um help out so much. I would make a motion to approve resolution 202608 regarding public service recognition week.

I'll second it. All right. Motion by Murphy, second by JP. Um, any other discussion? All those in favor? I I opposed. Motion carries. We have discussed and consider resolution 2026-09 recognizing May as military appreciation month. And I would love to make the motion uh to approve resolution 202609 recognizing May as military appreciation month. And I will second that. All right. Motion by Murphy, second by JP. Any other discussion? All those in favor? I

opposed. I abstain. Motion carries. I didn't even notice that you left. I'm sorry. Um we are on discuss and consider partnering with Cottage Grove Chamber of Commerce to market Cottage Grove as open for business. There's a memo um from Trustees Stoa.

Yeah. So, this is just kind of direction for staff to um partner with the chamber if they need to, just to sort of let um developers know that we're willing to be collaborative partners um in uh helping the village grow. Um so just to maybe add to that the open for business um one of the issues that the chamber has tackled since my time with the chamber um is really the uh leakage of spending that leaves Cottage Grove. So if there's a way to tie in an effort um in that partnership to also kind of help with those efforts I think that would be good. um you know in terms of their Cottage Grove first efforts and things of that nature because we want to make sure we're taking care of our existing businesses as well. And then one side note that I think would amplify um really the the partnership and any sort of marketing would be to reactivate the CDA. Um because you know I I noticed for instance they were listed on the last comp plan um and they haven't met since October of 23 and I think there could be a lot of value in reactivating them and um having them help in this effort. So I'm in favor of you know moving ahead with this and um would like to see some of those things tied in.

Heidi, thanks. Um, you know, after talking about comprehensive plans and you know, perhaps part of this is also, you know, we have an economic chapter in our comprehensive plan of how do we involve the the chamber and our economic development stakeholders um in that process as well. and maybe um you know that's that's kind of part of this too. I I think you know there's there's opportunities to to involve the the business community and in that process as well.

I would just add that a lot of um having a a clear message from the board that that Aaron and I can simply relay to developers when they come to meet goes a long way. and then having a you know consistent clear um approval process and thi things like that. Um but ultimately on the especially on the commercial side it's going to it's going to come down to you know a willingness to consider incentives and tip districts and things like that at the end of the day. So tonight's initiative doesn't include any budgeted funds for it's mostly just direction to staff, but if they were to come back

with an actionable item that you needed funding for, you can bring that back to the board in terms of like the cottage first or something that you come up with as a partnership to um for the chamber. Yeah. And I just wanted to clarify that open for business was like a direction, not necessarily a slogan you need to use, but yeah. And like I um I don't know if it's going to cost any money. Maybe it does. Maybe it doesn't, but that's they can coordinate with the chamber and figure that out and come back to us. Yeah. But I think yeah, first step of, you know, reaffirming um when you meet with developers, Matt, that we are we have a process to follow and um we're enthusiastic about listening to new opportunities.

Yeah. and um stay stay in we stay in touch with um Brit at the chamber um multiple times a year as um quarterly we meet with um her and her leadership and then also um she's joined Aaron and I on um our business um visits that we uh go to around the community. So um already doing a lot of that work I want to circle back to our governance discussion from what is quite a few hours ago. Um, so I just want to make sure that you know it sounds like we have broad support to you know increase engagement with business community and that we're um welcoming of proposals. Um, but want to make sure that staff has any clear direction on something we might want them to do differently or action steps to bring forward to us to recommend some change in process or I guess I want to make sure that staff has clear direction on what this might mean like what expectation we might have and if we need to think about that or ask them to bring forward some suggestions. I guess I just want to make sure that we're not just that we're actually taking actionable steps toward this kind of goal. You know, I think like Chris's memo and how he said tonight is to is re first step is reaffirming and um kind of putting this in place and giving staff that direction. But then like you said, Heidi, if there are things that need to come back and especially if they're tied to, you know, decision- making policy or finance financial um decisions that need to be made, like please bring that back to the board at a future agenda.

This is a discuss and consider. I would uh move approval of partnering with the Cottage Grove Chamber of Commerce to market Cottage Grove as open for business. I'll second a motion by Severson, second by Erinson. Throwing me all off. All right. Any other discussion on this? All those in favor? I I opposed. Motion carries. Uh discuss and consider TID9 property acquisition. Um there's a memo, additional items, and then we do have a close session ballot. Chris, take it away. And it also looked like Rick was really excited to speak.

Okay,

so I'll just give a little high overview of of of the thing. Um, we've been acquiring properties on the corner um of NMBBB because they're in the TID and we're hoping to redevelop it into a downtown. There's also a 1acre parcel across the road here um that's sitting empty right now and I think it would be prudent to um for future planning to look into purchasing that land so that we can have it develop in a manner that uh is compatible with a future downtown. Uh the only thing I was going to add is um so obviously there's a close session. Um if the board is interested in talking about the negotiation strategy or how it might want to approach purchasing the property, then um close session would be appropriate for that.

I'm interested in going into close session for this item. Me too. I think there maybe are a couple things that we could talk about in open session before that though, right? that aren't negotiation or strategy, right? Yeah. Okay. Is that I'm just saying there's enough support to go into close session for the item at the end of the agenda. Okay. But yeah, continue.

Yeah. So, I think um I think one of the things that uh you know, we're we're obviously working on the comm plan and you know, we don't necessarily have a vi a vision yet I think for that. So just a clarifying question to Chris, can you kind of tell me more when you talk about singlepurpose business like what are what you mean by that and particularly in the 1acre parcel?

What I mean by that is a place that you don't that doesn't get people that sort of gather there and walk around such as like a dental dental office. You go there for a specific thing. You get what you need and then you go home. Whereas if it's like um a downtown area, you go there and you go to a bookstore and then you grab some ice cream from an ice cream shop and then you go into a clothing store or something like that. So how would this apply to that oneacre parcel? Like would you see multiple businesses on that parcel? I mean personally for me, yes.

Okay. Okay. Well, I like I said, I I think um I think we're getting a little ahead of the comp plan in building what that vision is. Um, so I think there's some other issues that we need to address in that particular area that need a little bit more attention than the property acquisition. So, um, I'd rather tackle some of those things first before we go for a property acquisition. I think it would be prudent to purchase it so that somebody else doesn't purchase it and turns it into something that's incompatible with a downtown area that's not going to be walkable or um useful for um a a central area like that. So just just kind of a question. Um wouldn't we do that in in terms of rather than always having to buy something to control it, couldn't we control the use of that through our zoning?

I mean, we probably can. Zoning and changing zoning is a long process versus us owning it and directing it through there. It is, but I also, you know, I also think there's there's value in the free market, right? And um if a business is wanting to build there, I mean, I don't want to turn turn them away for whatifs that we're not sure about yet. But that's just my two cents.

And in a if it was a um multi-use area with multiple businesses versus a a single business, the tax revenue for the residents would be a lot higher as well. So, it' be more beneficial to the tax base if it was mixed use or multi- multicommercial. Casey,

um, yeah, a couple things. So, I I think, um, Paula, to your point about like could we, you know, do this with zoning. Um, I think again with as I brought up with a couple of the interviews here, the uh the new truth and planning law that might limit how we we could do that because you you know we might set uh you know some zoning but then you we would we would be required by that law to to very specifically you know allow a business even if we realize oh that doesn't actually meet what we want to do with this. Um, additionally, you know, as as Chris said, we we've already been making steps in this regard. There's we've there's property purchased. We're, you know, aiming at it for the comp plan. So, I think it's important to to lay this groundwork before we we miss an opportunity. Um, again, sort of echoing echoing uh Grafe at the end there. Um, you know, this is a step we could take to define Cottage Grove rather than leave it to market forces. Um, I think something like this, like a downtown, is is is too important to that exactly this this whole central theme we want of of what is our character, what goes on our postcard, you know, kind of thing than to just to leave it out to to that level of chance is is my view on that. Um, just an example with the current zoning. Um, and actually I believe it was previously approved and it it just so happened that the uh the business or developer didn't move forward but a dollar tree as an example was something that was um approved to go there that and it was permitted by right meaning we didn't have um you know we could place some reasonable conditions but by and large even if we didn't want it we couldn't really say no. I I agree and I think the downtown is

vitally important, but I think we've got a bigger issue to tackle before we get to that and that's safety. Um I think we need to talk about the shots fired incident at Authentics over a week ago. Um because are people going to want to come to a downtown corridor where that sort of situation is happening? So I think that's what I'm saying when I think we need to prioritize some other issues first. But again, that's just my viewpoint. Anything else on this agenda item? Otherwise, we're going to move on and come back to um in close session. All right. Hearing none, uh we're on G. Uh discuss and consider police station project change order number five regarding building pad undercut and stone replacements. Kyla, I heard it's your agenda item.

Oh, yes, it's my agenda item. Um, long story short, um, it's outlined in the memo. The police station, we had historic rains a couple weeks ago. Not great for soils, not great for a building pad to be built on. We don't want a collapsible building. That's the last thing we want when we're building um, a brand new police facility. I don't need chief in a hole in two years. Um, with that, with the rain that we had, we allowed the dry the site to dry out. We did a proof roll about a week later with um the general contractor as well as our architects and engineers. It failed. We requested to wait an additional week to give the site um additional time to dry out since it had just finished raining about 3 days before. The proof roll again did fail. Um it is being recommended by both our architect um the civil engineering um consultant as part of the architect's team as well as the geotech um and village staff to move forward with undercutting the building pad at this time. So what that means is they will remove the clay soils and replace that with firm 3-in gravel. It's big stones that um provide a solid base for um foundations and the construction of that building. So that total is $67,639. Also included in the proposed change order that Riley Construction gave us was an additional just shy of $26,000 for work that they incurred because they were not doing work because the soils were not great. Um, however, that was never communicated to village staff that they were incurring costs and therefore um, we actually had a discussion with Riley this morning and they are taking that portion back. So, that is no longer a port, um, being it was never recommended by village staff anyway and they have proceeded to take that cost

back. Um I am recommending we are recommending moving forward with the 67,000 and then 10% which is their general um overhead fees that's included with any change order for a total of just over $74,000. Any questions? Go ahead, Chris.

Um what were the what would the consequences be if we did not approve this tonight? we would be looking at um incurring costs for the general contractor that's not going to be working. And that looks like to be approximately $12,000 a week. And at this point in time, while we've waited for the soils to dry out, we are now just delaying and it's better off that we continue moving forward with the project.

Okay. Um I'm just a little I mean obviously we can't control the weather but it's a little irritating because I mean one of the things I objected to about this in the first place was that it was going to pull costs that we could work on other things um cover other projects. Couple weeks ago we just said no to the the um path over by Johnson Health that was $50,000 and now we're 67 grand for a project that's already costing 16 million. I don't know. It just wrinkles me a little bit.

I uh second your sentiment, Chris, but I and I'm not an engineer, so I'm just curious, you know, isn't that part of the overall process of kind of looking at some of these potentials in the future? And I guess another question I have then is um where I mean can we take 67,000 away from the overall police um um what take that from another area uh rather than having to

Yeah. So just just so we're aware for the overall project budget for instances like this we have 644,000 set aside. Um, so that's kind of the the framework that we are working within. By no means are we expecting to spend that. Um, but but that is that that contingency that was set aside at the the start of the project. And we set a board policy that you would bring any forward any change orders that were over 50,000. Correct. For the board to review. And there were test porings done on the on the site, but even even with that, they can still run into soils that are not meeting standards of that. That's why they're doing that proof roll. So, correct.

If we delay it, we we don't just face the the cost of their of them not working, but eventually got to move forward. So, you either spend this or we risk it. And at that point, the risk is all on us and not on the contractor. Meaning, if if they're they start moving forward with the project and we have a bad foundation, the fix for that will be a large six-f figureure change order. That will be will be our responsibility.

And um just like waiting a week for instance, it's not necessarily going to change like more drying out of that soil. Was it that the soil got like washed away or what exactly happened? Um

there's a lot of aspects to soil. I am not a geotechnical engineer by any means. Um there's a report in the project overall. They do test borings for different locations. However, that site has sit empty for 20 plus years. So different fill, different characteristics can be placed from when that development was created. um you look at very specific locations and you kind of do a general aspect of those soils just clayy soils which is typically good for foundations if you have really really really dry weather and we didn't have dry weather and you can't predict that unfortunately um we waited it out as long as we could recommend not continuing to wait because as Matt said you do put the risk um and if they did not undercut and we waited a week and we had continue forward. You're now coming into the question of okay, do we have to undercut two feet and do we have to undercut a way larger area because all of this failed.

And just a general question kind of going forward, the the whole concept of we paying them when they're not working. Um, do we have like rain delays and those kind of things are factored in? Can you just talk to that a little bit? Yep. So rain delays and rain rain delays and the schedule are impacted for like any construction schedule. We they give us a schedule. If there are rain delays, we are going to make them work. Um it's back on the back end of the contract. They'd get those days. They try to make them up as much as they can. In this case, they were saying that they could move forward and then we had had a proposal for undercut two weeks ago and they recommended moving forward with it even right after the rain. there's um some miscommunication that they did not provide us the details that they were claiming. Um so they took that back as of today. So Kyla, can you verify they did take soil samples of that particular area what you were describing?

They take general soil conditions for the entire site. So it may not be in the exact one location, but they do a general I think there were four or five borings that were completed for the site. All right, this is a discuss and consider. I have one last comment. Um, thanks staff for pushing back on the um extra general contracting delay time because um I think it's you know a weather related delay and uh they should really have that built into their timeline. So, um, thanks for bringing that portion to our attention and, uh, I was glad to see here tonight that Riley pulled that part out. So, thank you. Um, I guess since my mic's on, then I would make the motion to, this is a long agenda. I got to make sure I'm on the right. um to approve the change order in the amount of is it not to exceed 77,000

7443 7443 as presented. I'll second. All right. Motion by Murphy, second by Col Nelson. Any other discussion on the change order? All those in favor? I I opposed. No.

Abstain. Motion carries. All right. We have reports from village boards, commissions, and committees. First up is emergency preparedness committee. Two discussing considers. One is ordinance 06 2025 amendment to chapter 36. And then it's the um consideration of the emergency management plan. Um and all of those documents are in um the agenda. I'll just say um I appreciate the work that Cindy, you and the the chiefs and everybody put into this and the restructuring of the committee um as well as the plan. I think the one the one ask that I would have is for us to um when we look at amending chapter 36 for emergency government um is set um a quarterly meeting date um for this committee and I think that's important because we went we went several years without having um our emergency preparedness um committee meet and um with the continual development that we have, I think it's important for those plans to be reviewed um quarterly. Um I think of particular big developments like when Amazon opens, it might be that we have to re-evaluate some of the things within our emergency management plan. I also think that meeting quarterly um gets everybody on the same page, allows to plan um allows them to plan for drills and practice between the agencies. Um, so I guess I would like to see um that tied into and it could be at least quarterly. Um, but I I think we should set some parameter on how often this committee should meet. I guess I'd push back on that and making changes to the ordinance, but I think that that's something that we could set

as direction um with that committee and we could and you know set those meeting dates as as part of the committee and work on those things as because we I don't feel like we need to meet if we don't have those agenda items and I don't want to restrict us with or you know force unnecessary meetings between large groups of people um to work on things that we don't need need to work on. Um but I think that as we in the first meeting we can you know set the next meeting and then an agenda and if it if quarterly becomes kind of the cadence then that that's how it works. Is that consistent with our other um committee descriptions and such? Rick, do you know?

I don't know off hand how we say in every committee. I I think some we say like meet like I think for instance our um some of our like EMS and fire district I think those agreements say it specifically they they're supposed to meet at a certain regularity. I don't think we've got the same requirement for other committees in the village. At least I don't think there's like a uniform requirement as far as um how often they meet. Okay. I mean that's fine. Let's not, you know, mess with the ordinance, but definitely let's try to get a cadence going. Casey,

I was going to sort of echo your push back, Cindy, because I believe there's a a portion where we where the the board can direct the committee to meet as needed. So, I thought that would be sufficient, but seems like we're there. Okay. All right. This is discussed and considers. I would make the motion to approve ordinance uh 06-2026 regarding amendment of chapter 36 emergency management as presented. Second. Motion by Murphy, second by Severson. Any more discussion on the ordinance? All those in favor? I

I opposed. Abstain. Motion carries. Heidi, how about B? Sure. I'm on a roll. Um, I would uh make the motion to approve the emergency management plan as presented. Second. All right. I'd like to discuss by motion by Murphy, second by Severson. Go ahead.

So, I know I asked at the the last board meeting that this was up that we spend some time kind of digging in and obviously I'm not going to do that tonight because it's after 10. Um, but I'm hoping that um, again when this new committee meets um that we just established, I'm hoping to be appointed to it and that we can just dig into a couple sections that I think just need a little beefing up. But I think a lot of progress has been made from our past plan um, to this one. So definitely in favor. Any other discussion? All right. All those in favor?

I opposed. Motion carries. B utility commission. Um so first up we have a public hearing. So it's 10:04 p.m. I'll open the public hearing for a water and sewer impact fee ordinance. And now that we're open in a public hearing, I'd ask Cam just to give us a brief review, especially for the new trustees to kind of just give everyone up to speed on this.

Yeah, just to kind of talk about how this ended up back on the agenda. So um after the last action was chosen not to move forward with the public safety water and sewer impact fee um the utility chair uh came to me and had a conversation about you know put it packaging this in a way for at least the water and sewer to be um considered independently from the public safety um proposed fee. So, no new information in front of you today. Um, because there was enough time between uh when this was last posted. Um, and the ordinance now just reflects the water and sewer. Um, we reposted the the public hearing to again allow uh for public feedback. Um, but nothing has changed um from any of the information that was previously presented. Um so happy to answer for any new trustee or or existing um any questions here and then open it up to the the public hearing.

Questions, comments from board members. Right. If there's anyone in the audience that would like to give public comments and if there's anyone on Zoom that would like to give public comments regarding the utility um sewer and water impact fee ordinance, you can uh raise your hand using the react button. Nothing. All right. It's now 10:06. So I'll close the public hearing. We'll move on to B. discuss and consider the ordinance 08 2026 water and sewer impact fees.

I'll make a motion to approve the uh ordinance um ordinance um the uh water and sea impact fees as presented. I'll second motion by Stowa, second by Murphy. Any other discussion? All those in favor? I I I opposed. Motion carries. Uh C, Parks, Recreck, and Forestry Committee.

All right. Thank you. Uh we met on Thursday, April 23rd, and we first approved um the minutes of course and then uh we did have a member of the public talk during public comment about some tree maintenance. Um and so Sean is going to follow up on that. And then we had um trustes Stowa brought forward kind of um kind of a brainstorming exercise for the committee to talk about uses for some village owned properties that maybe we might want to think um outside of what they might be used for now, what community might want to see. So one of the suggested um things to kind of brainstorm and think about was a dog exercise area um that's kind of more accessible to people in their neighborhoods. Um, so we heard from a lot of people that maybe they didn't want to see that for one of their one of the amenities in their neighborhood and they really appreciate the open space that they have. Um, and so, you know, we kind of talked about some opportunities that we may have in some other areas or perhaps um kind of more of a permanent protection for the area around Farwell Drive and those lots there. Um, so I think it was a good discussion to have because it had been a long time since uh the community had talked about just to kind of reaffirm what the vision is there and that you know maybe in some other areas um some of these ideas might work or um piloting a dog um parking lot where you could park your dog while you're you know helping your kid on the swing or something along those lines. So, you know, we we had um we had a brainstorming conversation that kind of um reached other areas we weren't really sure about. And I think we're going to keep continuing to look at, you know, what we might want to discuss with the community, what

they might want to see in their open spaces that are already existing. Um I don't know, Chris, if you wanted to add anything else about that. Okay. Um then we talked about the Shady Grove Park update. If anyone's driven past the Shady Grove Park, it's under construction. They're laying the um that astro turf or whatever that it looks like grass um down. So, they're still on track for a substantial completion date um later this month. Um so, I think the neighborhood is very excited about it from what I've heard. And uh then you may have heard the Miracle League playground update um that's being delayed um until you know planning next season um for that. So we kind of hit the timeline where we needed to get the project done within this year in order to get the surfacing in to play and so we couldn't delay it within the 2026 calendar year. So um delayed then till 2027. the playground equipment has been purchased and is in storage. So, you know, the project is continuing to move forward and hopefully they'll have um then right on track to start this time next year. Um then um Sean's report um getting all the shelters and park spaces online for this upcoming busy season um for everyone to enjoy all the amenities. Um, I don't know if Sean, I think I saw you online. If there was anything you wanted to add from your report, otherwise it's attached.

Nope, you got it. And we'll meet again on May 28th. The Outlook five um that or Outlot 5 that's um not in like the prioritization process or it had been in the past. Correct. And I just was wondering if you if parks would maybe consider dropping that from the prioritization given that there was a lot of feedback from residents in that area.

Yeah, that probably makes sense. There was some talk about like a sign or something, but I don't think that needs to be in a full capital plan. So, um yeah, that's something that I think we'll perhaps be bringing forward on a future agenda on how we might want to permanently like designate that area and with a sign or something along those lines. Um, there will be more to come on that, but not a major improvement that needs to be in the capital prioritization plan. Casey, your hands down. You're good. I was just going to mention the sign thing because I think it's a good idea. Okay. Any other comments or questions?

I was just going to say thank you for kind of dropping it. Um, the one thing I didn't get a chance to say ahead of time was that I was on the board that approved that way back when. Um, and you know, I think between Diane Weedenbeck and myself and others, you know, the idea was to keep it kind of a green space right in that area. So, I think I appreciate that, you know, you're going along kind of with what the original vision was. So, thank you.

I just want to add too that the current dog park by Authentics um is in really rough shape. So, I don't feel like adding another dog park at this time is a great idea. So, I'm glad that the community has spoken as well.

All right. Yeah, go ahead. Um, Heidi, I believe during the uh committee meeting, they also discussed or Sean might have given an update on uh was the the trail, the Oaken gate trail that's kind of out um kind of off of progress in there. I know I was just talking to a fellow residents that's a I would say a hidden gem that many people are aware. We have a truly like wooded deep woods trail um that is a little bit different of elevation than um what's a Governor um Taylor, sorry. Uh mine's catching up here. Um in there. So, one of the things I would love to see the parks committee do is think about ways to kind of publicize that a little bit more because like I said, it's truly a hidden gem out there. Yeah, we could we could add some discussion on Oakeng Gate in the Yeah, in the future. Thanks.

Moving on into Cottage Grove Fire District Commission. Yes. So, we met on Monday, April 27th. Um, Chief's Report Tender One has a bad water gauge. uh commended Joel Hammond for 48 years of service and Eric Severson of 30 years which goes back to our great volunteer fire. Um update on revisiting the town and village ordinance on the false alarms. Uh both the town and village have approved that. Um and the um information will be on websites. um we discussed um the uh consolidation um with um that was discussed this evening as well. So I don't really have anything more to add to that from our meeting. Um and that was really it. Um, our next JFC meeting is going to be um on May 28th and I don't think I forgot anything else unless Cindy I forgot anything.

Any comments or questions? I guess one thing we the village will be chair next starting next meeting for the next year since we rotate since some of the like that's how the joint committees work just for new new newbies newbies um I believe the town is still doing next this month's agenda but maybe just a little direction to Lisa for a to reach out in good faith and make sure that That's reality. Okay. Law enforcement committee. Chris,

we met on Tuesday, April 28th at Village Hall. Uh approved the minutes, talked about the results, I guess you'd say, for uh National Drug Takeback Day from April 25th. Um and got a construction update on the police department's uh building construction. talked about the bike rodeo on May 9th at College Cottage Grove Elementary School from 9 to 11. Um, we also talked about the Dolphin Swim Academy safety day presentation which has been postponed to a hopeful future date. And then we got the chief's reports and that's pretty much it.

Comments or questions for Chris? All right. Reports from village officers, village attorney. Uh, so I have nothing for tonight. Was originally planning on doing something on the truth and planning law, but um we didn't have enough on the agenda. So, um, yay, next time. Yeah, next meeting. So, Eron and I are going to do something at plan commission Wednesday. So, that'll be our sort of, um, dress rehearsal and then we'll give you guys the main event. Uh, sounds good. Um, we have up next, discuss and consider committee appointments for 2026 vacancies. There's a memo and then my recommendations um linked in the agenda.

Can I just ask a point of clarification? So, for instance, like um I believe my term on public works is through 27, but I wasn't listed there. So, I'm still there. Yes, you're still there. These are only changes. So, if we rearrange because we do have seven now, so we can kind of spread it out a little bit more. And then if there were expired appointments, either renewed or new people were added. would if you are on other committees and they're not on here, you're still on those. Okay.

And then Lisa will come um we have a master spreadsheet and she'll send them out to all of you so that you can double check and make sure you're you know where you're going. Make a motion to approve the committee appointments for 2026 as presented. We'll second. All right. Motion by Murphy, second by Stoa. Um any other discussion? All those in favor? I I opposedain. Motion carries. A village administrator. Um for the new members, I thought it'd be good and for everyone good opportunity to go through the tracker one by one tonight.

That's a good idea. Take it away.

No kidding. Of course. Um uh under recognition and celebration um officer uh Johnson and our administrative services manager Cali Wigel uh completed a leadership and police organization um recently. Chief, if you have any other words to maybe give us some information of what that all entails, but um so uh it is a leadership uh course that's put on by the International Association of Chiefs of Police. Uh originally it's for the last several years it's been a three-week class. They actually redid the format and reduced it down to two weeks. So they're packing three weeks of knowledge into two weeks. Um it again is preparing them uh for future roles. I have additional officers that are interested in this training uh for the future. So we got people in the ballpin warming up. Uh but again gives them broader look at organizational uh leadership.

Thanks. And then um leading the way with uh uh service anniversaries with the village is uh Sergeant Comtock in the month of May with 15 years and um Sean Brusiger director of parks and recreation at 12. So there's any happy to take any questions on the other stuff, but we can also just move on as well. Any comments or questions for Matt?

I have I I have a question um about the um substation for Alliant. And so, um, with data centers specifically, has that, um, is that currently a consideration for the, um, land that's close to, um, Amazon?

Um, not directly to our knowledge, but that's always possible. there have been um one in particular that um was looking to do a light industrial park and as part of that park um one of the four buildings was something that they were tossing out there as an idea. Um and then there was a much larger um developer looking at that land plus a whole bunch more. Um, and we don't know what that would be, but you could infer that that's possible. So, I think one of the things we should look into doing with the comp plan is figuring out, you know, what to do with data centers in that regard. Um, and we could also look at, if the board wants to, we could, um, we're seeing other communities looking into doing moratoriums, which you can't do forever, but I think you can do them for a year or something like that, but that could be a future discussion.

Madison has a one-year moratorum, and just knowing that there's obviously at the county level, I'm on the uh the data center advisory committee, um, information gathering and then recommendations that would come out until I mean, we still have like a year's worth of work to do. I'd be in favor of looking into and regardless staff will not sign any we won't be anybody that's going to sign an NDA or anything like that with any data center. So

Okay, good. Thank you. I was curious what type of possible industrial developers are are specific industrial developers are looking at in that area and and why the Alliance substation is being proposed. Mhm. Um that we aren't a that was the only specific of those four buildings of a industrial park that was told otherwise it was pretty general in nature um as far as the types of uses. Casey Oh, sorry. No, Casey probably had to stand up. Yeah, go ahead, Casey.

Thank you. Sorry. Um, yeah, Matt, on uh in regards to I mean ones you've had or or um I guess also tying again once again back into the the truth in planning law. Um, I don't know if you know off the top of your head or if this needs to get researched, but is there with our current zone with our current zoning and stuff like that were something were a developer like that to submit a proposal that met all the zoning commissions, could a data center go through by right? It's a good question for uh Aaron probably, but I don't know if you Yeah. And I kind of want to I guess I don't want to get too far down this just because it's not on the agenda. Sure.

Um yeah. So maybe just limit the data center discussion until there's actual agenda talk maybe and after your uh your presentation on the truth and planning law as well. So I can say the truth and planning law applies specifically to residential densities not everything. Also good to know. Thank you.

Any other questions on the tracker? I just want to go back to that substation for a second because it has been an issue for like a number of years because we are like covered on the like it's like a donut hole the way they described it. So our substations are kind of on the outside and then the inside is like relying on the reliability. So to like bridge that gap and they've been making a lot of upgrades on the other one. I don't know if that's impacted their need for this. Like I guess when was the last time you heard from Alliant about this? It's been a while I think. um it doesn't solve the donnut hole issue. You are correct. the middle of the village is um underserved with and and you know long-term they're going to or somewhat near-term they need to figure something out and they've been um in the last handful of months have at least re-engaged with staff on you know and we gave them I don't know homework of four to six different sites that in theory we think could work but it's really up to them to do their due diligence Um, but probably the best one for the donnut hole problem would be um on a relatively small parcel directly behind uh the piggly wiggly.

Yeah. All to like build redundancy in the system so no one's without power for a long time if a different station went down. So hopefully they decide on the site because you don't want to have that problem when it actually happens. You want to prevent it. So, thank you. All right, let's move on to discuss and consider the 2027 budget timeline.

All right, just from a process perspective, um the the budget timeline that you see in front of you today has only one modification from last year. um through some discussion and recommendation. There was an item added um highlighted in yellow here which is budget review committee uh pre-financial management plan workshop review cost and continue assumptions, debt management and fee schedules. Uh the remaining items on here are are simply just a carry forward from the prior year. Um so what I kind of envisioning regardless if we we pass this timeline today is at the next board meeting um the board and and if we have to p push back that May 27th date um but the board defines what is expected in that meeting or subsequent meetings um just to make sure that there's clear expectations for the budget review committee um as we kind of get into the budget cycle. Um and and again just some suggestions that were were part of earlier discussions. Um there is one date um with a meeting conflict and it's the same meeting conflict we have every year and that's with joint fire. Joint fire is on October 26th. Um so we just ask that um you know work with our partners and make sure that that that meeting date is either canceled or um rescheduled for that date. Other than that, I can open up to questions.

So, we'll have um opportunity to perhaps um at that May 27th meeting also um like for instance, you know, my idea of the debt reduction committee and a lot of the residents and board members said we already have a budget review. So could that would that meeting be the appropriate place to also schedule perhaps additional budget review meetings in June, July, September to tackle different aspects of you know looking at compensation and benefits or debt reduction or those kind of things like

Yeah. I I think and and part of the reason um why I think kind of just introducing this topic today is kind of making sure everybody is like okay this is is it this is this an item that we want to continue with. Um but then again um a lot of what you know Matt and I have developed in this process is based off of mission vision value. So driving like what that whole budget process looks like that feeds from something that we're going to also approve next meeting. So making sure it's kind of that that cohesive um you know looking at it May 27th is probably aggressive um to have that first discussion considering if we approve it at the May 18th whatever that day is. Um that that doesn't give a ton of time to to kind of do some homework with the committee members. But um yes I think I think next meeting would be a good opportunity to have discussion about what the board's expectations is. I would make the motion to approve the 2027 budget timeline. I'll second motion by Murphy, second by Kel Nelson. Any other discussion? Um, in addition to the um figuring out the fire meeting time and adjusting the schedule, can you please also Cameron send our budget timeline to all of our community partners because I know that last year there was some questions about it.

Yep. I will get that sent out tomorrow to our our partners uh making sure that it's just clear and abundant. I also plan on going to each committee um and talking about what the process is and what's being expected from a capital perspective and operating perspective um just to make sure it gets communicated out. All right. Thank you. All right. All those in favor? I opposed abstain. Motion carries. Communication and miscellaneous business uh consider approval of vouchers with the bills list in the agenda. Move approval of the vouchers as presented. Second

motion by Murphy, second by Severson. Any other discussion on the bill's list? Hearing none. All those in favor? I I I

opposed abstain. Motion carries. Uh correspondence. Anyone have anything? I think I don't know if the full board has received correspondence from Chris Williams who's a town of Sun Prairie res. I don't know if we all did. Okay. Um so she sent correspondence regarding the Amazon meeting that was held on Thursday night um with some follow-up questions and items. Um, she's I know I received a couple emails, but um, Casey and I attended that meeting. So, um, I think I don't know if staff received them if we should forward them on. Okay. Yeah, we we see them.

Okay. She she sent them pretty much everyone in Dane County, I think. Okay. And it said Dane County is and and the state spearheads the project, so they should be the responder. Of course. I just wanted to mention that we received that correspondence. Yeah, and this and I think this the state DOT as well is on there. So, had a lovely email from um about Jason Anderson and moving windb blown playground equipment and helping residents out, which is very nice. Yes. Out of a pond. tell

and they noted the resident noted how they've they kind of investigated maybe trying to do it on on their own and it was it was not budging and they were super surprised how quick they were home and they thought they were like would have been able to notice and all of a sudden it was just gone. So they were but they were very thankful to staff for that. Jason did say that he was surprised that they didn't hear because the beeping of the equipment that they used is quite loud. So, all right. Anything else? Um, upcoming community events. We already heard, but Chief, do you want to tell us again? I'll plug the bike rodeo this coming Saturday, 9 to 11 at Cottage Grove Elementary.

Don't Doesn't the police department have a blood drive coming up, too? Well, yes, we do. That'll be on uh Wednesday, May 6th. Uh I believe it's 2 to 6 in the afternoon. Anybody that wishes to donate, we'd greatly appreciate it. Thank you. All right, future agenda items. I think on Saturday there's the card cruise lines club event as well. Yeah. Anything else we're missing? May's wild I think is for like the busiest month. Future agenda items.

Um I got two things. Um one um the capital prioritization guidelines will come to the next agenda similar with the mission vision value. Um secondly um with the recent bad weather um and just things that we've we've seen posted on the the villages website. Um one of the things that I discussed at the last staff meeting was um potentially granting an emergency waiver for people who are submitting requests for re-roofs. Um I want to make it very clear we make no money on that. Um, but the message is is we want to make sure that it's a licensed contractor that it's reliable. Um, so giving some type of authority, whether that be the village president or the emergency management director or something as an avenue to extend a period of time that we can wave the $65 re-roof fee. Um, just to make sure that our residents aren't getting taken advantage of by by contractors or contractors that come in out of state. Um

and and just for property records too when when someone's um even someone's looking to buy a home to have reliable property records that they can see when a roof was replaced instead of maybe just taking someone's word for it or or or the like. But like Cameron mentioned, we're not sent out there as a reason to collect money. It's more to make sure we have all proper information,

which will lead into a broader discussion on building permit fees in general. Just taking a look to see if what we're doing is consistent um across other municipalities because as we were doing some of the research with impact fees um and building permit costs, there are there are some things that jumped out that that certainly warrant some investigation. So, more to come. Um, and like Cameron mentioned, mission, vision, values, and I know that staff have a survey that Enga sent out today, too. So, they can all um weigh in on those three things and give us feedback, too, if we want to make any changes. Um, and then going off of, you know, some of the conversation much much earlier tonight, um coming up with some kind of like board guidelines. So, I'll probably maybe tap into Matt and Rick and work on um some guidelines to bring forward for your consideration at the next meeting.

We can try to reach out to some other municipalities and see what what else is out there so we're not recreating the wheel or anything like that. And then Rick, open records best practices was also on your list. Yes, we'll see how the agenda shakes out. Um, so, um, it was on my list to do next meeting, but bumped because of I'm off schedule now. So, Okay. Yeah.

And I think just the addition of what we were talking about with Cameron about like tasks for the budget review committee or additional meetings. Just some direction from the board on that. in the emergency government um appointments for the committee restructure in a data center moratorum. I second that. Let's get her on there. Seriously, I I am I am actually serious about it. So am I. Maybe Rick, we can touch base on what we can legally. And yes, other communities are looking at this. So we've um we'll see if we can get something for the next meeting. might be the meeting after. Okay.

Okay. Anything else for future agenda items? Nice long list. All right. We've got a couple of things to read. Um so moving on to number 12 and 13. So these are the two um close session items. So I'd make a motion um of the first. So 12 is for um entering into close session for terms and parameters regarding contract for services to update the comp plan as discussed in item 8b. Um so I make the motion or can I just do them both at once, Rick? Yes. Um you can Okay. You can include both of those in the motion.

So um item 13 is close session to discuss and consider potential acquisition of TID 9 property as discussed in item 8F. Um, so I'll make the motion that the village of cottage grow village board will enter into close session pursuant to Wisconsin state statute 19.851 print e deliberating or negotiating the purchasing of public properties, the investing of public funds, or conducting other specified public business whenever competitive or bargaining reasons require a close session. Is there a second? I'll second. Second by Murphy and a roll call vote. Benzo, hi Erson. Hi Kel. Nelson. Hi Murphy. Hi Severson. I Stowa.

Yes. Via Vasencio. Hi. All right. We're in close.