The Cottage Grove Common Council met May 5 to conduct regular business, including among these such things as a new stop sign at 100th Avenue at Jamaica Avenue and the posthumous awarding of the Historic Preservationist of the Year award to Herb Japs, accepted by a friend on behalf of Mr. Japs and his widow. As to the rest of the council meeting, it was mostly routine.

With the meeting starting at 7:00 p.m. with roll call, all five Council members were determined present. Following the adoption of the agenda as presented and the consent agenda—the latter with a motion by Council member Dave Thiede that was seconded by Council Vice President Steve Dennis, with unanimous approval following.

The council then moved directly into disbursements.

With motion made my Council member LaRae Mills and seconded by Council member Justin Olsen, city disbursements in the amount of $1,025,007.24, were unanimously approved, said disbursements covering City expenditures from April 16 through April 29. Motion was then made to close the public meeting pursuant to MN Statute 13D.05 subd. (3)(a) for a performance evaluation of City Administrator Jennifer Levitt. Motion to enter closed session was made by Council Vice President Dennis and seconded by Council member Olsen.

The motion carried.

Upon the end of the performance review for City Administrator Levitt, motion was made by Council member Olsen and seconded by Council member Mills to exit the closed session and reopen the public meeting, which motion passed unanimously.

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Motion was then made to adjourn the meeting by Olsen, seconded by Council member Mills.

The motion to adjourn the meeting passed unanimously. With the above a condensed version, what was on the otherwise routine consent agenda and/or in the bills?

A lot, actually. First up, the bills!

Starting out the list of notable expenditures for the period of April 16 to April 29, the city balance sheet shows payments to American Family Life Insurance Company of Columbus for $432.68 pertaining to the “biweekly payroll,” $330.32 to Aramark Uniform & Career Apparel Group Inc. for restaurant linen/supplies SVCS,” $1,327 to Aspen Mills for Uniform & Embroidery-related expenses, $820.00 to Baycom, Inc for Bluetooth Squad Printers—being further stipulated as P17 and 300DPI, and $9.50 for an antenna from Boyer Ford Trucks Inc, a $12.95 credit applied for a returned antenna. In other words, that’s a $12.50 purchase minus $12.50 refund for antenna return, followed with a charge of $9.50 to the city ledger, with the first two charges cancelling each other out for a total cost of $9.50 when all said and done. So where’s the other $1,022,087.74 in expenses not covered in the report above? Without doing an exhaustive summary, these are eight of the larger charges:

• $166,293.04 to the Metropolitian Council for May Waste Water Services

• $118,277.04 to the Public Employees Retirement Association

• $114,781.29 to Medica for premium related expenses

• $104,000 to EWT Holdings III Corp for March equipment rental and treatment as related to wells

• $52,560 to JT Services of Minnesota for Streetlights

• $41,428.50 to Louka LLC for a First quarter “HERO Ammo purchase”

• $37,406.20 to Milbank Winwater works for water meter-related expenses

• $28,420.70 to Xcel Energy for Central Fire and Ice Arena-related expenses

• $25,611.08 to Tyler Technologies, Inc. for Engrove software support and maintenance

• $16,007 to Glendenning Joint Venture for 2021 Compost Site Rent and Property Tax along with Dog Park payment; and finally,

• $14,208 to IUOE Central Pension Fund This still leaves $303,094.89 to whittle away on more than a couple smaller type expenditures, but lessens the gap somewhat. A full accounting can be found at https://docs. cottagegrovemn.gov/WebLink/DocView.aspx?id=753273& dbid=0& repo=CottageGrove , for those interested as such, with some numbers larger than others. So what of the consent agenda?

In short it was routine business, including the approval of the April 7th, 2021 Council meeting minutes, along with the Planning Commission Minutes, followed with Rental License Approvals, Appointments to the Planning Commission as well as the Advisory Committee on Historic Preservation, a building services inspector agreement, a stop sign for Eastbound 100th Street at Jamaica Avenue, and the awarding of a “Sewer Televising Project” to Visu-Sewer for a grand total of $52,672.50.