Mayor Myron Bailey

Good evening to all of you here in our City Council Chambers and to those of you watching live via cable tv on Channel 16. Thank you for joining us for the 2022 State of the City Address for Cottage Grove!

It’s my pleasure to be here this evening to celebrate the success our community had over the past year and to talk about where we’re headed in 2022.

Joining me this evening are my colleagues on the Cottage Grove City Council:

• Council member Steve Dennis

• Council member Dave Thiede

• Council member Justin Olsen and

• Council member Tony Khambata I would also like to recognize our distinguished guests in attendance tonight.

• State Senator Karla Bigham

• State Representatives Tony Jurgens and Keith Franke

• And Washington County Commissioner Wayne Johnson We also have members of the Cottage Grove Area Chamber of Commerce joining us here this evening along with many of our city staff.

I’d also like to mention that behind the cameras we have the South Washington County Telecommunications Commission. Please join me in thanking them for their hard work tonight and to recby ognize the role they play in helping us get the word out about what’s going on in Cottage Grove!

Their partnership all year helps bring to life the many reasons why our city is such an amazing place to live, work and play.

I am honored to stand here before you as your mayor! Being your mayor is truly an amazing and rewarding experience! Working with my fellow City Council members, state and federal elected officials, and our city staff, I am proud of the great work being done for you, our city residents, from all of us! I am also very excited for what’s yet to come.

I want to reflect on the past year before we look ahead to this year. Looking back is important. It gives us a chance to remember, learn and to celebrate all that we’ve accomplished. It also helps us grow and use our accomplishments as a springboard for continued success and progress into the future.

I’m sure I’m not the only one who was hoping when we said goodbye to 2020 that we would find 2021 to be more like pre-pandemic times. That’s not exactly what happened. COVID-19 still had a significant impact on our lives. It was hard. Each of us faced personal and professional hardships. However, I am proud of our community. Once again, we handled adversity with compassion, grit, and determination. We took care of each other, and we will continue to do so. This is just one of the many reasons our community of Cottage Grove is so special. We truly embody our city motto — “where pride and prosperity meet.”

Yes, COVID-19 once again shaped how we lived our lives and how we did business. But it didn’t stop us. Far from it. Over the past year, amazing progress has been made on our strategic goals. As a reminder…those goals are

• Positioning the city for growth

• Making Cottage Grove a recreation destination

• and engaging the community I say these are “our” goals, but they really are goals for you — the people and businesses that make Cottage Grove home.

Like I mentioned, one of our strategic goals is to position the city for growth. We’ve definitely done that! We had tremendous residential, commercial, and industrial growth in our city in 2021.

We welcomed many new families and residents who moved into a variety of new housing types being built here — including Grove 80 Apartments. Grove80 is the first market rate apartment complex in Cottage Grove since the 1990s! And dare I say they were 100% leased within 3 months of opening? Talk about demand for this type of housing in our community! We issued 574 new residential building permits in 2021 — an increase of 200 permits over the previous year — and we approved more than 1,000 residential lots for future development. That’s impressive!

We also had many new businesses that opened including Boondocks Vintage Boutique, Salons by JC, Caribou Cabin and Cross-Country Mortgage, just to name a few. It’s important to note that 3 of these new businesses mentioned are local business owners!

Interest in the city’s business park boomed with the announcement of NorthPoint’s plan to build a 3.4 million square-foot facility that will bring more than 1,800 good-paying jobs to our community and significantly increasing our tax base. North Point is investing over $300 million dollars into our community. At least four more companies are currently interested in our business park, all this along with another expansion by Renewal by Andersen! Things are booming in our business park! We will see more to come, I’m sure.

Sustainable growth — when managed responsibly through thoughtful planning and design — is a good thing for our city and for the tax base. In fact, our tax base grew 9 percent last year. What does that mean for you? Thanks to the continued growth taking place in our community, almost 80 percent of our homeowners will see no increase in the city portion of their taxes for 2022.

The growth is here. Now we must manage it responsibly. Which brings me to our community survey. As I mentioned at the beginning of my comments, one of our strategic goals has been to engage the community. Last year many of you provided feedback to City staff and the City Council through a community survey. Thank you to those who took time to share your feedback and vision for our city’s future.

I can assure you that we looked at the feedback we received and use that information to guide us in planning our future.

As we have in past community surveys, we heard high praise for our city’s outdoor parks and recreational opportunities, public safety, snow removal and road quality, along with many other services. Over 90% of respondents stated they were satisfied or very satisfied with the direction the city is moving! This has been a consistent theme over the past 15 years.

The positive results and comments were reassuring to hear. But you also were direct and honest with us and shared your concerns about growth, possible tax increases, concerns over clean water, the desire for a centralized downtown, more park amenities, and more retail opportunities and restaurants.

As mayor of this City, I share many of the same dreams and concerns for Cottage Grove as you do.

That is why I want to discuss in a little more detail our city’s robust, yet measured, growth. Sustainable growth is never one-dimensional. Many parts must work together like a well-oiled machine. That’s why I like to envision growth as a three-legged stool — and as you know, if one leg of a stool is neglected the entire chair is unstable. Growth in Cottage Growth relies on three key components:

• Housing

• Industrial development and business park growth

• And retail and restaurants These are the three legs of the stool. All three must be stable for Cottage Grove to thrive. Simply put: We cannot ignore any one of these three key components.

So, what are we doing to make sure our stool is stable? How are we ensuring that growth in our city is sustainable? We are diversifying and growing our housing options. Take Grove80, for example, or the 200-plus multi-family apartment units on tap just north of 80th Street behind Kohl’s. We continue to look for diverse housing to fit the needs of young adults, families with children, empty-nesters, seniors, and everyone in between. You or I may not want to live in an apartment, villa, or townhome. Maybe the price of some of these housing options might be higher than you or I can afford, but they are being sold or leased. Builders will not construct a housing option without doing their homework. Many others want to live in Cottage Grove. And you and I know exactly why others want to move here. We have something special going on in our town!

We are attracting more businesses throughout the city and in the business park at a remarkable rate. This will help grow our tax base and add many more job options. Our city staff is staying busy with exciting projects and opportunities like the redevelopment at the former Mississippi Dunes Golf Course site and the refurbishing and redevelopment of Cedarhurst Mansion.

We are expanding our retail and restaurant options. More places to tempt your tastebuds and quench your thirst will arrive in Cottage Grove this year. Just remember that as we continue to grow, we create more opportunities to add more retail and dining options for our residents.

If you live here, you know what Cottage Grove has to offer for recreation, events, lodging, dining, and shopping. I’m excited to share with you that we now have a Convention and Visitors Bureau dedicated to showcasing our city and drawing in people. Their tagline is “Discover Cottage Grove.” Discover Cottage Grove produced the city’s first visitors guide, Watch for it when you go around town. It’s also online at discovercottagegrove. com. Don’t forget to follow Discover Cottage Grove on social media — you might discover a few hidden Cottage Grove gems you didn’t know about!

When you think of economic development you may think it’s all about attracting new businesses, retail, and restaurant opportunities to town.

But it’s more than that. It includes expanding and diversifying our housing options. Rooftops and residential growth create additional opportunities for commercial development.

More homes equal more people, which equals more opportunities for commercial development and amenities.

We are already the 25th largest city in the State of Minnesota — and if I was a betting man, I’d bet we will continue to move up that list.

I know that at times it seems like a lot of activity is happening. You drive through one area of town, and it looks different than it did just six months before. Other times, it’s frustrating because it appears there are no new businesses or restaurants on the horizon. I get it: I want to see commercial areas developed and thriving! But it takes time and much of the work happens behind the scenes. Please be patient. I am anxiously waiting just like all of you! When we can announce new retail and restaurant plans, believe me — we will!

Just as important as bringing new businesses to town is our strong relationship with those businesses that already call Cottage Grove home. Our economic development efforts include strengthening our relationships with existing businesses. We want to work together with them to help them grow and succeed.

Part of that success is connected to our strategic goal of making Cottage Grove a recreation destination. We continue to look for new recreational opportunities for our residents and visitors.

Part of Cottage Grove’s small-town charm stems from the city’s amazing parks and trails systems. Those who filled out the community survey said over and over that they loved the city’s parks, trails, and open spaces. We take great pride in continuing to expand and improve those options! Those outdoor amenities were even more appreciated in 2021 as we continued to navigate our way through the global pandemic. In 2022, we will continue building a park system that is intra-connected to provide easy and safe access to everyone. Improving our already robust recreation opportunities will remain a top priority.

The Ice Arena is both a destination and a local economic engine. We anticipate at least 12+ hockey tournaments will be hosted there in 2022, which brings families from throughout the Midwest to Cottage Grove to stay, shop and play!

River Oaks Golf Course had a great year and saw an increase in the number of rounds played, thanks in part to the installation of the Top tracer golf computerized system on our driving range — some cool cutting- edge technology. Stop by and check it out! And grab a bite to eat at Eagles Bar and Grill or have dinner on the patio while you are there.

Our Parks and Recreation Team oversaw improvements and renovations at Hamlet and Oakwood Park’s. We did Habitat restoration projects at Camel’s Hump and Hidden Valley parks. We even added two new neighborhood parks in 2021: Strawberry Fields and Antlers Ridge.

While we are on the topic of recreation, I would like to take a moment to mention the community center that many of you voted on in the November referendum. While the community center did not receive enough votes to become a reality, I’m proud of the work city staff did to educate the people who live here about what the community center would offer residents and its cost.

One important issue that came out of the community center project was the need for additional recreational opportunities and more access to the amazing opportunities the city already offers. We will be working over the next year and beyond to identify gaps in those opportunities and re-engage the public so we can get a better idea of what you want and need. We want to know how you envision recreation in your neighborhoods, so we plan on reaching out to get your feedback. Stay tuned for more information!

One thing many people don’t know is that Cottage Grove has the most river shoreline of any other metro-area cities! We have been working hard to increase public access options along the river so more people can enjoy this beautiful natural resource. We want everyone to be able to take a stroll along the amazing Mississippi River.

We’ll continue to improve and enhance our park amenities in 2022. We plan to acquire land to open public access to the Mississippi River with a park, maintaining the natural open areas and building a boat launch at the site of the former Mississippi Dunes Golf Course.

Playground equipment will be upgraded and replaced this summer at Hidden Valley Park, Meadow Ridge Park and Highland Park. And construction of 2 new neighborhood parks will begin in 2022, including Glacial Valley Park off Ravine Parkway South and Still Ponds Park north of Oltman Middle School.

Kingston Park is always busy with activity during the warm-weather months. This spring, we will install a lightning prediction and detection system with a heat index warning system. This system will help keep those watching a game or enjoying the great outdoors safe should a storm rapidly approach.

Exploring all our parks is made easier thanks to road construction projects that improved safety and eased travel throughout our community last year.

More exciting road constructions projects are on tap this year including:

• The completion of the final design for the road and intersection improvement project at Jamaica Avenue and East Point Douglas Road. This is a huge project that will benefit businesses in this area as well as significantly decrease the traffic congestion.

• Planning work will begin for the extension of 100th Street South from Jamaica Avenue to the Innovation Road interchange. This road extension will serve as another outlet from the business park and area residents to gain easier access to Highway 61.

• We are also working hard this year to secure additional federal funding to build Cottage View Drive from East Point Douglas Road to County Road 19. This road project will help spur retail development at the Shoppes at Cottage View – near Walmart.

Another important initiative I want to highlight is our “Clean Water for Cottage Grove campaign.”

One of the City’s core functions is providing safe drinking water to our residents and businesses.

Before I get into the details, let me reassure you: Cottage Grove’s water is safe and clean!

In August…the State released its plan for water treatment and water supply to the 14 communities impacted by the PFC water contamination. Under this plan, Cottage Grove will receive over $90 million dollars to construct two permanent water treatment plants, extend City water to certain rural properties and to drill a new City well.

Preliminary design work for the largest of the two treatment plants started in 2021 and will continue into 2022. The goal is to begin construction of this facility next year. While the projects in the state’s plan are being implemented, the City’s three interim treatment plants continue to supply clean and safe water.

I cannot stress this enough: Your water is clean and safe. We work closely with the state Department of Health on regular testing to ensure we are meeting and exceeding all state standards.

Speaking of safe, making sure our residents are safe is one of the most important things we do. We have one of the best public safety teams in the Twin Cities, without a doubt. We are excited to announce that a new four-legged officer joined the public safety team earlier this year. K-9 “Scout” joins K-9 “Gunnar” in helping keep our streets safe! Like many cities across the state and country, our police department implemented a new body-worn camera system to help improve officer safety and increase evidence quality.

Our fire, EMS and Emergency Management officials stepped up to the plate last year and helped with vaccination and testing efforts across the county and will continue to do so this year as needed. Members of our public safety team did their best to stay connected to the community during the pandemic at events like Night to Unite, school tours, and department visits. To serve our community better, our EMS crews equipped fire trucks and fire vehicles with basic EMS equipment as well as AEDs. I am thankful for all our public safety’s hard work and their commitment to providing protection of life and property with honor, integrity, pride, and professionalism.

All of the future projects we have planned, and everything we’ve accomplished to date, would not be possible if we did not have a strong financial base. I am extremely proud to be able to say that we once again received the Government Finance Officers Association’s award for Excellence in Financial Reporting. That now makes 25 years in a row!

I have said it before, and I will keep saying it: The word is out that Cottage Grove is special. You know it. I know it. And now that the word has spread. New families and businesses want to call our city home. The people who come to visit Cottage Grove see the pride on our faces when they interact with us at our parks or when they walk into one of our businesses.

Cottage Grove is known for its community values and quality of life. Our small-town charm and love for this city are what make us unique.

Being supportive and welcoming is important. And so is being knowledgeable and informed. I believe being aware of what is happening in your community helps build community pride.

That’s one reason we work hard to keep you informed. Please know that you have a passionate and dedicated City Council and staff working hard to make this City even better than it is today. We are always open to hearing your ideas and thoughts and love connecting with you. Please visit our website at cottagegrovemn.gov where you will find email addresses and phone numbers for myself, City Council members and city staff.

Cottage Grove is growing! We are laying the groundwork for even more excitement and success! Our future is very bright! This year we will welcome new businesses, new park amenities, new families and friends, new and improved roads, and new opportunities. We will embrace all these changes yet hold true to our unique identity and character that makes our community special.

2022 is going to be another exciting year for Cottage Grove! The City Council and I remain dedicated to being an inclusive and welcoming community for everyone.

We value all community members and appreciate their feedback which we use as a mandate to form a direction that supports the majority of our citizen’s wants and needs. Our latest community survey demonstrates this, and the resulting numbers show that you approve of and support the future direction of our city.

Cottage Grove is a special community! I’m proud to have raised my family here and serve as your dedicated Mayor.

Thank you for helping make Cottage Grove a great place to live, work and play. Truly…the best is yet to come! Good night!

Giving the State of the City address from City Hall last Wednesday, Mayor Myron Bailey was joined by many guests. Seated in the front row from left to right are council members Steve Dennis and Tony Khambata, along with State Representative Keith Franke. Seated to the back right is Council member Dave Thiede. Present but not pictured were Representative Tony Jurgens and Senator Karla Bigham, along with City Administrator Jennifer Levitt, City Parks and Recreation Director Zac Dockter, City Clerk Joe Fischbach. Council member Justin Olsen attended remotely due to COVID protocols. Photo by Joseph Back.

Among the development success stories in Cottage Grove of late is Caribou Coffee located off 80th Street South, its grand opening on February 3.Photo by Joseph Back.