Public Safety – Our public safety department in Cottage Grove is the envy of other departments across the state. As a city council member, and as a volunteer public safety/health/welfare commissioner before that, I’ve always fully supported our public safety team as it is an essential element of any strong and healthy community. We’ve made big investments in people, equipment, training, facilities, and community engagement initiatives to ensure Cottage Grove is an incredibly safe community in which to live, work, and play. I will continue that level of support for as long as I am an elected official. Our residents deserve nothing less.   

Affordable Housing – The fact is the cost of development and home ownership continues to be a challenge nationally due to the costs of building materials and labor. One important method of combating that is recognizing that higher density must be part of the solution. In Cottage Grove we’ve adjusted our comprehensive plan by zoning more areas of the city for higher density housing such as town homes, villa homes, apartments, and single-family homes on smaller lots. We’ve adjusted setbacks and other ordinances in response to what we hear from builders and developers to ensure they can provide a more affordable product. Additionally, we’ve collaborated closely with developers who specialize in lower income products by partnering with the county and state on TIF financing, tax credits, and grant programs available to help support that type of development at an affordable price for the end user/renter. We’ve been able to generate more residential growth with a wider variety of housing stock available to our residents because of those efforts.

Transportation – We are continually working on transit in Cottage Grove. As a growing community we have numerous residents who rely upon public transit every day. Our Cottage Grove Park & Ride is used extensively as we have worked closely with Metro Transit to ensure we have enough capacity to manage the demand along with the proper route connections to serve the needs of our ridership. This is done in partnership with our county and state elected officials. We’ve also developed a highly effective DART option for local riders in town who need a public transportation option to do their errands or attend appointments. The safety question is a broad one. We continue to make rod improvements across the community to control traffic flow and speed with the focus being public safety. These include roundabouts, speed studies on main collector streets, and additional signed crossing options for pedestrians to cross safely. Last, we’ve pursued grant funding for a designated traffic safety/DUI law enforcement officer whose only assignment is ensuring local drivers are obeying traffic laws and safety protocols.

Fiscal Stability – Through wise stewardship of Covid relief funds, we were able to utilize them for one-time costs related to the pandemic without creating long term liabilities in the City of Cottage Grove. Instead, we created a 10-year financial plan in partnership with our financial consultants at Ehlers and Associates to ensure we maintain our public services and infrastructure while maintaining the second lowest tax rate in Washington County. Which we’ve done consistently for many years without receiving much, if any, local government aid from the state.

Business Climate – The Cottage Grove business climate is extremely healthy. We have an extremely low vacancy rate combined with several recent expansions of large local businesses currently taking place in our business park. All of which adds to diversifying our tax base while creating more good paying jobs for our residents. The city’s role in this arena is to function as a conduit between landowners and interested parties seeking to do business in our community. We provide data and services, such as engineering or planning services, as needed throughout the process until such time as an application is brought forth for the planning commission and city council to consider. The city is also a marketer in terms of making local and national developers aware of what we have to offer regarding infrastructure, a labor pool, and other essentials to their success should they decide to locate a business in our city.