City of Eden Prairie Blogs

It’s dry. It’s hot. And the City’s ability to keep up with the demand for water has almost reached a breaking point.

Over the weekend, the City had to issue a press release asking for an increased level of compliance from Eden Prairie citizens with out current outdoor watering restrictions. These restrictions include no watering between Noon and 5 p.m. any day, and an Even/Odd watering plan the rest of the time. If we can’t get a high enough level of voluntary compliance, sometime this week we are projecting that we will need to implement a complete outdoor watering ban.

There are two primary functions of the City’s public water system. One is to provide safe, reliable drinking water to residents and businesses. The second is to provide water for fire fighting. Insuring a sufficient supply of water for keeping our yards nice and green during a drought is not a primary function of our water system. And right now, outdoor lawn watering is beginning to compromise the City’s ability to provide sufficient water for fire fighting. That’s a problem that we cannot ignore.

Our water system is generally able to replenish its water supply overnight, but over the past couple days the City has seen a substantial increase in water use in the early morning hours. This has meant the City has not been able to fully replenish its water supply. We think that part of the problem is an increase in the use of computer guided automatic outdoor irrigation systems that are timed to function during the middle of the night. Here’s a heads-up to my loyal blog readers: We are going to increase our enforcement of the outdoor water regulations during the middle of the night to try and reduce this kind of water use infraction. Get ready.

At this time (Monday, July 31) the City does not need to impose a full watering ban, but we are getting very close to making that decision. We will need to impose the full watering ban if we cannot drive water consumption down through a combination of asking politely and issuing more outdoor watering violation tickets. We prefer to do the former to the latter. Let’s hope it works.

Something happened (the e-dog chewed it up?) to last Friday’s blog entry titled Podcast #8: A tour of three suburban downtowns, as only a few photos were included.

They’re all there now. Apologies for my goof.

I did a presentation today at the Senior Center for an audience of about 20 people about the results of the City’s “Senior Readiness Survey”. The Senior Readiness Survey was developed in 2001 by the Minnesota Board of Aging. The survey was developed for communities to use as an assessment tool to see how “ready” they were to accommodate the needs of a growing senior citizen population. The survey asks seniors to rate the transportation, housing and senior-oriented services of their community. Seniors also rate the community for its ease of navigation and the availability of support for people that care for seniors.

Eden Prairie’s seniors gave the City fairly good marks in most areas. The City could be easier to navigate. We hear that from everyone, not just seniors. They felt that there were good housing options for seniors. Most of the respondents are pretty sure that there are adequate services available for seniors, but they’re not exactly sure because they’ve never used them themselves. We also heard that people were pretty sure that transportation services were available, but they’ve never used it personally because they still drive.

There were two commons themes in the results of the survey for me. First, the senior population we have right now is still rather independent. They want services to be available for their fellow seniors who need them, but they don’t think they’ll use them themselves. Second, they aren’t sure what services are and are not available.

My initial conclusion is that we need to think about how we market the availability of the City’s senior services. Not just the ones provided by city government, but services targeted to seniors in general. There’s a lot going on out there, but the message is just not getting out. We can do a lot better in this area.

Last night members of the Fire Department were on stand-by at Life Touch, Inc. Life Touch is a major employer based in Eden Prairie and was celebrating it’s 75th year in business. As I understand it this was a week long event that ended yesterday with a large scale carnival and a fireworks show. Several of our crews were there to provide fire protection during the fireworks, this is standard procedure within our city and provides a hands-on crew in the event something goes wrong.

Captain Tony Liddell took a few photos for me to blog with. The first is a shot of the barge that was used to shoot the fireworks from, also shown in that picture is our zodiac rescue boat. The shooters used the boat to work at a safe distance during the actual launch process. The fireworks are set off remotely using a sophisticated electronics board to time the launch of each shell.

The second picture is from a nearby rooftop and shows the scale of the carnival. Everybody had a good time and the fireworks display went off without a hitch.

Eden Prairie, Minnesota has a theme song. If you haven’t heard it yet, check it out at the City’s website: City of Eden Prairie, Minnesota.

An what makes this theme song even better is that it was written by our own Economic Development Manager David Lindahl. It is performed by David and an old friend, David Keiski. There’s a good article about this story in today’s Eden Prairie News, but you cannot (unfortunately) get to it online. Lindahl and Keiski are old-time Eden Prairie guys. They’ve lived here since the 1960’s when Eden Prairie had a couple of thousand residents and was just beginning to sprout as a City.

The theme song is based on our City motto: “Live. Work. Dream.” David wrote the song to accompany a short promotional video about the city. It’s about three minutes long. You can watch it right on our website. It’s catchy. It’s very well done.

Thank you David and David. Excellent work!

Last Friday night the 2006 Eden Prairie Relay for Life was held at

Central
Middle School

. The Relay is organized by the American Cancer Society as a fundraiser to support cancer research. The Society describes the event as, “Much more than a walk around a track. It is a time to remember those lost to cancer and celebrate those who have survived. It is a night for people who have shared the same experience to comfort and console one another. Relay gives you the power to help accelerate the Society’s progress toward a future where cancer doesn’t take the lives of our friends and family.”

For many years the Eden Prairie Fire and Police Departments have fielded a team for this event. I would like to thank Fire Lieutenant/Police Officer Jess Irmiter for his work in organizing our team. I would also like to thank the participating members of the fire and police departments and their families for representing our organizations at the event.

I think anyone who has attended a Relay event would agree that it is a unique volunteer experience. The experience goes far beyond generating money for a great cause. The event has given me an opportunity to teach my children about volunteering in a fun and energetic atmosphere. At the same time, during the Luminary Ceremony, the event has given me an opportunity to talk with them about loved ones who have passed as a result of cancer. I would encourage anyone who is considering volunteering in one of these events to do so.

For more information on the

Eden Prairie

event check out this link.

I have been appointed by the League of Minnesota Cities to represent the organization on a state-wide intergovernmental task force that is studying the issues related to state and local governments accepting credit and debit card payments for services. The task force was established by the State Legislature during the 2006 legislative session to study the issue. There are representatives on the task force from many different state departments, the Attorney General’s Office, and County governments. As the representative on the task force from the League of Minnesota Cities, it’s my duty to represent the interests of cities - big & small, rural, suburban, urban, metro & non-metro, etc.

The mission of the task force is to study the issue and submit a report to the State Legislature by January 1, 2007. The task force met for the first time today. We met in St. Paul at the Bremer Bank Building. There are about a dozen people on the task force and we think we’ll be able to wrap up our work in 3-4 meetings.

State, county and city governments already accept credit and debit card payments for many services. The issue is not whether government should or should not accept credit and debit card payments. The issues revolve more around the convenience fee charged by the credit card companies for the ability to pay government bills with their cards. You may not know that you pay this fee to the credit car company for using your card, but when you make an on line purchase you pay a 2%-4% convenience fee. If you drive to the store and buy the same exact item in person, the vendor pays the 2%-4% convenience fee.

The rules regarding who pays the convenience fee are set not by the government, but by the credit card companies: VISA, MasterCard, Discover and American Express. Of these four, VISA is by far the market leader, and the leader in enforcing its rules. While vendors that accept VISA payments would like to shift the burden of paying the convenience fee back to their customers, VISA will never allow their credit card to be disadvantaged to check or cash payments. That’s why they insist that the convenience fee be invisible to the consumer at the counter making an actual in-person purchase. I don’t suspect this practice will change anytime soon.

This rule about who pays the convenience fee makes paying some government fees problematic. For example, when you pay your property taxes to the County, the County accepts your payment and then distributes your lump sum payment back to the other local governments, such as cities and schools. We do it this way so that it is easier for the taxpayer to pay his or her taxes. One stop shop. That sort of thing. If you were to pay your property taxes on line with a credit card, which you cannot do in most counties in Minnesota, you would pay the convenience fee for the ability to pay on line. If, however, you were to pay your taxes in person at the counter in the courthouse, the County would have to pay the convenience fee and then figure out how to distribute the lump sum to the other taxing bodies.

Should the County “eat” the loss created by paying the convenience fee or should each governmental taxing body incur a pro rata share of the convenience fee? What happens to cities, counties, and schools if their property tax collections are short the 2%-4% they have to give up to allow people to pay with credit cards? Is there a way that we could get the credit card companies to make a different deal with state and local governments on the payment protocol for convenience fees? These are all the questions that our task force is going to wrangle with over the next few months.

It’s an interesting issue. I’m not doing it full justice here with this brief explanation. I’ll keep you updated on our progress.

Last week eight members of the Eden Prairie/Edina Police Explorers Post competed in a national competition in

Flagstaff , Arizona . Out of a field of over 750 teams from across the nation, our team placed first in the crime scene search competition and fifth in the arrest and search competition.

Police Explorers is a program sponsored by Boy Scouts of America designed to offer young men and women between the ages of 14 and 21 a practical glimpse into the field of law enforcement. Police Explorers also volunteer time to the community by assisting our police department at community events, in training exercises and other public safety incidents. Our Post represents the communities and police departments of both

Eden Prairie and Edina .

Congratulations Explorers!!

Several weeks ago Assistant Chief Scott Taylor and firefighter Kurt Schendel went flying. Kurt is a licensed pilot and a business owner at the Flying Cloud Airport. While Kurt and Scott were up they flew over the fire station #4 construction site. Kind of a unique view of the project and the surrounding area. I have been told that these aerial shots might become a regular process going forward.

Thanks to excellent weather the construction process is moving along at a brisk pace, there is a lot more completed as of today that just 2 weeks ago when this shot was taken. As a frame of reference, that is Dell road in the foreground and the new blacktop is Miller Parkway going east into Miller Park. Thank you Kurt and Scott!

I’ve said it before, and I’m sure I’ll say it again someday, but producing and distributing safe drinking water to Eden Prairie homes and businesses is one of the most important functions of the City. 60,000 people could not live together in 36 square miles without safe water and dependable sewer services. Without either one, the public health challenges of this kind of population density would make this a tough place to live.

We get occasional questions about our water supply throughout the year. During the summer, the most common question has to do with water supply, as in “Why can’t you just make more water?”. The residents asking that questions don’t usually like our answer because their lawn is getting crunchy and they want to put more water on it. The answer has to do with our access to water in the aquifer, the daily treatment capacity of our Water Treatment Plant; and our concern that water towers remain sufficiently filled just in case there is a fire and we need it for that.

A couple of weeks ago our new Utilities Manager, Rick Wahlen, fielded a question about the sodium levels in our water. We are one of the few cities in the Twin Cities metro area that softens our public water supply. It’s a fair question. It’s a question I had not heard the answer to so I thought I’d share Rick’s answer with you:

Our typical sodium content based upon our routine Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) metals assay is between 6 and 8 parts per million.

Assuming a person drinks 10 glasses of water per day at 8 ounces per glass, he would consume less than 0.001 oz. of sodium each day.

According to the below website:

http://www.mindfully.org/Water/2004/Glass-Of-Water17feb04.htm

The average man takes in 7.8 grams to 11.8 grams of salt each day, and the average woman consumes 5.8 to 7.8 grams, which are not very accurate numbers because these estimates are based on salt contained within an average comparison of the typical daily food intake, and do not include salt added at the table.

How much salt should people eat? For healthy adults 19 to 50, the desirable level is 3.8 grams of salt (about two-thirds of a teaspoon, or 1,500 milligrams of sodium) daily, the amount needed to replace what is lost in sweat.

For an upper limit, the panel set 5.8 grams of salt a day (a little more than one teaspoon), but noted that this was not a desirable amount. The panel said that more than 95 percent of American men and 75 percent of American women ages 31 to 50 regularly consumed salt in excess of the upper limit established by the group.

Doing some units conversions, the 1500 mg of sodium equates to approximately 0.134 oz. of sodium, which is about 1,000 times the quantity contained in the 10 glasses of tap water we should drink each day.

Drinking water flushes sodium out of the body and actually keeps a person’s sodium content from getting too high. Ten 8 oz. glasses of water contain about 1/1000^th the recommended daily allowance of sodium and would help the body eliminate excess sodium consumed in food, especially for those processed food consumers who like chips and fries.

Drink it up. Our water is good for you. And you can still buy about 1,000 gallons from us for about a $1.00. What a deal!