I attended the funeral today of Officer Jeff Berg at St. John’s Lutheran Church in Chaska. Jeff passed on last Tuesday after a long struggle against cancer.

There were many family members today at the service, including almost every officer, records clerk and 911 dispatcher in our Police Department. He worked in our Police Department for over 20 years. He had a lot of friends and a lot of co-workers.

Jeff was a kind and good man. He will be greatly missed by his friends and co-workers, and especially by his wife and child.

Farewell Jeff. Rest in peace.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Jeffrey L. Berg age 50 of Carver, formerly of Sunburg, passed on May 6, 2008 after a courageous fight with cancer. Born on Dec. 27, 1957 in Willmar to Franklin and Rose (Stavn) Berg. An officer with the Eden Prairie Police Department for over 20 years and prior to that, he served with the Starbuck Police Department. Preceded in death by his Parents. Survived by his loving wife: Rhonda (Gentz) Berg; their daughter: Jordyn CarinaRose Berg; Brother: Dr. Robert (Mary Jane) Berg; Sister: Donna (Darrel) Kulenkamp; Brother: Donald (Pat) Berg; Sister: Maxine McQuillan; Nieces and Nephews: Warren, Leah, and Erik Berg; Amy, Bryan and Elizabeth Kulenkamp and many, many Friends. Memorial services will be held at 11 a.m. on Monday, May 12 at St. John Lutheran Church, 300 East 4th Street, Chaska, MN 55318 with gathering of family and friends at 9 a.m. In lieu of flowers, memorials are preferred directed to Pheasants Forever or Ducks Unlimited.

May is Senior Awareness Month in Eden Prairie, as so declared by the Eden Prairie City Council. The Council has recognized Senior Awareness Month every year since 1993. It’s a good idea for every city to take stock of the importance of their senior population, at least for one month during the year. I think it’s especially important for a relatively young city like Eden Prairie because our population is “graying” relatively faster than other cities. Our demographics are becoming more similar to our neighbors, and more similar to most cities in America.

Our Senior Center staff has planned a month full of special activities at the Senior Center for Senior Awareness Month. I popped over there yesterday for their Lunch and Learn presentation on our Police K9 unit delivered by one of our two K9 Officers Jess Irmiter. That’s Officer Irmiter in the photos above with his dog Brix.

Officer Irmiter did a wonderful job of explaining the many aspects of a Police K9 unit, along with all the interesting information about how police dogs are trained and managed. He is a very good speaker. He connected well with his audience and delivered an interesting and informative presentation.

I always enjoy the opportunity to attend community events and presentations where City staff are representing the City so well. Officer Irmiter really delivered on that yesterday. Nice job Jess!

I had my annual performance review with the City Council last night. The Council hires an outside consultant to facilitate the review. The consultant seeks employee input, blends that with Council input, and then adds my self-assessment input. The consultant presents the full report to the Council in a closed session. I do not attend the closed session so the Council can feel comfortable discussing my performance without me sitting right in front of them.

After they complete their conversation, the Mayor sits down with me and gives me the news. It was good news again this year. The Council is satisfied with my performance and would like me to stay on for at least another year. The Council agreed on an increase to my base salary plus a performance bonus payment that is part of my employment agreement.

The final step of my review process is the public discussion, which always occurs on live TV at the Council meeting. The Mayor summarizes the Council’s closed session discussion, accepts a motion for approval, asks Council Members for comments and then asks for a vote to approve the motion. I’ve been a city manager now for 19 years (it’ll be 20 next month), but I still squirm a little bit in the public testimony part - even if it is mostly good. Maybe I should squirm a little bit. That’s probably not a bad thing.

I am very fortunate to have a cast of great co-workers here. That’s where the real work of the City gets done. The Council likes my work, which means the Council likes their work too.

Thanks everybody!

That’s Kristi Luger. Kristi is the new City Manager for the City of Excelsior. She started there on Monday, April 21. I went up to Excelsior today to take her out for lunch to welcome her to the Twin Cities.

Actually, it’s really more like welcoming her back to the Twin Cities. You see, Kristi is an Eden Prairie gal. She grew up here and graduated from Eden Prairie High School. She then went on to get her bachelors and masters degrees from Minnesota State-Mankato. And, just a few short years ago (four years ago, if my memory is correct), Kristi was an intern in my office.

Now I’d like to be able to report that being my intern was the most important experience Kristi had in her college years, but I can’t be sure of that. What I am sure of is that she knew what she wanted to be a City Manager someday and she was dedicated to achieve it.

Following the completion of her masters degree, Kristi served as the City Administrator for the City of Tyler, Minnesota, which is way out west. That was a great experience for her because it was live on-the-job experience. She made actual decisions that combined what she learned as my intern and what she learned in the classrooms in Mankato. She has now worked her way back to the Twin Cities and her new job in Excelsior.

I have several other interns who have moved on to success in their post-intern years, but Kristi is the first to become a full-fledged City Manager, and I am very proud of her.

I had the opportunity this past Friday to spend a couple of hours fighting crime with Officer Chris Fietek. To be honest, she fought crime. I observed her. During our two hours together, we responded to a medical call of a resident who thought he was having a heart attack; issued two traffic tickets; and gave two written warnings.

I took the opportunity to show Officer Fietek where the new CVS pharmacy would be built this summer; looked at the future site of the Presbyterian Homes development; and drove out to the site where United Health Group is planning to build its new corporate headquarters someday. We also talked about the new Art Center, the new dynamic signs ordinance and the proposed LRT alignment.

I enjoy doing Ride Along visits with our Police Department. We have a top notch group of people in our Police Department, both those on the streets and those working behind the scenes. Thanks Chris!

The State Auditor conducts an annual review of the profitability of municipal liquor stores each year. They do this as part of their “watch-dog” role over local governments. They want citizens to know if their local municipal liquor stores are losing money or are creating a drain on local property taxes, instead of creating additional revenue for their owners.

I’ve copied in an article from today’s Star Tribune about that annual study. There are several municipal liquor stores that are losing money. In Eden Prairie, however, our municipal liquor store operation was rated #1 in the state in terms of net profit in 2006 - the latest year for which the state has complete data. Our Return on Investment (ROI) in 2006 was 10.47%. In 2005 it was 10.42%. In 2007 it was 10.5%. We’re looking forward to a healthy 2008.

Liquor profits in Eden Prairie go right back into the community via our Capital Improvements Program. The money goes for such things as parks, sidewalks, trails, streets and other public improvements that we would otherwise have to tax our citizens for, or just not do.

Here’s the article. Congratulations to our fine staff who run a first class operation!

Municipal liquor stores made $20 million in 2006

According to a state auditor’s report, 44 cities that operate municipal liquor operations across the state lost money in 2006, including four communities in the metro area - Robbinsdale, Mound, Shorewood and Farmington.

THE LATEST: Minnesota cities that operate municipal liquor stores collectively had record sales for the 11th consecutive year and turned a net profit of $20 million in 2006, according to a report recently released by the state auditor’s office.

I drove by the Windsor Plaza development today. If you have had the chance to drive by this site during the past few weeks, you’ve seen four plain looking concrete towers. Those are the elevator towers and stairwells for the new development. They’ve been sticking out of the ground now for quite a while.

But this week we’ve begun to see some of the building’s super-structure begin to take shape. The super-structure shows the shape and size of the future building, which will be home to, among several businesses: Virtual Radiologic and the Kona Grill.

I don’t know if the building is on schedule or budget. It’s a private project, so its time line and price tag is not something the City is tracking. However, it’s in a good position as we begin to reach the prime construction season. With any luck - and good weather - you’ll begin to see rapid progress on the building and the adjoining parking ramp.

It’s important to say “thank you”. that’s what we did last night at our annual Board & Commission Recognition Banquet. We hosted the banquet in the Garden Room here in City Center. It was a nice event. A good time was had by all, I think.

I did some of the emcee duties this year, but our keynote speaker was 3rd District Congressman Jim Ramstad. That’s Jim in the photo to the left flanked by Mayor Phil Young and Council Member Brad Aho. They presented Congressman Ramstad with a plaque from the City expressing our appreciation for his years of service to the people of Minnesota’s 3rd congressional district. Congressman Ramstad is retiring at the end of his current term. We’ll miss him.

The purpose of the banquet is to provide a non-monetary “thank you” to all of the citizens that serve on our boards, commissions, committees and task forces. They provide a crucial volunteer “work force” to help us manage the City. We also recognize the high school students who serve as Student Commissioners. We highlight the work of one our commissions each year. This year it was the Human Rights & Diversity Commission on the anniversary of their 40 years as a City commission. A new feature of this year’s event was that it was sponsored. Our sponsor this year was Thomson Reuters via Eden Prairie resident/Airport Commission chair/Budget Advisory Commission member Rick King. Thank you to Thomson Reuters!

We give special recognition to the members of our boards and commissions who are retiring. We read their names and have them come forward during the evening to collect a nice plaque. Our group of retiring commissioners this year is as follows:

Melissa Barra, Human Rights & Diversity Commission

Karen Busack, Arts & Culture Commission;

Vicki Koenig, Planning Commission;

Rita Krocak, Conservation Commission;

Doug Malam, Board of Appeal and Equalization;

Larry Piumbroeck, Human Rights & Diversity Commission;

Jane Plaza, Heritage Preservation Commission;

Frank Powell, Planning Commission;

Jeff Strate, Human Rights & Diversity Commission;

Bradley Stratton, Flying Cloud Airport Advisory Commission.

Thank you to all of you for your years of service!

There are several property tax bills being considered by the State Legislature that are of interest to citizens and city governments in Minnesota. I pleased to report that one of the bills that I talked about last week - a new economic development tool being considered to help subsidize a parking ramp for the new phase II development at the Mall of America - has been amended so that it is now revenue-neutral for Twin Cities commercial/industrial taxpayers. That’s good. In fact, the legislature is going to consider developing criteria and rules for the use of that particular tool in the future, which would also be good.

Another property tax development that is under consideration is the proposal outlined by the Star Tribune’s Lori Sturdevant in the story below that appeared in Saturday’s paper. Like many bills, it has its positive and negative sides. For places like Eden Prairie, I think it will impact our citizens greater than average because we have a higher proportion of our population with total family income of $200,000 or more.

One of its positive impacts is that it directs state property tax relief directly from the state to the individual. In the current property tax relief system, the state routes some (but not all) of its property tax relief through city governments. This is problematic for city governments because sometimes the state reimburses us for their property tax relief programs, and sometimes they don’t. I like the idea of getting city governments out of the middle of that transaction.

Read Ms. Sturdevant’s story:

As property taxes bear down, pair offers a leg up

By LORI STURDEVANT, Star Tribune

April 26, 2008

For the last few years, rising residential property taxes have been the weather issue at the Minnesota Legislature — the thing everybody talks about, but nobody does much about.

It’s not for lack of trying, or lack of ideas. But each party’s pet idea for controlling property taxes is anathema to the other, and this crowd tends to cling to its pets like toddlers to their favorite toys.

Against that backdrop last week came a new property tax relief idea from House DFL tax chair Ann Lenczewski and property tax division chair Paul Marquart. It came with a label not often attached to DFL tax proposals: “revenue neutral.”

The idea featured a few other surprises: It did not involve a state tax increase. (That was tried and vetoed last year.) It did not involve a huge increase in aid to local governments (never popular with Republicans, who tend to favor local control more in principle than in practice). It did not rely on unsustainable one-time money gimmicks (which are in vogue in both parties this year but are detested by fiscal prudes, including editorial writers).

Lenczewski and Marquart proposed to ease the property tax burden on homeowners least able to bear it, by putting the state’s property tax refund program, or “circuit breaker,” on steroids. It would bulk up state refunds to homeowners whose property tax burdens are disproportionately high relative to their incomes, making it big enough to block next year’s expected property tax increases for a majority of Minnesotans.

The circuit breaker’s growth would be funded by scaling down or eliminating the itemized state income tax deduction for property taxes and the market value homestead credit, which is unrelated to the size of either a homeowner’s tax bill or income.

That would mean higher taxes for homeowners with high incomes and comparatively low property taxes — particularly those with household incomes after deductions of more than $200,000. They’re only about 5 percent of Minnesotans. But their ranks may include more potential campaign donors than legislators and Gov. Tim Pawlenty are willing to afflict in an election year.

Yet the high-end earners who would lose a prized tax deduction under this plan should be advised that the existing state-plus-local tax structure in Minnesota grants them most-favored-taxpayer status. The tax cuts of 1999-2001 produced a fairness gap that favors the rich, and it’s growing. The latest calculations say top earners pay about 9 percent of their incomes in state and local taxes, compared with 12.5 percent for middle earners.

Lenczewski is a zealot about arresting that regressive trend. In that sense, her proposal is true to eight decades of emphasis by the DFL or its Farmer-Labor antecedent on basing taxation on ability to pay.

But in another sense, Lenczewski and Marquart are breaking with DFL orthodoxy. They favor direct aid to taxpayers over local governments. That’s an implicit acceptance of Republican arguments about the virtue of putting money into individual pockets and of exposing more taxpayers to the full impact of local government decisions.

That bow in the GOP direction ought to give their idea at least a remote chance to get through Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s “no new taxes” filter and become law. It should, that is, if easing property tax pain for those who are really hurting outweighs the election-year thrill of stomping on any idea that originates with the opposite team.

What ought to be clear to legislators is that the economic hurt in Minnesota is growing, and their election certificates oblige them to do something about it, no matter whether they sit in the majority or the minority caucus.

People whose incomes are falling are particularly burdened by the 82 percent average increase in homeowners’ property taxes that’s come on Pawlenty’s watch. They can’t afford the 7.7 percent increase that’s forecast for next year. Helping people in tough circumstances stay in their homes is what Minnesotans looked to a Farmer-Labor governor and a Conservative Legislature to do 75 years ago, and they delivered. Today’s divided government owes its constituents no less.

Lori Sturdevant is a Star Tribune editorial writer and columnist. She is at lsturdevant@startribune.com.

Money Back for Minnesotans

How the House DFL plan might affect you, if you live in rural Minnesota (top set of numbers) or in the metro area (the bottom set of numbers):

If your household … and your home’s … your savings next year would be:

income after market value is …

deductions is …

$40,000 $106,900 $35

$60,000 $160,300 $101

$100,000 $213,700 $70

_________________________________________________

$60,000 $187,500 $110

$80,000 $281,100 $227

$110,000 $374,700 $365

$150,000 $374,700 $63

All savings are net of the project impact on all taxes, federal, state and local.

Source: House Research.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

According to Ms. Nina Manzi, an analyst with State House Research, the following groups/people will benefit most from this proposal:

1. High-income taxpayers (over $200K income/year) who itemize their federal deductions regardless of where they live.

2. Taxpayers who itemize their federal deductions with incomes over $100K who live in low-value homes (>$200K).

3. Taxpayers who itemize their federal deductions with incomes over $100K who live in average value homes, but have low taxes ($280,000 home, taxes of $2,300).

4. Taxpayers who itemize their federal deductions with incomes over $150K who live in average value homes ($200K) with average or high taxes ($3K and up)

5. Taxpayers who itemize their federal deductions with incomes over $100K and have average taxes (or higher). For example, an income of $100K in a home valued at $160K or more, with taxes of $1,500 or more.

Linking property tax relief to income is a new concept in Minnesota. I doubt this proposal will become law, but you never know.

There was an excellent story in yesterday’s Star Tribune entitled “Will megamall deal usher one in for the Vikings?”. You can click that link to read the story by Mike Kaszuba.

The story explains a proposal being considered by the State Legislature to allow the City of Bloomington to assist the owners/developers of the Mall of America with the construction of a public parking ramp to serve the proposed Phase II of the mall. Phase II will essentially double the size of the current mall. It will require a new large parking ramp. The owners of the mall say they won’t do the Phase II project if they have to pay for their own parking ramp.

The proposal under consideration will allow the City of Bloomington to use the new Fiscal Disparities revenues created by the Phase II mall development to help fund the parking ramp. So, in one sense, you could say that the owners of the mall are paying for their own parking ramp. However, the proposal, depending on how it’s implemented, may require the amount of the Fiscal Disparities contribution that is redirected to build the parking ramp to be replaced in the Fiscal Disparities system by all other commercial/industrial taxpayers in the Twin Cities metro area. By the City of Bloomington’s own estimates, this could raise commercial/industrial taxes by 0.31% across the board. That may not seem like much, but for the Eden Prairie Center mall, it could be as much as $12,500 in additional property taxes in one year.

In my humble opinion, requiring commercial/industrial taxpayers throughout the metro area to pitch in and pay a little extra property tax so that the owners of the Mall of America doesn’t have to pay the cost of building its own parking ramp is bad public policy. As you’ll read in the Star Tribune story, the Minnesota Vikings are looking very carefully at this new funding mechanism. They’re thinking that it might be a good tool to build a new football stadium next year.

The state legislature is considering this proposal right now. If you pay commercial/industrial property taxes in the Twin Cities, you should pay attention to this issue. It’s important now, and could be even more important in the years ahead.

Every year we have Records Review Week during the same week as Earth Day. It’s a week that we spend time and extra effort cleaning out our files, which means filing stuff more precisely or throwing a lot of stuff away. I prefer the latter category. Our City Clerk Kitty Porta would prefer me to prefer the former, but that’s an entirely separate blog post for another day.

In order to make Records Review Week interesting, we usually wrap a theme around it. This year’s theme is baseball. We call our Records Review Week - The Great EP Pitch. Here’s what’s going on for City employees this week:

Monday: Pitching Trivia Kickoff
Test out your pitching knowledge with some online trivia! Check Prairie Pages for daily trivia questions, track your answers and win!

Spring Training Seminar: Internet Safety
Heritage Room I
2-3 p.m.
Join Detective Mark Gustad from the Eden Prairie Police Department
to learn more about social networking sites (MySpace and Facebook),
auction sites (eBay and Craigslist), instant messaging, text messaging,
gaming and gaming systems, blogs, pornography/child pornography
issues, parental monitoring software, keylogging software, Internet
related crimes and basic computer safety measures that anyone can use.

Tuesday: Show Your TEAM Spirit
Wear your favorite baseball attire (hats, jerseys, etc.) and you could be headed to the ballgame! Four Saint Paul Saints tickets will be awarded to the Best Dressed Pitcher!

Wednesday: Game-Day Snacks
Get ready for the big game with some deliciously gooey caramel rolls, the breakfast of champions!

Pitching Clinic: Data Practices
Council Chambers
10:30 - 11:30 a.m.
And
1:30 - 2:30 p.m.
Plan to attend one of these two sessions and brush up on your data practices knowledge! Katie Engler, assistant director with the Minnesota Department of Administration Information Policy Analysis Division, will review Data Practices policies and procedures for all City employees. There will be plenty of time for question and answers as well!

Thursday: Seventh Inning Stretch
Be prepared to stand up, take a stretch and sing!

Friday: Pitching Trivia Prizes
Submit your completed Pitching Trivia answers to the City Center front desk and pick up your prize!

At their meeting this week the City Council accepted a gift of a building from the Sampson family that will serve as the City’s future Art Center. The Council’s action means that City staff and the City’s Arts & Culture Commission can now move forward in the planning effort to get the Art Center ready to go. We presented the Council with a tentative plan of necessary building improvements and a program of use for the building at the Council meeting. That was good enough to win the support of the Council, so now it’s time to make it real.

The Council Members expressed their appreciation and gratitude to the Sampson family for their gift to the City. It’s thought to be the largest single gift (in terms of monetary value) ever given to the City - a 5,400 sq ft building worth over $1,000,000.

There’s a lot of work to do, but now we’re cleared to do it. Thank you City Council, and thank you Sampson family. We will do this right. You will be proud of this gift to Eden Prairie.

I attended a big meeting yesterday at the headquarters of the Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) in St. Paul. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss the prospects for the future improvement of the I-494 - T.H.169 interchange given the State’s new transportation bill generated new funds for MnDOT. We wanted to see if the new money meant that the project might be accelerated, or if the new money might vault other area projects ahead of this one.

The meeting included the Mayors, City Managers and Public Works Directors of Eden Prairie, Edina and Bloomington. There were also City Council Members and other city staff from the respective cities. There were also a couple of representatives from Eden Prairie’s business community: Liberty Property Trust and SUPERVALU. Finally, there were also three State Representatives there: Rep. Maria Ruud from Eden Prairie; Rep. Ron Erhardt from Edina and Rep. Neil Peterson from Bloomington. MnDOT was represented by the Acting Director Bob McFarlin, Metro District Engineer Tom O’Keefe and several other high ranking MnDOT staff members. It was a large group of people with busy schedules who got together to talk about a very important project.

It was a productive meeting. MnDOT shared with us what they expect to receive in new revenue as a result of the new transportation bill. They will see new money, but a significant share of it will go toward the repair and replacement of bridges. That was a legislative mandate by the State Legislature. The second priority of the new money will be pavement preservation. Expansion projects, which is what they say the 494-169 project represents, are, at best, a third priority for MnDOT.

Nonetheless, Mr. McFarlin told us that the 494-169 project is a priority project for him. He has a long history with the project during his career at MnDOT. He told us that he would work with his staff and with the three cities to figure out a solution to get the project moving. He asked us to consider potential decreases to the scope of the previously approved improvement plan for the interchange. The message was that if we could decrease the cost of the project, which is estimated to be over $120,000,000, by decreasing the scope of the project, the project could be completed sooner rather than later. No surprise there. The cities said they would look at variations of the project scope proposed by MnDOT and get responses back to MnDOT this summer.

Meetings like this a necessary in order to set a path for creating a solution to a problem. We want the project to happen tomorrow. They don’t have enough money to do the project tomorrow. So what do we do? We talk. We compromise. We move the project forward by reassessing what’s important and what’s not. We’re going to get right to work on this. This project is too important to the traveling public and to the economic development prospects in Eden Prairie to wait another ten years. We need it sooner rather than later.

Each year I have the privilege of presenting our annual employee awards, which we call the “EPy’s”. We had our recognition event yesterday, and the 2008 winners are pictured to the left. Click on the thumbnail photo to see it in larger scale. Get a good look at these folks, because they’re some of the best that we’ve got. They are, from left to right, and front to back:

Andrew Sullivan, Outside Utilities Operator. Andrew was one of three recipients this year of the City Manager Quality Award.

Wayne Estenson, Risk Manager/Customer Service Manager. Wayne is the 2008 recipient of the James G. Clark Award for Excellence in Teamwork.

Linda Williams, Police Officer. Linda is one of two recipients this year of the Dr. Jean L. Harris Award for Community Service.

Wendy Sevenich, Community Center Manager. Wendy was recognized as one of the three recipients of the City Manager Quality Award.

Colin Schmidt, Appraiser III. Colin was the other Harris Award winner for his record of community service in his home community of St. Michel.

Paul Sticha, Facilities Manager. Paul was also recognized as a 2008 City Manager Quality Award winner.

Tim Fadden, Building Inspector. Time was the 2008 recipient of the Carl J. Jullie Award for Excellence in Customer Service.

Me. I didn’t win any awards this year, but I got to give these fine folks their awards, and that was a lot of fun and a great honor.

Congratulations!

Congratulations to the Eden Prairie Veterans Memorial Committee. The Committee, along with our locally elected state officials - Senator David Hann, Representative Erik Paulsen and Representative Maria Ruud - were successful in garnering a $100,000 appropriation in the State’s 2008 Bonding Bill. The appropriation will be used to continue the progress of building a Veterans Memorial in Purgatory Creek Park.

The bonding bill was signed into law by Governor Pawlenty earlier this week. I don’t yet know the details of how the money will be disbursed for the project, but I’m sure we’ll work that out later. If you want to see the actual line item appropriation for yourself in the bill, click this link and page down to page page 6 of 9, line 365: 2008 Bonding Bill Link.

The City was also seeking a sizable bonding bill appropriation for the Camp Eden Wood Project, but that did not come through this year. That’s OK. We’ll try that one again next time. But I couldn’t be more happy for the Memorial Committee. They have worked so hard to realize this dream, and now it is really within their sights.