No pretty pictures today. Just comments…
The City is currently embroiled in a bit of a public controversy that just won’t go away. It concerns the current and past levels of public spending by the City on historic preservation projects. There is a constituency in the community that is quite unhappy about what it feels are high levels of spending on historic preservation projects. The Council has been supportive of historic preservation projects and has funded a number of them over the past few years.
The current Council would say that its spending, when averaged out over the past twenty years, has been reasonable and has completed projects that were initiated by prior Councils. Residents who do not favor the City’s current level of historical preservation spending believe that it should be much lower on the City’s priority list, especially in times of budget tightening for cities.
It does not surprise or disappoint me that there is a public controversary in Eden Prairie. I think it’s quite normal, and healthy actually, for residents to feel free to express their dissent publicly. What does surprise me though is the magnitude and duration of the discussion on this particular topic. By any measure, historic preservation is a relatively small part of what the Eden Prairie city government has accomplished over the past five or so years. In addition, the City’s projected capital spending on historic preservation is planned to decrease to zero within three years, as evidenced by our approved 2004-2008 Capital Improvement Plan.
I have to chime in from time to time to correct facts and figures, but elected officials have to explain why historic preservation is important. How much longer will this discussion last? Who’s to say, but it looks like it will continue for a while longer.
