We received a presentation this morning at our Rotary Club meeting from representatives of the City’s Community Technology Task Force. In the photo, that’s Eden Prairie A.M. Rotary Club President Greg Albrecht on the left. Immediately to Greg’s left is Bill Coleman. Bill is an independent consultant from a company called Community Technology Advisers. Bill assisted the City’s Community Technology Task Force. To Bill’s left is Kiran Mysore. Kiran is an IT manager at GE Capital here in Eden Prairie. Kiran chaired our task force. And last, but not least, to Kiran’s left is David Lindahl. David is the City’s Economic Development Manager. David was the City’s official liaison to the task force.
The City Council approved the creation of the task force to study the public and private telecom infrastructure in Eden Prairie with the goal of providing answers to three fundamental questions:
1. What is the telecom infrastructure in Eden Prairie?
2. What do we need in the way of telecom infrastructure in Eden Prairie?
3. How do we get the telecom infrastructure that we need in Eden Prairie?
The task force included representatives from some of the City’s largest private companies (ADC, GE, SUPERVALU, CH Robinson), small businesses, home-based business, and public organizations, such as the Eden Prairie Library and Eden Prairie Schools. The task force established a vision; conducted an open public process and produced a final report which is available at the “Special Reports” section of the City’s website. The recommendations of the final report are organized under five headings: Digital Inclusion, Competitive Environment, Gathering Data, Municipal Considerations, and Next Steps.
I’m not going to get into the details of the report findings because I’d like people to go to our website and take a look at the full report. The Council has received the report and final presentation from the task force. City staff will be using the final report recommendations as a basis to build our 2008 Work Plans, so take a look at this document. You’ll be seeing it put to use in Eden Prairie very soon.
