Last night was National Night Out. Wow, was it ever a hot one! Temps in the 90’s and humidity in the same range. I had the opportunity to check out some of the Eden Prairie National Night Out festivities last night. This is the scene at Parkway Apartments just down the street from City Center. That’s performer “Cannibal Kevin” with his back to the camera. He’s giving hula instructions to a couple of kids from the building. The complex owners sponsored the National Night Out party, complete with food, drinks, and entertainment. I estimate that they had well over 100 people there last night.
The focus of the National Night Out is getting neighbors out of their homes to meet the people that live next to them in their neighborhood. There are 1,000 reasons why this is a good idea. But for most people that participate in National Night out, it just seems like a fun thing to do. The City supports National Night Out through its public safety services: Police and Fire. The City registers the parties and sends a Police or Fire vehicle/personnel to as many parties as we can get to. I rode to the Parkway Apartments’ party last night with Firefighter Steve Koering. Steve is also one of our fire chiefs. That’s him there in the white with his back to my camera. After we left this party, we went to another one out on Riverview Road where a fire truck had just doused the neighborhood kids to cool them down on a hot night. That looked like a lot of fun, and it leaves the kids with a positive experience of their local police and fire departments.
Another important aspect of National Night Out is that we pack up our City Councilmembers and escort them around the community with Police and Fire personnel to as many parties as we can. We had a regularly scheduled Council meeting last night, so they each got to three, maybe four, parties before it was time to head back to City Center for our meeting. This is a shot of Councilmember Brad Aho (standing in the yellow polo shirt) chatting with residents at Parkway Apartments. This was Councilmember Aho’s first National Night Out as a Councilmember. For many people, this is their first and best opportunity to meet their locally elected officials. And what’s more, they get to meet them on their home turf and not across the room in a hostile public hearing. Councilmembers hear lots of compliments and the occasional complaint during National Night Out. That’s just fine. That’s one of their important functions in our local government: hearing our citizens.
National Night Out is one of my favorite nights to be associated with the City. I think we do the night especially well here in Eden Prairie. I would like to thank the various members of my staff who helped put the night’s events together and for all the police and fire personnel (and reserves) that dedicate their time and energy to participating in the event. The citizens of Eden Prairie appreciate all of you very, very much.
