The is the Minnesota Law Enforcement Memorial in St. Paul. The memorial is dedicated to the lives of the men and women who have dedicated their lives to keeping the peace and enforcing the laws in our communities.

I am including this photo in my blog today because it is May 15, National Peace Officers Memorial Day. This day has been set aside since October 1962 to consider the fallen peace officers who gave their lives in the line of duty. There is memorial event held at the memorial each year on this date. Our Police Department had officers at the event to serve in the honor guard at the memorial.

I had the opportunity to attend the annual awards and recognition ceremony for our Police Department just last night. It was a great event. New officers were sworn in. Current officers were recognized for their valor and for new promotions. Officer John WIlson was recognized as the 2008 Officer of the Year. Congratulations John!

One aspect of the awards event that is the same year in and year out here in Eden Prairie is the presence of the families. There are moms, dads, brohters, sisters, kids of all ages. The presence of officer families is a really strong reminder to me of the importance of the family to the individual officer, and the importance of having a warm and supportive “work family”. It’s a very strong feeling here. Stronger than anywhere I’ve worked.

So today as I think about the warm feelings and pride that I saw last night, I will also spend a few minutes today thinking about the officers whose lives were given and taken in the line of duty. We should all think about that today.

It’s not hard to see references to Eden Prairie businesses and residents in the Business section of the Star Tribune. I see it almost everyday. This past Monday there wasa very nice story about Eden Prairie resident and business owner Kelli Hueler (that’s her photo) and her company Hueler Associates. The story discusses Kelli’s business and how she turned a degree in Speech from St. Olaf into an annuity juggernaut.

The other story in the Monday Star Trib Business section was called “He’s CSI: Cyberspace”. The story talks about Jason Bergerson’s computer forensics work at Kroll Ontrack here in Eden Prairie. Great story, and a very interesting company.

We’re fortunate to have a diverse economic base in Eden Prairie. These two stories from the Star Tribune Business pages are good examples of that diversity.

I attended the Eden Prairie A.M. Rotary Club’s annual Strive Banquet today at the Community Center. The banquet is the Rotary Club’s chance to recognize the participants of the Strive program which is a mentoring program sponsored by the Rotary Club at Eden Prairie High School. The banquet give a chance for each mentor to say a few nice words about the student they mentored over the past school year. Then we finish off the banquet with a nice group photo of the students.

We held this year’s banquet in the Cambria Room at the Community Center. The room was sponsored by Cambria. It is decked out with lots of Cambria materials, which means it is beautiful. We had a full meeting and breakfast buffet for about 90 people in the room. It was a comfortable room for the event. Everyone that attended had a good time.

If you want to see the Cambria Room for yourself, please hop on over to the Community Center on Saturday, May 17 from 10am to 2pm to celebrate the re-dedication and re-grand opening of the Community Center. We’ve got a great event planned. There will be a ribbon cutting and a couple of speeches followed by tours, live music, cake, punch, face painting, blood pressure screening, fitness analysis, body fat testing and lots of inflatable fun!

Let’s pray for good weather. But good weather or not, I hope you can join us to celebrate the new Community Center. It’s something the can be proud of.

The Eden Prairie Community Center is located at 16700 Valley View Road
Located just north of Highway 5 at the intersection of Eden Prairie Road and Valley View Road.

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!

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!

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.

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.

I would like to think that here in Eden Prairie we run a middle-of-the-road city government organization where conflict is generally addressed and resolved maturely and professionally. Those two attributes are displayed in our City Council meetings and by City staff as we do the business of city government here in Eden Prairie.

Other cities do business differently. Their choices about how they choose to resolve conflict in their cities comes with a cost. The story below comes from today’s St. Paul Pioneer Press. It talks about the costs about to be incurred by one Minnesota city based on the way its leaders have chosen to resolve their conflicts.

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Maplewood’s infighting raises insurance costs

City’s insurer, citing lawsuit expenses, boosts its rates and delivers a warning

By Elizabeth Mohr
emohr@pioneerpress.com

Article Last Updated: 04/08/2008 10:20:06 PM CDT

Fed up with the squabbling and rising cost to insure Maplewood, the League of Minnesota Cities gave the St. Paul suburb a stern and expensive reprimand Tuesday.

The league, which insures all but six Minnesota cities, had been considering dumping Maplewood’s policies. On Tuesday, the league’s board of directors agreed to offer a renewal to the city, but with stiff premium and deductible increases.

“The board’s concern is the contentious and divisive situation out there,” Pete Tritz, director of the League Insurance Trust, said, noting that the atmosphere at City Hall contributed to a spike in lawsuits.

The league fears that if the situation doesn’t change in Maplewood, there could be more litigation.

The city’s insurance agent, Arthur J. Gallagher Risk Management Services Inc., called a meeting Monday to spell out the league’s position. A representative of Gallagher, which acts as middleman between the city and the league, cited examples of troubling City Council behavior.

League attorneys are upset the council has disregarded their warnings on such things as talking to the media about lawsuits and the people involved when told not to, said VeNita Schnebele, a Gallagher representative.

“You’re all individuals; you’re going to speak your mind,” Schnebele said, “but at the same time we need to follow the attorney’s advice.”

Maplewood Mayor Diana Longrie took issue with the idea the city’s insurer was threatening to revoke coverage or penalize the city based on what it considered “uncooperative” behavior.

“A council member … expressed their opinion of somebody. Is that OK? I don’t know. Is that protected by the First Amendment? I don’t know,” Longrie said. “But they’re saying, ‘We won’t insure you if you speak your mind.’ What speech is allowed? I don’t know.”

Longrie said she wants more information on how the league handles similar scenarios with other cities to determine whether Maplewood is being “singled out.”

But league officials cite events of the past couple years as reason for concern. Four employment-related claims have been filed against the city since 2006; three have been settled. Former Human Resource Director Sherrie Le won her claim and a $185,000 award this year. And a land-use lawsuit is pending.

Litigation-related losses for the past year exceeded $1 million, Schnebele said.

That amount was big enough for the league to consider dropping Maplewood’s insurance coverage - an unprecedented move. In the past 20 years, the league hasn’t dropped any city, Schnebele said.

“And we don’t want to be a pioneer in this area,” she said.

The league’s insurance coverage is the best option for the city, in terms of price and breadth of coverage, compared with the “standard market,” Schnebele said. She urged the council to heed the league’s warning.

The city’s coverage is scheduled to expire June 30. Adjusted premiums under the new contract will be “123 percent of what the average city would be paying” and Maplewood’s deductible will increase from $50,000 per claim to $200,000, Tritz said.

The League of Minnesota Cities’ action is the latest blow to the city.

Last month, the Pioneer Press detailed financial problems facing Maplewood and its leaders, who have been engaged in a shifting power struggle. The city was behind on checking bank statements against city records, there was no way to weigh expenses because budget numbers hadn’t been entered into the city’s computers, and leaders did not know the current value of the city’s fixed assets.

Acting City Manager Chuck Ahl said he has added staff to address those issues and progress is being made.

He assured Maplewood residents in a letter last week that funds have not been misappropriated, but that the state of the finances was a result of “the process of reporting and monitoring” in the city.

The state auditor’s office responded to calls for an in-depth look into the city’s books by meeting with Ahl and Finance Director Bob Mittet last week.

State Auditor Rebecca Otto said Tuesday the state will “be monitoring their current situation,” but won’t perform an audit.

Tritz said the league’s board weighed the city’s recent efforts to fix its problems.

“If all hope were lost, the board would not have offered renewal,” he said of the insurance coverage.

Elizabeth Mohr can be reached at 651-228-5162.

http://www.twincities.com/ci_8856996?IADID=Search-www.twincities.com-www.twincities.com

The Hennepin County Board of Commissioners approved the imposition of a new county-wide sales tax yesterday, as reported by the Star Tribune newspaper. The 0.25% sales tax, which would add one cent to a $4.00 purchase, will a dedicated source of future capital transit funding. For Eden Prairie, this means that the future Southwest Transitway LRT project is one step closer to reality. The Eden Prairie City Council is on record as supporting the LRT project, so whether you support the tax or not, the idea that the City can now move forward with a serious planning effort for this project is a good thing.

Yes, it’s that time of year again. It’s pothole season. With the freeze and thaw and freeze and thaw cycle in full gear right now, we will begin to start seeing our old driving nemesis more often - the pothole.

We have a new feature for our residents to assist us this year in fighting potholes. We have installed a new link at the City’s website - www.edenprairie.org - that will allow residents to report potholes directly to our Street Division office. The link will lead you to an e-form. Use the e-form to give us a location description of the pothole. We would also like to know who is reporting the pothole so that we can follow-up with you, if we need to. There is also a link to report potholes on state highways. We don’t fix those potholes, but we will make sure they know about them.

It sounds like we will get a ton of heavy wet snow today, but it will likely be melted by tomorrow. Lots of moisture and temperatures fluctuating between 20 and 40 F are ripe conditions for potholes. We’d appreciate your help in attacking this annual nuisances as they grow.

Home values in Eden Prairie, like most places in the United States, are heading down this year. Values are not collapsing, but they are taking a short run dip. Leah Shaffer did an informative article about local home values in last week’s Eden Prairie News. She did an extensive interview with City Assessor Steve Sinell and then wrote a very readable, understandable article about a complex emotional topic. Here’s the link: http://www.edenprairienews.com/news/city-news/home-values-eden-prairie-decrease-4666

Are you a wine connoisseur, or would you like to be? If your answer is “yes”, you might enjoy a membership in our new Wine Club. We rolled out the Wine Club at our spring wine tasting event earlier this month. You can buy a Wine Club membership at any of our three municipal liquor stores.

Members of the Wine Club get a 15% discount on all wine purchases from our liquor stores and free admission at our community wine tasting events. Members will also receive invitations to our events and special members-only discount opportunities.

$25.00. That’s it. That’s the price of the Wine Club membership. All of that for $25.00 for the year.

We’re selling a lot of these right now. Please join us.

I composed (with the very able editing of Communication Manager Joyce Lorenz and Public Works Director Gene Dietz) a commentary piece about water production and consumption for Eden Prairie’s two local newspapers last week. It got into the Eden Prairie News last week and will hopefully make the Eden Prairie Sun Current this week. Here’s the courtesy copy for the blog. Enjoy.

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While a public water utility is a complex business operation, the operating concept is not. The city pumps water out of the ground to a central water treatment plant where it is treated with chemicals to soften it and make it safe for human consumption. The treated water is then pumped to a storage tank or water tower where it waits to be distributed via a system of underground pipes.

Our water utility is financed by the customers of our system through user fees. Property taxes do not support our water utility operations. It’s an important distinction from other cities that cross-subsidize their water utility systems with tax dollars. These cities can get into financial trouble when taxpayers figure out they are paying more taxes than necessary in order to subsidize water customers who are paying lower water rates than they ought to, or vice-versa.

Some may wonder about the rationale the city uses to charge its customers for the water they consume. Why does the unit price for water go up as the amount consumed increases? What’s wrong with selling people as much water as they are willing to buy?

Water is unlike other commodities like gasoline, diamonds and wheat that are produced and sold in a private market. For a good to be produced and sold in a private market, consumers must have the option to buy it or not to buy it. Eden Prairie property owners do not have an option to buy our water. For public health reasons, the city mandates that every occupied building must have water. It’s the law.

Because water is a mandatory good, its price cannot be left to the marketplace, which would set prices at the intersection of supply and demand. Water rates are set by our City Council to finance the annual operations and the current/future capital needs of the water utility. There are no profits to be generated. No dividends to be paid.

The city cannot pump, treat and distribute an unlimited amount of water, regardless of customers’ desires. Three key parameters control how much water the city is able to produce and sell: natural, mechanical and regulatory.

The natural parameter is easy to understand. If there isn’t water in our 15 wells, we can’t pump it out of the ground. During the past three summers, we’ve seen well levels drop so much that we will have to reconstruct at least two of them to reach deeper into the ground for water. Minnesota is blessed with good water supplies - relative to other parts of the country - but water is not an unlimited resource.

The mechanical parameter refers to the capacity of our water treatment plant, wells, water towers and piping system. When operating at 100 percent of capacity, it can produce 22,500,000 gallons in a 24-hour period. To reach 100 percent production, we must operate every mechanical function at its full capacity, which stresses our production equipment (and staff) and creates a greater potential for mechanical failures, jeopardizing personal and emergency water use.

The final parameter is regulatory. The city is granted an allocation by the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. The permit restricts the amount of water we are allowed to “draw” out of the earth on an annual basis. The city’s current permit is 3.45 billion gallons per year. In 2007 we actually pumped 3.56 billion gallons - in violation of our permit. We will continue to seek an addition to our allocation, but we must demonstrate to the DNR that we have a legitimate need to take more water from the reservoir we share with many other metro-area cities.

We know that the winter time average daily water consumption for Eden Prairie is about 6,000,000 gallons. During the growing season the daily consumption regularly rises to the mechanical maximum of 22,500,000 gallons per day - entirely attributable to outdoor watering.

To secure approval from the DNR for new wells cities must demonstrate that they are serious about water conservation. One requirement is to adopt and enforce a water conservation program, which charges user fees that discourage excessive water consumption through a progressive rate structure. We also reduce consumption with an odd/even watering system and a total ban from noon to 5 p.m. daily. House File No. 3238, currently proposed at the Legislature, would mandate that all water suppliers serving more than 1,000 customers have a “conservation rate structure” like ours.

It’s challenging to manage a city service which we know does not meet the desires of many of our customers. But first the city must manage its resources in a manner that is consistent with federal and state law, in the best interest of taxpayers and especially to meet priority needs for our water - household, commercial/industrial and fire protection. We must be good stewards of our natural resources and environment.

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Happy St. Patrick’s Day! Erin go Bragh!