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.

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.

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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!

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.

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!

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!

Leadership Eden Prairie is a program of the Eden Prairie Chamber of Commerce. The purpose of the program is to organize a group of people who either live or work in Eden Prairie and then to provide them with a number of planned educational opportunities in which they learn about what makes Eden Prairie tick. For example, the program hosts a local government day in which participants tour City Hall, meet key City staff, meet with County government staff and then end the day with a table top study exercise that is relevant to a contemporary local political issue. This year’s group learned/studied about the proposed Southwest Light Rail Transit line project.

The group will also have an Education Day, a Health care Day, etc. The idea is to take people away from their everyday workplaces and immerse them in a sector of the community which they ought to know more about. At the end of the program the participants are better citizens and better leaders in Eden Prairie because they know more about the issues, and perhaps more importantly, they know the people behind the issues. It’s functional community networking at it’s best!

I really appreciate the Chamber running this program. They do a nice job with it too. The photo was taken at this year’s recognition event for the Leadership Eden Prairie Class of 2008. I wish that I had everyone’s name, but I don’t. But I do want to point out to City staff members who graduated with High Honors this year: City Clerk Kitty Porta (4th from the left in the purple) and Communications Manager Joyce Lorenz (4th from the right in black). I appreciate the time and energy that Kitty and Joyce put into their Leadership Eden Prairie studies. They’re better leaders, employees and citizens because of it.

One aspect of the aftermath of the shootings in the Kirkwood, Missouri Council Chambers is that it has reminded city officials everywhere to review their processes and procedures for managing unhappy citizens, thinly veiled threats, overt threats, citizen input at Council meetings and safety & security of public meetings - among many things. We have reviewed our policies and procedures here in Eden Prairie. While it is difficult to predict this kind of tragic event, I believe we have put in place reasonable safety and security measures that does not eliminate an open dialog between citizens and their elected officials at our public meetings.

Earlier this week, city officials in Minnesota received the following advice from League of Minnesota Cities executive director Mr. Jim Miller. We will be reviewing Mr. Miller’s advice on this matter with our City Council at the March 4 Council meeting. Here’s what he had to say:

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February 13, 2008

To: LMC Members

From : Jim Miller, Executive Director

Last week’s tragedy in Kirkwood, Missouri, reminds us that at times our public service as mayors, council members and administrative staff can take on serious overtones. Fortunately, such tragedies are rare. It is, however, advisable for city officials to consider their own options for dealing with the rare constituent who may cross the line from expressing democratic views-to actual disruptive, threatening and potentially physically violent behavior. Rachel Carlson, one of our LMC research attorneys who has advised member cities in this matter, offers the following:

Disruptive or Threatening Behavior at Public Meetings

A city council is authorized to preserve order at its meetings. The mayor, as the presiding officer, is also vested with some authority to prevent disturbances.

While council meetings must be open to the public under the Open Meeting Law, no individual who is noisy or unruly has a right to remain in the council chambers. When the council decides that a disorderly person should not remain in the meeting hall, law enforcement officers may be called to execute the orders of the presiding officer or the council. In addition, the disruptive individual may be charged with the crime of disorderly conduct.

Perhaps the most effective way to prevent or mitigate disturbances or disruptive behavior is to plan for citizen commentary, by providing a public comment period and exclusively limiting comments to this period. Additionally, many cities find it helpful to impose time limits on individual speakers. A number of cities have adopted written meeting rules governing the public comment period. Failure to follow the rules can be grounds for removing an individual from the council chambers.

If the city anticipates that an upcoming issue is particularly contentious, the city should discuss ahead of time its procedures for dealing with disruptive behavior. In particular, the city may wish to have law enforcement on hand or standing by. The city may also wish to consider in advance its procedures for recessing or adjourning a meeting if the meeting becomes too disruptive for public business to occur.

These issues and more tips for public meetings can be found in the LMC Governing & Managing Information Memo “Meetings of City Councils” available at http://www.lmnc.org/pdfs/LMCResearchMemos/Meetings_of_City_Councils.pdf on the LMC web site.

Disruptive or Threatening Behavior at City Hall or Worksites

Many city officials maintain office hours and encourage constituents to approach them with concerns. Additionally, city staff may have frequent, regular interactions with the public while at the front desk of city hall, or-as in the case of the public works employee-as they go about their day fixing streets or maintaining city property. In these situations, it is also possible to encounter the constituent who crosses the line from voicing his or her concerns to more troubling behavior.

Dealing with these types of situations can be even more problematic (and potentially frightening) than behavior that occurs at a public meeting. Often city officials and staff are scrupulous about allowing their constituents to exercise their free speech rights. They are deeply concerned that citizens be afforded an opportunity to speak and be heard, and often simply try to overlook abusive behavior.

However, free speech rights do not justify harassing, threatening, abusive or noisy conduct.

When confronted by a constituent who is acting inappropriately, cities have options available to them. Cities should discuss with their individual officials and staff any safety concerns they may have. Those concerns may easily be mitigated by making sure more than one person (or law enforcement officer) is present when the constituent interacts with city staff or officials. If this is not practically possible (for example, a small office where normally only one person is working on site), it may be necessary to require the constituent to set appointment times, so that additional staff may be on hand during those times. If the constituent will not comply with appointment times, he or she should be asked to leave.

In more extreme instances, the constituent can be charged with the criminal offense of disorderly conduct. Under the Minnesota criminal code it is a crime to “. . . in a public or private place . . . alarm, anger or disturb others or provoke an assault or breach of peace . . . [through] fighting . . . or abusive language tending reasonably to arouse alarm, anger or resentment by others.”

In the alternative, individual officials or city staff may pursue a civil restraining order against the constituent. Restraining orders are available after a single incident of physical assault or after repeated incidents of “intrusive or unwanted acts, words, or gestures that have a substantial adverse effect . . . on the safety, security and privacy of another.” A restraining order may prevent the harasser from visiting city worksites or attending public meetings where the city staff or official may be present.

In most instances, the city official or staff will need to individually petition the courts for the order. Once a restraining order has been granted, local law enforcement officers are able to arrest, without a warrant, any person that they reasonably believe is violating a restraining order. Violation of the order itself becomes a crime with significant criminal penalties.

If you have any questions about how to safely deal with potentially threatening constituent behavior, please feel free to contact our LMC Research Services by phone at (651) 281-1200 or (800) 925-1122 or through our online inquiry form at http://www.lmnc.org/researchanalysis/question.cfm.

A group of 14 City employees from our Police Department, Fire Department and IT Division have been spending a lot of time lately in a series of demonstrations by vendors of public safety software packages. Over the past three weeks, the group dedicated a day (yes, an entire day) to four different vendors in order to begin understanding the software packages that are available in the market right now. The information the group gathered from these four demos will be used to create a Request For Proposals (RFP) that will be released later this month. We are planning to receive and evaluate proposals in March and April. We will submit the recommended proposal to the City Council for approval in May.

The software we’re purchasing is the key link connecting you to the City’s public safety services. It will be the root of our 911 dispatching system, our public safety radio and mobile computer communications network, and our public safety records systems. Our current system is reaching the end of its useful life. The new system was authorized by the Council during the 2008-2009 budget process. We are estimating that it may cost over $1,000,000 so it’s very important to be very sure we know what we need and to negotiate a good deal with the preferred vendor.

In order to be very sure we know what we need, we are dedicating staff resources to study the issue. We’re talking to police officers, 911 dispatchers, police records technicians, IT support techs, and fire fighters. We need to hear their ideas and concerns to be able to translate them into software features and functionality. The “translation” stage is where everything is right now.

If we do this right, the transition from the old system to the new system will be seamless. You won’t notice a thing. That’s what I’m hoping for.

Department Directors and I (and my trusty assistant Lorene) met with City Council on Saturday morning, January 19, for our annual Council Planning Session. The purpose of the planning session was to have some conversation on some City foundational issues, such as our vision, mission, key objectives and core beliefs. We also planned to talk about the future of the new Budget Advisory Commission and to review the policy direction of the City’s new Comprehensive Land Use Guide Plan.

As we reviewed the City’s existing vision, mission, key objectives and core beliefs, I asked the Council to affirm the existing statements, or to suggest amending them. We had good a good discussion and affirmed the existing vision, mission and key objectives. As for our core beliefs, we added a new one that says we will “honor our natural and cultural heritage.” We have a reference to fostering respect for the past in our mission statement, but had no connection to that statement in our statement of core beliefs. We also amended another one that originally said that we believe in “the value of public service, both paid and voluntary.” The new version says we believe in “the value of public and community service, both paid and voluntary.” The addition of the word “community” is meant to emphasize the City Council’s appreciation and value of people who do community service in Eden Prairie in non-profits, youth athletic associations, churches, etc. The value of community service is very important to city government. If we did not have people in the community willing to serve their fellow citizens in these important roles and functions, city government would probably need to be bigger and broader than it is today.

We also had a good discussion about the City’s newest citizen advisory commission: the Budget Advisory Commission (BAC). The Council reached consensus on a couple of issues related to the BAC. I am drafting a statement to share with BAC members about the direction of their commission, but I need to review it with Council Members first before I share it with everyone reading this blog. No sneak peak on this one.

The final thing we accomplished on Saturday was to review some of the fundamental changes that we are going to see in our upcoming comprehensive guide plan. The guide plan is getting an update this year. That happens every ten years. The new guide plan contains new direction for the City in several key areas. We’ve been talking with the Council and the Planning Commission about these new directions for the past couple of years, but we wanted to make double and triple sure that the new guide plan reflects the Council’s wishes because we are getting awfully close to asking them to approve the final document. The Council affirmed for us that the guide plan is heading in the right direction. It gets its final review by the Planning Commission on January 28 and its first review by the Council at the February 12 Council meeting.

All in all, a pretty good planning session.

It’s time once again for the annual State of the City address. Last year the City joined the School District and the Chamber of Commerce for a joint State of the City event. It was very well received, so we’re going to do that again this year. The event is scheduled for Thursday (tomorrow), January 17 in the Garden Room in Eden Prairie City Center. The event starts at 4pm with a social hour followed by the start of the presentations at 5pm. We expect the event to wrap up by 6pm. The City is videotaping the event and will broadcast the tape on EPTV-16 starting next week. You can find the EPTV-16 program schedule by clicking on this link: EPTV-16 Program Schedule

Eden Prairie had a pretty good year last year. The State of the City is good. So if you can’t join us in person for the big event, you’re always welcome to watch us on EPTV-16. I think you’ll enjoy it.

Star Tribune reporter Laurie Blake had a very nice article in yesterday’s Star Tribune about Eden Prairie Street Division employee Mike Schmidt. Mike has worked for the City for ten years. He is a bright guy. In addition to his talents in the truck with a plow, which you’ll read about in the story below, he also did a research project for the City earlier this year to study the potential of changing the way we use salt and sand on winter road ice. We’re implementing Mike’s recommendations on a couple of test streets this winter and may expand the new system to our full street system next year.

Here’s Laurie’s story from yesterday’s paper:

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Skilled blader learns ‘to read his truck’

Eden Prairie’s snowplow crew has a champ on the team.

By LAURIE BLAKE, Star Tribune

Last update: December 27, 2007 - 12:28 AM

Minnesota’s Mr. Snow Plow is clearing streets in Eden Prairie this winter.

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Congratulations Mike! We’re glad to have you on our team.

There’s one thing I know for sure. The city manager always gets more credit and more blame than he or she deserves. When I get more credit than I deserve, I like to share it. When I get more blame than I deserve, I like to repress it. All in all, it works OK.

Last week at the December board of directors meeting of the Municipal Legislative Commission (MLC), I received a recognition award recognizing me for my two years of service as the Treasurer of MLC. That’s me getting the major award from incoming board chair Mayor Gene Winstead of Bloomington. Also serving with me as MLC officers this year was Mayor Bill Hargis of Woodbury and Eagan City Administrator Tom Hedges who was the Vice Chair.

As Treasurer, it was my responsibility to make sure the MLC bills were paid, that the budget was being watched, and that monthly reports were prepared and submitted to the board on a timely basis. Well, I did a great job, but I wasn’t really doing the work. A nice young woman in our Finance Division named Katharine Caliri was doing all the work. She is an exceptionally good worker, and smart as a whip too. She paid the bills on time. She managed the budget. And she produced the monthly reports on time month after month. While it was my name on all the work, it was her effort that got the job done.

So in the photo to the right, that’s me doing the traditional grab-and-grin photo with the true recipient of this major award: Katharine Caliri. Thanks for all your work Katharine. You were a great MLC treasurer.