OFFICE OF THE CITY MANAGER Friday Report
DATE: January 15, 2010
TO: Mayor and City Council
FROM: Scott H. Neal, City Manager
RE: Friday Report for January 15, 2010
1. MLC Regional Breakfast Meeting – The annual Municipal Legislative Commission breakfast meeting for west metro cities will be held on Friday, January 22 7:30 – 9 am. If you wish [...]
Category Archives: Politics
Friday Report for January 15, 2010
January 15, 2010 – 9:25 am
Sooner Than We Think?
January 14, 2010 – 9:11 am
Who would have thought that when former Gov. Jesse Ventura began his term as our Governor on January 8, 1999, that we would be riding a new light rail train connecting downtown Minneapolis to the Mall of America just five years later?
OK, five and half years later. The Hiawatha line opened for business on June [...]
Off and Running in a New Year
January 6, 2010 – 3:54 pm
The City Council held its annual organizational meeting last night. The annual organizational meeting is typically a quick one, and last night’s meeting was no exception – 35 minutes. The Council uses its organizational meeting to make a number of decisions that are somewhat, but completely, perfunctory. For example, the Council adopts a policy that [...]
Economic Review and Preview
January 5, 2010 – 2:06 pm
I am a member of the Eden Prairie A.M. Rotary Club. Each week we gather together on Tuesday mornings for breakfast and a program. This morning’s program was an economist from a Twin Cities investment adviser who gave us his view of what’s in store for the economy in 2010. Next week, we will hear [...]
Un-Unallotment
January 4, 2010 – 11:15 am
Ramsey County District Court Judge Kathleen Gearin gave Governor Tim Pawlenty an unexpected and unappreciated surprise last week when she declared that his decision to unallot budgeted funds from a particular state government food program was unconstitutional. You can read more about the decision in this link from the Star Tribune: Judge Rules Against Pawlenty [...]
Water, water everywhere? No. It’s not.
December 14, 2009 – 3:56 pm
There is an interesting op ed article (at least I think it’s op ed) in today’s Star Tribune business section about water. Read it at this link: Water, water everywhere? Not anymore. The title of the article is a paraphrasing of the Samuel Taylor Coleridge poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. The relevant lines [...]
Road Bucks
October 28, 2009 – 7:29 am
This is a photo of a group of hard working local officials from Eden Prairie, Edina, Bloomington and Scott County who attended the October meeting of the The Economic Club of Minnesota to hear an address on the future of federal investments in transportation infrastructure delivered by the U.S. Secretary of Transportation, The Honorable Ray [...]
Minnesota Taxpayer’s Association
October 26, 2009 – 12:18 pm
The Minnesota Taxpayer’s Association is a good source of non-partisan information about government operations and spending in Minnesota’s state, county and local governments. Sure, there are other advocacy groups that claim to represent the interest of taxpayers, but I think the MTA does the best job of doing research and educating the public on tax [...]
City Endorses SWLRT Route 3A
September 16, 2009 – 7:08 am
The City Council met last night. It was a short agenda. Among the actions from last night’s meeting, the Council approved a resolution that endorsed proposed Route 3A for the proposed Southwest Light Rail Transitway. The Council previously endorsed Route 3A in 2002 and again in 2006, so this action is no surprise. But it [...]
Friday Report on Monday
August 17, 2009 – 12:16 pm
I know it’s Monday, but here’s my Friday Report from last Friday. Enjoy!
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Friday Report: August 14, 2009
1. Cummins-Grill Crash Site Update – The NTSB has completed the removal of the plane wreckage from the Cummins-Grill property. The area will now be considered a hazardous materials site until the aviation fuel spilled in the crash is [...]
LGA
August 5, 2009 – 2:04 pm
LGA = Local Government Aid. In Minnesota, the state government has a system where it provides financial assistance to some cities through a complex formula that tries to approximate a city’s needs with its capacity to satisfy its own needs. The financial assistance is called Local Government Aid. The City of Eden Prairie doesn’t receive [...]
2010-2011 Budget Season Is On
July 29, 2009 – 1:37 pm
Finance Manager Sue Kotchevar and I presented the 1st draft of the City’s proposed 2010-2011 budget to the Budget Advisory Commission last night. The budget making process is highly truncated this year because of our goal to flatten our spending and taxing practices in the next two year budget. That policy choice means that our [...]
Minnesota Elections Are Pretty Good
July 27, 2009 – 1:20 pm
Not to brag or anything, but elections in Minnesota run pretty well. I heard from our City Clerk today that a post-election analysis of the ballots of the 2008 General Election showed the accuracy of the ballot count of the statewide races was 99.9%. For absentee ballots, the count was 99.5% accurate. I thought this [...]
A Busy Council Meeting Agenda
July 17, 2009 – 2:34 pm
When we set up the City Council’s meeting schedule for the year in January we looked at the summer months and suggested to the Council that we could probably get by just fine this year with going to once per month Council meetings. We did it, and guess what, we’ve been getting by just fine. [...]
Comments To My Blog
July 15, 2009 – 7:01 am
While I have not enabled the function on my blog that would allow open comments and dialog, I do receive and read emailed comments from readers every week. Once in awhile I like to share them. Today is one of those days. Enjoy!
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SUBJECT: Turtles
I am writing to say that I strongly disagree with the explanation [...]
