Yesterday, April 29th, marked my one year anniversary of working for the City of Eden Prairie.
It has been a very rewarding year for me professionally. Eden Prairie is an exciting place to work. The atmosphere here was ready and willing to welcome new leadership at the top of the organization. [...]
Monthly Archives: April 2003
Anniversary
April 30, 2003 – 8:28 am
Minneapolis: Our Downtown Too
April 29, 2003 – 7:57 pm
Minneapolis Mayor RT Ryback gave the City’s annual State of the City address today. With the Twins, Timberwolves, and Wild all in action tonight in their home stadiums, it’s quite possible that the Mayor’s address did not capture the public’s attention.
The Minneapolis city government is facing some very steep challenges right now. [...]
Conceal, Carry, and City Hall
April 28, 2003 – 11:14 am
The State Legislature is in the midst of considering a fundamental change to the way that local officials decide who may and who may not carry a concealed handgun. Citizens who want to carry a concealed handgun must request such a permit in order to legally carry a concealed handgun in this state. [...]
Sausage Making
April 25, 2003 – 2:56 pm
City Councilmember Sherry Butcher and I attended a meeting today of the
Minnesota State Senate Tax Committee. The committee was giving a hearing to two amendments being proposed by
Sen. Bill Belanger of Bloomington to the Governor’s tax bill proposal, Senate File 748. Sen. Belanger is the author of the Governor’s proposed tax bill.
The first [...]
Honors
April 23, 2003 – 10:00 pm
Senator Norm Coleman was the keynote speaker at the City’s 2003 Board and Commission Recognition Banquet. He gave a wonderful message about the importance of civic engagement and volunteerism. His words were exactly what our board and commission members needed to here. The real mystery of managing local government is that we [...]
Employee Health and Fitness, And Your Property Tax Bill
April 22, 2003 – 2:12 pm
Today was our City Employee Health and Benefit Fair. It is the day when we provide preventative health screenings (weight, cholesterol, etc.) to employees in exchange for providing them a free light lunch. We also host a number of our employee fringe benefit vendors. The vendors are there to provide first-person answers [...]
Tax Bills and Alliance Building
April 21, 2003 – 10:30 am
I repesent the City of Eden Prairie to an organization known as the Municipal Legislative Commission (MLC). The MLC tracks legislation and influences legislators (I hope) in the interest of a group of eleven suburban communities including Plymouth, Minntonka, Edina, Eden Prairie, Bloomington, Woodbury, etc.
We are especially engaged with MLC right now [...]
Leadership EP
April 18, 2003 – 1:10 pm
Leadership Eden Prairie is a program of the Eden Prairie Chamber of Commerce.
The program is a leadership development program that strives to acquaint people who live in or work in Eden Prairie with the community’s institutions and leadership structure. The program includes days devoted to learning about the local school system, about the city [...]
The Senator is coming to the Prairie
April 17, 2003 – 1:47 pm
I am looking forward to the City’s 2003 Board and Commission Recognition Banquet this year. Our keynote speaker this year is U.S. Senator Norm Coleman (R-Minnesota).
We are excited to have Senator Coleman as our keynote speaker. He is going to have dinner with us and address the group on the importance of civic [...]
Communities of Interest
April 17, 2003 – 8:58 am
The Metropolitan Council
is a somewhat unique being among governments. It is a metro-wide regional government with power and authority to use it. That’s not common across the United States. When I’ve shared with my colleagues in other parts of the country what the Met Council can do, they are surprised at the [...]
A Personal Note
April 16, 2003 – 5:15 pm
I didn’t go into the office today, and it’s probably a good thing, too, because my mind wasn’t focused on work today.
On April 6, 2003, my 15 year old son Turner, celebrated three years of life following a heart transplant. Each April he goes in for an annual examination where he is [...]
Web server change
April 15, 2003 – 10:11 am
We’ve moved this weblog to a new server in the past week.
There’s now a home page for the City’s weblogs with a link to Scott Neal’s weblog.
A MAC, An Airport, and An Airline in Trouble
April 11, 2003 – 10:52 pm
Flying Cloud Airport is our airport. That sounds funny to say, but it’s our airport.
We’re lucky to have it and we’re stuck with it, all at the same time.
Flying Cloud Airport is owned and operated by the Metropolitan Airports Commission (MAC). The MAC operates Flying Cloud as a reliever aiport. The reliever [...]
SouthWest Metro is our Friend
April 10, 2003 – 8:52 pm
One of the bills that has popped up at the State Legislature this week is a bill that would force cities that have their own transit systems to levy local property taxes to support their transit operations. Up until two years ago, cities did levy property for their transit operations. Then the state [...]
Lobbying My Cousins
April 9, 2003 – 7:36 am
It’s been too long since I’ve been a bona fide civilian. At least in the since that I can’t step far enough away from local government to see it as an average citizens would. Do citizens think that city, county, school district, state, and federal officials all work closely together to coordinate taxes [...]
