The Blog from City Hall

Every year the City organizes an effort to recruit new members for our citizen advisory boards and commissions. We need new members to replace the old members who are leaving thier positions. Our marketing efforts include advertisements in the newspapers, mentions on our website, and a face-to-face opportunity for citizens to meet with the City staff liaisons to the various committees.

In the past, the face-to-face opportunity has been at City Center. Our turf. This year, we moved the event to the Eden Prairie Center. We mobilized our group, which includes staff, Board & Commission members, and Members of the City Council. We held a two hour event at the Eden Prairie Center on January 27th.

This is a photo with Councilmember Jan Mosman (right) visiting with staff members Sandy Werts and Molly Koivumaki (left). Harry Moran is standing beside Councilmember Mosman. Harry is the chair of our Human Rights & Diversity Commission.

This is a photo of Harry Moran visiting with Councilmember Sherry Butcher.

It was one of those days again where you open the pages of the business section of the Star Tribune and see lots of news about Eden Prairie businesses. Here’s a sample:

MTS is Profitable

This is Chip Emery. Mr. Emery is the CEO of MTS. MTS is a great Eden Prairie company. I can see their offices from my office. Neal St. Anthony did a good story today in the Star Tribune on MTS and its emerging profitability. He called them the “poster child for the jobless recovery”, among other things. I had the opportunity to meet Mr. Emery last year and to tour MTS with him. It is a very interesting company. Read St. Anothony’s story for more.

SurModics

In the same story in which St. Anthony talks about MTS he also discusses another Eden Prairie company - SurModics. He discusses their current stock price and Wall Street’s projections for them for this year.

Three other “honorable mentions” in today’s business section go to:

PPT Vision

PPT Vision make high speed cameras and industrial production monitoring equipment. I’ve toured their plant here in Eden Prairie. It is amazing. They inked an expansion of a contract they had with a European manfuacturer.

TELS Corp. - Completed a private placement of stock to gain new working capital to expand one of their subsidiaries.

NVE Corp. - Just got a new contract with the Defense Department to work on bio-magnetic interfacing concepts.

We’ve got a great business community here!

Here he is. Hard at work. Our new Communications Manager, Mr. Jack Sheehan:

Jack started with the City of Eden Prairie as our new Communications Manager last week. He will manage the various communications efforts the City uses to communicate the various messages we need to communicate to the world. As you can see from that sentence structure, we (I) need Jack’s help.

Jack will manage the production of our newsletters, CATV shows, annual reports, op-ed articles, brochures, mass mailings, marketing efforts, website development, etc. It’s actually quite a lot of work load.

Previous to joining us, Jack was the Communications Manager of Boy’s & Girl’s Town in Omaha, Nebraska; a communications executive with General Mills; and a news reporter at the Associated Press in Washington DC. He has a varied background in media. We liked that about him. He is also an Eden Prairie resident.

We’re glad Jack’s on board.

The City of Eden Prairie employs between 270 and 280 fulltime regular employees. of this number about 60 or so belong to a union. That union, the International Union of Operating Engineers - Local #49, represents our Street Maintenance, Outside Utilities, Inside Utilities, Park Maintenance, and Fleet Maintenance employees.

I would say that we have very good employee relations with Local #49. One of the reasons for that is the Labor-Management Committee. This committee has been in place in Eden Prairie for over a decade. There is a culture of consensus and good relations on this committee.

The Committee is composed of an equal number of labor (local #49) and management employees. The photo below is from this morning’s meeting. From left to right, that’s Wes Dunsmore, Park Maintenance supervisor; Brian Middleton, Park Maintenance worker; Tom Lammers, Streets Maintenance worker; and Bob Lambert, Director of Parks & Recreation

The Labor Management Committee meets once each month to discuss issues effecting either or both parties. Today we discussed the subjects of working “straight 8″ shifts, which are 8 straight hours of work with no paid breaks of lunches and how we might successfully launch a new blvd and right-of-way mowing program for this comming summer.

There is a high level of trust around the table. That makes for a productive meeting and a good relationship.

That’s me speaking to the Eden Prairie Chamber of Commerce at their January 2004 monthly members’ meeting & luncheon. My program titled: “2003: A Look Back; 2004: A Look Forward”. The program recounted some of the City’s accomplishments from 2003 and shared some of our plans for 2004.

One of my priorities since coming to Eden Prairie in 2002 has been to develop a more positive and productive relationship with Eden Prairie’s business community. Among the strategies I’ve employed to try and meet this goal has been to improve the City’s relationship with the Eden Prairie Chamber of Commerce.

It has not been tough to do that. Not long after I started, the Chamber brought in a new President. His name is Pat MulQueeny. Pat is great guy and he’s doing great work at the Chamber. I talk to Pay frequently about City-Business issues. When he wants information about what we’re doing, we give it to him. And vice-versa.

In the photo below, that’s Pat to the right of me. To the left of me is Kelly Solwei. Kelly is the 2004 Chamber Board Chair.

I’m looking forward to a happy and productive year of working with the Eden Prairie Chamber of Commerce in 2004.

Habitat For Technology (HFT) is a unique venture that started here in Eden Prairie as a joint effort of the School District, the Chamber of Commerce, Hennepin Technical College, and the City. The idea behind the venture was to create a local environment that would nuture and grow “tech” industry companies.

I snapped this photo of a recent HFT Board meeting. That’s Irene Kelley on the right. She is the Executive DIrector of Habitat For Technology. That’s Dr. Melissa Krull in the middle. She is on the Board of HFT and the Superintendent of Eden Prairie Schools. That’s Mr. Scott Thiss on the left. He is the President and CEO of S&W Plastics. He is also the current President of the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce.

Our Board met on Friday morning, January 16th for our quarterly Board of Directors meeting. I am also on the Board. Other Board members include Joe Stoebner from AVI Systems, Nick Eian from Endurant, and Dr. Sharon Grossbach, President of Hennepin Technical College.

We also added a new member to our board at this meeting. His name is Tom Crain. He is the founder and publisher of Epicenter, a local business journal of business activities in and around Eden Prairie. That’s him below:

One the new initiatives of the Habitat is the development of a new web portal tool. You can check out the portal at MNedenprairie.com.

MNedenprairie.com is going to be good for Eden Prairie. Wait and see.

Patricia Anderson, Minnesota State Auditor

Each year the Office of the State Auditor releases a report on the financial conditions of the state’s municipal liquor operations. The report is based on information submitted to the Office of the State Auditor by cities. The report released this week is for 2002 financials. Yes, 2002. There is a bit of a time lag with this report.

We have a municipal liquor enterprise in Eden Prairie. I have discussed it many times in this blog. The City of Eden Prairie operates three liquor stores. The profits from these liquor stores are used for the benefit of our citizens. We use 100% of the profits from our municpal liquor operations to fund capital improvements in our community. In 2003, we generated $689,982 in liquor profits for capital improvements in Eden Prairie. In 2004, we are projecting that profit number to be $746,930.

A capital improvement is a new park shleter or a new outdoor hockey rink or a new trail. If we did not have liquor profits for this purpose, we would either not do a particular project, or do it and raise taxes to pay for it. In the end, the liquor profits end up being a tax relief program.

Eden Prairie’s liquor operations are an important source of revenue for the City government. Without this revenue source, our City would have a lower quality of life or higher tax rates or both.

You decide……..

There is a good story in the Star Tribune today concerning the recent purchase of a Colorado-based software company called Opitka by our own Eden Prairie-based Stellent.

Another Eden Prairie business success story is Highjump Software. Highjump has recently agreed to be acquired by the Minnesota industrial giant 3M.

Eden Prairie High School is quite a place. It is, I’m told, the largest high school (as measured by 9-12 enrollment) in the state of Minnesota. 900+ kids per grade level. Its size scares some kids, but energizes many others. It produces a bevy of successful kids every year.

I had the opportunity yesterday to speak to two sections of Mr. Conrad’s business education class about the career of city management. Here’s what I was looking at:

The students paid attention and asked good questions about city government. I don’t know if I inspired any future city managers, but I hope I gave them some good impressions of working for a city government. It’s a good job and it’s a pleasure to work for a great city like Eden Prairie.

Thanks Mr. Conrad (that’s him..the one standing)

This is a design drawing of what the Minnesota Twins Baseball Club envision for a new baseball stadium.

The stadium would have a retracable roof and seat between 40,000 and 50,000 happy spectators. The drawings below show other design views of the Twins’ vision:

This is what you’d see if you were sitting in the family section, first with the roof open and then with it closed:

The City of Eden Prairie will submit a stadium development proposal to the Governor’s Stadium Screening Committee. Our proposal offers our city as the host community for both a football and baseball stadium. If you are interested in taking a look at our proposal, it is online at our City’s website. Clikc on the link below and take a look at it:

The process of siting a stadium is almost as difficult as figuring out who pays for it. We are at the start of a process that might linger over a couple of years to settle out. I believe our proposal will be very competitive to the very end of the process.

Twin Cities media outlets reported today the results of the annual study on metro city property tax rates prepared by the Citizen’s League. Accordining to the analysis done by the Citizen’s League, of the 108 cities in the metro area, Eden Prairie’s property taxes on the mythical $160,000 home were $1,864 for 2003. That ranked us 40th. Edina ranked 42nd. Minnetonka ranked 47th. Chanhassen ranked 6th. Property taxes for the same $160,000 house in Chanhassen were $2,257.

These property tax totals include the taxes of the dominent school district in the particular city, as well as the respective county.

If one looks at the property taxes on the average value house in each community, Eden Prairie jumps up a bit on the list. The average market value of a home in Eden Prairie in 2003 was $252,238. The property taxes on that average home in 2003 in Eden Prairie were $3,153. That ranked us 12th among metro cities. Using this criteria, Edina ranked 10th, Minnetonka ranked 20th, and Chanhassen ranked 9th. The property tax burden for the average home in Chanhassen (market value = $244,797) was $3,651.

The Number 1 ranked city in the Twin Cities metro area based on total 2003 property tax burden on the mythical $160,000 home…………………..Brooklyn Center, followed in the #2 position by Brooklyn Park.

Here’s what the Star-Tribune had to say.

Here’s what the Pioneer Press had to say.

Here’s the link to the Citizen’s League weblog/website.

McGruff: Please don’t take a bite out of me.

It was officially 2 degrees below zero when I walked into City Center this morning at 7:00 a.m., so, I’m just trying to think warm thoughts today.

Thinking about the person inside that McGruff suit makes me warm.

…..and the green grass helps too.

The Christmas and New Year’s Day holidays both fell on Thursdays this year. That meant that City Center would be open Mon-Wed, closed THursday, and open Friday for two consecutive weeks at the slowest time of the year for citizen use of our City Center services.

I determined that we would be money and morale ahead to close City Center on the respective Fridays following the respective holidays. We stayed open for busines Mon-Wed both weeks. Employees had to consume their own paid vacation time if they wanted to take the Friday off. Otherwise, they could come in and do filing, cleaning, or some other odd job that can not get done during the regular work day when their first priority is citizen service.

It was good for morale because employees could have two consective four day weekends. It was good for the City financially because we could keep the City Center building systems on “holiday” mode which meant that we consumed less electricity, natural gas, etc. And, we could also get some projects completed in the building that might normally only been possible in the evening or on a weekend (on overtime pay).

As for citizens, we’ll have to wait and see. This is our slowest time of the year for citizen service. I’ve got my ears open to hear any concerns from citizens. Citizen comment will be influential to me when this situation presents itself again.