The Blog from City Hall

It’s Memorial Day. Summer starts in America today. We don’t have to wait for the summer solstice. It’s Schooner Days in EP. School is almost ready to wrap up for the year. Mayny School Districts have had their graduation ceremonies already.

But before we take off to a soccer game or put the boat on the lake or flip the burgers today, it is indeed right and appropriate to take a moment to reflect on Memorial Day. While the meaning of the day has expanded somewhat over the years to recognize anyone who has died, it was originally set aside to recognize those who died in service to their country.

I have not served this country as a member of the military. My father was a Marine. Aside from that, I do not come from a long line of military ancestors. And yet I have almost an instinctual feeling of gratitude for those men and women who have chosen that way of life. Their choice to serve their country has preserved all the options that America provides for my family. That’s worth, at least, a moment of contemplation.

Enjoy your Memorial Day holiday, and take a moment to thank those who have provided it to you.

Last year I heard an unusually high number (at least in my opinion) of concerns expressed by citizens about the aesthetic look of our roads in town. Not that a road will ever look pretty, but there are things that can be done to improve the appearance of our streets, highways, and bridges.

One of the most common observations that citizens shared with me was their distaste for seeing weeds growing in the cracks and expansion joints of concrete medians. I’ll have to admit that this one bugs me a bit too.

So during the very early spring I put this challenge to my Public Works Department staff: What can we do to control the growth of weeds in the medians at a reasonable cost and without adding any new staff.

They did it.

City staff reached out to Hennepin County and got some help from them. They also put together a plan to get ICWC workers (minimum security prisoners doing community service work) to do some of the labor. While this task sounds simple, it’s not. Putting people, trucks, and chemicals in the medians of roads where drivers are zipping by just a few feet away from them at 65 mph while they are talking on their cell phones, eating their lunch, and shaving all at the same time. How’d you like to be the guy in the median spraying weeds with that hazard on both sides of you? No thanks for me.

Here’s what it looks like when you line up all the trucks, traffic control, and workers it takes to take on this task:

This operation involved 12 people, 6 trucks, and 80 hours of labor to apply about $200 of weed killing chemicals.

Those pesky weeds - we showed’em!

One of the nice traditions that we have here in Eden Prairie is our annual recognition and awards banquet for the dozens of volunteers that serve on our City advisory boards, commissions, commmittees, task forces, etc. The event allows the City to, in qa small way, thank the volunteers that share their time and energy with their fellow citizens by serving on our Park Board, Planning Board, Clean Indoor Air Task Force, etc. This year’s event was the 27th annual banquet, so it’s a good part of our history now.

Our keynote speaker this year was 3rd District Congressman Jim Ramstad. Here is Congressman Ramstad with Mayor Nancy Tyra-Lukens:

Congressman Ramstad addressed the 150 or so people at the banquet with a message about the importance of civic volunteerism and spirit. He also helped with our award ceremony, including personal recognition of the group of high school students who represent student interests on our various boards and commissions:

We really do depend on the citizen members of our advisory boards and commissions to help us govern the City. Their judgment about the direction that City government ought to be going is an important factor in our day to day operations.

We couldn’t do it without them.

But first, a story…….

After a long interview process [I’m not complaining here - it was worth it] I finally secured my new job here in Eden Prairie in the early spring of 2002. On the final night of interviews, I interviewed before the City Council with two other people who were seeking the same job. Following the interview, on my drive home, I received a call from the executive search consultant who was assisting the City Council with the search process offering me the job. It was close to 10:00 p.m. when I got this call. I accepted the job and then went to bed.

I got up early the next day to head into my former office in Northfield. It was close to 7:00 a.m. when I got in. I noticed my telephone had a voice mail message on it. That was unusual because I cleared my messages the previous afternoon. I picked up the phone and checked my voice mail. The message was from a woman named Ms. Isis Stark congratulating me on my new job in Eden Prairie, and requesting a meeting with me at my earliest possible convenience to talk about a project she was working on in Eden Prairie. She was the first person to call me about my new job. She got to me before the media and before I could talk to my Northfield staff about my decision to move on to Eden Prairie. She went on to tell me that she was working on behalf of the American Cancer Society and that she needed my help in getting a smoking ban ordinance adopted in Eden Prairie.

The rest, as they say, is history in Eden Prairie. The City Council debated the proposed smoking ban ordinance for the better part of 2002 before resolving not to go forward with the first significant smoking ban in the metro area.

I want to share this story to illustrate a point. The proponents of the smoking ban ordinances are good people who believe strongly in the rightousness of what they are doing. As the instigators of a new initiative, they have the advantage of being able to plan and advance on a target (e.g. - such as a city or county government) to gain an early political advantage. They did that in Eden Prairie. They are doing it now in Minneapolis and St. Paul.

But there will be resistance to their initiative. There was in Eden Prairie. There will be in Minneapolis and St. Paul. The resistance will come first from hospitality business-owners who fear loss of business from their smoking customers. This resistance, surprisingly is not that strong because the debate always comes down to numbers - and both sides have numbers to support their theory.

The next wave of resistance, however, will be more formidable. This wave is populated by people who do not want the government to further suspend their personal liberty. Many of them are non-smokers. They want the market to sort out where people can smoke and where they can’t. They believe that free market forces will ultimately be more successful in resolving this issue than government intervention. These folks are strong and they are well organized. They vote. They were effective advocates for their cause in Eden Prairie in 2002, which was an election year, and I believe they will be effective in Minneapolis and St. Paul in 2004, also an election year.

The final wave of resistance to the smoking ban in Eden Prairie, and I’m sure is working feverishly in Minneapolis and St. Paul, is more murky. There are fringe elements out there in this debate that are quite devious. I used to get e-mails and letters from them on a weekly basis during Eden Prairie’s consideration of this issue. They will investigate the personal lives of elected officials in Minneapolis and St. Paul, and attempt to exploit any perceived political vulnerabilities with a vengeance. I think that we are still feeling some of the after effects of these folks in Eden Prairie. They poisoned our political atmosphere to get what they wanted, and I’m quite sure they don’t care. They pursue victory at any cost.

My unsolicited advice to the elected officials of Minneapolis and St. Paul is that the best way to successfully adopt a smoking ban ordinance would be to move very quickly through the ordinance adoption process. The compromise is that while you will achieve what you want to achieve, you will probably have to minimize public debate and discussion. The more public debate and discussion you engage in on this issue, the lower the probably is that you will actually pass the ordinance you want to pass.

I don’t like the sound of that, but on this issue, I believe it’s true.

Good luck.

This is the Central Middle School Student Council. They raised money for the Heart Safe Eden Prairie program and raised enough to place a new Automated External Defibrulator for their school. Great kids. Great cause. Great work.

Row 1 (L to R): Fire Chief George Esbensen, Kayla Preston, Anna Baker, Alyssa Wargin, Shamir Shah, Annalyse Seelye, Stephanie Blichfield, and Denise McCrummen-Student Council sponsor

ROW 2 (L to R): Angel Lee, Parker Sipe, Katie Osberg, Bronwyn Miller, Steve Shonts, Heidi Saxton, Becky Hudlow-Director of Health Services and Kirstin Reitzner-Student Council sponsor

ROW 3 (L to R): Chuck Plantz-CMS Dean of Students, Jacob Mars, Lauren Gross, Alison Cheever, and Adam Lueck

I read in the Star Tribue Sunday edition today that state legislators are continuing to talk about the potential of a special session. I’m sure there are issues to examine and problems to resolve, but for those of us that must track state legislation, the end of the session hasn’t been all bad.

There’s time to take a breath and rest.

The organizing principles of how a bill becomes a law are not nearly as principled as you’d like to think. Bills can pop up out of the most unusual sources, and at the most unusual times. You think a particular bill is dead in committee, and then you see it being debated on the floor of the House. You might see the Senate poo-poo a bill on the floor of its Chamber, and then you see the bill come out the House-Senate Conference Committee and on its way to the Governor for signing.

The thing I have learned from my short few years watching the State Legislature is that you can never take your eye off the ball. If you are concerned about a bill, keep telling your legislator that you are concerned about - even after your legislator tells you the bill is “dead for this year” or that it “never got a hearing” or even that it “didn’t get out of committee”. Your legislator is not lying to you when he or she tell you these things. They may all be true. However, your legislator may not be party to some other legislator’s hopes, dreams and concerns about your bill.

It happens all the time.

Now that’s a headline! I’ve always wanted to write under a headline like that. Here’s how it went down.

Around 2:00 a.m. on Saturday morning, May 15th, a couple of fellows backed up their car to the Wedding Day Diamonds jewelry store here in Eden Prairie. They smashed the glass doors with hammers to get into the store. With the alarms blaring, they smashed the glass display cases with the same hammers and filled their briefcases with diamonds and other jewels. They got out of the store with an estimated $35,000 in jewels.

The alarm also alerted our police who rushed to the scene. The police got their quickly; just as the alleged jewel thieves started to speed away. A high speed chase ensued between the Police in their standard issue squad cars and the jewel thieves in their black Lexus. During the pursuit officers reached speeds of 120 mph - but the Lexus continued to pull away.

Through the assistance of the Minnesota State Patrol and the Bloomington Police Department, the police eventually got the alleged thieves turned around and headed towards some “Stop Sticks” placed on the road. Stop Sticks are used to pop the tires of fleeing cars to get them to stop. They worked. The alleged jewel thieves gave up after loosing their tires. They are in custody in the Hennepin County Jail charged with felony theft and felony burglary.

Our Police do this kind of thing all the time. They do it well. It just doesn’t always make the news. Hats off to Sgt. Jamie Good, Officer Tom Lowery, Officer Jim Kline, and Officer Emily Eastburn for their work on this case. Eden Prairie citizens can rest assured that you’ve got good people protecting you and your property while you are asleep…….and while you’re awake too.

There’s probably a lot of old hockey players out there reading this blog who know how an indoor ice arena works. I suppose if you grow up on the ice you probably get to know a bit about what actually makes the ice. I grew up in Iowa, so the whole indoor ice scene was new to me when I moved to Minnesota in 1996.

Our Community Center has two indoor ice rinks. The Community Center was opened to the public in 1982. Rink #1 is of the same vintage. So is Rink #1’s freezing system. The freezing system consists of a large web of stainless steel pipes that are buried in the concrete floor of the ice rink. The pipes are filled with Freon gas. The Freon gas cools the concrete which freezes the water that is sprayed on the concrete. This is how ice is made.

Our Community Center staff has been observing an increase in the consumption of Freon, which means that is might be leaking. Leaking Freon into the atmosphere is not good. Earlier this month the City employed a professional leak detecting consultant to analyze our system. We got the consultant’s report last week. The piping system in Rink #1 is leaking - terribly. The photo below shows a picture of what an actual piece of this stainless steel pipe looks like. This piece was removed from the Rink #1 floor:

The corrosion of the pipe is significant, as is the pitting that has created the holes. This is not good.

We cannot operate an ice arena that loses 15-20 pounds of Freon gas everyday. It’s not cost-effective and almost certainly unacceptable to the EPA. Now that we have diagnosed the problem, we must take action to fix it.

At our May 18th City Council meeting, City staff sought and received authorization from the City Council to design a project to install a new freezing system into Rink #1. We want to start this project immediately so that we are able to complete the project as early in the fall of 2004 as possible.

We are going to displace summer ice arena users because of this project. That is regrettable, but there’s no other way to do this project except to demolish and remove the entire concrete floor and install a new freezing system.

Cost at this point is not known with a high degree of certainty, but it is likely to be in the neighborhood of $400,000 - $500,000.

Making ice is not cheap.

Each year the Eden Prairie Human Rights Commission recognizes an individual and an organization that have accomplished something significant in the field of human rights during the previous year. They also award a $1,000 scholarship in the name of former Eden Prairie Mayor Dr. Jean Harris to a high school student from Eden Prairie.

The winner of this year’s Dr. Jean L. Harris scholarship is Eden Prairie High School senior Catherine Wang. Ms. Wang will be attending the University of Minnesota this fall.

Congratulations Catherine.

The winner of this year’s organization human rights award is the Eden Prairie School District’s Human Resources Department. Accepting the award on behalf of the School District was HR Manager Nanette Missaghi.

Congratulations Nanette.

The winner of this year’s individual human rights award is Mr. Jerry Anderson, VP of Operations at Cub Foods. Jerry has a long history of actively recruiting and hiring employees from many minority communities. There were half a dozen of Jerry’s employees in the audience to testify to his qualifications for this award.

That’s Human Rights Commission vice-chair Jeff Strate giving the award to Jerry.
Congratulations Jerry.

In one of my posts from last week I showed some photos of what we were calling a “suspicious fire”. Now we are calling it arson. And it looks like we are now seeing a trend in several other suspicious fires that could point to a series of arsons.

Arson is a difficult crime to solve. It’s not impossible. But it is difficult. It’s usually a solitary crime and much of the evidence is destroyed during the commission of the crime. Sometimes the motivation of the arsonist are not quite as clear cut as they are in other property crimes.

We need the public’s help with this crime. Here’s our press release:

EDEN PRAIRIE POLICE AND FIRE SEEKING INFORMATION ON ARSONIST
Four arson cases responsible for more than $1 million in damage to property

Eden Prairie � On May 8, 2004 at 2:21 a.m. Eden Prairie Police and Fire Departments responded to a structure fire at a construction site on Indigo Drive. The fire was called in by witnesses who observed smoke in the sky. Public safety officials arrived on the scene to find two town home units fully engulfed in flames. Damages to the structure, which is being built by Wooddale Builders, are estimated to be more than $1 million dollars.

On April 23, 2004 at 10:08 a.m. police and fire officials responded to 9254 Preston Place on the report of a suspicious fire in a home under construction. Manley Construction employees discovered smoke and fire damage in the home, which appeared to be caused by a fire that had self-extinguished. Damages were estimated at $3,000.

Two Orrin Thompson homes were victims of arson in December 2003. One home, 17982 Strawberry Court, suffered smoke and fire damage to multiple areas of the home. Damages were estimated to be less than $10,000. The second home, 9700 Geisler Road, was not damaged by fire, although evidence suggested that someone attempted to start a fire.

Investigations by the Eden Prairie Police and Fire Marshal have determined that all four of these incidents are due to arson. They have similar characteristics, including the location of the fires and the methods used to set them. All the incidents have occurred in southwest Eden Prairie in unoccupied homes under construction. No one has been injured in any of the fires.

Eden Prairie officials are looking into possible connections to similar incidents throughout the metro area. However, at this time there is no confirmation that the cases are related to other arson incidents in the Twin Cities.

Police are asking citizens to watch for suspicious activity, especially in areas where homes are under construction. If you witness suspicious activity in progress, call 911. You may also call the TIPLINE, 952-949-8477, to anonymously report suspicious activity or information on a suspect. TIPLINE messages are reviewed once every 24 hours, so situations requiring prompt attention must be directed to 911.

A reward of up to $5,000 is being offered for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person responsible for these arson incidents.

Eden Prairie citizens voted yesterday in a special election to determine the fate of a proposed $22.5 million dollar bond issue that would have been used to construct a number of improvements to the City’s overall park and recreational facilities.

Citizens said “no”.

3,078 voted against the proposal. 2,357 voted in favor of the proposal. Overall, there was a 16% voter turnout. That’s low, but not bad for a special election.

The proposal would have funded a comprehensive set of new and improved public amenities for our community. But there’s a reason why State Statute requires these types of bond issues to be put directly to the people. We are talking about amenities. Citizens should rightly determine the level of amenities they are willing to support through their property tax dollars. And that’s what they did.

We will take a look at these results, and probably do some post-election surveying, to find out what aspects of the bond issue were objectionable to citizens. It might be the whole darn thing. It might be, for example, just the proposed aquatic center. It might be, for example, just the baseball park. We’ll never know until we ask.

My staff that worked on this effort will be disappointed. I think our Councilmembers will be disappointed. I know the various youth athletic association leaders and other advocates of the bond issue will be disappointed. I’m disappointed.

But the democractic process works. We accept the decision of our citizens - and we move on. Eden Prairie is still a wonderful place to live, and we’ll do the best we can to keep it that way.

The Eden Prairie Fire Department responded to a fire early Saturday morning on May 8th in a town house project under construction near the intersection of Pincherry Lane and Indigo Drive in the Hennepin Village area of Eden Prairie. This is what they saw when they got there:

This is the same fire a few minutes later:

Here’s what it looked like the next day:

This building is next door to the building that was completely destroyed. This one was saved from complete destruction by our Fire Department:

Our Fire Marshall is investigating this fire. It is suspicious. The buildings were under construction. No one was living there. Four units were destroyed. The total loss is estimated to be about $2,000,000.

No fire fighters were injured in the fire. That’s important.

These fine young people represented Eden Prairie at the Granite City Cup ultimate frisbee tournament this weekend in St. Cloud. Eden Prairie’s team was the class of the tournament. My son was participating on another team, so I had the opportunity to sit in the hot afternoon sun all day on Saturday and watch ultimate frisbee. Here’s a shot of my sunburned leg to prove it:

I was not that familiar with the game prior to this event. It is a very pure sport. There are not many rules. Play is governed by an honor code. There are no referees on the field of play. And, at the end of each match, each team serenades the other to the tune of a popular song with lyrics adapted to thank the opponent for the game and to recognize their heroism or valor in the match. It’s kind of silly, but it brings each match to a friendly end.

Ultimate is hot on college campuses all over the country, and it’s finding its way to high schools now too.

Ultimate is a catchy game.

I hope no one is cheering. Victory Sports could have been a good idea, but it’s dead. Dead as the proverbial doornail.

I serve on the board of the Southwest Suburban Cable Commission. We meet twice each year to discuss issues that effect cable television in the communities of Eden Prairie, Minnetonka, Richfield, Edina, and Hopkins. At our most recent meeting, which was just two weeks ago, an official from time Warner Cable explained to us the theory of Victory Sports.

Cable television is not an unusual market-based product. The distributors (Time Warner, Charter, Comcast, etc)sell you programming which is made by others. You pay the distributor and the distributor pays the programmer. While individual distributors have effective monopolies in individual communities (How many cable tv providers can you choose from?), they must still compete with free broadcasters and with satellite, or as the cable guys like to call it - The Dish.

Last year, the Twins were being paid about $6,000,000 by Fox Sports Net for the privilege of producing and telecasting Twins baseball games. Fox Sports Net then makred-up the product and re-sold these telecasts to the cable distributors so that we could all watch the Twins on our local cable systems. The Twins got $6,000,000 out of that deal. There’s no way to tell how much the cable companies got.

The Twins thought that the cable companies were probably making in the vicinity of a Ton o’ Money off Twins baseball telecasts. They thought to themselves: Why should we make only $6,000,000 from our product when Fox Sports Net and the cable companies are making money for nothing? The Twins figured that if they could produce and telecast their own games they could make a Ton o’ Money - and keep all of it! Their projections showed that they could gross about $52,000,000 if they could get their own baseball telecasts on to all the cable and Dish customers in the Twins baseball market and get paid $2.50/household for that product.

Well, the cable companies did not want to buy the Twins baseball broadcasts at $2.50/household and then raise our cable bills a like amount. The Twins did not want the baseball games to be distributed as Pay-Per-View. The cable companies also did not want to buy the telecasts and then give them to their loyal customers for free.

After months of negotiations among the Twins, the cable distributors, Fox Sports Net, the Governor’s Office, and countless others, the Twins broke the stalemate this weekend. The Twins decided to go back to Fox Sports Net. They sold Fox Sports Net the rights to produce and telecast Twins baseball games for the next eight years. They will get between somewhere in the neighborhood of $12,000,000 to $14,000,000 per year from Fox Sports Net. We will get to watch the games.

Will Fox Sports Net raise its costs to the cable distributors to cover the higher cost of buying Twins baseball? Of course they will. Will the cable distributors pass that cost on to you and me? Of course they will. That’s how our economy works.

Now excuse me. I’ve got to catch the highlights of the game today. We got kicked around by the A’s in Oakland. It’s good to see the Twinkies on my television again.

Today was CPR and AED training day for me, my assistant Mike Barone, and my executive assistant Lorene McWaters. It took four hours, but we are now trained in CPR and in the use of the automated external deifbrulator (AED). Our goal this year is to train 50% of our City employees in CPR and AED. We’ll train the other 50% next year.

These two guys were our trainers. The guy on the left is Lance Brace. Lance is a Police Officer in our Police Department and a fire fighter in our Fire Department. The guy on the right is Jeff Richards. Jeff is a Captain in our Fire Department at Station #3. They did a wonderful job. It’s great to have quality in-house trainers.

Thanks guys.