The Blog from City Hall

I shared a presentation today with the Eden Prairie Chamber of Commerce’s Business Leaders’ Roundtable group. They met at the Eaton manufacturing plant here in Eden Prairie. The purpose of my presentation was to share information with them on the current status of the City’s finances and economic development activities.

Eden Prairie has a long record of success in the economic development field. Most of that success I would attribute to the private sector businesses that have craved to move in here. Most pay a premium to have an Eden Prairie address.

We are reaching the point in Eden Prairie where our community growth will begin to slow. This will create pressure to redevelop marginal commercial and industrial sites. I think that it will also create some political pressure to consider using financial incentives to keep growth moving forward at a pace more common here in the 1990’s.

So the big question is this: Should the City incent business relocations to Eden Prairie and/or the expansion of current Eden Prairie businesses in Eden Prairie? I asked the Business Leaders’ Roundtable this question. I did not expect a clear response from them because this is a complex question and they weren’t expecting it. But it is a question that the City must resolve in the near future.

Incenting business decisions is a tricky business itself. Would you really want a business to relocate to your community from another community merely for a financial incentive? For money? Believe me, if they’ll leave their home community for your community for money, they’ll leave your community for another community for money too.

Also, where does the money come from to provide financial incentives for business? The state and federal grant pool for economic development has largely dried up. The most common source of municipal finance incentives is from the City’s public coffers. Where does this money come from? It comes from you, the resident/taxpayers of Eden Prairie, and about half of it comes from the business community because business taxes comprise about 50% of our property tax revenue stream. Do some businesses want to subsidize other businesses to move to Eden Prairie? I’m not sure, but I’m going to ask a few them. Quite a few of them, actually.

The other source of incentive can come from the targeted business itself through the magic of tax increment financing (TIF). I’ve written about TIF in this space before, so I won’t dwell on it much today. Suffice it say, it’s a tool with a lot of limitations.

We had a good discussion about this topic. Look for more discussion on it later this year and in early 2005 with our new City Council.

By the way, is “incenting” a real word? If it’s not now, I think that it will be someday. Feedback?

I voted today. I almost always vote absentee. Election day is a busy day in the life of a City Manager. Especially if there are elections involving city officials. The day is filled from beginning to end with unexpected questions and situations that must be addressed on that day, sometimes on that spot.

I was going to try and vote on Election Day this year. I missed my chance to vote one year because of an election day situation a few years ago, and I pledged to myself never to let that happen again. So, it won’t.

My votes are cast.

And there’s not a chance in the world that I’ll tell you who I voted for.

At least once each year we take our new employees out for a tour of Eden Prairie. It takes the better part of a day to complete the tour. We typically get a bus and driver from SouthWest Metro Transit. From the photo below it looks like we got the antique trolley bus this time. We supply our own tour guide: Eden Prairie native son, and the City’s Economic Development Manager, Mr. David Lindahl.

Here’s our group of touring employees for this year:

Front row L-R: Regina Herron, Planning; Sandy Grassy, Administrative Assistant to the Public Works Director; Jeanne Klemp, Customer Service; Katharine Caliri, Accountant; Sonya Ritchie-Roy, Special Projects Coordinator in the Police Department; Mary Zilka, Administrative Assistant to the Community Development Director.
Back row L-R: Ryan Browning, IT Service Rep.; Joan Karst, Customer Service Rep. in IT and Facilities; Roy Timm; Building Maintenance Engineer; and Paul Sticha, Facilities Manager.

City employees need to know the City. That’s what I think anyway. We need to have a general base of knowledge about the people that employ us. Why? Because if we know the City, we can be more helpful when citizens call for assistance.

Knowing the City is also important because it helps employees be of more assistance to each other as we work together day in and day out. I want the Street Maintenance workers to know where recent house fires have occurred in case their is some clean-up needed on the streets. I wanted the Police to know where our well sites are for security details. I want the HR staff to know where and how an indoor ice rink works. I want the accounting staff to know where our new office space is at the Eden Prairie Center. A higher level of knowledge about our own organization by our own employees will improve our productivity because it helps us help each other work more effectively, and that enhances our collective ability, in the end, to serve our citizens more effectively too.

It’s not automatic that City employees know the City when they start work here. Most of our employees do not live in Eden Prairie, and way more than most of them did not grow up in Eden Prairie, so this tour is an important starting spot for them to become more familiar with their “employer”.

Eden Prairie is 36 square miles. We can’t see it all in one day. We can’t know every person who lives here. But we can learn the community and be of service to its citizens. And that’s what’s important.

Absentee votes are being cast in the Council Chambers of the Eden Prairie City Center for the 2004 general election.

I see absentee voting as a good barometer of voter interest in an election. High absentee voting turnouts is a sign that the turnout on election day will also be high. Not that one causes the other, but there does seem to be a correlation. I view absentee votes not as votes that would have been cast on election day anyway, but as votes that probably would not have been cast at all had it not been for the absentee option.

Eden Prairie City Clerk Kathleen Porta is our chief elections official. She works on election issues all year long to plan and execute a fair and impartial election. Think it’s easy? Remember Florida in 2000? It might look easy, but running elections is anything but that.

Ms. Porta tells me that in 2000 her office process 2,395 absentee ballots. In 2002 they processed 1,963 absentee ballots. These numbers include military and overseas ballots too.

As of Wednesday morning, October 20th, her office had processed 2,413 absentee ballots for the 2004 general election. This total does not yet include military and overseas ballots. Considering there is over a week left of absentee voting, we are going to see a huge increase in absentee turnout in 2004. We’re all ready at a record level. It will only get bigger.

November 2, 2004 is almost upon us. Please vote.

For more information about absentee voting, you can check our City website at
www. edenprairie.org

The Eden Prairie School District and the City of Eden Prairie are the two dominant local government organizations in Eden Prairie. Yes, Minnetonka and Hopkins School Districts both claim portions of Eden Prairie in their districts. And yes, Hennepin County and three Watershed Boards also have claims on Eden Prairie. But it is the School District and the City where people turn when they want government service or government change.

Not long after I started here in 2002, the Superintendent (who was also new) and I decided that we wanted to make collaboration the foundation of the relationship between our respective organizations. We decided to do this because for a couple of good reasons. One, it seemed like the right thing to do for taxpayers. And two, it seemed like the right thing to do for our respective governing boards.

In order to collaborate, the organizations needed to communicate. We decided that we would hold two joint meetings each year, one in the fall and one in the spring. We hold one at their place and one at ours. In addition, the senior level management staffs hold joint meetings on quarterly basis throughout the year. We use these meetings to handle issues that come up between us and to plan for the big meetings between our governing boards.

We held our fall joint session between the City Council and the School Board last night. Here’s a photo of Superintendent Dr. Melissa Krull and I comparing notes prior to the meeting.

The meeting agenda included a presentation by the Superintendent on the upcoming school referendum; the timeline for budget cuts at the School District; a status report on the Eden Prairie Reads program; a description of City staff interactions with District students; and a presentation by the City’s Community Development Director, Ms. Janet Jeremiah, on the future developments and redevelopments in the City. This is Janet (she’s standing in the background) doing her presentation:

These meetings are important. They are important for the reasons I stated earlier, but they are also important because the leadership of the City and the leadership of the Schools ought to be working together for the good of the entire community. Citizens deserve that. We can accomplish more working together than can be accomplished in other cities where the City and the School either don’t work together at all, or, which is much worse and not that uncommon, fight each other. I feel bad for those communities. What a terrific waste of money and civic energy.

In Eden Prairie the City and the School District have a positive and progressive working relationship. We support one another when necessary. When we have differences of opinion, we meet, talk, and resolve them.

A good community must have good schools. Good schools help create good communities. We are both working towards the same end result.

For More information on what’s happening at Eden Prairie Schools, click here:

This is Vern Lindemann. Vern is an employee at the Eden Prairie Liquor Store in the Prairieview Shopping Center. Vern is a great guy. If you’ve never shopped in this liquor store, you should give it a try (if you’re of age, of course), for no better reason than you’d have the chance to meet Vern.

Vern is also an inventor and manufacturer. The photo below is an example of a liquor store innovation that Vern invented and manufactured. Vern invented the wooden shelf insert that displays the bottle of wine in a position that is easier for the customer to read and is actually more stable for the bottle to sit in, which reduces the number of bottles that are accidentally broken by customers in the store.

Vern manufactured enough of these inserts for our Prairieview Liquor Store. He is a master woodworker, so manufacturing the inserts was important to him. He did it at home in his personal wood shop. He installed them as well.

I think the Vern’s inserts display our wine better and safer. Good work Vern! We appreciate your innovation, your effort, and your warm smile at the cash register.

In the Eden Prairie, the Major Center Area (MCA) to those of us at City Hall is the area that surrounds the Eden Prairie Center. Generally, it is the area inside Prairie Center Drive.

At our Council meeting next week, City staff will ask the Council to appoint a 13 member task force to guide the preparation of a new MCA Land Use Planning Study. With the exception of two members of the task force from our Planning Commission, the task force is composed of people who live, work, manage, and own property in the MCA. The purpose of the study is to provide an overall legislative and regulatory guideline to the redevelopment of the MCA. The purpose of the task force is to make sure the plan is responsive to the hopes and dreams of those in the planning area.

This task force will be an important community group in 2005. We are going to spend a lot of time with them. We are going to be hearing a lot from them. The redevelopment opportunities in the MCA are very significant. The market sees them and is waiting to see what the City will do. Will the City enable certain choices and discourage other choices? Probably. But what will they be? That’s really what this task force and the MCA study is all about.

Like it or not, our MCA is the central commercial focus of our community. It is, for lack of a more precise term, our “downtown”. What will it look like in the future? We’ll be able to answer that question by the end of 2005.

About this time last year, my staff and I were planning an act of destruction. We were planning the removal of the Eden Prairie School’s Family Center playground. The playground was in the middle of the parking lot outside the Family Center which is located in City Center.

The reason we were planning to remove the playground was to allow us to make more parking spaces for another tenant of City Center: C.H. Robinson Worldwide. We had just signed a new lease to keep C.H. Robinson in our building as a rent-paying tenant. They had other opportunities and they negotiated a good deal for themselves; one that included more parking spaces outside their offices.

Our plan from the start, however, was not to take the playground away from the children permanently. We planned all along to replace the playground and to make it better than it was before.

This week we dedicated the new playground space. And it is better than it was before. Here are some photos from the dedication.

(L to R: Parks Manager Stu Fox, Director of Parks & Recreation Bob Lambert, Superintendent of Schools Dr. Melissa Krull, and me)

Kids having a good time on the old playground equipment in the new playground.

Parks Manager Stu Fax is the guy who deserves the most credit for making this project work. It was a tricky project and Stu stayed with it to the end. He did great work in guiding this project from start to finish.

There are many people that deserve this “Thanks a Bunch” sign. The employees of our Street Maintenance and Park Maintenance Divisions did all the work to take the previous playground apart; store it for almost a year; then put it back together again. The School District staff was patient and trusting with us. C.H. Robinson had to sign off on the playground, and they did, so I thank them for that.

Thanks a bunch to all of them. Now let the children play.

We held the dedication ceremony for the Dr. Jean Harris Gathering Bridge on Saturday. It was a spectacular day. Beautiful weather in every respect. This is a view of the bridge in the distance from the Purgatory Creek Recreation Area. Great photo work by our Communications Manager Patrick Brink.

Here is a shot of former Mayor Harris’ husband, Mr. Leslie Ellis, sharing a memory of Jean at the dedication ceremony:

Finally, we had the honor of protecting President George Bush as his motorcade sped through (what else can a motocade do but “sped”, really) Eden Prairie on its way from Bloomington to Chanhassen.

Hail to the Chief!

Some people ask me what it’s like to watch people campaign and debate to be your new boss. I’d have to admit that it can be a little unsettling. You never what you’re going to get out of the political process. The People have a way of telling you what they want from government. Sometimes what they tell you will surprise you. Sometimes it’s not what you want to hear. But if it comes from The People in an election, it must be taken seriously.

In my profession, it’s important to pay attention to elections, but it’s even more important to stay on the sidelines during the electoral process. City staff can offer information and answer questions from candidates, but we are to offer no special favors or advantages to candidates, and that includes incumbants.

Although I am accountable to the City Council, I also pay close attention to what voters say in elections. I pay close attention to what candidates say about the City and about each other. I do this because it provides me with insight into what education and training we should offer our new Councilmembers. I also do it because it provides me with insight on what direction I need to begin moving the City. The City government structure, like a big boat, can take awhile to turn in a new direction. Elections give me a head start.

Councilmembers are the key ingredient to a successful City government. They keep the apparatus of government responsive and headed in a direction that is responsive to what The People have told them they want. And that’s worth paying attention to.

For more information on the candidates for Eden Prairie City Council, see the City’s election page at our website.

Tax Increment Finance (TIF) is a public subsidy tool that cities can use to stimulate economic development projects. Here’s how it works. A city estimates the amount of new taxes that a potential new business will pay if it decides to locate in that city. The city then multiplies this new annual tax revenue by a certain number of years (10, 15, and 20 year TIFs are not uncommon) and then does one of two things with the resulting big number: A) Gives/loans the cash back to the company as an “incentive” to make the desired decision; or, B) Spends the money on a public project (such as a street or a traffics signal) that pleases the company so much that the company goes through with making the desired decision.

TIF is used around the country, in various forms and fashions. State laws regarding the use of TIF cover a wide range of the political continuum. When I worked in an Iowa city in the early 1990’s, state laws concerning the use of TIF there were very loose. By comparison, current state law on the use of TIF by cities in Minnesota is very restrictive.

Each year the Minnesota Citizen’s League researches the use of TIF by Minnesota’s cities and publishes a report of its findings. They published their 2003-2004 data in their September 2004 edition of the Minnesota Journal.

Reasonable people will disagree on the prudence of using TIF as a tool to stimulate economic development in a community. Personally, I don’t like it. I never have. But, I’ve also supported its use on occasions where losing an economic development opportunity was worse for my community than using TIF to make it happen.

What distinguishes communities in their use of TIF, however, is how frequently they use it and what percentage of their tax base is tied up by TIF. In the Citizen’s League report, I am proud to say that Eden Prairie shows the lowest level of TIF as a percentage of our Net Tax Capacity (NTC) of any community in Hennepin County. This is the measure of how much of a community’s tax base is tied up in TIF. The larger this percentage, the more vulnerable the local tax base is to a single subsidized tax project. Also, a high percentage of the NTC that is tied up in TIF means that a lower percentage of the tax base that is producing tax revenue to support local government services in the community.

Eden Prairie’s percentage in 2004 is 1.9%. Bloomington: 5.9%. Edina: 8.3%. Minneapolis: 15.9%. Chaska and Chanhassen are at 19.&% and 15.3%, respectively. The state leader is the small town of Dundas, right outside Northfield, where 34.2% of their tax base is tied up in TIF. That’s a lot, by any reasonable standard.

How one feels about public subsidy for economic development is often confused with how one feels about “business”. These two subjects are not necessarily related. Just remember that if a TIF “goes bad” and the community has to pick up the tax bill for the economic development project that didn’t pan out, the business community pays the majority of that bill too.

Minnesota Barnes and Noble Bookstores announced that they have chosen author, and Eden Prairie city employee, Stan Tekiela for their Star of the North Award for 2004.

The Star of the North Award is chosen by twenty of Barnes and Noble’s bookstores in Minnesota to honor and recognize those writers, illustrators and publishers whose work captures the spirit of our northern land. The name of the award comes from the Minnesota state motto, “L’Etoile du Nord”.

A reception to honor Stan will be held at the Barnes and Noble in Har Mar Mall, 2100 Snelling Avenue North, Roseville on Wednesday, October 6 from 5:00 - 7:00 pm. Stan runs the programs at the City’s Outdoor Center, teaching classes and taking residents on nature trips.

Stan Tekiela is a naturalist, author and wildlife photographer. He has been a professional naturalist for over 20 years and actively studies and photographs plants and wildlife throughout the U.S. He received an Excellence in Interpretation Award and a regional award for Committment to Oudoor Education. His syndicated column appears in more than 20 cities. Stan is best known in Minnesota for his Birds of Minnesota Field Guide, and also for his field guides to Minnesota’s wildflowers, trees, reptiles and amphibians, birds of prey and mammals.

In addition to traveling around the country to study and photograph birds, Tekiela has also become accomplished at recording bird, frog, and toads sounds for audio CDs that accompany his field guides. Through his books in his conversational style, Stan brings the wonder and intracacies of the natural world to the layperson.

From all of us at the City, congratulations Stan!

What would happen if a couple of guys exploded a backpack bomb of an unidentified gas inside one of the AMC movie theatres at the Eden Prairie Center? Who would respond? How would they respond?

That’s exactly the scenario our Police, Fire, and EMS staffs practiced yesterday at the Eden Prairie Center. Yesterday was Sunday. We met at the Eden Prairie Center at 5:30 a.m. and the drill started around 6:00 a.m. The whole exercise had to be done by 10:00 a.m. to allow the Eden Prairie Center to re-open to the public. In addition to the Eden Prairie responders, we also included public safety people from Minnetonka, Hopkins, Edina, Bloomington, and Hennepin County. It was a true Police-Fire-EMS joint training operation.

I know that Eden Prairie Chief of Police Dan Carlson is going to be writing about the event at his weblog, so I will not go into much further than this. But I will say this: We are well served in Eden Prairie by our police, fire and EMS professionals. As a civilian observer of the events of yesterday I will tell you that it was an impressive sight to see our people in action. They are very good at what they do; and what they do is very important to the quality of life in Eden Prairie.

Thanks.