The Blog from City Hall

Every now and then I like to share with my reading audience the samples of the feedback that I receive to my blog. Look, here’s some now:

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Judy asked: “I am interested in purchasing at Hartford Commons but concerned about not knowing the taxes. I am told “$50 a month until the last person moves in then the city will assess”. Any way to get an estimate?”

>>> I forwarded Judy’s question to our Assessing Division staff. They followed up with her later.
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David said: “After reading Governing magazine’s article about blogging in the government sphere, I was excited to see your blog. I am currently working on completing my Masters of Public Administration degree and I am planning on beginning a career in city management. My experiences as an intern are outlined in a blog that I have been working on for about a year. It is exciting to see people using blogs as an opportunity to communicate with the public. Keep up your work as it inspires others, including me, to continue blogging.”

>>> It’s fan mail. Who doesn’t like fan mail?
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Dan chided me a bit: “Your Blog claims that Eden Prairie did not opt to limit smoking in 2002! Then what’s with those no smoking signs in city parks? Prohibiting smoking in parks is the most stupid thing I’ve ever heard of, but that’s uppity EP for you.
Anyway to get that law reversed? Oh, and you’ve not posted any city council minutes for almost two months.”

>>> Dan was right about my original blog posting concerning the smoking regulations the Council adopted last year. I fixed my blog to reflect the correction. However, Dan is wrong about Eden Prairie being uppity and about the timely posting of Council meeting minutes. He was 1 for 3. Not bad, I guess.
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Lyn said: “Didn’t Jean Harris say Eden Prairie was the Emerald City? She was close, though I’d say the Benjamin Moore hue is more like a peridot.”

>>> Former Mayor Jean Harris may indeed have said that Eden Prairie is like an Emerald City. That sounds like something she may have said. I’m not sure was peridot is. Is it a color or something? I don’t know. I depend on Benjamin Moore to tell me what color is.
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Katharine commented: “It sure would be nice if Eden Prairie would have a more user friendly web site. It seems really out-of-date to not have community center classes and registration via the web. At the very least post a pdf file of community brochures. (Hire a tech student… it really isn’t that hard and shouldn’t cost a lot of money!) Thanks for listening.”

>>> Good idea, Katharine. We did it! We are testing the new site internally with out staff right now and getting ready to launch the new site to the public on January 3, 2005.
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Blondehoneybunny@aol.com cooed (with a cute little pout, I’ll bet): “Oh no, I wanted scott neal the actor!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

>>> There are many other Scott Neals in the world. There is one in England who is a daytime tv soap opera actor. He’s a handsome young rascal. I think that’s who blondehoneybunny really wanted. Hey, I was just excited to get blog feedback from someone named blondhoneybunny. That’s good enough for me.
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That’s all for now. Enjoy your New Year’s Eve Eve.

What could possibly be wrong with putting up a stop sign?

After all, it’s just a sign.

Wouldn’t it be safer if we had stop signs at every street intersection?

Better safe than sorry. Right?

Who can be against stop signs? We hear that all the time. Why not just put them up? We hear that too. Here’s why:

Stop signs have a function in the arena of driver safety. One of the functions that a stop sign does not have might surprise you. Stop signs do not function well as tools to control speed. The Minnesota Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD) is the guide for traffic control devices for the entire state. It is organized in a way that provides standards that cities must follow and describes what we should do (GUIDANCE) and provides suggestions (SUPPORT) for consistent implementation.

In Section 2B.5, under GUIDANCE, the first recommendation is that STOP signs should not be used for speed control. The essence of these sections is that stop signs should be used in the following applications:

1) For safety applications where a minor street intersects a high-volume street and the right-of-way would be unclear to motorists.

2) Streets entering a through street similar to the current situation where side streets are required to stop.

3) Un-signalized intersections in a signalized area

4) Where high-speed roadways intersect, a history of crashes that could be corrected or at locations where there is restricted site distances approaching the intersection.

5) Where traffic signals are justified, stop signs may be used as an interim measure until signal installation.

6) At intersections where each street has high traffic volumes once again to clarify right-of-way for motorists.

Sometimes City staff are perceived as being stubborn in striving for stop sign placements only where the signs are warranted. We’re stubborn for a reason. Eden Prairie’s experience as well as reports from across the country lead us to the following conclusions:

1) Un-warranted stop signs can have a non-compliance rate as high as 75%. If drivers do not perceive a need from a safety standpoint or to help determine right-of-way, non-compliance can be expected.

2) Un-warranted stop signs can actually have a negative effect on pedestrian safety. Even though residents are concerned about traffic volume on this corridor, it none-the-less is a relatively low-volume street with a correspondingly low volume of pedestrian traffic. In an instance where a pedestrian and a vehicle arrive at an un-warranted stop sign location, a dilemma is created should the pedestrian assume that the sign offers protection and cross the street? At the volumes along this corridor, we are convinced that the gaps or intervals between cars offer many opportunities for pedestrians to cross the street and that the safest situation requires that the pedestrian take on a proactive defensive posture.

3) Studies have shown that unwarranted stop signs have no effect on speed.

4) Although least important, un-warranted stop signs waste time and fuel, can increase noise due to stopping and starting and can increase driver aggravation.

5) Maintaining uniformity improves driver respect for all traffic control devices.

It sounds like a simple matter just to slap up a stop sign, but it comes not only with a financial cost, but also a management cost and an enforcement cost as well. It’s not just that simple.

I would like to thank our Public Works Director Gene Dietz for the bulk of the material I used for this posting. He’s been around a long time and he knows what he’s talking about when it comes to this subject.

This is my little sister Sheri and her husband David. Sheri, David, and their two children Katrin & Jacob live and work in New Delhi, India. Sheri and David both work at the American Embassy School in New Delhi. Sheri is a guidance counselor. David is a math teacher, coach, and ad hoc IT guy. Katrin and Jacob are elementary school students. Sheri and David don’t usually dress like this, but it’s the most recent photo I have of them, so it’s the best I could do.

Sheri and her family are counting their blessings this morning. When the monster earthquake hit Indonesia this weekend they were not in New Delhi, which is safely in the interior of the country. They were in a resort in Thailand where thousands of people were killed by the accompanying tsunami and tidal waves. Fortunately, they were on the east coast of the very thin Thai peninsula where most of the American and European tourists flock to during the holidays. Most of the devastation in Thailand was on the west coast, on the Indian Ocean side.

Whether it’s an earthquake at the bottom of the sea off the coast of Indonesia or another car bomb exploding in Mosul, it reminds we again how international events can really strike you at home - even when you are safely in the middle of North America.

Count your blessings. I’m counting mine.

Merry Christmas to all those who read this blog. My gift to you this Christmas Day is my favorite Christmas poem. It’s The Three Kings by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. It’s inexpensive, but it’s from the heart.

Enjoy.

The Three Kings

Three Kings came riding from far away,
Melchior and Gaspar and Baltasar;
Three Wise Men out of the East were they,
And they travelled by night and they slept by day,
For their guide was a beautiful, wonderful star.

The star was so beautiful, large and clear,
That all the other stars of the sky
Became a white mist in the atmosphere,
And by this they knew that the coming was near
Of the Prince foretold in the prophecy.

Three caskets they bore on their saddle-bows,
Three caskets of gold with golden keys;
Their robes were of crimson silk with rows
Of bells and pomegranates and furbelows,
Their turbans like blossoming almond-trees.

And so the Three Kings rode into the West,
Through the dusk of the night, over hill and dell,
And sometimes they nodded with beard on breast,
And sometimes talked, as they paused to rest,
With the people they met at some wayside well.

“Of the child that is born,” said Baltasar,
“Good people, I pray you, tell us the news;
For we in the East have seen his star,
And have ridden fast, and have ridden far,
To find and worship the King of the Jews.”

And the people answered, “You ask in vain;
We know of no King but Herod the Great!”
They thought the Wise Men were men insane,
As they spurred their horses across the plain,
Like riders in haste, who cannot wait.

And when they came to Jerusalem,
Herod the Great, who had heard this thing,
Sent for the Wise Men and questioned them;
And said, “Go down unto Bethlehem,
And bring me tidings of this new king.”

So they rode away; and the star stood still,
The only one in the grey of morn;
Yes, it stopped –it stood still of its own free will,
Right over Bethlehem on the hill,
The city of David, where Christ was born.

And the Three Kings rode through the gate and the guard,
Through the silent street, till their horses turned
And neighed as they entered the great inn-yard;
But the windows were closed, and the doors were barred,
And only a light in the stable burned.

And cradled there in the scented hay,
In the air made sweet by the breath of kine,
The little child in the manger lay,
The child, that would be king one day
Of a kingdom not human, but divine.

His mother Mary of Nazareth
Sat watching beside his place of rest,
Watching the even flow of his breath,
For the joy of life and the terror of death
Were mingled together in her breast.

They laid their offerings at his feet:
The gold was their tribute to a King,
The frankincense, with its odor sweet,
Was for the Priest, the Paraclete,
The myrrh for the body’s burying.

And the mother wondered and bowed her head,
And sat as still as a statue of stone,
Her heart was troubled yet comforted,
Remembering what the Angel had said
Of an endless reign and of David’s throne.

Then the Kings rode out of the city gate,
With a clatter of hoofs in proud array;
But they went not back to Herod the Great,
For they knew his malice and feared his hate,
And returned to their homes by another way.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

For the past 18 months (or so) various members of City staff have been working with an eclectic mix of consultants and volunteers to examine the City’s “branding”. We took a look at the City’s use of color, image, and design and examined how both citizens and non-citizens of Eden Prairie were perceiving Eden Prairie. We looked at not only how they perceived the city government of Eden Prairie, but also the total image of Eden Prairie.

We care about how our citizens perceive Eden Prairie for obvious reasons. We care about how non-citizens perceive Eden Prairie because we believe it is in everyones’ interest in Eden Prairie for people everywhere to have a positive opinion of the community. I want people who live in Eden Prairie to be happy they chose to live here. I want people who do not live in Eden Prairie to wish they did or could. This is good for our community morale, but it’s also good for the citizens who own property here, who also happen to be the people that support the operations of our city government through their property taxes. What’s good for them is ultimately good for us.

The city government does many things already to create a desirable image of Eden Prairie by accomplishing the regular functions that a city government does on a daily basis. We keep try to keep the place clean and safe. We create beautiful parks and trails. If we can help to sustain the perception out there that Eden Prairie is a highly desirable community through our use of imagery and passive marketing, then I think we are accomplishing something of value for our citizens.

Here’s our current City logo:

Here’s the keystone image of the City’s new branding identity, effective January 1, 2005:

The new identity system uses black, yellow, and orange colors to providing a striking contrast, visibility, and to represent the vibrant nature of the City. The rectangular shape of the logo design gives it a sense of stability and allows the image to be split into modules, if necessary for a specific use. I have used the image vertically, but it can also be used horizontally too. I like that aspect of the design because we have so many different uses for a design like this. The tag line can be included, or not. It works either way. We could substitute the word “Minnesota” for the tagline and it works just as well. Flexibility was important to me in selecting a new design.

The tag line “Live. Work. Dream.” is a restatement of what we heard from the focus groups we used to hone the design. They told us over and over that Eden Prairie had it all. In the words of one young female focus group participant: “Eden Prairie has everything you need. You just need to make the right choices.” Maybe a little corny, but I’ve thought about that a lot. I think she may have hit the proverbial nail on the head.

Look for our new brand identity to be everywhere in 2005.

Everywhere.

The Pioneer Trail-Hwy 169 intersection is open. This is the view of it eastbound on Pioneer Trail just as I am approaching the Walgreens’ store:

Sure, there a few details left to complete, but the roadway is open and you can access all four legs of the intersection now.

Next up: You can all ready see the earth movers and the earth being moved at the Anderson Lakes Parkway-Hwy 169 intersection. In early 2005 MnDOT will close down that intersection for most of 2005 to do the same thing they just completed at Pioneer Trail. When completed, it will be a limited access freeway interchange.

As you may have heard, the Hwy 169-Interstate 494 project has been pushed back a year. Nevertheless, even pushed back one year, it’s still more than ten years ahead of the schedule we anticipated in 2003. So, while we wish it could go forward as soon as possible, we’ll just have to wait until more federal funds are available and then it’ll get started. In any event, it is still scheduled to be completed before the end of this decade, and not the next one.

These three projects on our border with Bloomington will make it easier for citizens to the south of Eden Prairie to flow through our community, as well as improving our access to the state’s surface transportation network. And that’s good for our citizens and businesses alike.

I moved to Minnesota in 1996 to start my new job as Northfield’s new City Administrator. The interview process to acquire this new job started at The Ole Store. Being from Iowa, I was initially confused about The Ole Store. I remember thinking to myself, hmmmm, why would they name a store in Northfield, Minnesota after a Spanish cheer (think - “O-lay!)?

Uff da. Was I ever wrong about that. Fortunately for me, I did not ask that question of anyone from Northfield in my interview, and I got the job. I quickly came to understand the more Nordic derivation of “Ole”, and The Ole Store, its place in Northfield’s Norwegian history.

There is a prominent story in the Star tribune’s metro section today about the upcoming closure of The Ole Store. It’s a sad event in Northfield. The Ole Store has been close to closure before, but it’s always bounced back before the fateful day occurred. Not so this time. I am afraid that history is leaving the classic corner store/cafe in its wake.

The Ole Store was a great place to get a strong cup of coffee, a very fattening Ole Roll, and take the informal pulse of the community. It was one of a kind. I’m sure there used to be hundreds of Ole Store-like places in Minnesota, but they have fallen to their more glitzy, pre-packaged competition over the past 50 years. That’s too bad, I think.

So long Ole Store. I’m glad I got to know ya.

With the icy rain pelting my office windows this morning, I thought it would be a good opportunity to talk about storm water management in San Antonio, Texas. Also, a good opportunity to think back on the beautiful sunny days I spent there just a week ago. For those of you who have never been there, San Antonio offers many amenities, but the one it is best known for is its storm water management system, better known as The Riverwalk.

The Riverwalk is a combination of the San Antonio River and a system of canals that are really concrete-lined storm water retention ditches. Before the system of canals was constructed, the downtown area of San Antonio was frequently victimized by intense flooding damage. Instead of simply building a system of ditches and basins, the City fathers & mothers did the proverbial lemons-into-lemonade thing and constructed a storm water management infrastructure that has turned into the biggest tourism draw in the City.

Cities must manage storm water because we are the managers of the transportation system. The more concrete and asphalt that we lay on the ground and the more buildings that we allow to be built, the more storm water that is created that must be managed. Left to its own devices, the natural accumulation and movement of unregulated storm water causes great damage to the built and natural development that we live in. We manage the accumulation and flow of storm water for not only our own benefit, but also for the benefit of the natural environment.

The Riverwalk is lined with sidewalks, hearty stone walls, and beautiful sub-tropical flora. It is connected to the streets above by many stairways. Most of the Riverwalk is handicapped accessible. The Riverwalk is lined with hotels, restaurants, bars, and souvenir vendors. During most of the year, it is lighted at night with Christmas-style lighting. It is especially sparkling at this time of year.

There is system of River Taxis that will ferry you throughout The Riverwalk area for $3.50/ride. They are fun and reliable.

Storm water management doesn’t have to be boring and merely good for the environment. It can be an asset. It can be an amenity. Can we do a Riverwalk in Minnesota? Maybe not. But maybe there’s something we can do with our storm water that is just as interesting. Maybe.

Here’s a comment that I received yesterday through my blog feedback mechanism:

Comment: Quick question - I’ve noticed on my drive to and from work - on a stretch of 212 from Anderson Lakes to 62 that there are a lot of City vehicles parked in the boulevards, or the medians, or in the lawns on the side of the road with their parking lights on and person inside them. What’s going on? This has been going on for over a week, it seems.

There are people inside those City vehicles. Our people. And they are counting cars. They are watching cars turn. They are noting the direction of the turning cars. In some cases, they may even be noting your speed, but not to give you a ticket.

The City is sponsoring these surveillance activities to advance our knowledge of traffic behavior around the Eden Prairie Center. It’s called a traffic study. We are doing the traffic study in connection with the a bigger land use study of the area around the Eden Prairie Center that we call the Major Center Area Study, or MCA Study for short.

We are studying the current status of the Major Center Area so that we can begin to plan for its future. The Major Center Area is bounded generally by Valley View Road on the north and Prairie Center Drive on the south, west, and east. This is the retail commercial heart of Eden Prairie. And as you’ve noticed over the past five years, it has changed enormously. The Eden Prairie Center is fantastic now. New restaurants. New housing. New retail development. New park. New transit facility.

Lots of new. Same roads. That’s one reason we’re taking a look at the traffic in the area.

Another reason we are looking at the traffic patterns in the area though is that while there is a lot of new development in the Major Center Area, we believe there is more change coming in the area in the near future. The recent entry into our local market of Best Buy may be a taste of our future where a retailer buys an existing office building in order to tear it down to build a retail store site. Retailers are clamoring to get into Eden Prairie. I want the City to be prepared to react to this urge, and to accommodate it when it seems like the right thing to do.

Ease of mobility is an important element when judging the success of a transportation system. Safety is another. We are studying and planning a road system for our Major Center Area that makes sense to drivers; serves the commercial needs of our retailers; and is affordable for our taxpayers. It’s a tall order to deliver on all three of those objectives, but I’ll bet we can do it. We’ve got our best people working on this thing.

Stay tuned.

That’s Sue Brown on the left and Mayor Nancy Tyra-Lukens on the right. Sue is Mrs. Eden Prairie. She will represent Eden Prairie in the Mrs. Minnesota International pageant in St. Cloud in March 2005. The pageant is held to recognize married women for their accomplishments in family, profession and community stewardship. If successful in winning the state title, Sue will compete against other married women from around the world at the Mrs. International pageant.

Sue is the president and owner of Brown + Associates, Inc. a “virtual” advertising agency and marketing consultancy based in Eden Prairie. Brown + Associates handles national advertising and marketing campaigns for companies like Pfizer, Pepsi, and Frito-Lay. Her past client experience includes work for other well-known clients such as Apple Computer, Avis, ConAgra and Quaker Oats.

Besides running a successful business and competing for the title of Mrs. Minnesota International, Sue enjoys showing horses and dogs, art, spending time with her husband and son, and performing volunteer work on behalf of the American Red Cross blood donation services at their Minneapolis Area Chapter, or at the North Central Blood Region in St. Paul. You can use either of these links to find out more information on donating blood and blood products that will serve your fellow Twin Citians.

Sue spoke to my Rotary Club this week. She did a great job. I wish her all the best at her pageant in March.

Do you think that you know what a Lift Station is? Is it:

a) A place to lift weights
b) The spot on the curb to stand to catch a cab
c) An elevator in England
d) The place where heavy equipment forcibly pumps sewage to a higher elevation so that it can flow using the force of gravity to a wastewater treatment plant.

If you answered c), you’re partially correct. The English call an elevator a “lift”, but necessarily a “lift station”. I don’t know why, but that’s their call.

If you answered d), you are correct. A Lift Station is a facility that is built in order to collect sewage in order to pump it “uphill” to a higher elevation so that it can resume its ordinary downhill flow to the wastewater treatment facility.

Lift Stations are used to raise wastewater (i.e. - sewage) via a pressured forcemain from a lower elevation to a higher elevation. You may not have given this much thought before, but for many people, when you flush your toilet, the water that goes down that toilet goes into a sewer line and flows right to the wastewater treatment plant in Savage (yes, under the river) with no mechanical pumping or other act of man required. It flows based on the laws of gravity.

Our Outside Utilities employees pay special maintenance attention to our Lift Stations because failures of Lift Stations can have a significant impact on the environment when raw wastewater is discharged over land or into lakes, streams, or rivers. Back-ups into private residences caused by a Lift Station failure can easily cost thousands of dollars to clean up, replace, and repair damaged homes and businesses. Significant failures make headlines in newspapers and can tarnish the image of the collection agency. Besides a twice weekly visit to each station for pump readings, thorough yearly inspections and maintenance are performed on all Eden Prairie Lift Stations to ensure stations are in continuous and efficient working order.

The working guts of a Lift Station are under ground. It doesn’t make for a very interesting photo. We depend on these Lift Stations for the modern convenience of sanitary sewer service at many homes and businesses in Eden Prairie. It is a critical service the City provides that sustains a normal urban American quality of life here. It’s working right now. If it wasn’t, you’d be calling me.

This is Officer Todd Groves. Officer Groves has been a patrol officer in our Police Department for six years. He is especially skilled at finding and stopping drunk drivers. There was an excellent article and profile about Officer Groves in last week’s Eden Prairie News.

I can remember the days when drunk driving was thought of was an annoyance, and perhaps a tragedy when the drunk driver hurt or killed an innocent victim. It wasn’t thought of as a serious crime. Maybe just bad judgment. Sometimes unfortunate circumstances. Perhaps just bad luck.

No more. Too many people in this country have been touched by the senseless tragedy that drunk drivers wreak. We no longer think of drunk driving as bad judgment. We think of it as a crime. In fact, it can be a serious crime even if there is no damaged property or injured people in an auto crash. The financial impact alone of a drunk driving conviction is astonishing. Thousands of dollars in legal costs, fines, and even more in insurance costs.

We’re lucky to have people like Officer Groves out there protecting the law abiding driving public from those who cannot get it through their heads that drunk driving is a crime. It’s a serious crime. Clearly, society has upped the ante for this crime. Consequences have been increased in order to make it clear to people that it is a crime that we will no longer tolerate as a mere social faux pas.

Don’t look for the polite police officer to give you a break by asking you to “drive straight home” any more if you are stopped for drunk driving. There’s too much liability in that sort of grace these days. Drunk driving stops these days are by-the-book. And it’s a tough book, indeed.

As we near the end of the year, the minds of many public employees turn to their pay. The City makes pay adjustments for its employees in January. We are busy right now figuring out just what those adjustments are going to be. We will grant a cost-of-living-adjustment (COLA) and, if earned, what we call a “market adjustment”.

The purpose of the COLA is to keep employees as close to whole as we can considering inflationary increases in the general economy. The purpose of the market adjustment can be either to keep the wages of certain skilled employees close to their private sector counterparts or to reward an employee for a particularly excellent year of performance. Both adjustments are expressed as a percentage of the employee’s current base pay.

We require that all management personnel have pay increases linked to their performances reviews. The performance reviews are being completed during the month of December. Managers must have positive performance reviews to receive regular annual increases in pay. For non-management employees, their reviews are completed on the annivesary of their first date of employment. For those employees that are in a union bargaining group, their wages are governed by the collective bargaining agreement.

Public employee pay is a difficult balance. We want to pay our employees a fair wage for a fair day’s labor. We want to be sure that we are paying at or close to the market wage for the skill that we are buying/renting from the employee. We do not want to pay too much, or too little. We must take into account the political pressures to keep taxes and fees low, while also considering the personnel costs we incur of a constant employee turnover if we do not maintain a stable system for compensating our employees.

Our strategy in Eden Prairie is to try and hire the best and most productive people we can hire. We hire off the top instead of the middle or the bottom. We pay our employees well, compared to other city governments, and we expect superior performance from them. For the most part, we get it. When we don’t, we take care of the matter by counseling, training, or severing the relationship.

I think that our human resource management strategy is right on the money. We pay well for above market talent and we aren’t afraid to demand above market performance. It’s fair and a good bargain, in my judgment, for Eden Prairie citizens.

Benjamin Moore says we’re this color:

We’re #317-5. Right between Timberland (#317-4) and Windsor Meadow (#317-6).

How about that.

The City conducts a deer management program each year in Eden Prairie. The program starts with a deer census which generates information about the number of deer in the city. We know what the ecological carrying capacity of the City is for deer, so the process of determining the size of the annual herd reduction is simple math.

This year our target herd reduction is 115 animals. After 7 nights of work, the contractor that we hired to conduct the herd reduction program had reached 102. We expect the contractor to complete the reduction by the end of this month; maybe by the end of this week.

The deer reduction program has been effective in not only reducing the number of car-deer collisions in the City, but also in reducing the level of damage that deer do to private and public landscapes with their winter foraging.

I don’t normally speak so euphemistically in this blog, but this is a topic that cities, including this one, must tread lightly on. There’s no pretty way to say “herd reduction”. But it’s important to do. And it’s as important for the ecological health of our urban deer herd as it is for the driving public.