The Blog from City Hall

Earlier this year Governor Pawlenty announced a broad new initiative to address an issue near and dear to the hearts of many Minnesotans: the water quality of our lakes, rivers, and streams. The initiative is called The Clean Water Legacy Act, more mundanely known in the Minnesota House of Representatives as House File 826 and in the Minnesota Senate as Senate File 762.

The objective of the Clean Water Legacy Act (CWLA) is to improve the quality of our lakes, rivers, and streams. It is an environmental protection bill. The CWLA seeks to bring Minnesota into full compliance with the federal Clean Water Act of 1972. I don’t know why we are not in full compliance with a federal law adopted in 1972, but I’m told that we’re in about the same stage of compliance as most of other states.

It will come as no surprise to anyone that this bill is getting a lot of attention in the Minnesota Legislature this session. Minnesota is second only to the state of Alaska in the total number of miles of shoreline in our state. Clearly, the issue of clean water touches many of us. And although you won’t find an opposing force lobbying for “dirty waters” at the Capitol, you will find this bill is not going to sale through the House and Senate without debate or question.

The central focus of the CWLA is that it raises about $80,000,000 to fund environmental protection projects around the state which will produce tangible improvements to the quality of our public waters. That’s the deal. As I said, no reasonable person or organized group is opposed to cleaning up public waters. So what are they debating?

Who should pay?
One of the current principles of environmental law in this state is that the polluter pays for the clean up of the pollution that he or she created. The CWLA moves away from that principle by interjecting the government into the paying role. And by government, I mean taxpayers, because you are the ultimate source of our money.

How should the cost burden be distributed?
If the government is going to pay for environmental clean up, and pass the costs for the clean up along to taxpayers, how should that cost be distributed among various kinds of taxpayers? Should farmer who farms 2,000 acres pay more than one farming 400 acres? Should a city resident connected to a sanitary sewer system pay more than a rural resident connected to a septic tank? Should a carwash pay more than a manufacturing factory? Should a rich person pay more than a poor person? How exactly should this all be done? What’s fair?

Where should we start?
Where the clean up efforts begin? This is a huge question because it involves the flow of public money into certain projects which will benefit certain cities, counties, lakes, property owners, etc more than others. Right now, there is suspicion among metro interests that the majority of the money will be spent in Greater Minnesota. Among Greater Minnesota interests, they are pretty sure that all the money will go to the metro. Deciding what projects get funded will be a difficult political process to watch.

How should the money be collected?
This is the question that is causing Minnesota city officials some heartburn. The CWLA is the Governor’s proposal. I would suggest he put the word “legacy” in the title of the act for a reason. And no one should begrudge him that prerogative. This is a very worthy and important piece of legislation for our state.

That being said, the funding mechanism for the CWLA is objectionable to cities. The CWLA shifts the objectionable part of the whole environmental clean up process (i.e. - the part where the government has to collect the money from the taxpayers) to cities and counties, but allows the desirable part (i.e. - spending the money) to be handled by the state government. The funding mechanism within the CWLA directs cities to charge each utility account an annual fee; to collect that fee; and then to turn over the money to the State. The size of the fee varies. It’s proposed right now at $36/year for residents. For businesses, there is sliding scale from $120-$520/year.

What’s objectionable about the funding mechanism is that cities are being asked to assess and collect a fee that we neither control the size of or have any voice in determining how it is spent. If a citizen objects to the paying the fee, there is no discretion on our end to compromise or negotiate a settlement. City employees cannot answer questions accurately about how the amount of was computed or when it might change in the future. We merely charge you, collect your money, and send it on to the State.

There are other ways to fund CWLA that have no impact on cities. The best way, and the easiest way for the State is to assess a user fee on state income tax forms. Another way would be for the State to bill the cost to taxpayers directly. They should still have that address data base from the “Jesse Check” days. Remember those days?

The Clean Water Legacy Act is important for the future of our state. If it’s an important part of the legacy of the Governor and the State Legislature, then let’s ask the Governor and the State Legislature to find a more appropriate way to provide funding for it. A good test of any funding mechanism is that it clearly and directly connects those paying for the clean up projects of the CWLA - taxpayers - to the clean up projects themselves. Using city governments as the tax collector for the CWLA doesn’t meet this test.

This is Oak Point Pool.

The Oak Point Pool is located, not surprisingly, at Oak Point Intermediate School. If you’re not familiar with Oak Point Intermediate School, it is located on Anderson Lakes Parkway, just west of its intersection with Flying Cloud Drive.

The pool is owned by the Eden Prairie School District, but is operated and managed by the City’s Parks & Recreation Department. The Oak Point facility features two pools, one with a 414-foot waterslide and a 25-yard pool with six lap lanes.

The pool is used by thousands of men, women, and children all year long. Generally, the pool is booked by swim teams for practices right after school and then for swimming lessons in the evenings. On the weekends, the pool is often booked for children’s birthday parties. The City will rent you two tables and eight chairs and reserve a spot for your party on the indoor patio overlooking the pool all for $10.00.

For more information about renting Oak Point Pool, contact the City’s Community Center front desk at 952.949.8470.

The City has a well trained staff with experience and knowledge to manage and program indoor swimming pools. It is a good marriage of assets for the School to own the Pool and the City manage it. The Oak Point Pool is another good example of how the City and the Eden Prairie School District work together for the benefit of our citizens.

This is a street sweeper. The street sweeper is used to clean debris from streets. We employ a hybrid public-private model for our street sweeping operations. We own two street sweepers and we employ 4-5 more sweepers through private contractors. This allows us to start sweeping earlier, whenever we feel it’s right, but also supplements our efforts when the timing is right. We feel this mix of public and private effort works well to accomplish the job at hand, and is cost-effective as well.

Why do we bother to sweep the streets? Many people think we do this merely to make our streets look clean. Just like many people paint their houses merely to make them look nice. That’s what my wife would say. But the reason I paint my house is to preserve the physical integrity of the exterior siding. The reason we sweep the streets is really all about environmental protection.

Here’s why.

The chart below shows the tons of salt and sand that the City places on its streets each year during the winter months to create safer driving conditions for our residents and those who use our streets.

As you can see from this chart, our use of salt and sand is trending down from a high in 1996-97 of 7,975 total tons of material spread on our streets. This is an important trend to monitor because the size of street network has increased substantially since 1996-97 and the auto accident rate for winter related accidents has not substantially increased. Adding more streets should mean the use of more salt and sand, but it hasn’t. Using less salt and sand during this time period might be a cause of more accidents, but it hasn’t.

Conclusion: Our employees are smarter about their use of salt and sand.

Why is that important? It’s important because adding thousands of tons of salt and sand to the natural environment every year is not necessarily a good thing. In fact, it’s a bad thing. Sand fills up our storm sewer intakes and causes problems there. During spring rains, salt and sand drain into our creeks, rivers, and wetlands and cause pollution problems. That’s why we pick it up every spring with our street sweeping program.

So, the less we put down, the less we have to pick up. The less we use, the less we have to buy. We save money there. The less we have to pick up, the less we have to pay to have it picked up. We save money there too.

Being smarter with salt and sand can save our taxpayers a lot of money in the long run and be much better for our environment. A win-win outcome. That’s what we’re trying to achieve.

I know that I’ve probably said this in this blog on more than one occasion, but at the risk of being repetitive, I’ll say it again. One of the aspects that I like best about my job is the broad variety of topics that I get to encounter on a daily basis. For example, Wednesday is the day each week that I meet with my top management staff members. Here’s a description of the sorts of issues that we covered today in our staff meeting:

Fire Station #4 - The City is purchasing land for a new fire station. The transaction hasn’t been an easy one. We are hoping to close the purchase deal next week, but that may be delayed a few days. We need to make the logistical arrangements to sign the agreements and to have our money ready to go.

RV Bill - There is a bill making its way through the Minnesota House that would prohibit cities from enforcing municipal ordinances that prohibit citizens from parking vehicles larger than 15,000 lbs GVW on city streets or on private property. We have such an ordinance in Eden Prairie. Citizens have depended on it for more than 10 years. The City has enforced it on numerous occasions. We would like to maintain the local authority to have, or not have, the ability to restrict where and how people park RV’s or other large recreational vehicles, including buses and Over-The-Road tractor-trailer rigs in residential neighborhoods.

Community Development Department Priorities - We discussed a process proposed by our Community Development Director, Ms. Janet Jeremiah, to establish a set of policy and operational priorities for her department going into the future.

Traffic Safety - We will be installing a new guard rail on Landing Road before next winter. A school bus slipped off the road last week when it snowed. We’d like to try and prevent that next year.

Trail Planning - Our Parks & Recreation Director Bob Lambert updated us about the start of a complex public planning process he will start tonight to plan for construction of future of trails in the southern 1/3 of the community. The process will involve the homeowners adjacent to the trail corridors, which are defined as 1,000 feet on either of a proposed trail location. One one such trail in the Lower Purgatory Creek Valley, the City sent out 900 invitations to homeowners notifying them of the proposed process and inviting them to participate in it. It’s going to be a long road, but it’s always a good idea to get public input on a public project like this.

Parking Lots - I asked Department Directors to remind employees not to park City-owned vehicles in the parking lot areas around City Center that are reserved for C.H. Robinson company employees.

Olympic Hills Water Connection - We discussed the proposed connection fee for Olympic Hills Gold Course to connect their club house on to the City’s water system. Previous to this connection, Olympic Hills used their own wells for not only irrigation, but also for their cooking, drinking, etc uses in the club house. The cost for them to connect to our system is over $100,000. They wish it were lower. We calculated the cost based on our standard formulas. That’s where things stand right now.

Employee Health Insurance Plan - We received a briefing today from our Human Resources Manager concerning our employee health insurance plan. The City received a very favorable proposal from its existing health insurance carrier to reaffirm our contract with them for the upcoming year. We are almost ready to approve the extension. We are working on constructing the message informing our employees of the new proposal right now.

That’s variety for you. Next week, it’ll probably be a completely new set of issues. I look forward to it.

Fountain Place is the name of a new retail development on Flying Cloud Drive. It is on the west side of Flying Cloud Drive, roughly between Anderson Lakes Parkway on the south and Prairie Center Drive on the north. It is visibly under construction right now. I have some photos to share with you, but I recommend that you drive by (if you can) and take a look for yourself.

This is a view of one of the buildings at the site. This view is from Columbine Road, which is on the back side of the site. Columbine Road will separate the site from the Purgatory Creek Recreation Area. This project includes the completion of Columbine Road from the Post Office area, through the site, and connects to Prairie Center Drive in the vicinity of the Flagship Athletic Center. We believe this will really improve traffic flow in the area.

This is a view from Columbine Road looking north towards SouthWest Station, the Flagship Athletic Center, and the Flagship Office Center.

This is another view of another building on the Fountain Place site. It’s obviously under construction. We;re hearing things about what retailers might be in the new development, but we don’t have any specific information on that at this time. We’ll release it when we get it.

Finally, this is another view from Columbine Road. This is a storm water detention basin. This basin will collect storm water from the site and impound it before it gets released into the Purgatory Creek Recreation Area (PCRA). This basin is an important feature to the project because it will help keep the water in the PCRA cleaner and healthier.

We are experiencing a bit of a recreational renaissance at the Community Center. During the past year we made a number of small improvements in the overall condition of the Community Center building. For example, I think it is cleaner than it’s ever been. We introduced a new cleaning contractor into the Center this past year and I think they’re doing a good job.

We also tackled a very significant project in Rink #1 this year with the replacement of the ice rink floor and freezing system during the summer of 2004. While the rink was not in use due to the construction project, we also painted the interior walls of Rink #1; put down a new skate floor; added Lake Conference banners; added two new team rooms and improved the rest of them with new lighting and paint; improved the skate shop; and, finally, we added a new changing and locker room for game officials.

In addition to the improvements we made to Rink #1, we made very significant changes to the Community Center’s fitness facilities. This past summer was moved the fitness facilities from upstairs to the ground floor. We renovated a meeting room and rehabilitated a racquetball court into a new, more state-of-the-art fitness facility:

We’ve seen a sharp uptick in Community Center memberships, many of them specifically due to this our new fitness facilities.

There are many people that deserve credit for the recent improvements at the Community Center. Here are three of them:

L-R: Beth Degree, Bob Lanzi, and Michael Sheggeby

Beth works in our aquatics and fitness areas at the Community Center. Bob works with the ice rinks and is one of the City’s primary liaisons with our local youth sports associations. Michael works in our Facilities Division. He is in charge of the facilities aspects of the Community Center.

These three employees, along with their many co-workers, have helped rejuvenate the Eden Prairie Community Center. Check it out. Tell me what you think.

Anonymity is a dicey subject to address when you work for the government. Citizens are entitled to access most of our services, regardless of their willingness to share their names with us. There are some exceptions to that rule, but you can live a fair share of your life in this country without sharing your name with the governments that you live under.

I accept feedback and input from the readers of this blog. I get feedback on the blog almost everyday. Sometimes it is just a note that I spelled something wrong. Or that I misstated something. My employees help me keep the blog accurate and competent by providing with this kind of feedback more often than I care to admit to But I’m glad they do it. Everyone writes better with an editor, I think.

I get feedback from Eden Prairie citizens, as well as citizens from other communities in Minnesota and from all over the country. I’ve got some great feedback stories that I’ll share with everyone sometime down the line.

Occasionally, I will get anonymous feedback. Anonymous feedback is usually of the useless variety. It is typically from someone who hasn’t read something I’ve written very closely, or just wants to take me to task for one thing or another. I’ve been chastised for my political ideology by the Angry Right and the Angry Left, so I feel good about that. I strive for balance. Criticism from the fringes means that I must be hitting the middle most of the time.

I will be using a new “Comments” feature in the coming weeks on this blog. The Comments feature will allow me to have more of a dialogue with the readers of the blog on a specific subject. I don’t know what that subject will be yet, but I’ll think of one soon.

Look for Comments, and participate. No anonymous participants though. If you can’t stand behind your comments with your identity, then your comments aren’t that useful to processing the subject of the dialogue. You can still say whatever you want to say. This is America. But you’ll get more consideration if you stand behind your words. I can promise you that.

I’ve got more employee-initiated innovations to share with you today. Two of our Street Maintenance employees, Rick Williamson and Ray Olsen, designed and manufactured these innovations in our Street Maintenance Shop.

This is a ramp. This kind of ramp is attached to a trailer to enable an operator to drive motorized equipment, such as mowers and skid loaders, on to a trailer in order for the equipment to be transported to the work site.

What makes this ramp different from a standard ramp is that this ramp is twice as large as a standard commercial ramp. It is also much sturdier. This makes the ramp safer for the equipment and for our operators.

This is a racking system also designed and built by Rick Williamson and Ray Olsen. That’s Street Division Manager Cliff Cracauer in the photo.

The racking system is used to store and organize the various kinds of metals used by our employees to construct and maintain our large equipment. Before building this racking system we stored our metals on the floor or against the walls. This was not very efficient; didn’t look for good; and it was not as safe for our employees to be around. It led to bad backs and potential for it to fall on them. The new racks organize the metal so that it is easier to use and inventory. The system also uses pallets that can be accessed via forklift. That’s better for employee safety too.

Finally, Rick Williamson designed this device, which employees use to raise, lower, and mount snow plows on to our trucks. The device is a standard transmission jack with a customized piece attached that is designed to fit our snow plows.

This device changes what used to be a two or more employees job (i.e. - mounting a snow plow) into a one person job. In addition, it made the job safer for our employees.

Just a few more examples of the kinds of innovative things going on in the front lines of city government. It’s good stuff.

The City Council met in joint session with our state legislative delegation last night to discuss matters of mutual concern in St. Paul. It’s a good opportunity for local and state leaders to talk about how legislators can best represent the City’s interests in the State Legislature and how City Councilmembers can best assist the state in carrying out its policies at the local level.

From the Left-Right: Councilmember Phil Young, Mayor Nancy Tyra-Lukens, Councilmember Ron Case, Councilmember Brad Aho, Councilmember Sherry Butcher, and State Representative Maria Ruud (DFL-42A)

The life of a state legislator is difficult. Only the most dedicated citizens can afford to serve in the State Legislature. The time frame for the state legislative session is compressed and intense. At our joint meeting, Representative Ruud had to leave early to get back to St. Paul for a legislative committee hearing, and Representative Erik Paulsen (R-42B) and Senator David Hann had to come late because of previously scheduled committee meetings at the Capitol.

Senator David Hann

Representative Erik Paulsen

We covered a lot of legislative territory with our legislators during the meeting. We talked about the Governor’s proposed “turbo truth in taxation” proposal; the City’s responsibility to collect new fees to finance the Governor’s Clean Waters Legacy Act; the Governor’s proposal to continue for two more years the zero funding of the State’s reimbursement to the City of Market Value Credit; Sen. Larry Poogemiller’s proposal to make our Market Value Credit cut permanent; and how the State might fund future statewide transportation improvements.

I’ve had the opportunity to work with all three of our legislators this week to get a bill drafted, introduced, and passed through committees in the House and Senate that would allow the on-sale of liquor, beer, and wine in the Garden Room of City Center. A recent change of vendors for the operation of the Garden Room put our ability to lease that space out to weekend wedding receptions in jeopardy when we were told that we’d no longer be able to allow the sale of alcoholic beverages in the Garden Room. I testified for Senator Hann’s bill in the Senate on Monday afternoon and for Rep. Ruud’s bill in the House on Monday night. Rep. Ruud’s bill was co-authored by Rep. Paulsen. Both bills made it through their respective committees and will now head to the floor of both Chambers in liquor omnibus bills. That’s good news for final passage.

It’s important for locally elected officials to work closely with state legislators. We can double the benefit to Eden Prairie citizens by working cooperatively for Eden Prairie both here in the Eden Prairie City Center and in the State Capitol in St. Paul.

Here’s another installment of innovation on the front lines. This is an all-purpose outside utilities construction trailer:

This apparatus is designed to be connected to a truck and then hauled into the field by the employees who work in our Outside Utilities Division. These are the guys that fix water mains, sewer lines, and storm sewer intakes (among other things) morning, noon, or night; in the summer and in the he winter. If it’s a utility and it’s outside, these guys will fix it.

And in this photo is everything they need to fix it - whatever it happens to be that day. There is a concrete mixer. There are the concrete manhole donuts. Shovels, saws, rakes, picks, and wheelbarrows. Everything they need to do their work.

The best thing about this all-purpose work trailer is that our employees designed it and built it. They saw a need; devised a solution to the need; and then carried out the solution. Their solution helps them work more efficiently and effectively in the field, and helps them get more done in the limited construction season that we enjoy in Minnesota.

I’ll say it again. We are very well served here by the men and women work in the front lines of our organization. They are innovators and hard workers. We’re lucky to have them.

One of the things that I like best about my job is that I get to tour pretty much any City facility that I want to tour. I like to do this because it is interesting to see the work that our employees are doing, and because it is always impressive to me the level of creativity and innovation that I see in our workplace.

Here’s a good example. If you’re from Minnesota, you know what these are. For those of you that are not: They’re hockey goals.

You can’t really tell from the photo, but the goal on the right is about 1/3 the weight of the goal on the left. What’s innovative about the hockey goals on the right is that our Parks Maintenance employees designed and manufactured them. They manufactured these new hockey goals because they could not find a readily available and suitable commercial product that we could purchase. So they built what they needed.

Actually, they built what we needed. They built these new goals because they received concerns from parents that the heavy goals might injure a small hockey player if it fell on one. Our employees analyzed the problem and devised a solution. Then they built the solution.

This kind of constructive problem solving is going on all around our organization on a daily basis. We’ve got a lot of creative and innovative people that work for the City of Eden Prairie. We’re lucky to have them on our team.

There was a short confrontation at our March 1 pre-Council meeting Open Forum with a citizen who was upset that the City did not lower its state and national flags out of respect for the three Minnesota National Guardsmen who were killed in Iraq in early February. In response to the confrontation, I prepared the following opinion-editorial article for the Eden Prairie News to explain the rationale behind the decision to keep the flag at full-staff. This article will run in the Thursday, March 10 edition of the Eden Prairie News. This is your preview.
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Flying the Flag
Scott H. Neal, City Manager

At the March 1 meeting of the City Council, the Council received a request that I think is worthy of additional community discussion and input. The request came from a citizen who asked the city to lower its U.S. and Minnesota flags to half-staff to observe a period of mourning for three Minnesota National Guardsmen recently killed in Iraq. The City had not lowered its flags and the citizen wanted this perceived slight to be remedied.

I explained to the Council why the City did not lower its flags. Unlike the recent order to lower flags in the wake of the Indian Ocean tsunami that directed flags on �all public property� to be lowered to half-staff, the Governor�s directive concerning the lowering of flags for the National Guardsmen was specifically directed to flags at the State Capitol complex and surrounding state properties. It was not directed at flags flown by cities, counties, schools, or private property owners. I noticed many flags at half-staff, which is the prerogative of the owner of that flag, but the Governor�s flag directive was precise, and it did not include flags outside of State grounds.

There is legal guidance concerning the display of the national and state flags. United States Code, Title 4, Chapter is the United States Flag Code. It goes into great detail about how, when, and where to fly the flag correctly. In Section 7(m), the Flag Code goes into great detail about how and when to fly the flag at half-staff. In the U.S. Flag Code, only the President and the Governor can order flags to be flown at half-staff. If not so ordered, all flags are to be flown at full staff.

In addition to depending on the U.S. Flag Code for direction on how to fly the national and state flags, I have also looked to the American Legion for direction on all matters relating to flag protocol. There might be no other group in our country with more moral authority to render judgments on how to fly the flag than the men and women of the American Legion.

In its official flag protocol statement, the American Legion states quite clearly that: only the President of the United States or the Governor of the State may order the flag to be half-staffed.� That�s a pretty clear statement that the decision about when to fly the flag at half-staff is not up to the City Manager. But, the Legion flag protocol goes on to make what I believe is a very important statement: �The honor and reverence accorded this solemn act [lowering the flag to half-staff] is quickly becoming eroded by those individuals and agencies that display the flag at half-staff in inappropriate occasions without proper authority to do so.�

I couldn�t agree more with the American Legion on this last statement. I think that many people and organizations are drifting away from the �honor and reverence� of lowering the flag to half-staff. Many people see lowering the flag to half-staff as a public act of empathy or commiseration for fallen veterans and their families, which are admirable and understandable motivations, but they are not what is intended by the act of lowering the flag.

To be sure, if Governor Pawlenty or President Bush, directs that state and national flags be lowered, we will lower them on all City of Eden Prairie property without question or criticism. If either the President or the Governor merely asks that flags be lowered, we will honor that request. But if neither the President nor the Governor orders or asks that flags be lowered, then the best course of action, in my opinion, on all matters relating to the display of the U.S. and state flags is to observe the American Legion flag protocol.

The citizens of our state and our nation are right to honor the lives and courage of 1st Lt. Jason Timmerman, Staff Sgt. David Day, and Sgt. Jesse Lhotka, even if we chose not to lower our flags for them. We are also right to honor other fallen soldiers from our state such as Pfc. Edward J. Herrgott of Shakopee; Infantryman Daniel McConnell of Duluth; Chief Warrant Officer Patrick Dorff of Buffalo; Cpl. Tyler Fey of Eden Prairie; Cpl. Demetrius Rice of Ortonville, and more than a dozen other Minnesotans who have died in Iraq, for whom there was no gubernatorial or presidential flag lowering directive. We grieve for them all and for all of their families as well. They fought under a flag at full staff. Just where it ought to be.
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Actually, it’s for a license to dispense liquor, but it’s a good attention-grabbing headline.

I will be testifying today before a committee in the Minnesota Senate seeking a small piece of legislation to enable the new food vendor in the City Center’s Garden Room, Taher Business Dining, to dispense liquor in the Garden Room.

The previous vendor had a liquor license for the Garden Room as part of their state caterer’s license. The current vendor does not, and cannot because of the way their company is organized. The City cannot issue the current vendor a standing on-sale liquor license for the Garden Room location because the site is within 300 feet of a school facility - the Education Center, which is actually about 30 feet down the hallway.

The liquor license for the Garden Room is not that big of a deal to the City, except that the Garden Room is used extensively on the weekends for wedding receptions and other types of social gatherings where the consumption of liquor is expected. Since the City gains a financial benefit, a percentage share of the room rental from such events, we have an interest in making sure that they can dispense liquor, when that is appropriate.

The State of Minnesota has quirky liquor laws. We have municipally-owned liquor stores in this state, for goodness sake. For the City to be able to have liquor sold in the Garden Room of City Center, we must get a change in state law. That’s what I’ll be testifying in favor of this afternoon.

The City has received excellent constituent service from its state legislators on this issue. Senator David Hann, Represenative Maria Ruud, and Representative Erik Paulsen have all played a part in moving this bill from local request to something in writing to now a bill working its way through the Senate and House committee structure.

The City of Eden Prairie has approximately 270 fulltime regular authorized budgeted employee positions. At any one time we could have a few more than that, or more likely, a few less, but that’s a solid estimate of our average number. Of that total, about 60 of them are reresented by a single union. That union is Local 49 of the International Union of Operating Engineers.

The City employees who are represented by Local 49 include the employees who maintain our fleet of vehicles; treat your water; keep our water distribution system in working order; maintain streets; plow snow; maintain ice rinks; mow parks; repair traffic signals; and all the other things that keep the city working. On a daily basis, you’ll notice their work much more than you’ll ever notice mine…but that’s a story for another day.

The City negotiates a collective bargaining agreement with Local 49 to cover the terms of employment with these workers. We are currently in the middle of a two year contract. The contract covers topics such as wages, working conditions, fringe benefits, etc.

The City and Local 49 have an active Labor-Management Committee (LMC) here in Eden Prairie. The LMC meets once each month to discuss matters of mutual concern. There are equal numbers of Local 49 and City management members on the LMC. There are a total of six representatives from each side that attend these meetings. It is chaired by a two person team; one management, one labor.

At the LMC meetings, the union itself is represented by Local 49 business agent, Mr. Todd Doncavage. I am the chief representative of the City, but I typically take a low key role in the meetings. I don’t want to spoil the cooperative nature of the meeting by trying to run it myself. The chairs always do a good job of running the meeting and insuring that everyone who wants to participate has that opporunity.

Mr. Doncavage, and his predecessor Mr. Jim Hansen, represent their union very professionally and honorably. They are constructive problem-solvers. They want their members to work hard, and in turn, to be respected by their employers and paid a fair wage. I know our 49ers work hard. I hope they feel respected and paid fairly by the City.

There is an excellent article in today’s Star Tribune business section by David Phelps entitled “A union for health: Local 49 steers members to short list of providers”. It describes a new health care initiative that Local 49 is participating in called the Labor-Management Health Care Coalition of the Upper Midwest. It’s more press- friendly name is the “Smart Buy Alliance“. The initiative, according to the story, is part of a larger health care cost control initiative launched by Governor Pawlenty last November. It’s a good story of how the union is taking on one of the biggest issues of our times: uncontrollable health care costs.

The City benefits through its positive working relationship with Local 49. Good labor relations translate into good working conditions for labor and a good financial deal for our taxpayers.

This is a planning map of the City’s Market Center Area. Sometimes we refer to it as the Major Center Area. We really ought to pick one name and use it consistently. [Note to self] Actually, we refer to it more commonly as the “MCA”, so I guess we cover both names with one acronym.

It’s a little hard to tell from this map, but the MCA is bounded by Valley View Road on the north and by Prairie Center Drive all the way around the east, south, and west, with a couple of adjoining neighborhoods added in for good measure. The heart of the MCA is the Eden Prairie Center. The area with the most redevelopment potential is probably the commercial area directly to the west of the Eden Prairie Center between Prairie Center Drive and Flying Cloud Drive.

The City Council met in joint session last night with our Planning Commission to receive an update from the consultants that we’ve hired to study the future of the MCA. We launched a planning initiative late last year for this area of our city. We want to analyze its current status and plan for its future.

The Council appointed a special task force to provide staff and the consultants with guidance on what the direction the community might want to nudge the MCA towards for the future. The task force has had two meetings to work with the consultants on the project. The meeting last night with the Planning Commission and the Council was a check-in point for the consultant to make sure that the Planning Commission, City Council, staff, and task force were all on, roughly, the same page as far as the general direction the study seems to be heading.

Short answer: We are.

The study has got a ways to go yet. In the end, it should provide us with a guide to the future of this area. It will be a guide that includes both regulatory and financial incentive tools to encourage outcomes that what we hope will be in the best interest of Eden Prairie for the future.