The Blog from City Hall

Chief Dan Carlson on the left shaking the hand of Officer Jim Kline on the right.

We celebrated the career today of Officer Jim Kline. Officer Kline (his friends call him “Kliner”) joined the Eden Prairie Police Department in 1982. He has served our community honorably for 23 years. Officer Kline’s co-workers from all of the City’s departments turned out today in the City Center atrium for cake, punch, and a chance to say “so long” and “thank you” to Officer Kline.

Officer Kline was a Street Cop. He worked the streets of Eden Prairie. He was a valuable asset to the City working our streets. He knew when to use discretion in traffic enforcement. He knew how and when to counsel families in domestic distress. He had a good eye, and a good ear, for resolving conflicts at the street level. Officer Kline was also valuable to us as a mentor for new young officers, and for new young supervisors. His mentees appreciated not only his views, but also how he shared them.

We’re fortunate to have people like Officer Kline in our Police Department. His experience and his skills in the field will be missed. Missed by his co-workers. Missed by the citizens of Eden Prairie.

Officer Kline, thanks for 23 years of excellent service.

Tomorrow the City will have a long-awaited meeting with representatives of the Metropolitan Airports Commission (MAC). We asked for this meeting a year (or so) ago. It took awhile for the MAC to respond to our request. Then it took awhile for us to get a date that worked well for everyone attending the meeting. There were some very busy schedules involved. August 30 is the day.

We’ve got a lot of ground to cover. We’re going to talk about these issues:

1. Can the MAC legally enforce the runway weight restriction provisions of its operating agreement for Flying Cloud Airport (FCM), despite some evidence that FAA may not support this provision?

2. Is MAC considering significant changes to its system of reliever airports, of which FCM is one? Is there any consideration given to the option of closing FCM?

3. What is the status of the airport’s development plan? When are runways scheduled for improvements? When will water and sewer services be extended to the airport?

4. What is happening with the MAC’s enforcement of noise regulations at FCM? What happens to a pilot who willfully violates the voluntary noise abatement procedures?

5. What is the status of MAC’s response to our requests in connection with an audit we are conducting of the City-MAC Final Agreement for FCM?

6. What is the current security situation at FCM?

7. What would the MAC think of the City introducing new building quality and standards at the airport?

8. What’s on the legislative agenda for FCM for the upcoming State Legislative session?

It’s a lot to cover in two hours. I’ll be back with a post-meeting report tomorrow.

I’m not sure of the exact figures, but I would estimate that about 95% of Eden Prairie kids live within the Eden Prairie School District #272. Sure, not all of them go to school in Eden Prairie Schools, but most of them do. There are, however, two other public schools districts who can claim part of our city for their districts: Minnetonka School District #276 and Hopkins School District #270.

The City of Eden Prairie and Eden Prairie School District #272 have a strong and productive working relationship. I’ve talked about that in this blog before, and I’ll probably talk about it again sometime in the future. But today, I want to talk about the City’s relationship with one of our other public school districts: Hopkins #270.

The Hopkins School District covers parts of the cities of Hopkins, Minnetonka, Eden Prairie, Plymouth, and Golden Valley. The Superintendent of the Hopkins School District is Dr. Michael Kremer. In the photo below, Dr. Kremer is on the left. To the right of Dr. Kremer is Mr. Scott Croonquist of the Association of Metropolitan School Districts. To right of Mr. Croonquist is Ms. Eileen Harvala. Ms. Harvala works in communications for the Hopkins School District. And to the right of Ms. Harvala is Ms. Laurie Ahrens, City Manager of Plymouth.

I snapped this photo yesterday at a monthly meeting that Dr. Kremer holds with the city officials of the cities in his school district. Eden Prairie hosted yesterday’s meeting. It’s the first time that we’ve ever hosted this meeting.

We talked about issues such as busing routes for fall, soaring fuel prices, and local control of school finances. Mr. Croonquist was at the meeting to discuss possible joint advocacy that his organization might do with city governments at the Capitol. Mr. Louis Jambois, Executive Director of the Association of Metropolitan Municipalities, was also at this meeting. He was receptive to working together with the school districts on joint advocacy. The group will meet again next month and talk more about what issues we might work together on.

Good meeting. It will be interesting to see if cities and schools can come together on a common policy initiative agenda.

Last night City employees, Councilmembers, their spouses, and their kids gathered together at the Riley-Jacques Barn for our annual summer employee picnic. This is a view of the barn as you walk up the sidewalk to the east-facing barn doors. The barn was a great place to hold our picnic. Just the right size for a group of 100 or so people.

The picnic this year had a “western” theme to it. We had a horse-drawn wagon give wagon rides through Riley Lake Park.

And the food was very good. It was provided by Ruby’s BBQ of Minneapolis. Outstanding barbecued pork and bratwursts.

Entertainment for the night was provided by Pops Wagner. He’s a western musician-storyteller-trick roper. The kids loved him. He was good clean family fun.

It’s nice that we’re able to have this kind of event with our employees each year. It is a good time to get to meet spouses and kids. It’s not always a fun time to work for city government. On the late afternoon of Tuesday, August 23, however, it was a hoot’n & hollar’n good time.

One of the more difficult citizen relations issues that we create for ourselves each summer in Eden Prairie is the enforcement of our lawn watering rules. Believe me, the City appreciates the lush green lawns of our neighborhoods. It’s a good sign that people care about their property and their community. However, lawn watering has a huge impact on the City’s water usage. The City pumps four to five times more water to residents in the summer than in the winter. To ensure that there is enough water for everyone, people within the City must share the water resources, which is to say that the City must ration its limited daily water supply.

To conserve water, all homes and businesses in Eden Prairie must follow the lawn watering restrictions. Eden Prairie City Code Section 3.30 states that City water customers may water lawns, grass or turf only on an odd/even schedule. No irrigation is allowed between noon and 5 p.m. on any day. Private wells are exempt from the City ordinance.

On the odd/even schedule, people with a house or business address that ends in an odd number may water only on odd-numbered days. Houses or businesses with even numbered addresses may water only on even-numbered days. A 30-day exemption may be granted for newly planted areas, except that no watering is allowed between noon and 5 pm.

There are a couple of exemptions to our ordinance. If you are a resident of the City and are doing minor seeding, sod installation or new landscaping, please download and return the Lawn Watering Exemption form on the right. If you do more extensive landscaping, please download and return the Conservation Surcharge Exemption Request form along with your receipt(s). The Conservation Surcharge Exemption Request form would cover both the 30-day lawn water exemption and the exemption from the conservation surcharge program for the current year.

Watering restrictions are enforced year-round, and violators will be fined. If you have any questions about our lawn watering ordinance and how it is enforced, please contact the City’s Environmental Services Manager, Ms. Leslie Stovring, at 952-949-8327 or contact her online at lstovring@edenprairie.org.

This is the Eden Prairie Planning Commission in action on Monday, August 22. I don’t usually sit in on their meetings, but I did tonight because the City staff is proposing a set of changes to the City’s sign ordinance and I wanted to be there to speak to the issue, if necessary. It wasn’t. Community Development Director Janet Jeremiah handled the matter beautifully. The ordinance changes will now advance to the City Council for their review and approval at the Council’s September 6 meeting.

Most cities of 2,000 or more citizens in the United States employ some kind of citizen advisory board that is separate from the elected board to review land development issues. An appointed advisory board can frequently delve into details in development plans that can really stall a meeting of elected officials. They can help take the “edge” off a development that might not ordinarily make it through our process successfully. In many communities, that separate citizen advisory board is called the “Planning Commission”. That’s what we call ours.

The Planning Commission provides an open process and a balanced review of development proposals and land use requests, both private and public, by comparing development plans to the City’s Strategic Plan, Comprehensive Guide Plan and other City land use regulations.

The members of the Planning Commission are:

Larry Kacher
John Kirk
Vicki Koenig
Kathy Nelson (Vice-Chair)
Peter Rocheford
Fred Seymour
Ray Stoelting (Chair)
Jon Stoltz
Bill Sutherland

Our Planning Commission meetings are televised live on EPTV - Cable Channel 16. We also rerun the meetings again on EPTV-16 for opposite Mondays at 7 p.m., and on Sundays at 1 p.m. We are considering offering them as video streams from our website in the future. We are still trying to gauge the community’s interest in that idea.

Planning Commission meetings are always open to the public. The Planning Commission meets on the second and fourth Mondays of each month at 7 p.m. in the Council Chambers at Eden Prairie City Center, 8080 Mitchell Road. If you would like to place an item on the Commission’s agenda, please contact the City Planner, Mr. Mike Franzen, at 952.949.8487, or e-mail him at mfranzen@edenprairie.org.

I presented my proposed City budget for 2006-2007 to the City Council on Tuesday night at their pre-meeting workshop. For the most part, the Council was pretty much on board with my proposal, which was:

- a general tax levy increase of just under 5%
- the creation of a new Street Lighting Utility funded by a new street lighting fee
- the creation of a new rental housing inspection program funded by a new rental housing license fee
- implementing a new Housing & Redevelopment Authority levy to fund some of the City’s housing and economic development activities
- maintaining most City services at their current service levels
- ramping down the City human services operations and grant funding programs

I did say the Council was “pretty much” on board. I think the one area where I sensed they were not fully on board with the budget proposal was the proposal to ramp down our commitment and funding of human services personnel and activities. The Council asked me to take another look at that part of my budget proposal for 2006-2007. So I will.

I am going to prepare two budget scenarios for the Council to take another look at between now and September 6, which is the next date that the Council must take an action on the budget. One scenario will include the human services budget line items I excluded from my original budget proposal and increase our tax levy to fund them. The other scenario will include the human services budget items I excluded from my original budget proposal and decrease other General Fund budget line items in order to keep total expenses the same as what I proposed in my original budget proposal. In the end, we might do a little of each.

The Council’s next move on the budget will be September 6, when they must approve the preliminary tax levy. The preliminary tax levy is the highest levy we can consider levying this fall. Once the preliminary tax levy is set, the levy can only be decreased, not increased from that point forward.

After that, we tinker with exact line items until we get the budget completely finished. The Council approves the final budget for 2006-2007 in December.

Tonight City staff will present the City Manager’s proposed City Budget for 2006-2007 to the City Council. The Council receives the budget in a Workshop session, which is helpful because it allows for a little give-and-take between Council and staff about what exactly is in and out of the proposed budget.

I can’t say the word “proposed” often enough in connection with the budget. It is my proposal based on the contributions of City staff. The Council has not commented on this budget proposal yet. They just got it for the first time on Friday. The Council saw an early version of a proposed budget at the Council Workshop on August 2, but this version is quite different from that one. That version contained everything requested by City staff and conservative estimates of projected revenues. The proposed budget the Council will discuss tonight is one with some of the staff requests removed and some of the revenues more accurately forecasted.

A budget is a succinct statement of philosophy. Here are some features from the budget that I have proposed to the Council:

Property Taxes - They’re unpopular, but they’re necessary to make things work in City government. My challenge is to try to keep our annual property tax growth minimized. My proposed budget has an increase in our property tax levy of 4.3% in 2006 and 4.0% in 2007. This compares to the State’s measure of government revenue growth called the “Implicit Price Deflator” (which is sort of like a measure of inflation) which is equal to 5.1% growth in 2005. If your City’s rate of tax growth is below the IPD, that’s supposed to be a good thing for taxpayers.

Operations - For the most part, City services will be in 2006 and 2007 what they were in 2005. Very little change with a few exceptions. We are ramping up the operations of our Fire Department with the opening of a new fire station and recruitment of new fire fighters to work in it. We are preparing to launch a new rental housing inspection program that will require owners of rental units to purchase a license from the city. The license revenue will be spent on the City’s new program. It funds itself. Finally, I am proposing that we ramp down the social services functions of the City. This includes both the personnel that provide those services and the grants the City provides to local social services groups and agencies.

Capital Improvements - One of the new features in this year’s budget is a new and stronger commitment to funding capital improvements for the community. These capital improvements include the City’s office facilities, buildings, parks, trails, Community Center, etc. Any building or facility owned by the City. We have a plan to maintain and improve our physical assets so the Eden Prairie citizens can enjoy them long into the future.

New Revenues - In addition to the new revenue from the rental property licenses, the budget includes a new Street Lighting Utility. We are still looking at the exact methodology to collect this money, but we want to better connect the City’s street lighting costs with a new revenue source. This might be a charge on your quarterly utility bill or it might be a franchise fee on your electric bill. Either way, it will be small. Probably $2.00-$3.00 per month for a household. The City will use the money to pay its street lighting electricity bill, which is about $750,000 per year.

The Council discusses my budget proposal tonight. The Council is not going to approve or disapprove the budget tonight. That comes later. The Council must set our maximum possible tax levy at the September 6, 2005, Council meeting, so they must soon settle into a comfort zone for how much they are comfortable taxing citizens for next year. The final approval of the budget does not occur until December, so there’s lots of time to work out the details.

We’ll need every minute of that time to get it right.

Someday, my blog might look something like this:

Directions: click the button on the bottom left side of the screen next to the orange bar.

I made this video clip for an Eden Prairie company called Survey & Ballot Systems (SBS). SBS manages elections processes for non-governmental organizations. They run elections for private and non-profit organizations to elect members to their Boards of Directors. SBS uses technology to run elections that are fair and efficient.

I helped them make this short film clip for an upcoming trade show they are heading off to in Nashville, Tennessee. They are hoping to add this video streaming technology to the elections they manage online for their clients. Instead of just going to a website and checking a box beside the candidate you’d like to vote for, you could click a button and see a video streamed film clip of each candidate - and then make your decision. I like it. I think it’s our future.

SBS is another great Eden Prairie company. I think they are on to something big. I think we’ll all be voting like this someday. Maybe someday soon.

That’s Gene Dietz. Gene is the City’s Public Works Director. He has worked for the City of Eden Prairie for over 24 years. He is an engineer’s engineer. Gene is wearing a bullet-proof vest in this picture. For the kinds of emotional City issues (roads, noise, water fines, traffic, sewage, etc.) that Gene must confront from time to time, it’s probably not a bad idea for him to have his own bullet-proof vest. This one is only borrowed from his friends in the Police Department. Gene is my guest blogger today. Here are his thoughts on the pickle we’ve made for ourselves with our collective inability or unwillingness to take financial responsibility to improve our transportation system. Here’s Gene….
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Shutting Down The Tap

While wading through the �2030 Transportation Policy Plan� as prepared by the Metropolitan Council with aid of the Department of Transportation, the reality of nearly 1 million more people in the 7 county metro area and not enough money to provide for an adequate transportation system hit home! If we can�t support additional growth, then the answer is pretty clear�shut down all new development. No new homes, apartments, businesses, industry�nothing. If there isn�t enough money to support the infrastructure needs for today, much less for the future, we should do everything feasible to shut off the tap!

Take a breath and don�t hyperventilate.

In fact, growth is good for business, contributing to the Gross National Product is good and growth improves all our lives. BUT, moving ahead without a solid plan for preparing our transportation system for another million people is almost as silly as closing the door to growth. Here are a couple of thoughts.

Cities have had the ability for years to set aside certain revenues for the purpose of growth�it�s called Tax Increment Financing. The principal is fairly simple. Take the incremental property tax differential between the existing condition (vacant land or undervalued property) and the taxes generated by a new use and dedicate it to paying for something. Sometimes that something is reducing the development costs for the new business or enterprise, but sometimes it is used to pay for infrastructure improvements, such as roads and utilities. Why not develop a baseline of state revenue (say for January, 2005) and all the real revenue growth that occurs after that has a portion allocated for reinvestment into transportation infrastructure? Perhaps it is 5% or 35%–certainly there are economists that can help devise the amount. This approach is much more appealing than turning off the tap or having no plan to accommodate the projected impact to an already congested system.

Finally, what business sells their product for less than it costs to make it? What business has kept the same price for their product for 17 years�even if they lose money? If you haven�t guessed, the product is roads and the consumer pays for it at the gas pump in the form of a tax. Currently, we pay 20 cents per gallon in taxes�the same amount as in 1988. Oftentimes government is criticized for not running like a business. Sometimes it can�t. But the business principle of having a loss leader on your primary product line isn�t in any manual of government best practices�seems more like being stubborn on the part of our elected leadership. Each political party can expound on the reasons why we don�t have a plan, but the end result is: We don�t have a plan!

The two primary issues in our local lives are Transportation and Education (I�ll save this for another day) funding. It�s no secret that someone has to pay for it. It doesn�t take a rocket scientist to figure this out�just leaders with character.

Every so often I get a chance to help educate the citizens of tomorrow. I like doing that. I don’t have many opportunities, so I make the most of them when I can. Yesterday I had the chance to meet with a group of Boy Scouts from Eden Prairie and talk to them about city government. They liked that the best. I could tell.

We talked about the structure of city government and how it’s different from other levels of government they live under. We talked about all the different city services they use as they live a normal day in Eden Prairie. But the biggest hit of my time with them was taking them up to Council chairs and letting them see the world as a City Councilmember sees it every first and third Tuesday of each month.

The Scoutmaster of this fine group of young citizens is Dr. Andy Baker. In his work life, Andy is the Chief Medical Examiner of Hennepin County. Talk about a guy with some pretty interesting work stories….Andy is The Man. Teaching young men about citizenship through scouting is a great gift that Andy Baker is giving back to his community. It’s a gift that we will all benefit from as these fellows grow up. Thanks Andy, and thanks guys. You’re welcome by City Center anytime!

The Honorable Gentlemen from the 3rd District of Minnesota, Congressman Jim Ramstad, was our special guest speaker at the Eden Prairie A.M. Rotary Club this morning.

Congressman Ramstad is always a good speaker. He fills a thirty minute speech with a lot of information. He briefed us today on current issues in Washington, DC, such as the status of new homeland security funding, his recent vote against the House education funding bill, and his recent vote in favor of the new transportation bill that includes money for a number of projects around the state, including the 494-169 intersection project right here in Eden Prairie.

Another thing that I like about Congressman Ramstad is his independence. There are congressional representatives that think party first, district second, but Ramstad is not one of them. He has a really good feel for the political temperament of the 3rd District. He votes with his party most of the time, but he’ll break ranks when he knows an issue is going to play differently back home than it does inside the Beltway.

We’re fortunate to have a Member of Congress like Jim Ramstad. He pays attention to his constituents, votes his conscience, and always makes himself accountable to the people of the District for his votes.

Can’t ask for much more than that.

One of the more minor accomplishments of the State Legislature this past session was the adoption of a bill that required local governments to create and adopt, by resolution, a policy on out-of-state travel for elected officials. The policy must address the following three issues:

1. When is travel outside the state appropriate?
2. What are the applicable expense limits?
3. What are the procedures for approval of travel?

The policy must be adopted by the City Council (or other applicable governing body) by a recorded vote and must be available to the public for review upon request.

Most of my peers have pointed at this new state law as proof of the folly of the Legislature’s 2005 session: Fiddling around with out-of-state travel policies for local government while not talking to each other about the State’s budget and taxation policies until the state government is forced to shut down for lack of an approved state budget.

I disagree, at least in part. Say what you will about the priorities of our State Legislators, but the idea of having an out-of-state travel policy is not a bad idea. In fact, I think we ought to have one. And, it’s not a bad idea for the State Legislature to direct us to have a formal policy on such an issue. In fact, I think it’s OK. The Legislature did not tell us what that policy should be. They merely said that we had to have one and that we will have to be accountable for it. What’s wrong with that?

Now I’ve got to get busy and get started on preparing the new policy. It’s got to be adopted and in place by January 1, 2006.

No big deal.

Around the table starting in the bottom left hand corner and moving clockwise around the table: Sue Kotchevar, CFO; Janet Jeremiah, Community Development Director; Deputy Police Chief Rob Reynolds; Paul Sticha, Facilities Manager; Fire Chief George Esbensen; and Parks & Natural Resources Manager Stu Fox.

This group of people got together on Thursday morning to take a second look at the City’s proposed 2006-2010 Capital Improvement Plan (CIP). The CIP is part of the City’s overall budget planning process. It is the document we use to plan improvements to the City’s buildings, facilities and major equipment. City staff examine the capital improvement needs of the City and then program projects and improvements to meet those needs during the five year period. During the 2006-2010 planning period, we are planning to spend just over $30,000,000 on capital improvements around the community.

Every other year, our CFO starts the CIP planning process by taking a look at the current CIP, asking for input from the City’s Department Directors and Division Managers, and then creating a new proposed CIP for the new five year planning period. Then she forwards the proposed CIP to our management staff for review and comment. They review it. Then we get them all together and review the proposal. We mark it up until it looks like this:

Then we run the numbers again. Sort of a rinse-wash-and-repeat cycle, until we get the numbers to fit within our forecasted CIP revenue budget for the planning period. I think we’re almost there.

The final stop for the CIP: The City Council. We are planning to present the staff recommendation for the 2006-2010 CIP to the Council at their next workshop on August 16, 2005.

Last night was National Night Out. Wow, was it ever a hot one! Temps in the 90’s and humidity in the same range. I had the opportunity to check out some of the Eden Prairie National Night Out festivities last night. This is the scene at Parkway Apartments just down the street from City Center. That’s performer “Cannibal Kevin” with his back to the camera. He’s giving hula instructions to a couple of kids from the building. The complex owners sponsored the National Night Out party, complete with food, drinks, and entertainment. I estimate that they had well over 100 people there last night.

The focus of the National Night Out is getting neighbors out of their homes to meet the people that live next to them in their neighborhood. There are 1,000 reasons why this is a good idea. But for most people that participate in National Night out, it just seems like a fun thing to do. The City supports National Night Out through its public safety services: Police and Fire. The City registers the parties and sends a Police or Fire vehicle/personnel to as many parties as we can get to. I rode to the Parkway Apartments’ party last night with Firefighter Steve Koering. Steve is also one of our fire chiefs. That’s him there in the white with his back to my camera. After we left this party, we went to another one out on Riverview Road where a fire truck had just doused the neighborhood kids to cool them down on a hot night. That looked like a lot of fun, and it leaves the kids with a positive experience of their local police and fire departments.

Another important aspect of National Night Out is that we pack up our City Councilmembers and escort them around the community with Police and Fire personnel to as many parties as we can. We had a regularly scheduled Council meeting last night, so they each got to three, maybe four, parties before it was time to head back to City Center for our meeting. This is a shot of Councilmember Brad Aho (standing in the yellow polo shirt) chatting with residents at Parkway Apartments. This was Councilmember Aho’s first National Night Out as a Councilmember. For many people, this is their first and best opportunity to meet their locally elected officials. And what’s more, they get to meet them on their home turf and not across the room in a hostile public hearing. Councilmembers hear lots of compliments and the occasional complaint during National Night Out. That’s just fine. That’s one of their important functions in our local government: hearing our citizens.

National Night Out is one of my favorite nights to be associated with the City. I think we do the night especially well here in Eden Prairie. I would like to thank the various members of my staff who helped put the night’s events together and for all the police and fire personnel (and reserves) that dedicate their time and energy to participating in the event. The citizens of Eden Prairie appreciate all of you very, very much.