This is what our City Center atrium looked like today. It was our annual Invasion of the 6th Graders. This happens once each year when Oak Point Intermediate School 6th Grade teacher, and Member of the City Council, Ron Case organizes a bike trip for the 6th grade students to see Eden Prairie. [...]
Monthly Archives: September 2005
Conference Wraps
September 28, 2005 – 9:44 pm
The 2005 ICMA Conference wrapped up today with a closing session led by this noted Minnesotan:
Garrison Keillor regaled the audience with his storytelling centering on, of course, the people and culture of Minnesota. The assembled group of 3,000+ loved it. He was very entertaining, and ended it with a few poignant words [...]
Blog Preaching at ICMA
September 26, 2005 – 7:35 pm
I attended the annual conference of the International City/County Management Association (ICMA) today. It is being held in sunny downtown Minneapolis this year. It was perfect fall day. Minneapolis shows well on a day like today.
The conference actually started yesterday, but I did not get there until today. I guess I’ll [...]
Roundabout
September 22, 2005 – 4:18 pm
This is a sign coming to a city near you in the Twin Cities metro area:
The sign indicates that you are driving into a road intersection that is controlled by a Roundabout, or what others might call a Traffic Circle. The purpose of the Roundabout is to control the traffic flow in the intersection [...]
Special Guests
September 21, 2005 – 7:37 am
It’s a nice addition to a City Council meeting when the Council can recognize and applaud special guests. We had two opportunities to do just that at last night’s Council meeting.
These are the ABC girls from the ABC House. The A Better Chance Foundation (ABC) is a charitable foundation that seeks to bring [...]
Curing A Pension Deficit Disorder
September 19, 2005 – 8:22 am
There have been a number of stories in the media lately about the future of employee pensions at Northwest Airlines and Delta Airlines. What will happen to employee pensions when the employer goes broke? When an employee dedicates their working life to a company and that company fails to live up to its [...]
Guests from Down Under
September 16, 2005 – 2:30 pm
Eden Prairie Public Works Director Gene Dietz and I had the opportunity to host a group of nine municipal Public Works Directors (and one municipal CEO) from Australia yesterday. Here we are in the group shot photo in our Council Chambers.
The Australians were in the United States to attend the annual International Public [...]
Dirty Medians
September 15, 2005 – 10:43 am
I am as human as the next person and I’ve got a pet peeve: Dirty Medians. I hate dirty medians. I am referring to medians in streets. And the “dirt” in this case is our eternal human nemesis: The Weed.
Here’s what I’m talking about. This is a dirty [...]
The Honorables: Sviggum and Johnson
September 13, 2005 – 8:50 am
This is The Honorable Steve Sviggum (R-Kenyon), Speaker of the Minnesota State House of Representatives. Farmer. Former math teacher. Graduate of St. Olaf College.
This is The Honorable Dean Johnson (DFL-Willmar), Majority Leader of the Minnesota State Senate. Chaplain - U.S. National Guard. Lutheran pastor. Graduate of St. Olaf College.
As you can see, [...]
Assistant City Manager-Assistant to the City Manager: What’s the Big Difference?
September 12, 2005 – 7:42 am
I find the recent controversy regarding the resume of the Director of the Federal Emergency Management Association (FEMA), Mr. Michael Brown, to be really interesting. It’s interesting to me because it centers on the organizational nomenclature that we use in city government. That’s not a subject that you see discussed much in the [...]
Patience and Prudence
September 8, 2005 – 1:26 pm
When the City decides to do a project, we go through a lot of work just to bring the project to bid. There is usually some kind of public process to get ideas about design. Then there’s process to through with one of our citizen advisory boards and sometimes the City Council. Then [...]
Officer Silvera: Rest In Peace
September 7, 2005 – 8:38 am
Yesterday afternoon about 2:00 p.m. I sat down for meeting with Police Chief Dan Carlson and Deputy Chief Rob Reynolds to review our police pursuit policy. The three of us sit down from time to time to review our Police Department operating policies, mostly for my benefit. Later in the afternoon, Lino Lakes [...]
First Day of School
September 6, 2005 – 9:29 am
And then there was one….
Young Ethan Neal is excited about his first day of the 10th grade. He’s the last of my three boys still at home.
Today is the First Day of School across our great state. Schools are getting back into full activity levels, and cities are there to help. It’s an [...]
Good Meeting with the MAC
September 2, 2005 – 7:31 am
Earlier this week I wrote about an upcoming meeting that City officials were planning to have with officials from the Metropolitan Airports Commission (MAC). We had the meeting on Tuesday. I promised a follow-up blog entry about the meeting. Here it is.
It was a very positive and productive meeting. I think [...]
