The Blog from City Hall

We launched our internal Charitable Giving Campaign today. Our campaign, like those of many employers, seeks to inspire employees to donate a portion of their every-other-week payroll check to local charities. We organize our campaign around three specific non-profits: Community Health Charities, United Way of the Twin Cities, and PROP.

PROP, which is an acronym for “People Reaching Out to other People”, is a home-grown non-profit that pays an important role in Eden Prairie. It has been around for more than 35 years. That’s a long time in a community that is less than 50 years old as an incorporated city. PROP has its office and distribution center in the Eden Prairie City Center. We provide them with office space, heat, cooling, utilities, and computer support as part of our overall commitment to helping PROP be successful.

At the kick-off of the campaign today, we heard from a representative from United Way and PROP talk about their respective programs and their needs for financial support. We coaxed our employees to the event with free root-beer floats. We’ll do it again tomorrow afternoon and Wednesday morning at 7:00 a.m. I’m hoping we do something different than root-beer floats at 7:00 a.m. Maybe donuts would be nice.

We have the ability in government to tax our residents to support the government services we provide them. Non-profits and charities, however, must depend on voluntary donations to make ends meet. We’re doing our small part to help out.

I hope you will too.

This is an extreme close-up of a selection of our new carpet here in City Center. We’ve been in the midst of a new carpet installation project for about the past month. You’ll see this pattern and color in our atrium and in private offices. I would describe it as blue, grey, and brown, but I’m sure the real color names are much snazzier than that.

This is a view of the new carpet from our central reception desk looking down the hall towards our front doors. You will see a mix of carpet styles and colors in this area of the building. People with taste (and I’m not one of those people, I must admit) in modern office decor tell me it looks good. I believe them.

The contractor doing this work for the City is LaVan Floor Coverings from Burnsville. They have done an outstanding job for us. They do all the work after regular business hours. They have an installation system that allows them to remove the old carpet and install the new carpet without requiring us to disassemble and move all of our office cube furniture. It’s really quite amazing how they get this done. I thought this project would be much more disruptive for both employees and for our citizen/customers. It’s actually been very smooth for employees, and had the added benefit of encouraging (and by “encouraging” I really mean “requiring”) employees to do a little office cube cleaning too. And for citizens, since it’s all done at night, there has been no interruption in our services due to this project.

And, it looks great too.

This is NOT who you want to see in the driver’s seat of a snow plow coming down your street. It’s me, Scott Neal, City Manager behind the wheel of that snow plow. If you see me on your street this winter, you can assume the City is having a very significant snow plow staffing shortage. Very significant.

Now THIS is who you want to see behind the wheel of the snow plow. This is Larry Doig and he’s been plowing snow for the City of Eden Prairie for almost thirty years. He knows what he’s doing, and he can explain it well too. Larry gave me his one hour “Snow Plowing 101″ training course last Thursday at the City’s new outdoor storage site out by the airport.

Before you can operate a snow plow, the driver must complete a vehicle inspection process that Larry calls the “cold steel walk around.” It involves a visual inspection of all moving parts of the truck and the plow apparatus.

See the edge of this plow blade. When it was new, it was flat and sharp and had a straight edge. This is the part of the blade that rubs against the curb of the street. It’s been rounded off through one season of plowing. It’s still OK to use this year, but probably not the year after.

This is the view from the truck looking straight out over the hood at the plow. The far edge of the plow sticks out twelve feet from the driver’s seat. It takes some skill to maneuver the truck and blade on a nice day. Now think about driving it during a snow storm at 4:00 a.m. This is a tough job.

This is a shot of the hydraulics equipment that control the plow. It is a complex machine, but it must stand up to the worst elements of our weather.

This is Larry Doig. Larry and his coworkers in the Eden Prairie Street Maintenance Division know what they’re doing when it comes to moving snow off Eden Prairie’s streets. This is definitely the guy you want to see behind the wheel of a snow plow. And after having the chance to get behind the wheel of a snow plow myself on a warm October day, nobody knows that better than me now.

This a photo of a computer monitor in our Police Department displaying the actual text of a 911 call we received on Friday, October 14. This is exactly what the police officers would have seen on the monitors of the laptop computers they use in their cars while on patrol that day:
Yes, it says, “Dead tiger in back of church.”

Officers were dispatched to the scene and recovered the “dead tiger”. Here is a photo of Police Department Customer Service Representative Carri Haberle tastefully displaying the carcass:
Yes, it’s stuffed. I suppose you could consider it to be dead as well.

We get all kinds of calls at our 911 Center. Oh the stories our dispatchers could tell…..but not in this blog.

Environmental protection comes in many forms. Some are grand, like the creation of the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Some are a little less than grand, like this ordinary piece of orange drainage fabric that the City requires developers to install in new storm sewer intake grates while land grading is still going on in a new development.

Why do we have this requirement? Check out the photo to the left. See all the dirt and small rocks that are sitting on top of the black fabric (same materials as the orange fabric, just different color)? If we did not have the fabric under the grate, that materials would be in our storm sewer system accumulating and accumulating, until is caused a clog, which would eventually cause something to flood.

The City’s engineering division and building inspection division staffs enforce regulations like the one requiring developers to install this protective fabric on new storm sewer intakes because it’s part of their mission to promote safety in the community. Safety for people and property, and for the environment too.

I’ve got our Communications Division staff busy on a project to create a short video profiling Eden Prairie that will accompany Eden Prairie School Superintendent Dr. Melissa Krull on her trip to China next month. Dr. Krull is going to China as part of Governor Pawlenty’s 200-person trade mission team. We’re going to make many copies of this video. Dr. Krull will hand them out to the Chinese officials she meets with during her travels throughout the country.

The purpose the video is to attract interest from a Chinese city in entering into what we’re calling a “strategic community partnership”. I think of it as being somewhat like a “sister city” relationship, except deeper. We are looking for a relationship with a Chinese city that will enable both cities to gain. We want our businesses to gain from this initiative. We want the Chinese city to prosper from its relationship with Eden Prairie businesses as well.

In short, we want to establish a positive brand recognition for Eden Prairie in China. We’re the only “Eden Prairie” in the world. If we do this right, it could be a very valuable relationship for us in the future.

The Eden Prairie Sun Current carried an excellent story about the video in their local paper last week. I recommend that you take a look if you’re interested in more detail about this story.

We held our annual fall Fire & Police Open House on Saturday. It was a beautiful autumn day in Eden Prairie. Sunny and 70. Absolutely perfect. Here are some photos I snapped of the event.

The open house is designed to appeal to kids, and their parents. It’s our way of sharing our appreciation to the community for the many resources they have given to us.

This is one of our Assistant Fire Chiefs, Tom Schmitz, talking to a citizen about the latest innovations in fire/rescue equipment.

Sgt. Jamie Good worked at a table that explained the dangers of drunk and impaired driving. He had tools at his table that simulate varying levels of intoxication. In the business, they call them “drunk goggles”. I tried them out and tried to walk the line at .05%, .10%, and .20% simulated levels of blood alcohol content. Ouch. Couldn’t do it. Don’t drive drunk.

One of the biggest draws at the Open House is the chance to ride a Fire Truck. See the line? This was a short line. With the sirens and those charming firefighters, it’s hard to resist.

We put our Open House together with many local partners from the public and private sectors. Here’s a shot of a volunteer from our local Home Depot store. Home Depot hosted a display where they helped kids build their own wooden fire trucks. It was very popular.

And, finally, it’s my annual photo of me and McGruff The Crime Dog. Did you know McGruff is a girl dog? Not many people do.

A lot of people from our Police and Fire Departments give up their Saturday to put on the Open House. And you know something impressive about that: There’s no arm twisting involved. Our police officers and fire fighters understand how important it is to have the support of the community. Community trust in our public safety personnel and systems is how we’re able to police (verb) a community of 60,000 people with only 90 police officers. It’s how we’re able to provide reliable professional fire and rescue services with a large number of paid on-call volunteer fire fighters.

So, thanks to the Police and Fire folks for putting on a great event on Saturday. And thanks to our citizens that joined us. We appreciate your support.

This is the Old Anderson Schoolhouse:

The Old Anderson Schoolhouse is an example of the old one-room schoolhouses that dotted the Midwestern United States less than 70 years ago. This schoolhouse served Eden Prairie kids of yesteryear. It is currently sitting on private property that is about to be developed into high-end lakefront residential property. Riley Lake lies just to the north of the house.

This schoolhouse was converted to a private homestead after it was abandoned as a schoolhouse. It was recently donated to the Eden Prairie Historical Society which is raising money to restore it. When the restoration is completed, it will be donated to the Eden Prairie School District for its use as an educational facility.

Originally, the plan was to station the restored schoolhouse at Prairieview Elementary School. But now the plan is to station the school on a little plot of land adjacent to this parking lot near Oak Point Intermediate School:

The land around this parking lot, including the parking lot itself, is owned by the City. This location would work well for the schoolhouse site because it has the available parking lot, it is quite visible, and it is adjacent to the school in Eden Prairie where 6th graders are taught about Minnesota history, so it would be close and convenient for them to visit.

At one of our bi-annual joint City Council-School Board meetings, staff proposed the idea of a property trade of this piece of City land for a piece of School owned property adjacent to our Community Center that we will one day need to build another ice rink. Both the Council and the School Board liked the idea and asked staff to proceed with putting the deal together.

A good working relationship between the City and the School District is so valuable when it comes time to discuss an issue like this. We’re fortunate to have such a relationship here in Eden Prairie.

The City Council and the City’s Parks, Recreation and Natural Resources Advisory Commission met last night in joint session to host a Town Meeting for citizens to learn more about the upcoming parks & recreation bond referendum scheduled for November 8, 2005.

I think there were about 50 people in the audience to hear the presentation from our Parks & Recreation Director Bob Lambert. Bob also fielded a couple of questions about the referendum. The event was telecast live on EPTV-16. We also taped the meeting and will rebroadcast it on EPTV-16 throughout the month. Check our website at www.edenprairie.org for the EPTV-16 program schedule.

It was a good meeting. The mood among the audience was positive. The residents I spoke with told me they had weighed the costs and benefits of the package of improvements included in the referendum and plan to support it at the polls.

I’ll talk more about the upcoming referendum in this blog in the coming weeks.

This is an aerial plan map showing proposed improvements to the intersection of I-494 and highway 169. For those of you that drive through this intersection, especially those of you that are northbound on 169, you know it is a perpetual snarl. A freeway intersection with traffic signals. Not a good idea.

Those of us in local governments around this intersection have been working with MnDOT and our federal legislators to encourage them to provide funding to fix this intersection. Not long ago, we had hopes of this project starting construction a couple of years from now. But, it is not to be.

All the money from the State’s 2003 Accelerated Bonding Bill, which could have provided funding for this project, is gone. Much of it went to the Highway 212 project, so our corner of the metro was not overlooked by the State. 169/494 was last project in the schedule of projects to be funded with this pot of money, and the last to receive funding, if there had been any to receive. Based on current funding levels, MnDot proposes to show the project to be built in 2014.

So what do we do until then? I believe that right-of-way acquisition and getting the final design completed should the top priorities. The plans are close to 30% completed right now. It might be a good idea to get the plans ready for a future “design build” project. That way, if new money becomes available, the project is sitting on the shelf and ready to go.

One never knows when the political winds of transportation funding might change and blow more money toward this project. If new state funding becomes available, we could see a rapid acceleration of the 494-169 project up the MnDOT project list. Until that happens we won’t see much rapid acceleration around this intersection until after 2014.

This is the view of the Minnesota River Valley on an overcast, blah day from the new public park area at the south end of Liatrus Lane in the Hennepin Village development on the south side of Eden Prairie. If you catch this view on a nice sunny day, it is stunning.

This is the small park shelter in this park. The shelter is new. It was built this summer as part of the Hennepin Village development. There are picnic tables and benches to enjoy the river valley views and nature. There is also an access to the paved trail system in the area.

Again, a view of the river valley from the shelter itself. Beautiful.
The area around this small park is under development. There is steady construction vehicle traffic around this area all day. But if you have a chance on a weekend, it is a quiet place to sit and enjoy Eden Prairie’s natural beauty.

This is what greeted me this morning when I came into the office this morning. This is the work space of my Executive Assistant Lorene McWaters. The excessive rainfall we experienced last night found its way through our roof and through our insulation and through our ceiling tiles and into her cube. It made quite a mess.

However, it was nice to hear about the cooperation that took place last night during the storm to rig up the tarp and garbage can that ended up catching a lot of the unwanted rain leaks. Our evening maintenance guy, Shaun Sullivan, worked with our evening IT technician, Ryan Browning, and our Communications Manager Pat Brink and our Police Chief Dan Carlson to fight the storm in the building. Shaun and Ryan work in the evenings regularly, but Pat and Dan happened to be around because it was a Council meeting night. They all worked together to solve the problem of the leaks and to prevent further damage to our building and our equipment.

Some emergencies you can plan for and some you can’t. But the best plan for any emergency is for people to be able to come together quickly and solve problems constructively. Eden Prairie city employees are good at that.

This past Friday morning Eden Prairie hosted a meeting of southwest metro elected officials and city managers to hear a presentation on the Met Council’s 2030 Regional Development Framework plan from Metropolitan Council Chair Peter Bell. That’s Peter Bell seated in the brown sport jacket.

The 2030 Framework is, essentially, the Met Council’s strategic plan for the time period between now and 2030. There is a lot to plan for. Demographers are predicting that the Twin Cities will add nearly 1,000,000 people to the metro area by 2030. This new population will require jobs, homes, water, sewer, roads, parks, hospitals, schools, etc.

The 2030 Framework is the start of that metro wide planning process. Chairman Bell is kicking off the planning effort by meeting with local elected and appointed officials to talk about the Framework and seek their support and feedback. We had 90 minutes with Bell to talk about the southwest metro area. He’s a very busy man, so this opportunity was a valuable one.