The Blog from City Hall

We finished our day on Friday with the Loudi, China delegation with a press conference at the Eden Prairie High School Performing Arts Center at which we signed agreements with them pledging future cooperation and exchanges in the future.  They verbally invited a group from Eden Prairie to visit them in May.  We’re thinking about that. 

Following the signing ceremony, we treated the Loudi delegation to an NBA basketball game at the Target Center.  The man on the left is Mr. Chris Wright.  Chris is the President of the Timberwolves.  He is also an Eden Prairie resident.  We asked Chris for his help in this initiative.  He was the best!  He gave us a full tour of the Target Center and spent a generous amount of time talking with our guests about the Wolves and about the future of the NBA in China.  There was even some discussion about the possibility of the Wolves playing a preseason game in Loudi.  The delegatino was very interested in that.

And here’s a nice shot of the Loudi delegatin gathered around the Timberwolves logo at center court prior tothe start of the game.  It was a great game, despite the fact that the Wolves lost to the Nuggets 102-101.  There was a lot of energy in the Target Center and our guests had a wonderful time.

The Loudi delegation is now off to Las Vegas where they will see a different side of the United States.  They’ll be back home before the end of this week.  It was a good experience for us to host them.  I believe this initiative will yield positve results for our local business economy.

 

Friday, February 24, 2006 was officially designated as “Loudi, Hunan, People’s Republic of China Day” in the State of Minnesota by Governor Tim Pawlenty.  Former State Senator (and current Habitat For Technology Board Member) Roy Terwilliger was instrumental in presenting the request to the Governor’s office to honor our guests from Loudi in this way.  The announcement of the Governor’s proclamation was made by Minnesota House Majority Leader Rep. Erik Paulsen at the Communnity Leaders Banquet at Bearpath Country Club on Thursday night.  The Habitat For Technology Board members presented an original copy of the Governor’s proclamation to the Loudi delegation at a press conference Friday afternoon.  They were honored an impressed with this recognition.  It will be meaningful to them back home when they discuss the success of their trip to Minnesota.

The Habitat For Technology Board of Directors, of which I am a member, hosted a very nice event last night at the Bearpath Country Club here in Eden Prairie for our Loudi guests called the “Community Leaders Banquet”.  The Loudi delegation spent their morning in a business seminar meeting with Eden Prairie’s business leaders.  The evening then was spent with Eden Prairie’s community leaders.  People such as our City Councilmembers, School Board members, Chamber of Commerce Board Members, state and county elected officials, and the like.  This photo shows Loudi city Vice-Mayor Li on the left and Eden Prairie Mayor Nancy Tyra-Lukens on the right.

This is what greeted our Chinese guests from Loudi, China when they reached the baggage claim area this past Monday night at 11:25 pm.  “Welcome to Eden Prairie” in English and Mandarin.  That’s my son Ethan holding the left side of the banner and the City’s Communications Manager Pat Brink is holding the other end. They flew in from Philadelphia on USAir.  Their plane landed just as two other USAir flights were landing so the one baggage ramp devoted to USAir flights had well over 200 people milling around it.  But they eventually got their luggage and headed off to the Radisson at the University of Minnesota for the night.

On the left is Mr. Xiangpun Li, Vice-Mayor of Loudi city.  He is the highest ranking official in the Loudi delegation.  To Mr. Li’s right is Mr. Lili Pan.  Lili lives in St. Paul and has an office in Eden Prairie.  He is a Chinese-American business consultant.  He is originally from Loudi.  He is accompanying the Loudi delegation to advise them on American protocol and serving as their official translator.  We have been working with Lili for at least a couple of months now to plan this visit.  He has been good to work with on this project.

Earlier today, we hosted a business seminar for the officials from Loudi to tell us about their city and about how companies from Eden Prairie could do business there.  We followed their presentation with one of our own, including an eight minute video that my Communications Divisions staff made about Eden Prairie done entirely in the Mandarin language.  I think they were impressed by that.  The presentations, both theirs and ours, went very well.  Following the presenations, the group went to Starkey Labs here in Eden Prairie for a tour of their manufacturing facility.  In the photo, that’s Joe Stoebner at the podium.  Joe is the chair of the Habitat For Technology Board of Directors.  The HFT Board is the body that organized the Loudi visit.  To the right of Joe is Lili Pan doing his translating.  

In about 90 minutes I will be heading out to the Community Leaders Banquet.  We have invited the members of the City Council, school Board, Chamber of Commerce Board, and Habitat For Technology Board to attend the banquet tonight to meet our Chinese visitors.  Should be a nice cap to a productive, and busy, day for everyone involved in this venture.

 

The City Council met last night (Tuesday, February 21) and, among many things, approved a new rental housing inspection program. The new program is one aspect of a four-pronged strategy to maintain and improve the overall value of our community housing stock.

The first prong was the Council’s adoption of an exterior maintenance code for all types of housing. This ordinance, which was adopted in 2005, provided the City with the legal basis to require property owners to maintain the buildings on their property up to certain standards. This ordinance allows the City to require a homeowner, for example, to paint their home if 50% of more of the exposed surface of the house has peeling paint.
The second prong of the overall strategy was the adoption of a new clean site ordinance. This ordinance requires property owners to maintain the general outdoor conditions of their land up to certain standards. This ordinance, for example, allows the City to require a homeowner to clean up junk in the backyard. If the homeowner doesn’t do it, the City will, and then require the homeowner to pay for it.

The final prong of the strategy is the adoption of a Point-of-Sale inspection ordinance for the sale of homes. Several other cities in the Twin Cities (Minneapolis and St. Louis Park are two examples) have such ordinances. The ordinances have a direct impact on the condition of housing in the communities where they require sellers to maintain or repair a home to a certain standard to enable it to be sold on the private market.

We don’t see the point-of-sale inspection program anywhere soon on our planning horizon, but I would expect our Council to consider it someday.

The City is concerned with the value of individual homes because the condition of a home can positively or negatively impact the value of adjoining properties in the same neighborhood. More often than not, when the City takes an action to force a homeowner to comply with one of our ordinances we make that homeowner unhappy, to be sure, but we also get the appreciation of every neighbor surrounding that unhappy homeowner.

Sometimes that’s what we have to settle for in city government.

It’s President’s Day today. City offices at City Center are closed today. You may not get your mail on President’s Day, but you can access most of our city services today. Our Police are working. Our Fire Fighters are working. Our Parks are open. Our Community Center is open. Our Liquor Stores are open. Our employees that have to work today will get their paid holiday time some other time. It’s the way we’ve got to do business in order to provide top-notch services for our citizens.

I’ve installed the blogging platform WordPress here for Scott’s weblog and imported all his previous entries from the past three years.

Let me know if you discover any glitches.

Note that he has a new RSS feed.

I’ll gradually be changing the theme, colors, and sidebars over the next few days. And hopefully this will resolve the infamous clicking problem. Maybe.

As a result of Eden Prairie citizens’ vote of approval in the November 2005 referendum, the City is beginning to plan some exciting new improvements to the Eden Prairie Community Center. Step one in the process of improving the Community Center was the passage of the referendum. The next step in that process happens tonight.

Tonight, at 7:00 pm in the Council Chambers here in City Center, the City will host a community meeting to collect feedback from citizens about what changes they would like to see in the Community Center. There are some changes, like improvements in our locker rooms, that we simply must do, but we’re still early in the design process and open to any and all ideas for other new features or improvements.

Got an idea? Pop into our meeting tonight and share it. We’ll have City staff, elected officials, and design professionals here and we’d like to hear what you’ve got to say.

If you take a short trip to the City’s website at www.edenprairie.org, you will notice this logo in the bottom right corner of our front page. The logo is an activated button that allows a person viewing our website to have the site translated into a language other than English. Click on the flag of the country whose national language you prefer - and presto - our website is reproduced entirely in the selected language. It’s amazing, really.

The translation feature is called Babel Fish. It is owned by Alta Vista. There is no cost to add this feature to our website. It’s not a perfect translation, but it gets pretty close. I have two sons that read and speak German and they tell me the German translation is close enough to know what we are trying to communicate. I’ve heard the same about the Spanish translation.

We added the feature to our website to enable more people in the world to get the word about Eden Prairie. While our website is designed primarily to serve our current citizens and businesses, we also want to be open to the many potential citizens and future businesses who are interested in learning more about Eden Prairie. This little website feature helps us connect with our future.

Seen this building? It’s on the north side of Technology Drive, right across the street from Rosemount-Emerson. Right down the street from Costco. It’s a flat, ordinary industrial building. But, like many comparable buildings in Eden Prairie, change is coming.

The City’s Planning Division staff is reviewing a proposal from a Twin Cities developer to take down that building and put this in its place: a brand new 65,000 square foot Gander Mountain store.

This is a photo I snapped of one of the plan sheets for the project. See the word “wetland” written in red ink with a question mark behind it? That’s an indication that someone on my staff is checking on the status of a potential wetland on the site. This might be a problem, but it might not be an insurmountable problem. There are many issues with this site though that will have to be addressed. Technology Drive is a skinny two lane road in front of this site. It will probably have to be expanded to handle the traffic generated by a store like this. Also, if you’re familiar with this site (you can see if very clearly from Highway 5), you will recall there are a number of large high voltage power lines that are converging into an electrical substation on the land adjacent to this site. These power lines, and their easements in the area, will impact what can be built on the proposed site.

This site is in the Major Center Area. We had targeted this area of the Major Center Area for new development. It’s exciting to see new development come. Now it’s time to work out the details.

We have to be careful in city government how and what we spend public money on. A few years ago the State Auditor took a Minnesota city government to the proverbial woodshed for a making a number of financial misappropriations, including one where the city spent public dollars to send flowers to the funeral of one of their own city employees. According to the State Auditor, spending public dollars on flowers for the funeral of a city government employee is not an authorized expense for city governments, according to Minnesota State Law.

And yet, it still needs to be done in order for the co-workers of that employee to feel decent and supportive, and for the family of the deceased to feel that their loved one was appreciated at work. So what to do?

We handled the situation here in Eden Prairie by creating something called the “Sunshine Fund.� We do a voluntary payroll deduction of $15/employee/year to pay for these sorts of “non-authorized” expenses throughout the year for employees. We use the accumulated money for funeral flowers, new baby flowers, and other related events. Most of our employees contribute to the Sunshine Fund, but not all of them.We spend money out of this fund for all employees (and their immediate families), regardless if the employee in question has contributed to the Sunshine Fund, or not.

Because employees fund the expenses of the Sunshine Fund with their own money, no public money is involved in the process. The City of Eden Prairie does not send flowers to the funeral of an Eden Prairie city employee. Eden Prairie city employees send flowers to the funeral of an Eden Prairie city employee.

And maybe that’s a better way to do it anyway.

As many cities do in Minnesota, we operate a municipal indoor ice rink. We have two sheets of ice in our Community Center. For a long time now there has been a desire/demand in the community for an additional sheet of indoor ice. Recently the City Council has expressed some interest in investigating the feasibility of a proposed 3rd rink project. When the Eden Prairie Hockey Association heard of this interest on the Council, they asked their members to begin contacting Councilmembers and staff to express their support for the project. Nothing wrong with that. In fact, it’s a pretty good idea. Here’s a taste of what I’ve received in my email inbox in January regarding the 3rd rink project:

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“Skating is a foundation for any MN community. Any kid under 9 only skated once a week this year due to weather. Support the third rink. Thanks.”

“Our family supports the need for a 3rd sheet of ice in EP!!!!!!! Thank you!”

“We need and support a 3rd rink.”

“Not only do I support the efforts to build a 3rd rink…I also beg the council to upgrade the facilities as well….It is a complete embarrassment that the high school teams have to play in such an outdated facility. Have you ever toured other communities facilities??..Edina, Bloomington, White Bear Lake, Buffalo, Plymouth, Duluth, Warroad, Roseau, Moorhead, Brooklyn Park, Rochester, Apple Valley, Eastview, VIctoria, Minnetonka, Lakeville. Functional facilities that represent the pride and support of not only the local associations, but also the High School programs. The EPCC is outdated and embarrassing.”

“I am writing to ask for your support in obtaining a third ice rink for Eden Prairie. With two young children in figure skating and hockey we are becoming very familiar with limited and odd hour ice time (or no ice availability). My son�s Mite hockey team season has been disappointing as all practices since January 1 are scheduled outdoors due to a lack of indoor ice availability and the outdoor rinks haven�t been open.”

“Please support a third ice rink for Eden Prairie. I have no doubt that it will be well used.”

“I am contacting you as a voting tax payer with active children in Eden Prairie, to let you know that Eden Prairie needs a 3rd rink. I know that the Park and Rec referendum was passed and now is a planning time.”

“You need to do what is right for the entire city of Eden Prairie and build a 3rd rink. We are supposed to be an upscale community, but our rinks and community center are a joke. Please listen to your voters. We want change or our votes will make changes in November.”

“I have watched numerous trail heads and paths be developed that are used by such low numbers of people it is ridiculous. The way the outdoor rinks were run last year was joke! People will stop wanting to be here if we do not work together with our youth sports associations and our city to keep this a great place. I have seen the overall tax base of this community sky rocket in the last 5 years. The area around the mall is amazing. So where does all of that money go? Does more money from the general fund need to be allocated to Park and Rec, maybe so. You have ridden the ride of a growing community that you did an ok job with. Well guess what, now is hard part as we stop growing and need to come up with innovative ways to keep this cities so great. Either dig down deep and find some innovative and creative ways to get our community center up date, or get out and let the right person in. The kids of Eden Prairie deserve better!”

“I am writing to let you know our family lives in EP and we currently have 4 kids play hockey in EPHA. We are very much in favor of a 3rd rink addition to the EPCC and will vote for it. Thank you for your time.”

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I receive 10-12 emails a week about the 3rd rink. Most of them are concise and polite. Some are not. I’ve included a couple of the less-than-polite variety in this blog this morning as an example of how NOT to write an advocacy email to an elected official. Of course I’m not an elected official so I have to take what I get. But my advice to anyone who wants something from any level of government is that insulting and berating email is not going to help you get what you want.

Just a thought……..

According to an article in the Minneapolis-St. Paul Business Journal, Musicland Holding Company (the company that owns, among other things, Musicland, Sam Goody and Suncoast Video stores around the country) is going to close 341 underperforming stores, including their Sam Goody store in the Eden Prairie Center mall. Other Minnesota store closings are in Duluth, Maplewood and Blaine.

That’s too bad, but the retail music industry is in a difficult spot in their business cycle right now. I don’t know how these retail stores can be making much of a profit anymore. Anybody with a teenager and a home computer will know what I’m talking about.

We’ll miss the store, but the Eden Prairie Center is a vibrant place right now. I have to believe that they’ll fill that store slot quickly.

Minnesota cities charge user fees for many different city services. Recreation programs. Park shelter rentals. Ice arena rentals. One of the more common user fees charged by cities is building permit fees.

But while cities are allowed by State law to charge user fees, cities are also required by Minnesota State law to set user fees according to the cost of the service being provided. Cities are not allowed, by law, to set user fees at levels that generate a “profit” for the city.

Last year a group of home builders sued the City of Elk River alleging that the City was using its building permit revenue as a profit center in their city budget. The City resisted the allegation in court. The parties announced a settlement of the lawsuit yesterday. I have copied an article below from Finance & Commerce magazine which describes the lawsuit in more detail.

Each year our Finance Division staff prepares a review of our user fees which compares them to the costs of the city services they are designed to support. We make sure our fees are in line with our costs. We also file a report documenting the fee-cost relationship with the State.

Our user fees in Eden Prairie do not make a profit. They support the services they are designed to support.

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Settlement reached in Elk River fee dispute
Brian Johnson, F&C Construction Writer
January 31, 2006

A lawsuit that pitted the city of Elk River against three homebuilders groups has been settled, and no money will change hands under terms of the agreement.

Last year, the Builders Association of the Twin Cities, the Builders Association of Minnesota, and the Suburban Northwest Builders Association sued the city after accusing it of breaking state law by charging what the associations believed were excessive fees for building permits.

The lawsuit said building permit applicants from 1998 to 2004 were entitled to a refund of building permit fees that exceed the city�s cost of �reviewing, investigating, and administering applications� for building permits.

In lieu of a refund, the original lawsuit called for a sum equal to the amount of the alleged overcharges to be put into a continuing education fund for builders and inspectors.

Under the settlement, however, the groups will not receive any money from the city. Moreover, a joint press release from the city and the associations states that all parties agree that �the city�s fee payers are getting the services for which they are paying.�

For its part, the city has agreed to provide financial reports that �more clearly explain to the associations that the amount and use of its building permit fees fully comply with all legal requirements,� according to a statement from Elk River City Administrator Lori Johnson.

Remi Stone, public policy director for the Builders Association of the Twin Cities, expressed confidence that the settlement would �provide the transparency needed to show how the building permit fees paid to the city by residents and builders are used for the purposes for which they were collected.�

In a phone interview, Stone predicted that the settlement would result in better public policy and better stewardship of public dollars. �We had a city that was super-motivated to come to a resolution, and we had a negotiating team of builders and developers that appreciate working in Elk River,� Stone added. �They just wanted to make sure there was transparency� in the fee-paying process.

The lawsuit accused the city of overcharging building permit applicants by nearly $1 million over two years. Permit fees exceeded city expenses related to the fees by $183,264 in 2002 and $808,152 in 2003, according to the lawsuit.

Under state law, building permit fees must be �fair, reasonable, and proportionate and have a nexus to the actual cost of the service for which the fee is imposed.�

The law also states that municipalities must �adopt management and accounting procedures to ensure that fees are maintained and used only for the purpose for which they are collected,� and that municipalities must explain the basis of their fees upon request.

From the beginning, the city insisted that it didn�t overcharge builders.

John Baker, an attorney for the city, told the Elk River Star News last February that builders underestimated �the true cost that their own activities impose on the city,� adding that the city uses a state-issued schedule and system to determine building permit fees.

�We think the city has actually stopped short of recovering the full costs that it could recover,� he added.

Elk River�s building permit fees are on the �lower to middle side� compared with other cities, Johnson said. In fact, she said the city has sometimes waived fees altogether �because we are more concerned about safety than revenue.�

Overall, she said, the city is pleased with the settlement. �Being the defendant in a lawsuit, we came out very well,� Johnson said. �We did not have to pay any money through the settlement. We have not had to change our fees. � From our perspective, we stood the test that everything we were doing and will continue to do is fine.�

A similar lawsuit is pending against the city of Shakopee.

Stone said Shakopee is doing an extensive cost survey related to the permit fees, and that the parties in that suit are waiting for the results. Mediation of that dispute should resume near the end of February, she added.

The League of Minnesota Cities says municipalities should review their fees annually to make sure they comply with state laws, and that expenses related to development activity are mentioned in the city�s annual report.

Cities should not rely on �boilerplate fee schedules� when adopting fees, the league added. Instead, cities should identify all costs associated with administering the building code, including staff salary and benefits, and the cost of supplies, equipment and materials.

� Copyright 2006 Finance & Commerce, Inc. All Rights Reserved