Monthly Archives: August 2006

Same, Similar, and Different

I’m a Board Member of the Hennepin South Services Collaborative (HSSC). HSSC is a human services and research organization that is a joint venture of the cities and school districts of Eden Prairie, Richfield and Bloomington. At a recent Board meeting, the Board reviewed a report prepared by the HSSC staff that explored the demographic [...]

Meet & Greet & Greet & Greet

One of the things that we do here in our city government to stay in touch with our local business community is to go out and meet with them and talk with them about what they do and what we can do to help them, or sometimes, what we can do to stay out of [...]

Sunday Liquor Store Meeting

We held our first ever, and possibly first annual, all-employee Liquor Store meeting yesterday (Sunday) in the pavilion at the Purgatory Creek Recreation Area. That’s the City’s CFO, Sue Kotchevar, in the background. Sue is is responsible for the City’s liquor store operations. Mitch Dean is the City’s Manager of Liquor Operations. Sue, Mitch and [...]

100% Accurate

How many of you work in a job where the accuracy of your work is checked everyday by not only your supervisor, but also an outside third party? And, what if the information about your accuracy was shared not only within your company, but it also became a matter of public record?
In City government, [...]

Changing Direction at HFT

The Habitat For Technology (HFT) was formed five or so years ago by local business, education and government officials who shared a vision of creating a “Silicon Prairie” economy in Eden Prairie. The HFT did not achieve that goal, but actually turned out to be a valuable venue for the same representatives from Eden Prairie’s [...]

The Primrose School

On the left, that’s me with Percy. It’s part of my ever expanding corporate mascot photography catalog. Percy is the mascot of the Primrose School. Eden Prairie doesn’t currently have a Primrose School, but we will have one, with luck and good weather, in early January 2007. The Primrose School is a new nursery school/childcare [...]

New Signs

That’s our brand new Outdoor Center sign on the left. That’s our old Outdoor Center sign on the right. The old park signs were designed by Steve Sullivan, a former park planner for the City in the early 1980’s. He designed the signs and our park maintenance crew built and installed them. The signs were [...]

The Ziebols

This is Danny Ziebol (left photo). Danny is a student at Eden Prairie High School. Danny is getting ready to leave for a year long student Rotary Club exchange experience in Japan. He contacted me because he was looking for information about Eden Prairie that he could take with him on his trip. As a [...]

Whew! That was a lot of work.

The City Council, pictured to the left, had a longer than average meeting last night and took action on a large number of different items. Here’s a summary:

Endorsed, with some caveats, a new off leash dog park proposed for Bryant Lake Regional Park by the Three Rivers Park District

Approved a plan for the inclusion of [...]

Police and PROP

I received a letter last week from Nancy Holden, Executive Director of PROP. PROP is a local private non-profit human services organization that has been operating in Eden Prairie since 1971. The acronym stands for “People Reaching Out to other People“. Among their many activities, PROP runs a food bank. For the past three years [...]

Traffic Signals

The City Council will be considering the approval of a consulting contract at their August 15 meeting that might make your drive through Eden Prairie just a little bit easier. The Council will consider a contract from a consult to synchronize the traffic signals on T.H. 212 (Flying Cloud Drive) from 494 south to Pioneer [...]

Detecting Terror

I am willing to bet that nobody reading this blog has one of these devices at home. Do you know what it is? Anyone care to guess?
This device is used by Police and military security officers to examine the underside of vehicles for bombs. It has an extremely low profile. It is just a couple [...]

Bye Bye Birdies

An Eden Prairie quasi-landmark bit the dust last week with the demolition of Birdies mini-golf and recreation area. If you click on the thumbnail photo you can see a backhoe in the trees doing the final demo on the former youth recreating spot. It is going to be replaced by a spanking new Office Max. [...]

National Night Out – 2006

We had another successful National Night Out this year in Eden Prairie, albeit a soggy one. We had 95 neighborhood parties this year – which is a new record. But attendance was surely down a little this year because of the rain. It was a steady light rain with shorts bursts of downpour throughout the [...]

Flat & Black

Flat & black. That’s how a street with a brand new coat of asphalt ought to look. This is view of Gerard Drive looking east toward I-494. Its new surface of asphalt is only a few days old. And did it ever look nice with a little bit of rain on it from this morning’s [...]