The Blog from City Hall

Governor Pawlenty announced yesterday the State’s latest financial condition forecast. In short: It looks pretty good. The State is projecting that it has a taken in $2.17 billion dollars in tax revenues than it was expecting to receive. In the government business, we call that a “budget surplus”. There’s a front page article in today’s Star Tribune entitled “A Surplus of Ideas” that suggests the many ideas there will be to spend the extra money. That’s not unexpected. If government gets more money, government spends more money, right?

It appears that the leading idea for spending down the surplus is to use it for some sort of property tax relief. The Governor suggested that yesterday. DFL House and Senate leaders have also mentioned that property tax relief would be one of their top priorities.

Who could be against property tax relief? Nobody, but pay attention to the details. The State might decide to channel its property tax relief through the Local Government Aid (LGA) program in which the State gives money to local governments under the theory that the local governments will use the State money to help pay their local expenses so that they can keep their local property taxes lower than they would need to be to support the necessary level of local government spending. Get it? If the State decides to channel its property tax relief through the LGA program, property taxpayers in cities like Eden Prairie, Minnetonka, Edina and Bloomington won’t see a dollar of that relief because - under the current rules of the State’s LGA program - these cities get zero dollars of LGA. The LGA program rules preclude cities like Eden Prairie from receiving LGA financial support. So keep your ears open for that idea.

Another idea to route property tax relief from the State to property taxpayers is through the State Market Value Homestead Credit (MVHC) program. This too is an existing State property tax relief program through which they might channel their property tax relief to taxpayers. In this program, cities grant property tax relief to property taxpayers and then the State reimburses the cities for the amount of the property tax relief they granted. But hold on just another minute, in the 2003 Tax Bill, the State Legislature suspended the rules of the MVHC so that cities like Eden Prairie, Minnetonka, Edina and Bloomington no longer qualified to have their property tax relief reimbursed. The State still required us to grant the property tax relief. They just decided that they would not reimburse us for it anymore. This caused an immediate hit of around $800,000 to our local City budget. So, again, unless the rules of the MVHC are changed, Eden Prairie property taxpayers will get shorted again if the State’s property tax relief is routed to them through the MVHC program.

The State does not directly tax the property value of residential homes in Minnesota. Any property tax relief that comes out of this current budget surplus will either need to be routed through local governments that do tax the value of residential homes; be routed through a new State government program; or be sent back to residents through something like the “Jesse Checks” of a few years ago. Remember those?

I won’t comment on the advisability of property tax relief vs. spending the money in some other constructive manner. There are good points on both sides of that argument and reasonable people will disagree with either side. However, I will say this. If the State decides to route its property tax relief through either of its two existing primary property tax relief routes - the LGA program or the MVHC program - and, they choose not to change the rules of those two programs, Eden Prairie property taxpayers won’t see its fair share of the property tax relief from this current State budget surplus.

Property tax relief is a noble idea, but we must keep our eyes on the details of how it is to be accomplished.

The City Council held its second Town Hall Meeting for 2006 last night at Summit Place Senior Campus. Summit Place is a beautiful senior living campus here in Eden Prairie. It is owned and operated by SilverCrest Properties. SilverCrest owns and operates similar quality senior living operations in Minnesota and Iowa. The Summit Place property in Eden Prairie is one of their newest properties. It is a beautiful facility. Not only did they host our Town Hall Meeting last night, but they also provided us a pre-Town Hall Meeting meal as well. Good food. Good facility.

This was the Council’s second Town Hall Meeting this year. We had one earlier this spring at Forest Hill Elementary School. In 2004 and 2005, the Council held two Council meetings each year outside of our regular meeting space in City Center. The Council wanted to have the meetings in the community as a way of opening itself up to residents who might feel uncomfortable or intimidated by the formality of our City Council Chambers.

But the logistics of carrying out a full off-site Council meeting with sound, video, presentations, etc proved to be a daunting task. So daunting in fact that this year we changed gears a bit and decided to do the Town Hall Meeting-style meeting. In addition to the previous motivation of trying to provide residents a less formal atmosphere to engage their elected officials, the Council also wanted a meeting format where residents were actually invited to engage their elected officials. It may sound funny, but a City Council meeting is not always the best place for residents to engage their elected officials. As I said before, the atmosphere can be intimidating, plus there are the pressures of the night’s meeting agenda and so on. At our Town Hall Meetings this year, we have been able to accomplish both of the Council’s objectives. We held the meetings in comfortable, less formal community spaces and we dedicated the entire evening’s agenda to one thing: listening to our citizens.

By my count, there were about 60 citizens in attendance at the meeting last night plus another 20 City officials (elected and staff). The meeting started at 7:00 pm and we were there until about 8:30 pm. Many, but not all, of those in attendance were residents of Summit Place. The Summit Place program coordinator told me after the meeting how much their residents appreciated this opportunity because of them do not drive after sundown and this was the first opportunity that many of them had to interact with their City officials.

The Council and staff fielded a number of questions during the evening. What is going on with the timing of traffic signals on Flying Cloud Drive? Is there a better way to mark pedestrian crossings of streets? Where is the Golden Triangle? What is the future of Wal-Mart? Will the City ever build a municipal wireless broadband network? Can the City do more with cleaning snow & ice from sidewalks during the winter? Good questions. We gave some good answers too.

The mood of the meeting was positive and pleasant. Many thanks to Summit Place (especially Michelle Hubbard at Summit Place) for being such wonderful hosts.

I’ve been on a brief “bloggatical” (a blogging sabbatical, if you will) for the past week or so. I’ve been getting my home ready for a big Thanksgiving Family Feast. There was lots of cleaning and cooking and hosting to be done. Now that’s done so it’s time to get back into the swing of things at work.

So today’s post is about football. First things first: Congratulations to the Eden Prairie High School Eagles on their perfect 13-0 season and their fifth Class AAAAA football state championship at the 25th annual Prep Bowl last Friday. I was there, as was half of Eden Prairie. Lakeville South was a worthy opponent, but they just couldn’t quite get it done. The Eagle defense was formidable, while the offense was getting 5 yards minimum every time they ran off the block of All-State Right Tackle Ryan Orton. It was an excellent game.

In other football news, this time on the professional side, it seems that the partnership between our own Minnesota Viking Football Club and their suitors from Anoka County has come unraveled. As you might know, Eden Prairie entered the Viking Stadium competition for a brief stint in 2003. We floated a location: the former Best Buy headquarters site. We had some simple architectural drawings prepared. We met with stadium architects, consultants and team officials.We testified at the State Legislature. We probably spent a thousand dollars on the proposal, exclusive of staff time.

We withdrew from the State’s stadium development proposal process when it was clear that Anoka County was approaching this issue with a might war chest. I saw in a Star Tribune article last week that Anoka County officials have estimated that they’ve spent over $850,000 on developing the stadium proposal and working with the Wilf family on the plan. Uff da. That’s a lot of dough. I’m glad we got out of that process when we did.

This is a big deal. This is an architectural rendering of the proposed Windsor Plaza development. The development is proposed for a site on Flying Cloud Drive (T.H. 212) west of the Eden Prairie Center mall, between Singletree Lane and Regional Center Drive. This area is currently occupied by some older two and three story office buildings, which would be razed if this development goes forward. The developer has either purchased or has purchase agreements in place with the properties that are proposed to be razed for this development. The developer has acquired the properties with private money. This City is not using eminent domain to help the developer acquire land for this project. The City is considering a tax increment development assistance package for the development, but will not use eminent domain to acquire development land.

The project is on its way to our Planning Commission and then it will proceed to the City Council yet this year. City staff are excited about this project because it is a strong sign of confidence in Eden Prairie that a private developer would undertake this project here. It’s also exciting because this development could be the catalyst for additional development in Eden Prairie’s new downtown area.

There’s a nice story about the project in today’s Eden Prairie News. Here’s an article from this week’s Twin Cities Business Journal that tells you more about the project:

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

$50M mixed-use project to help create

downtown

Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal - 2:53 PM CST Thursday

by John Vomhof Jr.

Staff Writer

Solomon Real Estate Group will build a $50 million mixed-use redevelopment project adjacent to Eden Prairie Center.

Windsor Plaza, located at Highway 212 and Singletree Lane, will include 35,000 square feet of retail space on the ground level, including two 7,000-square-foot, casual-dining restaurants. It also will include 110,000 square feet of office space on the building’s top four floors.

Solomon hopes to tap into

’s strong retail market and growing demand for office space. The project also figures prominently into the fast-growing suburb’s plans to create a downtown district around.

Solomon started planning the development about a year ago to tap into the energy around

, especially after the mall was remodeled in 2001.

“You’ve got a lot of history within the retail community of success with

and the renovation, and you’ve got a number of new tenants interested in moving into that project or around the peripheral,” said Solomon Principal Jay Scott.

Solomon will ask

for $4.5 million in tax increment financing to fund road, sidewalk and other improvements.

Solomon also developed the nearby

Fountain Place retail center, which opened in summer 2005. That 120,000-square-foot development leased out quickly and the tenants have performed well.

That encouraged Solomon to pursue more retail in the area. The company added the office space to justify the land-acquisition and construction costs.

Solomon had to acquire four properties for the project. The roughly 5.5-acre site previously housed Northwest Technical Institute, a BP Amoco station and two office buildings.

Minneapolis-based commercial real estate firm Griffin Cos. is leading Solomon’s search for retail tenants, while Bloomington-based United Properties will oversee office leasing.

Griffin Cos. Vice President Linda Zelm expects to land restaurant tenants within three months and the rest of the retailers within nine months.

The response from prospective tenants has been “very enthusiastic,” she said. “There has been so little new retail in

, especially in that particular area. There is just no vacancy.”

likely will include four to eight retailers, not including the two restaurant anchors. The retail space could include other smaller restaurants, such as sandwich shops.

Other retailers likely will include upscale retailers such as furniture stores, home accessories shops and jewelers.

Scott also predicts healthy demand for the office space.

“The office market here is turning the corner,” he said.

will represent one of the first steps in ’s plan to create a town center aroundthat will bring developments closer to the street and make the area more walkable. The plan models similar developments in other Twin Cities communities, such as and Woodbury.

“The vision is that this would be a community focal point — downtown

if you will,” said Janet Jeremiah, the city’s community development director. “This would be a place where people could gather for shopping, they would work here and they could choose to live here and perhaps drive less to local services and the like.”

The plan will go before the

planning commission later this month and then on to the full City Council on Dec. 19.

jvomhof@bizjournals.com | (612) 288-2101

This is a photo of Mayor Nancy Tyra-Lukens that I snapped on Saturday at the City’s first official Veterans Day memorial ceremony. The Mayor presided at a ceremony that included the presentation of colors by a Color Guard from the Chanhassen VFW and local Boy Scouts; a presentation by the group leading the drive to build a memorial for Eden Prairie veterans; and a keynote talk given by Vietnam-era Swift Boat captain and Eden Prairie businessman Lee Ellingson. The day was crisp and cool. The turnout was very good. I would estimate 100+ for our initial Veterans Day event. Not bad. We held the event at Purgatory Creek Recreation Area Park - the future site of the City’s Veterans Memorial. The citizen’s committee raising money for the memorial is doing great work. They will meet their $300,000 goal. When they meet the goal and build the memorial, there will be a dedication ceremony not to be missed.

Chief of Police Dan Carlson gave his final address to his collected employees last Thursday. The Police Department has an annual meeting once each year at which all of the department employees are expected to attend. This is a difficult feat to pull off with the assortment of shifts and days off that police officers, dispatch operators, animal control officers, and records techs all have. But once a year we ask everybody to give up an hour or so to all sit down together in the same room to hear the same message about where we’ve been and where we’re going as a department and as a City. This year’s annual meeting is Chief Carlson’s final annual meeting. He is retiring in January 2007. You can read more about what Chief Carlson had to say about his last annual meeting in his blog by clicking this link right here: Chief Carlson’s blog.

While there appears to have been a tangible wave of change in the United States Congress and in many state legislative offices across this country and here in Minnesota, Eden Prairie’s slate of state and federal leaders stayed largely intact.

Eden Prairie’s three incumbent state legislators were all reelected. Incumbent State Senator for state legislative district 42 David Hann won reelection in a tough, but civil, campaign with DFL challenger Carol Bomben. In Minnesota House district 42-A, incumbent DFL’er Maria Ruud defeated Republican Bill Cullen to retain her seat. In House district 42-B, incumbent Republican, and House Majority leader, Erik Paulsen won his seat again by a comfortable margin over first-time DFL candidate Rob Boyd. No word yet from Rep. Paulsen’s office if he will assume a minority party leadership role in the House when the new session convenes next year.

The Third U.S. Congressional District of Minnesota stayed soundly in the hands of incumbent Republican congressman Jim Ramstad on election day. Ramstad defeated DFL challenger Wendy Wilde by a better than 2-1 margin. Congressman Ramstad has been a good partner for our city in the U.S. Congress. He will now be a member of the minority party in the House. Congressman Ramstad has a solid history of bipartisanship while a member of the majority party, so I think he’ll still be an effective voice for us in Washington DC.

In other unrelated election news, there is a story in today’s Des Moines Register that Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack is planning to announce his candidacy for the Presidency later this month in his hometown of Mt. Pleasant, Iowa. I know this story is unrelated to 99% of the people that read this blog, but it is related to me. Tom got his start in politics as the Mayor of Mt. Pleasant in the late 1980’s. He assumed the position of Mayor after his immediate predecessor, former Mayor Edd King, was murdered during a City Council meeting in the Mt. Pleasant Council Chambers by a very disgruntled citizen named Ralph Davis. In addition to murdering the Mayor that night, Davis also shot two City Councilmembers, severely wounding them and changing their lives forever.

Davis probably didn’t know it, but he changed Mt. Pleasant’s politics forever as well. There wasn’t much civic interest in assuming the role of Mayor in a town where the immediate past holder of that office took three bullets to the head during a City Council meeting. Imagine that for a moment. But Tom Vilsack agreed to step up to the challenge. When Tom agreed to assume the Mayor’s office after this tragedy, he established the City’s first professional City Administrator position, and then he hired me to fill it. I worked for then-Mayor Vilsack from 1990-1992 when he left office to pursue a position in the Iowa State Senate, which eventually led him to be elected to two terms as the Governor of Iowa. He will complete his second term this December. He did not seek reelection to a third term in this year’s election. Now he’s running for President.

I haven’t personally known anyone who has run for President, so I am not any kind of authority on the leadership skills it takes to hold that office. From my experience in working for Tom Vilsack, however, I think he could do it. But as they say in Iowa, it’s a long row to hoe.

And the winner of this year’s election to become Eden Prairie’s next Mayor is……..Councilmember Phil Young. With 100% of the vote counted from yesterday’s election, Councilmember Young prevailed over Councilmember Ron Case by a total vote count of 12,696 to 11,196. There were 63 write-ins. There were 6 Overvotes, which means that 6 people voted for both candidates. And there were 2,999 Undervotes, which means the voter cast a ballot with no vote for the Mayor’s race. Councilmember Young has been a member of the Eden Prairie City Council since January 2003. He will reach the end of his four year term on the Council in December. He will begin his four year term as Eden Prairie’s new Mayor on Tuesday, January 2, 2007.

There were also six candidates running for two at-large seats on the City Council in yesterday’s election. First time Council candidate Jon Duckstad was the top vote-getter in the Council race with 8,831 votes. Jon is currently a member of the City’s Planning Commission. The second highest vote-getter, with 7,475 votes, was also a first time Council candidate: Kathy Nelson. As the second highest vote-getter, Kathy also wins a seat on the City Council. Kathy is a former member of our Planning Commission and is currently a member of the City’s Housing Task Force that is involved in the decennial update of the City’s Comprehensive Land Use Guide Plan. Jon and Kathy will start their new four year terms on the Council on January 2, 2007 where they will join current City Councilmembers Brad Aho and Sherry Butcher.

Other candidates and their vote totals in the Council race were: Gary Stevens, 7,407; Nina Mackay, 6,089; Jeff Strate, 4,783; and Larry Piumbroeck, 3,072. There were also 189 write-ins, 56 Overvotes, and (an astounding) 16,018 Undervotes.

As for voter turnout in Eden Prairie, there were 37,439 voters registered at 7:00am on Election Day. We registered 3,544 on Election Day for a total number of registered voters of 40,098. Of these 40,098 registered voters, 26,962 of them voted in yesterday’s election. That’s a 67.2% turnout. Of those 26,962 voters, 24,554 of them voted yesterday and 2,408 voted absentee. The 8.9% absentee rate was a little lower than I thought it would be. 67% turnout is about right in a non-Presidential general election.

Our electoral process in Eden Prairie was free and fair yesterday. There was no “monkey business” at the polls. Our voting machines worked exactly the way they are supposed to work. There was no violence in the streets. The process was peaceful. The citizens of Eden Prairie have cast their votes and made their decisions. Now it’s time to govern.

To the left are project files in the City’s Planning Division office area. To the right, that’s Gretchen Laven hard at work. In front of her is her computer monitor. To her right is her scanner. Files, computer and scanner. That’s all Gretchen needs to do her job.

Gretchen is helping us with our Document Imaging Project. Our Document Imaging Project is an initiative here at the City of Eden Prairie that involves converting our paper files, of which we have many, into electronic files. We’re doing this project because it will make it easier for us to use this data, and, more importantly, easier for us to share the information.

The paper files are first scanned into an electronic format. Then the data is coded into specific electronic “file drawers” so that we can find it again when we need it. The information in the files which is typewritten is also converted by an OCR (optical character recognition) software into Microsoft Word-formatted documents that we’ll be able to search in the future using a common search engine.

Because we’ll be able to search our former paper files electronically, we will be able to do our research work quicker and better. That’s good. We’ll also be able to share the information quicker and better because we’ll be able to e-mail files to people with questions about a project, or about the City’s past practices or policies.

Gretchen is a Super Temp Worker for the City. She’s worked for us before in our Police Department and in our Assessing Division. The Document Imaging Project is not very glorious, but it is important. The accuracy of the work is important because the old computer database cliche of “garbage in, garbage out” certainly applies to this project. If the information is coded and filed right going into the computer, it will be useful to us later on. If it’s not, it won’t be. Simple as that.

Gretchen is a careful, thorough person. She may be a temp worker, but she knows our systems pretty well here. We can count on her to get it right.

This is my final installment in my second annual Excellence Behind The Scenes blog series profiling City employees whose excellence work you, as a member of the general public, will likely never come across directly because the work is performed Behind The Scenes and used by other more visible City employees to provide you the excellent City services you’ve grown accustomed to receiving (orhearing about) from the City of Eden Prairie. The fact is, without these employees doing their excellent work Behind The Scenes, our City services would not be as strong as they are and our overall quality of life would not be as good as it is in Eden Prairie.

The five people I have profiled this week are representative of many others who also perform excellent work behind the scenes. The five people I’ve profiled this week want you to know that they are part of strong work teams. They are committed to their teams and want recognition for them as well. One of the things I have learned from visiting with these folks is that most of them like working Behind The Scenes. They all feel just a little uncomfortable in the bright light of public recognition. Today’s recognizee (if that’s a word), Sandy Mitchell, is one of those people, so I’ll try to tone it down just a bit to make her feel a little more comfortable.

That’s Sandy above. Whenever I see her, she is smiling. Sandy is the Records Supervisor in the Police Department. She supervises a staff of seven full time employees in the Police Records Division and also the Police Department’s front reception desk functions. Sandy started working for the City in 1984. She has four children (Jeff, Jenny, Matt, and Karen) and four grandchildren, plus one new grandchild who will be delivered any day now. Sandy started working for the Police Department as the Nighttime Records Technician working from 5pm-2am five nights a week. She told me she loved the hours because it allowed her to be a Mom during the day and a Career Woman in the evening. But a couple of years of those hours were hard on her family, so she took a records position in the department with daytime hours and has worked days ever since.

In Sandy’s current job she must work closely with Police Officers and her staff to make sure that police reports are transcribed and recorded correctly; that the records management system coordinates well with the City’s overall IT system; and that records, evidence and other information is ready when its needed by the City Attorney’s Office for Court proceedings. Like I said in my Excellence Behind The Scenes posting about Julie Bergstrom earlier this week, Sandy’s job is in a very important spot between the Police and the Courts. They both depend on her and her staff to enable them to put the bad guys in jail, and to provide justice to the victims of crime.

Sandy has worked for all four Chiefs of Police that Eden Prairie has ever had. She says that while they’ve all been quite different in their personalities, the basic core values of the department are the same now as they were when she started 22 years ago: pay attention to the needs of Eden Prairie citizens and always remember that we’re here to serve them, not the other way around. Sandy tells me that management in the Police Department have always supported her work and have done what’s right for the citizens and the employees in the Police Department.

When I asked Sandy what her biggest challenges were in her job she said one thing: Keeping up. Keeping up with technology and keeping up with the work load. Both are on the increase these days. When I asked her what she liked best about her job her answer was also just as brief: the people. She said the Police Department has always been a great place to work, which means that it has been a very stable environment. To Sandy, this has meant that you can get attached to people and grow close relationships, like a second family.

Sandy sets a great example for not only her own staff, but for everyone here in City government, about her dedication to her job and her co-workers. She does great work Behind The Scenes. It’s right where she wants to be.

Today’s Excellence Behind The Scenes profile is of Dave Brazil. Dave is a Mechanic Operator at our Water Treatment Plant. He has worked for the City for over 19 years. Dave is married to his wife of 20 years, Patricia and they have two daughters: Clair, 14, and Sophie, 11. In addition to coaching his girls’ fast pitch softball teams, Dave is an avid outdoorsman and counts hunting, archery, and boating among his many outdoor interests. Dave said that one of his most interesting experiences in life was the the opportunity he had a few years ago to go wild boar hunting in Germany with a group of German hunters.

The four photos of Dave are a good representation of his job at the Water Treatment Plant. Dave manages our laboratory functions. He makes sure that the water we send to homes and business in Eden Prairie is safe to drink and free of contamination. Dave maintains equipment and mechanical functions at the plant. It’s up to him and his work group to diagnose and fix mechanical problems whenever and wherever they occur. We can’t shut down the Water Plant. It has to work all the time. It’s part of Dave’s job to make sure of that. Dave also helps to keep an accurate log of maintenance and lab records. We log over 70 samples each month, as well as keeping track of when we’ve made repairs to equipment. The Minnesota Department of Health keeps close tabs on that sort of thing. The final photo shows Dave next to a display that he designed to show people how a sand filter works at a water treatment plant. I must admit that I did not fully understand how these filters worked until I saw Dave’s display. Dave enjoys educating people about water. He is one of our chief tour guides at the plant. In fact, I snapped that photo of Dave next to the display about ten minutes after he gave a group of Edina 4th graders a tour of the plant and a talk about water conservation.

I spent some time with Dave at the Water Plant yesterday in preparation to write this blog posting. Dave is proud of the plant and how it functions. He is an inventive guy. He showed me two examples ( increased support for the lime storage bin shakers and realigning the pipes that work the lime sludge presses) of how he developed solutions to problems that were occurring with equipment that was designed to work in our plant, but wasn’t working just right. Dave figured out solutions, convinced his bosses they would work, and then involved his co-workers in building them (many times from scratch) and installing them.

I asked Dave how he got into this line of work. He said he has always been interested in the outdoors and water. He said he initially wanted to work for the DNR, but after he got his first job in the water business, he was hooked. Dave’s job is important. You’d notice if he didn’t do it right. Our City water plant is going to treat and distribute over 3 billion gallons of water this year. A reliable and ample supply of safe drinking water is a fact of life that we all take for granted in Eden Prairie, Minnesota. You couldn’t take it for granted if it weren’t for the work of people like Dave Brazil at our Water Treatment Plant.

Today’s Excellence Behind The Scenes subject is Julie Bergstrom. Julie is a Records Technician in our Police Department. She has worked for the City for the past 23 years. Julie is married to Jim “Bergie” Bergstrom, a recently retired Police Officer from our Police Department. She has one daughter, Jena, and two bonus kids: daughter Carrie and son Peter. Julie also has two grandchildren: Parker James and Madelyn Marie. Her interests include crocheting blankets for family & friends, refinishing furniture, antique shopping and reading. Julie told me her favorite work-related memory here at the City was on her 30th birthday when her co-workers wrapped her work cube in saran wrap and filled it completely up with balloons and cards. Fortunately, she added, her shift on Dog Watch (11pm-7am) was light that night!

A Property Technician is responsible for maintaining, storing, and disposing of all property taken into police custody. Julie is responsible for carefully safeguarding evidence for criminal cases. She must ensure that evidence is not “contaminated” so that it has integrity in a court of law. Property Technicians are a crucial link in the criminal justice system between the Police and the Lawyers. Julie and her co-workers preserve the “chain of custody” from beginning to end. That’s a critical task in insuring that people get fair trials and the justice they deserve.

You can get an idea about Julie’s daily job through the four photos I’ve included with this post. She has a desk and works at a computer. She must make careful notes as to when a piece of evidence came into her possession, what she did with it and where it is every minute of the day after that. She controls a secured locked area where evidence is stored. She keeps track of evidence all the time, such as the many bicycles that find there way into Police custody throughout the year. In the final photo, Julie is filing information in a secure area. She helps run a very orderly part of our operation.

When I asked Julie what she liked most about her job she said it was the opportunity to be part of a high performing work team in the Records Division, but also that she has the opportunity work independently a fair amount of the time too. She said that she likes to “clean and clear out clutter”, which serves her very well in her job. While preserving evidence is very important, it’s also important to know when it’s OK to get rid of it too, otherwise we’d have a warehouse full of stuff that isn’t claimed by anyone or needed by the Courts.

Julie is good at her job, but she wanted to make sure that I recognized the rest of her work team too. This includes people like Jenna Scadden, Tina Zucchi, Pat Sullivan, Sandy Kelly, Stacy Boyer, and Sandy Mitchell. You’ll hear more about Sandy, in fact, later this week. It’s a strong work team whose contribution to the criminal justice system is well known inside the system, but is often unrecognized by people in the general public. Records and evidence are key components of translating police action into a legal outcome for both victims and perpetrators in our justice system. It’s people like Julie - and her co-workers - who make that system work at its best.