The Blog from City Hall

It’s one of the most recognizable logos in American business - and it’s coming to Eden Prairie. Harley-Davidson is building a new retail store here in Eden Prairie. It will be at the site of the current LaMetry’s Collision Center. LaMetry’s is moving up the hill to the site of the former Land Rover dealership.

There was a good article in this week’s Star Tribune West edition about the new Harley store. They’ve wanted to be in Eden Prairie for a long time. We’re happy to have them in the community. They will be a strong addition to our local retail economy.

In the mood for some quality entertainment tonight? Well alright then. Catch Eden Prairie’s own Jeff Strate KTCA (Channel 2)TV’s Almanac tonight at 7pm.

Jeff is an Eden Prairie resident. He is a tireless advocate for Eden Prairie’s natural environment. He pays attention to what the City is doing in the areas of parks, open space management, new development, wildlife management, watershed protection, and all things environmental. I think Jeff dislikes buckthorn as much as I dislike curly pondweed (see yesterday’s post).

One thing you can always count on from Jeff is an air of professionalism in his approach to us. There are times when he wants the City to do something we don’t want to do or don’t think we need to do. And despite the fact that we can sometimes be at odds over an issue, Jeff is always thoughtful and cordial in the way that he conducts himself with staff and elected officials. He has a good way of balancing direct statements with a respectful public and private approach to city government.

Jeff is a good citizen. We’re fortunate to have him as a resident of Eden Prairie. I think I’ll try to catch his show tonight.

It’s all right there in the title of this blog post: Curly pondweed is bad. It’s bad for Minnesota lakes. It might be fine in some other ecosystem’s lakes in this world, but in Minnesota lakes - it’s a menace. And right now, it’s menacing Anderson Lakes. There is a pretty good article by Laurie Blake in today’s Star Tribune about curly pondweed and a plan to eradicate it from Anderson Lakes. If you’re interested in this story, I recommend clicking the link to read the story. Ms. Blake does a good job of explaining the issue and the proposed plan.

The City has been working with the Nine Mile Creek Watershed District Board to develop a plan to get the weed out of the lake. The first plan was to use chemical applications. The City did not like that plan for a couple of reasons. Dumping chemical into the lake just doesn’t seem like a good idea on its face, plus it was more expensive than a viable alternative plan.

That viable alternative plan is to drain the lake and expose the curly pondweed to a very nasty Minnesota winter, which will kill it good. Then allow the lake to refill. Yes, fish will die when the lake is drained, but a fish population will return to the lake as it refills, just as other wildlife will return as well. There are many details about how a lake is drained and how it gets refilled, but the plan to drain the lake is less expensive and less harsh on the environment than the chemical application solution.

The only sentence I take issue with in Ms. Blake’s article is the sentence that says “Eden Prairie wants to drain the lakes.” Not so. Speaking on behalf of the City, I can tell you that nobody in city government wants to drain the lake. We see draining the lake as the best alternative to solve a problem. That problem is the infestation of the lake by curly pondweed. Doing nothing when we see a problem is not responsible government. Draining the lake may seem like a rash thing to do, but we see it as the best solution for the long term environmental health of Anderson Lakes.

By now I’m guessing that most people have heard something about the tragedy in Charleston, South Carolina where nine members of the Charleston Fire Department lost their lives fighting a fire at the Sofa Super Store. I have included a link to a short story about the fire in today’s New York Times. This photo was taken at the scene by Tyron Walker of The Post and Courier, Charleston’s local newspaper.

Fighting a fire in a building full of flammable furniture without a building sprinkler system is a very dangerous assignment. We’ll know more about this fire and the fire fighting decisions in the coming weeks and months as the inevitable post-event investigation moves forward. Eden Prairie Fire Chief George Esbensen, has a piece of fire fighting wisdom that he shares with me often when explaining our Fire Department’s basic fire fighting strategy: Risk a lot to save a lot; Risk a little to save a little. It’s a concise description of our approach to an emergency event, such a large structural fire. I wonder what strategic approach was taken by those managing this fire scene. I’m sure we’ll hear more about that soon.

There are many families in Charleston that are in mourning today because they’ve lost a son, a brother, an uncle, a co-worker or a friend in this terrible loss of life. Firefighters across the country grieve for this loss too. They think about it every time they show up at a scene. Fighting fires is dangerous business. My heart goes out to those who grieve the loss of these brave men of the Charleston Fire Department: Capt. William “Billy” Hutchinson, 48; Capt. Mike Benke, 49; Capt. Louis Mulkey, 34; Engineer Mark Kelsey, 40; Engineer Brad Baity, 37; Assistant Engineer Michael “Frenchie” French, 27; Firefighter James “Earl” Drayton, 56; Firefighter Brandon Thompson, 27; and Firefighter Melvin Champaign, 46

Technology Drive is an east-west street on the south side of Trunk Highway 5. It carries a fair amount of traffic from Mitchell Road to Prairie Center Drive and back again. It serves St. Andrew’s Lutheran Church, ADC, MTS, SouthWest Station, Wells Fargo Financial and the City’s Water Treatment Plant along this stretch. West of it’s intersection with Mitchell, it serves Eaton, the City’s Street Maintenance Facility, the School District’s transportation center and a number of small businesses in the Wallace Road area.

The section of Technology Drive from Mitchell to Prairie Center Drive is about to get a major sprucing up. The road was improved last year to a four lane design. Now this year we are going to improve the “steetscape”. Streetscape is a word we use in city government to describe the look & feel of the street and the City right-of-way land adjacent to the street. City staff have been working on a major streetscaping plan for Technology Drive. We shared it with the City Council at their June 5 Council meeting. The Council is scheduled to award the contract for the project at its next Council meeting on June 19.

The plan incorporates brick entry features at the NE and SE quadrants of the intersection of Mitchell and Technology, along with trees and new lighting from that point east. We think it’s going to be quite attractive and set a new standard for streetscaping throughout Eden Prairie.

We anticipate awarding the contract for the project next week and completing the project this year.

We held a beach party at Round Lake Beach this past Saturday to celebrate the re-opening of Round Lake Beach. This is a great photo from the event. Back by the rope is Mayor Phil Young. That’s one of his boys with him. He helped christen the beach by taking a dip in the lake himself. On the right is Council Member Brad Aho. Council Member Aho came to the party right from a Saturday morning meeting. He did not have to time to change, so he didn’t. He helped christen the beach in formal business swimming attire. Very nice. A perfect Minnesota beach scene, if you ask me.

The beach is re-opening this summer after three years of closure due to weeds, geese and water quality problems. During the three years of closure, we’ve gotten a much better handle on what positively effects the water quality of Round Lake. Council Member Aho has been a particularly strong advocate for getting the lake cleaned up. He pushed staff and the Watershed District for solutions that were both effective and cost-effective. He supported a study of the lake that produced solutions that did not involve the installation of a permanent alum station at the lake. We also addressed upstream erosion run-off issues and wildlife issues. It worked. Water quality at Round Lake is the best it’s been in over five years. Maybe ten.

The end result of all this work is that Round Lake is swimmable and fishable again. Good work to all involved.

The City and Sprint-Nextel settled a dispute this week with the City Council’s approval of the official settlement agreement at our June 5 Council meeting. If you live in Eden Prairie or Hennepin County, work here, travel through here, or pay taxes here, please read on because this settlement is a good thing for you. But before I tell you about the settlement, I need to tell you a little bit about the dispute. Please understand that this is a highly summarized story.

As the growth of the cell phone business continues year after year, so to has the level of interference that cell phones have created for public radio system. The frequency used by cell phones has been getting closer and closer to the frequencies used by public agencies to conduct their everyday business. This has created conflict for the cities and counties that had long operated on these radio frequencies and the cell phone companies. This matters to you - the public - because you don’t want your Police or Firefighter radio communication to be messed up by somebody’s cell phone conversation when you need their help. That was happening sometimes, and becoming more common.

Sprint-Nextel has a particular service that was impacting our radio system. A couple of years ago, Sprint-Nextel set up a fund to help defray the costs of public agencies who were moving their radio operations away from the Spring-Nextel “contractor network” system frequency. Most of those moving, including us, needed to move because of radio interference issues, and because of general radio system upgrades.

We submitted a claim to the Sprint-Nextel fund to pay the costs of our move, which we estimated to be between $2,500,000 and $3,500,000. This included around 1,000 new handheld radios (at a cost of about $2,800/radio) plus additional equipment and software for our dispatch center. Sprint-Nextel balked at our request. We pressed further under a set of FCC rules. They continued to strongly resist our claims.

Then last week we learned that after an unfavorable FCC ruling in a case with facts very similar to ours, Sprint-Nextel changed its response to us and agreed to our demands/requests. Not only are we getting the new radio equipment, dispatch center equipment & software, but we are also getting reimbursed for all of the legal fees and City staff we incurred in order to press our claim. In the end, we think this settlement will be worth over $3,000,000 to the City. And, not only is this settlement good for the City’s Police, Firefighters, Parks Workers, Utility Repair Crews, Street Maintenance Workers, etc., it also benefits the Eden Prairie School District and SouthWest Transit because the City serves their radio needs as well.

Hats off to Fire Chief George Esbensen, Assistant Fire Chief Steve Koering, Radio Communications Coordinator Mark Vandenberghe, City Attorney Ric Rosow and many others who worked so hard on this project. Your work paid off, and our citizens will benefit greatly from it. Thank you!

The City Council will hold a special workshop session on Monday, June 11, at 6 pm in the Heritage Rooms here at Eden Prairie City Center to discuss Flying Cloud Airport. The City has been receiving feedback and input from citizens regarding what the City’s relationship with the airport should be. Should the City encourage the closure of the airport? Should the City embrace the airport? Should the City market the presence of the airport? Should the City ignore the airport? These are all possible positions the City could assume.

The Council has received input from residents and businesses that support, in varying degrees, all possible positions on the airport issue. The one thing the Council hasn’t done yet is have a discussion among themselves about what they would like the City’s airport policy to be. That’s the purpose of the June 11 workshop. The workshop will begin with a short briefing on the content and status of the 2002 Final Agreement between the City and the Metropolitan Airports Commission concerning Flying Cloud Airport followed by Council discussion.

The Council has been thoroughly advised on this issue. They know the depth and breadth of public pinion on the airport. I have advised the Council not to take additional public testimony at this workshop because opening that door will necessarily limit the amount of time available that evening for the Council to discuss the issue among themselves. And as that is the primary purpose of the workshop, I think that’s what we ought to try and maximize.

Mayor Young, Economic Development Manager David Lindahl and I did a Business Meet & Greet visit last week to an Eden Prairie company called MakeMusic.

I’ve talked about our Business Meet & Greet program before in this blog, but it has been awhile. The program is simple. We make an appointment with the owner, manager, CEO of a local business. Then we (typically some combination of the Mayor, a Council Member, Economic Development Manager and the City Manager) go out and pay that company a visit. We talk about their business; their employees; any issues they see in the community; any general issues they may have with government; and any specific experiences they may have had with the Eden Prairie city government.

We’ve been doing this program since 2003 and we’re pushing 200 of these Meet & Greet visits. The breadth of business activity in Eden Prairie would really surprise you. We’ve visited companies that manufacture such diverse items as coatings for pills that make them easier to swallow, 3 dimensional printers, new devices that make it easier to hear, and equipment that makes it easier to pluck the feathers of a chicken. Companies love the Meet & Greet program. They appreciate our interest in their business. They appreciate our interest in their opinions of our services. We always end each visit with a “thank you” for being in Eden Prairie.

I don’t always go to every visit, but when I do go, I always enjoy it. Our visit to MakeMusic last week was no exception. MakeMusic creates software solutions for the music industry. They have many different products that make it possible for musicians to log and organize the music they are creating. They also make a new new product, called smartmusic, that is marketed to schools to assist children with the learning process for playing musical instruments. The new product helps kids by providing immediate play back of their practice routines and by providing kids, and their instructors and parents, with immediate online feedback about the accuracy and quality of their practice. It’s revolutionary in the sense that it adds data to the arts, with the hope that the data can shape and improve the arts.

MakeMusic is a very interesting company located right here in Eden Prairie. We’re fortunate to have them as part of our local economy.