2004-04-23 Friday News
The Friday News
April 23, 2004
SPRWS
SPRWS is the acronym for St. Paul Regional Water Service and SPRWS provides water to Mendota
Heights. SPRWS’s former General Manager was Bernie Bullert. Bernie retired late last year and he has
been replaced by Steve Schneider. SPWRS provides water to a number of other suburbs too and on
Wednesday of this week Steve invited the Administrators and Engineers for all of these Cities to a
breakfast to introduce himself, his Board members and his Department Heads. Sue McDermott and I
attended the meeting where we met all the SPWRS officials and learned about their on going projects –
Moving their offices from downtown St. Paul to a new facility being constructed at their Water Treatment
plant located in Maplewood was the biggest project.
HIPP
A couple Fridays ago in the Friday News I asked for volunteers to help with Dakota County’s High
Performance Partnership Project (HIPP) by serving on a Citizen’s Panel. I am pleased to report that Sally
Lorberbaum, whom is our Planning Commission Chair called to volunteer – she later told me that she is
giving up a night with Yanni to do it. It was just great that she volunteered – but she did more. The City
needs those volunteers and she helped me find Holly Brod-Farber and suggested that I get a FD volunteer.
Many thanks go to Sally for volunteering – in this very busy time volunteers are always so hard to find.
TOWN CENTER UPDATE
I talked to Ross Fefercorn, Town Center Developer this week to be updated on the status of Town
Center’s construction. He told me that the Gateway Bank building should break ground in about 1-½
weeks, and that he will be bringing the commercial buildings in to the City Council for final PUD
approvals and building permit authorization, the first meeting in June. He then plans on beginning
construction of building F (the smaller of the two large buildings with underground parking) in late
August or September. He will have Caribou Coffee, Brueggers Bagels, Quiznos, Cold Stone Ice Cream
and Fantastic Hair as tenant in that building.
Sibley Students Clean Wagon Wheel Trail
Members of the "Henry Sibley High School Key Club" are honoring the 34th Anniversary of Earth Day
by picking up trash along a roadway within the City. A member of the club, Anna Seiver, contacted City
Offices on Monday offering to pick up trash along a City roadway. Staff suggested Wagon Wheel Trail
from Dodd Road to Lexington Avenue as a street that would benefit from such a concentrated effort. The
club plans to clean this mile long roadway on Thursday from 3 to 5 pm. Ms Seiver said that the thirty
member club honors Earth Day each year by volunteering to clean up a site or roadway within the area
served by Independent School District 197. The students participating in the clean up effort provide their
own trash bags, that when filled, are left along the roadside for pick up Friday morning by Public Works.
Respectfully Submitted,
James Danielson
City Administrator
Attachments: Just the Facts, Pipeline, Planning Commission Meeting Agenda, Planning Synopsis, Sun
Newspaper Article “Laughs for a cause” and “City Council meeting on Passover should have been
changed”, Pioneer Press Article “Fitness club takes off”, Friday Fax, AMM News.