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2004-04-30 Friday News The Friday News April 30, 2004 Spring Cleanup This is the weekend for the City’s Annual Spring Clean Up event. Paster Enterprises, as always, has graciously provided the location for the event. Scrap Busters will collect the scrap metal, Greenman collects the tires and Nitti Sanitation takes everything else. Dakota County provides a grant to help fund the event and several City Staff and Council members volunteer to help homeowners unload their old treasures. Trash Pickup I received a call this week from a volunteer from Visitation School offering to pick up trash somewhere in Mendota Heights. I suggested that she consider doing the pickup along Wagon Wheel where it travels between North and South Rogers Lake and around the trail that travels from Rogers Lake Park to Mendota Heights Road. These locations are very convenient for them so she said that they would do it – sometime the middle of May. St. Peter’s Church Ground Breaking This Sunday is the ground breaking for St. Peters Church. St. Peter’s is remodeling their existing church by demolishing some of it to add a new 750-seat worship space. Work is currently underway to remove the asbestos and Code Enforcement tells me that, subject to finding out the price for the SAC charges from the State, the footing and foundation permit is ready to go. Council Chamber Cablecast Upgrades Town Square Television administration office reports that they received a call from an elderly resident of Mendota Heights who wanted to tell someone how much the audio has improved. She remarked that she could now here every word the Mayor or Council members say. Audio upgrades in the council chambers were completed several weeks ago and progress on the installation of the new cameras and relocation of the cablecast equipment rack into the back equipment room will be completed prior to the May 4th City Council meeting. Ed Adrian to Retire from Fire Department Ed Adrian has announced his intention to retire from the Fire Department on June 16th after 20 years of service. Ed and his wife Susan have been actively involved in the Fire Department and the Department definitely benefited from their contributions. Ed served in various capacities on the Department’s review board, truck committees, history committee and the Relief Association. He always kept things interesting at the station and everyone loves when Ed is around. The Annual Fire Department report that is distributed to every household every year began with Ed's wife Susan. She was the idea person as well as did the layout, writing and editing and did it until two years ago when it was turned over to Nancy. The report continues to follow the layout Susan developed. Sue also worked shoulder to shoulder with Bill Wolston as the project coordinator to put together and publish the Fire Department's 50 year anniversary book "The First 50 years” Neither of these projects would have been successful, or even possible, without Susan's willingness to share her talents. Property Maintenance Ordinance At the Council’s annual Goal-Setting Workshop with me in March, the Council asked Staff to begin working toward the adoption of a property maintenance ordinance. Also, Council member Duggan met with me to discuss sample property maintenance ordinances from Apple Valley, Cottage Grove, Lakeville, and Eagan and what parts of them he felt could work well in our ordinance. At their April 27 meeting, the Planning Commission reviewed sample ordinances from other cities and discussed their applicability to the City of Mendota Heights. The Planning Commission provided guidance to Staff as to how to proceed. Staff will now take all this input and synthesize various ordinances from other cities to make a draft ordinance for Mendota Heights and bring it back to the May Planning Commission meeting for review by them. Staff and the Planning Commission anticipate being ready to recommend an ordinance for adoption to the City Council in June or July. Respectfully Submitted, James Danielson City Administrator Attachments: Just the Facts, Pipeline, City Council Meeting Agenda, Planning Synopsis, Letter from MnDOT, Sun Newspaper Article “District 197 narrow bond options”, Villager Article “Mendota Plaza hardware pledges to serve customers best”, Friday Fax, AMM News.