2005-05-20 Friday News The Friday News
May 20, 2005
TOWN CENTER EVENT
On Tuesday evening of this week Ross Fefercorn blocked off Oak Street, put up a tent and had a
social event to show off his row townhomes and new Linden Lofts condominiums. The event was
designed mostly to be for realtors and their prospective buyers, but he invited the City Council and
staff too. It was a wonderful event with hors d’ oeuvres from Simply Grand, beautiful jazz music
sung live by Connie Evingson and wine appreciation lessons from Kristen Kowalski, owner of the
future “The Wine Market” at the Village.
DARE GRADUATION NO. 16
The DARE Program has been around for about 20 years and is a Drug and Alcohol Awareness
Program designed for 5th graders. DARE underwent a major overhaul three years ago when the
curriculum was updated to start including more current issues such as Methamphetamine. The
program still has a primary emphasis on self esteem, personal responsibility and choices. Mendota
Heights DARE Program was funded with donations from businesses, the VFW in Mendota and
District Court fine money. WSP provided DARE instructors for the schools in their City and we
provided instructors for Somerset, Mendota and Visitation Elementary Schools. West St. Paul
charged an additional fee to the School District to provide DARE in their City. In 2003 the school
board chose to drop DARE and go to a program called “Life Choices”. Visitation School has
continued with the DARE Program. Detective Mario Reyes is the instructor at Visitation. This
week was the 16th Anniversary of DARE graduations at Visitation. Council Member Schneeman
attended the graduation and told me that she was very impressed with the ceremony.
COUNCIL APPROVES JOINT DISPATCH
The City Council adopted a resolution at this Tuesday’s meeting agreeing to participate in a
County-wide Joint Dispatch or Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP). This initiative was an
outcome from the HiPP (High Performance Partnership) that is an on-going effort between Dakota
County and it s local unit s of government. Many of the other Dakota County cities have already
adopted a similar resolution, and it is anticipated that the ones that have not yet done it, will.
The projected savings to Mendota Heights in joining this project are huge (see attached sheets).
The Police Chief and Fire Chief will be working with the County and other Cities to make this
initiative happen. (Many thanks to both of them for all the extra time that they already put in on this,
and the many hours yet to come!)
SOMERSET ELEMENTARY TO GET PLAYGROUND
At this week’s City Council meeting the Council issued a Conditional Use Permit and Wetlands
Permit to Somerset Elementary School for the necessary grading to install new playground
equipment. At an earlier meeting the Council had also agreed to contribute $10,000 toward this new
equipment.
Respectfully submitted
Jim Danielson
City Administrator
Attachments: Just the Facts, Pipeline, Planning Commission Meeting Agenda, St. Paul Pioneer
Press Articles “Emergency-radio plans OK’d”, Sun Current Article “Staying home to fish”,
Financial Impacts, Dakota News, City of Eagan Press Release and Friday Fax.