wood city manager chuck all it's our mission through this program to keep you our citizens informed about what is happening in the city we hope you will enjoy all the exciting news we have to share fire chief steve lucan and police chief paul schnell as well as our mayor and council members attended a groundbreaking ceremony for the maple wood fire and police departments station the new station is located on the east side of mcknight road south of many high ave on the three m campus it will include four truck base departmental offices and a police substation constructions expected to be completed late did in two thousand and fourteen let's take a look at the ground were really excited to be here today for the groundbreaking of the new south maple wood fire and police station it's been a long time in coming it's been over three years now since we made some of the changes to the fire department and decided to build one station in the middle of the south l to cover both of those and at today we're doing the groundbreaking and to move forward and it's going to be outstanding how this station is going to replace two that we exist in the we have and put us more in the center as well as give us the opportunity to better serve the community we're also adding a police station portion of it which will help better serve the south and i'm a poet at the same time so it's a win win for all of us and we're really thankful to all those who've been great partners with this three terror the construction companies as well as all of our legislators and partners in our council and mayor and everyone else who's been so actively involved in making this come to where we are today and our goal is to be into a november one and ready to operate out of it they were really excited to have the new fire station and the new police substation down here near three am i think for our whole city it's a big deal but i know especially for those residents of the south lake that this is really important you know we just want to make sure that all the response times are good and that everybody's been taken care of and we know by having this fire station and this police substation it's going to mean a lot to army what residents and our police and fire going to be there for you right now is a great day for public safety a maplewood with a groundbreaking ceremony recognizing the new south off fire station and police substation that's going to going down here we think it's going to be a great opportunity for us to better serve the south that leg of maplewood and this is really a good way for us to work together as police and players later well i just want to point out one of our retired players players and john lander who was down in the south in a district chief was very involved in this before he retired to make sure that this happened and we got this  car we definitely have a lot of partners we need to think we need we have three m a chuckle get into that a minute we have so many great people that are here that made this all happen today and again i just wan thank everybody for their and your being your participation i'd be remiss if i didn't thank the other department heads my colleagues have been a part of it you know they were so willing to give up so much of their budget to me to make together through some tough issues but we made it through this is doug staying to my left from three am he was absolutely instrumental i also want to acknowledge the help we got from our representatives  can't see the pot behind the piles three obs doing a small little project as well and i only say that jokingly because it's a huge project for maplewood and our whole area and they've made a twenty six year commitment to their campus that is huge for not just maplewood not region but our state you know when you start talking about seven hundred high quality jobs going there and out of their goodness and willingness to be good partners we were able to get this site unbeknown stoss at the start they gave it to us they gave it to the city of maplewood and so this site right here was a donation and so that really helped us so steve jokingly talks about taking budgets well i mean this is literally a million dollar piece of property that we've been able to put to the public's wonderful use and make service to our residents a top priority and it always is but this really helps us deliberate i also want to talk about our partners our design team for three elements and kim we who are they really put a great plan together a bunch of them i think they got their hard hats on good job you guys could say fifty things there but again steve mentioned the rest of the departments this is a police station and it's going to be a fire training facility it's one of the things that that really makes our service to the south and to the city really really  top notch and certainly last but not least obviously they're my boss is the city council mayor could make it but obviously without them this would have never happened so they were really the ones that had the courage to make things happen and took the votes and brought it all together so mayor i don't know if you wanted to say any words absolutely of course i cannot take credit for it because i really want minor metro fire training facility and now this and also i think our representatives and of course and for the for the big notation as everybody has talked about you know i think as a resident i have to say i've made void but self made what i think you said it killer is really important to us because we always put there for all of us that public safety piece is important we want to feel safe and want to feel that if there's a fire they're going to be there or if there's an emergency we're going to be there any things happening but those response times which have been fantastic are going to continue to be fantastic and i think this is just a big part of that and really look forward to seeing this being built great doug did you have anything you wanted to say you know you have a three am are excited about this project renewed commitment to the city of maplewood in the state of minnesota and i think this is another example of it so we're excited to be a part of it is a great project and we look forward to continue working with the city of maplewood in the future thanks to thanks t help with the partnership and actually she took the bill through the legislature to make this happen so that would say that was not without a few little stumbles along the way but we made it happen and so we got it going to go both projects go go in and right on very well attended with more than eighty guests as well as other presenters and vendors todd fink from century colleges solar and renewable energy program gave a practical presentation on small home or cabin solar installations and here are some clips from that day three reasons to go off grid the best three reasons i can think of number one is you want to do the right thing you want to make green energy could be a great reason to put a couple of modules on your roof and start powering your loads with something other than a grid now for those of you with cabins and with with fish houses or any other thing you want to power off grid these are probably the two reasons that you'll go to  either solar is the cheapest option and we can compare this with the amount you spend on a solar system to a on line charge that you might be being charged by the utility right you would consider using the parts in it this thing is designed around available high quality and inexpensive parts could i remind everybody to turn off the is there's a there's a label on back that tells you everything about it that you really need to know about it it'll give you five amps about of twelve volt electricity when it's in full sun so five amps you know it's it's a number let's try to make sense of what that means in a little bit but that's that's that unit right there and notice one two three four by nine that is a thirty six module and it feeds to a charge controller good keep in mind here that we're talking off grid there are lots of good reasons to use the grid well and you know the electrical grid one of the main reasons we want to use the electrical grid is not the appearance of the electrical wires in my backyard it's not a statics and you know i say you're from people a lot you know i think  ok i think that's beautiful but that that's just what taste is all about the grid is reliable and it's simple to use the grid you pay your bill you get your energy you get as much energy as you want you you know you there's no limit to how much energy they will want you to use and and sometimes trick you into using so the grid is good because it's reliable because it's always there in the amounts that we need and it almost never lets face it it almost never goes out it's a rare event when you have to turn on they get the candles out and do laura ingalls wilder for a night it's a lot you know solar is a lot less reliable and that in most cases because we're not sizing these systems to never fail we're sizing them to be available most or all almost all of the time a good thing about the utility they are a tremendously large battery and i was talking to somebody before this about going solar for their whole house and going solar for your whole whole house if you don't learn how to use very little lecture city involves very many batteries and buying them installing them maintaining them replacing them that can cost sometimes more than the seven or eight dollars a month you would pay for a utility connection so why not buy old energy in a cheaper form then than solar basically there's a there's a a simple formula if you go with the grid and you back feed your energy if you grid connect and you don't offer it you don't have batteries they give you credit for the kilowatt hours you produce or you save money based on not having to buy them in the first place that's that big that would get lumped together with battery costs and then you'd compare that to your monthly service charge to see if it was worthwhile for you to go off grid in a certain location and i'll tell you this  a better battery bank than i have in that job down there less expensive easier to maintain safer go with the easy and simple third good thing about the utilities as they sometimes have a incentives for grid connected but there are no incentives for off grid because offered does not help the utility do their job maybe it is a leader in solar energy and the maple wood nature center has  photovoltaics panels for the nature center is a great asset to our community you can take advantage of a full range of summer programs that the center let's take a look the nature centers exhibits classrooms hiking trails gardens ponds and picnic areas host a wide variety of events for adults kids and families trails are open every day from one half hour before sun rise to one half hour after sunset they wind through forty acres of gently sloping woodland and wetlands you can pick up a map and a self get a trail brochure at the visitor center or at the kiosk at the trail entry the building is free and open to the public thursday through saturday for me thirty am to four thirty pm most defense programs and classes are free or available for a small fee registration may be required some may be offered on a drop in basis check the website at maplewood nature dot com or call us at six five one two four nine two one seven zero come out and join us for these classes and events p into the pond children five and up with an adult saturday may twenty fourth nature photography class thursday june nineteenth frog chorus for families and children six plus thursday may twenty ninth live animal shows for all ages saturday june seventh garden art for adults and family thursday june tenth turtle picnic for all ages thursday june twelfth trailblazer volunteers ages ten to fourteen tuesdays june seventeenth twenty fourth july first eight fifteenth and twentieth nature photography classes adults and fourteen plus thursday june nineteenth be friending bumblebees for adults families and children's age five plus saturday june twenty first wilderness wisdom for adults families and children ages seven plus saturday june twenty eighth firefly magic a night hike for ages three to ten with an adult thursday july tenth tasty treats from the bees families with children ages four to ten saturday july nineteenth the eighth annual baths survey adults and children seven plus thursday july twenty fourth quack quack ribbit ribbit puppet show best for ages two and up small day care is welcome to stay july twenty nin august ninth planet i'd be even more adults and kids fourteen plus tuesday aug nineteenth monarch open house king of the butterflies all ages saturday august twenty third dragon flies and grasshoppers galore saturday august ninth ages three to eight with an adult adults families and groups are welcome to hike and  the wild outdoors and hence your awareness and understanding of the land water and wildlife at the maple wood nature center this is a free city park and it pretty near nature just a nation close to home it's a the city of maplewood has permanently protected sixty two acres in the fish creek natural area that's located in our southern portion of the city protecting this land will preserve wildlife habitat provide public access to the bluff top enhance access to the existing county open space the city and its primary partners ramsey county the washington metro watershed district raised two point two million dollars needed for this generous donations from a board based three m foundation friends of the mississippi river an individual donors were also provided a natural and scenic area grant from the department of natural resources as well as a grant from the minnesota environment and natural resources trust fund also made this conservation achievement possible for over twenty five years the city of maplewood has been interested in purchasing the seventy acres of land to preserve open space that just beautiful upland areas rolling meadows would and some for us and and laureus overlooks over the mississippi river valley and so residents of south maple would have been working on this for many many years and finally the stars  aligned for the city to be able to work with a number of partners to be able to protect it tons of donations from ramsey washington metro water said district ramsey county parks  department the department of natural resources three m corp lots of residents have just given us funds to make this happen and we're still seeking some grants from the state i believe it's meant citizen driven it's really a lot of people have known about this area i've lived in maple in all my life i remember as kids coming down here playing out there a lot of old trails they came down from northern  to the lake here and to see this land get preserved i think is a wonderful thing and just when my folks told me that this land was getting preserved it was just a warm my heart the opposite feeling i had was thinking you know maybe ten i think is a wonderful thing i can tell you growing up here in the seventy's this was just a wild place over woodbury maplewood many of our neighbors had horses we had dirt bikes snowmobiles and there's wildlife everywhere the wildlife remains our the great our knowledge will come in at night you'll hear them in the red fox the turkey well the county does already own certain open spaces around the fish creek area so this parcel here is kind of kind of health complete more of a continuous piece of land going up to carve really and enjoy life here and i think that's a good idea that they do because the birds and we need these birds if you go into other a lot a lot of places we're losing our land we just have cement every house that you see mostly our yards are so small it's hard to enjoy them and you were going to just enjoy  for the rest of our life and we don't take care of property like this and this is really nice to be i believe early on before the developers there were potentially building here at there was archaeologists came in and certain surveys of the area and they did find some artifacts here so we do know that there are historic sites throughout this area along the fish creek watershed you know when i first moved to maple live about two miles north of here and i went just kind of exploring the neighborhood a little bit and really just stumbled on this little area where it looked like you could park along a creek and go for a walk and you kind of parted the the bushes to get in there wasn't a real clear trail and there is just this magical little spot where the creek cuts down through the bedrock and it's just so beautiful and so serene and here we are just six miles from downtown st paul and we have this beautiful piece of land that somehow has managed to avoid development it gives people a place to come out to see the wild flowers  people are just drawn to you know we've had the creek protected for a while by the county and now we're able to add in this upland areas and that will just help to make it more of an integrated parcel of wildlife habitat and for recreation for our people i would encourage people to come down and see it because i think most people are very surprised that it's here and once they walk in and start looking around there are amazed at just how beautiful it is here retiring from the city i'm a boy i've been government in i'm in service for over thirty years it's sad to go i'll miss my friends here at the city and make council members and everything that i enjoyed i've really enjoyed doing this show it's been a new way to do things but new ideas come along and new people come along and i certainly enjoyed being part of these programs in the past i know our staff is fantastic they're going to do a great job and i appreciate it and i wish you all the best thank you