executive director for the economic development corporation in venice heights i want to thank you for taking time out of your busy week to be here to hear about the state of the community the city of venice heights before we start i just wanted to acknowledge a few folks who are here so fun to see so many are familiar faces of the community here present commissioner hot man and i know there's also several or maybe even all the members of the city council that decides here on if you just want to wait i'm sure the mayor will be doing some more introductions of you a little later thank you for being here so i want to also know it was a private nonprofit are comprised of community business leaders that are engaged in with our stakeholders to enhance the economic vitality of our community we appreciate the long standing partnership that we've had with the city of badness heights i might's especially would like to think the city for their receptivity to continuous improvement in order to enhance a thriving environment to live work and operate a business it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all yeah it's a real treat to have those students here they're part of the government class at south campus and i just really at this time would like to just say a special thank you to the schools and i know christine work camps here she serves on our board and also a call to michael parent from mom century college on both of those organizations for the business folks in the room are are pretty pivotal to the future of our community and our workforce and our our continued new collaboration with them is is very promising and so i just wanna personally call up and say thank you to both of them so so next i'd residents and we are fortunate to have hardworking city employees and dedicated elected officials to be achieved you see is honored to host the event for the community this morning with the support of the city of addus heights  economic development corp is more effective and successful in some already in the local business environment the city continues to be an active partner and help in the b h e d c to carry out its mission and to be a conduit of economic development resources build collaboration's with strategic partners and provide advocacy i have the distinct pleasure this morning up in urdu scene mayor mark johansen mark joe has been the mayor of badness heights since two thousand eleven and marc is the most senior council member beings having served since one nine hundred ninety five he sees elective office as a way to get back to the community mark is an attorney at a private practice concentrated in the area of good morning everybody thank you for coming on this cold morning and it's a beautiful morning and i know before i start i was struck was a lot while i was driving over here by the fact that we had this beautiful sunrise in our logo in ven sights as the sun rising in the trees and i thought it was emblematic of our city that we are moving forward it is sunrise we have an opportunity to do a lot of things together well and i'm very pleased that you all could come excellent addition to the d c and and i look forward to our continuing partnership i'd like to at this time give the view to d c and the board of directors around of applause for everything they do for the community old when i was approaching the idea of doing this i thought wow that sounds interesting but i hope that you enjoy it this morning and i hope that it will be a benefit to you and i look forward to this being one of many in the future  i also would like to thank jimmy's food and drink for hosting this event and i specifically want to thank jim and jerry prove you better long term community stalwarts here and i appreciate everything you've done for the community when you took over this from roberta as many years ago you've turned this into a thriving business and we very much value you here in venice sites thank you we did already introduce commissioner hoffman thank you for being here this morning and i'd also like to specifically call out the three other calls from members that are here this morning with me that would be  only johnson straight behind them right there and bob fletcher in the sun bobby right there in the back thank you all for coming we also have a former counsel member that served with me over the years joe murphy and we have a number city staff here this morning so kevin watson is here with us today well as they said i have been on the council since january of one thousand nine hundred five i got elected for the first time in november of one thousand nine hundred four and at that time there were eight people running for council and i was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to begin serving on the city council in october of two thousand and eleven when mayor sue benefits left the cause in seoul to go and take a job up in northern minnesota the council then did appoint me as mayor of the community and i've been very honored and very pleased with the opportunity to serve as mayor and very humbled by that experience i am an one nine hundred eighty two grad of the mariner high school which no longer exists boy there lake area high school but i've lived here throughout my life and it's been a great community for me to grow up and my two sixteen year old children are now attending white bear lake area high school as well so i have strong commitment to this community as do all of you and we make this a great place to live work and do business because of folks like you my hope is this morning that during the speech this will inspire further working relationship with all of you and that we can continue this great relationship as we  forward as we start off i'd like to start off with a few sort of statistics about where we've come from and where we're headed right now we're in the national election and we see republicans and democrats debating one another and fortunately a city government level we are a nonpartizan area and we're not part of that but we're mindful of what's going on and we're reflecting upon the many struggles that many of us have had to suffer over the years including difficulties with our businesses with our own paychecks and so forth and the great recession that we've just come out of has impacted everything we do but i can see certainly from the get the city government standpoint i believe that things are on the right track and we're moving forward specifically we are recovering from the the difficulties in the housing market and we've seen in the last a year or so improvements in that area  we've seen house values going up and the median price of those houses have gone up and prior to two thousand and six we saw an unprecedented sixty five years of home value growth and then suddenly in two thousand and six home values plateaued and started dropping and that really impacted the resources that were available to government and to businesses to do what we do on an ongoing basis so we had to start thinking smarter and doing things differently  fortunately that housing decline that you see very graphically on the screen there has a rate rated as self in the last few years we started going up again so starting in two thousand and twelve that growth did help us recapture those land values and that as a result with home values going up we were able to keep a line on the tax rate that the city must charge to provide that  service we are fortunate in the twin cities that we're one of the better markets for him employment and a business in the entire country we added thirty five thousand new jobs since the recession the twin cities has a three point one percent unemployment rate and as compared to a five percent unemployment rate nationally this is created a situation where businesses that therefore in this area have to recruit nationally to get the talent that they need and we've work we're working to help in any way we can from the city level and i know if the county and state level to help get the workforce that's necessary and i agree with kevin values have bounced back as i said and now residents are starting to look at other housing options the twin cities experiencing one of the lowest vacancy rates for apartments and condominiums and that's an opportunity and a need for affordable housing in the twin city area as we are now a built up committee we need to focus on established businesses and property owners within our community to help identify opportunities to help property owners reinvest in the community to explore new programs and to try to accommodate the trends needed within the housing market as you might have seen in some of the news of the city recently settled the sports center lawsuit and we're excited to move on and assist the county in any way to make that facility a success we believe it is a community asset and certainly talking to folks that use the facility it is the best available facility in the region and we've see that as an opportunity for everybody in the community to have a great continuing partnership with our our athletic community with our sporting community and also with our residents i would say also that the city in my opinion offers a great level of service at a very affordable price we are a first class city that provides services at a rate that our residents can afford and also at a level of service that people there's a couple of examples of how we've done that when we posted about punch piece i don't know if any of you were able to see the last of the council meeting but we had an announcement that punch pizza will be joining us up at the heights plaza up on the corner of highway ninety six in centerville road kevan during the meeting actually posted that announcement and we had thirty six hundred plus people receive that post instantly and that's an example of trying to use modern technology to reach communities as quickly as possible we also made a post about the new grocery store that will be joining us over in city center fresh time and we're very excited about that opportunity and that reached eleven thousand people  a couple of other things we did this year not this year but in two thousand and fifteen i keep saying this year but two thousand and fifteen was that long ago we joined an organization called gov dot com and that provides information about all of our financial records that is open to the public and it's an interactive tool and if you haven't used it yet i would encourage you to do it it  provides all of our financial data and allows you to go in and diet down and look at various categories what the city spending on various aspects of city government you can look at trends in spending you can look at where where revenues are coming from and we thought that it would add to the transparency of city government to allow for this modern media to let people gain access to what we're doing financially prior to that we had our annual report that would come out in our city budget which is a quite a long if you haven't had a chance to review it it's good bedtime reading but it's a very comprehensive report our staff doesn't excellent job of putting together and it follows all the governmental accounting requirements but it gets a little bit dry and it doesn't allow comparison purity or this new medium does allow that it allows us also to share  information about trends which i think is helpful because i like when i'm doing budgeting to look and see where we're trending are we staying on target are we going up or going down and then if there are modifications i want to know why and understand them so i hope you enjoy that in any feedback you have on that please let us know we are also in barking on and we'll be introducing a new city website we haven't had a new website for about ten years and it's about time our old website really has not been as flexible as we would have liked and it was difficult to update the content so the council a provided the resources to  us update in we're working with an organization called civic plus it will be coming soon we see the website as our front door to the world and experts say that a new website is needed every five years and i didn't know that  as ten years were twice that average salt hopefully we're going to be able to keep it fresh with the new website when it comes in it also allows us to enhance user interface will have better visit presentation to the community about the quality of life in the content of what we're doing here in the community it will improve search options it will have a mobile friendly interface so that you'll be able to search it from your mobile devices it will also have a downloadable app so you can have a venice heights app on your phone which that's the trend now everybody's got an app if you can get coffee you'll be able to access federal sites on your phone and it will also allow you to have a reporting function so that if you see issues or you have concerns or problems that you want our staff to know about you can do it in real time and update them from our website we're also going to be doing a community survey which we just met about that here recently we haven't done one now for a few years and we felt that it was time to go out to the community and poll them on things how we're doing where we're headed and get some feedback on possible areas we may wish to go in the future that will be conducted in the spring of two thousand and sixteen by the form of morris leatherman  they will be interviewing approximately three hundred sampled residents of the community and they will be using a scientific sample to ascertain the proper mixture of community members to do that survey and what we're hoping to get from that is to understand who are residents are where they work what they want in terms of level of service and their level of satisfaction with what the city's been doing and you may have also heard that the community recently work that has now been completed through grants that we received to investigate that and we will be moving on to demolishing those old structures and getting it ready for redevelopment we're in the process of  working with and trying to find a suitable developer for the property and the council is now taking suggestions about what the community would think would be a good use for that site is an excellent location it's right on the lake and it's been one type of business but we want to see what could it be what is its highest and best use so we're looking for your suggestions so if any developers in the audience are interested please let us know  the city joined the v a g t c and starting a grove minnesota program and that's a great opportunity for us to work with and to pursue that partnership city staff and the v vici d c staff visited two business per month in order to stay on top of any issues that may have arisen and we offer assistance of any kind of those businesses and most importantly we want to say thank you to those businesses for being part of our local community here in venice heights without you we wouldn't be successful we also the our staff in the elected officials join the v h u d c in forming the city center task force and many of you that are operating in the city center know that we're trying to revision and spruce things up and have more of a sense of a downtown area and the city council felt that that task force would be an opportunity to to partner with and collaborate with our businesses to create a synergy that would allow us to figure out what businesses need and wanted and then work together to create a real sense of a nice downtown area  the major legwork was initiated in two thousand and fifteen and the city council was approached about a couple of really key things that needed to happen one of which was a number of years ago we were advised that the street lights in city center were obsolete and many of them were failing and we had a study done by our engineer that advised us that they needed to be replaced they were the original lights that were put in when the city center was constructed a long time ago and they are beyond their their functional life at this point so the city council took that recommendation and at a recent council meeting we did approve replacing the street lights and we  they're going to be much better lights they are going to be l e d type plates that will last almost forever will have very low maintenance cost low electricity costs we're going to to a hall that's not a steel ball but to an a paul that will not rust and deteriorate like the steel poles did and it will have some decorative features that will allow us to do things like banners flower baskets and other ways to like the flags will continue to have the flags like we've always done the actual work on the new lights will take place in two thousand and sixteen and that will be all of the lights in the entire city center area will be replaced as part of the initiative we're seeing not only the strength of the economy improving but the competitive edge that our location at six ninety four and thirty five be offers here in venice heights as a result of our location is and the great community we have people are flocking here and wanting to do a lot of things here in venice heights so we have a number of things being built or going to be built here in the in the next period of time we have right now five single family homes buildings are starting gable pines is just up the road here is nearing its completion and will be opening in the summer two thousand and sixteen this will be a new housing opportunity and will provide a new type of housing that we haven't had in our community and that should be a real opportunity for older folks that want to continue to live in the community but can't stay in their homes to stay in venice and stay near their families and be part of the community as they move on to the next phase of their life we also recently opened the fairfield inn up on highway ninety six in centerville road the noodles and company i don't know if you had a chance to eat there great food but they opened recently and are a great addition to the community jimmy johns opened next to jimmy's here just recently and actually got in a word here i just noticed in the paper for for their level of expertise and sandwich making and then at the city council meeting just past as i mentioned we did have the announcement of the new punch pizza which will be coming into a new building that will be in front of the noodles and that will also have a second tenant space and we'll be talking about that a little bit later in here so that's a great opportunity as well one of the things i've heard over the years and certainly i believe other council members and our staff of heard is we don't have enough restaurants in venice sites we don't have enough choices so that's something we've been trying to encourage the market to come in and provide opportunities we have great restaurants but people want a different types of restaurants different dining opportunities so that they have some variety and this is adding to our variety so i like to move on and talk a little bit about some things that are going on and public works in th community after planning and discussion the city led the completion of the city center drive and tell magellan's street construction project and for those of you that don't know exactly where that is that's the area immediately adjacent to and behind perkins as you recall a lot of fall for almost all the years i lived here there was no good way to get from thomas circle other than going through the parking lot of either of those two businesses and that wasn't a good solution the businesses didn't really like it the people driving through it didn't really like it and so the council after a number of years of deliberation and in working with the surrounding businesses saw we need did a better  transportation plan and that part of city center so we did put in the extension of will lake boulevard to the north and talmuds the connection to tell me and i believe that turned out very nicely and i think that's relieved a lot of traffic congestion for a lot of folks a few years back adding a light certainly helped there as well but now we have more of a wait more ways to get around in venice heights and i think it works better and it's certainly nice now with the clinic and  r urgency room and the great business on the corner to have a good way to get there it and then also a great way for the folks over at alliant and the hotel to get people to and from their developments is also making a thirty million dollar investment in our area with the reconstruction of the goose lake bridge i know that's a little trying for all of us and i hope that you could have the patience to see it through because when it's done it's going to be an excellent improvement the actual project is going to have three lanes both directions through there it's going to be a full with bridge both directions with shoulders both sides of the freeway for safety you won't be narrowing down for the bridge like you used to do and it should not should help the bottleneck of traffic through the thirty five you corridor both north on assault on that's part of the past project that  is currently under construction our city staff participate participates with surrounding communities as part of the i thirty five you quarter study group and they've been instrumental in working with and in monitoring  and making recommendations regarding improvements to thirty five b n the surrounding areas and this is the outgrowth of some of those discussions also while it may not sound like a lot we have had about fifteen new residential lots created in the city in two thousand and fifteen and considering how slow the housing market was and how difficult the economy was that is a good sign to me of how things are improving and we're always happy to welcome more people to live in venice heights in in my estimation and i hope in yours we continue to be one of the best cities in the in the entire world but i'll say in the region f removal and we take that responsibility very seriously we try to get out and get the streets cleared of snow as quickly as possible after any snow event and we rely on our community folks to make sure there's cars are not on the streets and that's worked out quite well our staff gets out and does a great job of snow removal and in the last no event we had here's an example of how dedicated our staff are a number of them actually stayed overnight at the public works so they could be available to snowplow during that last know about and i can't tell you how grateful i am to have such great employees that are willing to put their own lives a little bit on hold so that they can do the top notch level of service that we all have come to know and expect from the city i'd also like to talk a little bit about the comments that was built a number of years ago and that has continued to grow in its success and many of you in your businesses have had an opportunity to attend events or sponsor and host events there and we believe that's a great community amenity and we're very pleased to have that and we hope you like it and if you have any concerns or questions about that please let us know we're also working as a community and in a variety of cooperative efforts to make sure that government works efficiently and well together so we have a number of a cooperative business arrangements with other units of government including ramsey county m projects such as and we have the we've this this lane project we're having some meetings with white bear and jemma lake to try and see how we can work together regionally to do things more efficiently and  more quickly and also to help coordinate those efforts so that every city doesn't have to do exactly the same thing so we're trying to see how we can work together and if one city has equipment and the other one doesn't how we can share those resources or if how one city has a particular expertise we can share that across the board in the long run that keeps the cost of government down and it also improves the working relationship with their surrounding  communities we have one of the best fire departments in the entire region again and again in my opinion but i think it's true and they do an excellent job of keeping our communities safe they do a number of things beyond fire protection and one of them is we have fire technicians that conducted one hundred fifty child safety seat inspections and they will if you come down with your seat bring it to the fire station and let them know you're coming they will actually come out and make sure that it's installed correctly and they've done studies in a large proportion of folks that put them in themselves don't install them correctly and there was a recent accident where u nfortunately a person driving lost their life but both of the children survived the crash because they were improperly installed seats in their car so that's an important thing that's a service that the city provides  free they will note any any abnormalities with the seats or if that needs to be replaced or if it's been recalled or obsolete that they're aware of and let you know about that they'll also provide  assistance in taking them out and putting them in so that you know what you're doing they also provide safety instructions for education about bulky clothing and hazards in the vehicle anything they see they'll give you pointers on how did they have the vehicle set up correctly also they do a hold an evening car seat clinic at the fire department on an annual basis so look for those coming up another thing the fire department is doing is that they have to in consultation with the city started the fire certificate of occupancy in code enforcement and program and that is a program in which fire technicians come out and will investigate all commercial properties to make sure that they are safe for their employees as well as the public and last year they conducted one thousand six hundred sixty fire certificate safety of inspections  they will meet with representatives and explain the process they point out violations they gather information about ownership so that if they're in an emergency said to ation like a disaster a fire  a regional problem a tornado or something they can get a hold of people quickly they create photo logs an aerial pre planned for the crews to utilize we're on the scene if there's a future fire so that that allows our fire department to be ready to come in and fix the things quickly and get the fire out as quickly as possible we believe this is added value and it's certainly allowed the city to have much more information about what's going on in terms of each individual space so that we're in a better position to be proactive in dealing with fire suppression issues in the future another part of the fire department's function is to be a code enforcement arm and they actually gotten in force the city's code in terms of outdoor storage and things like that and they worked very hard to correct the code violations that existed at a number of properties in the community the the council felt that it was appropriate for us to make sure that all of the properties in the community are living up to the code and we had a very high profile property at  crossroads in the community that did get cleaned up as a result of that program and solved a longstanding issue in the area and i believe that was very much appreciated by the community members that lived in that area some we've had a few major events unfortunately in the fire area in two thousand and fifteen done in the burwood ave area there was a structural fire where unfortunately the homeowner did lose her life but the fire was put out as quickly as possible and no no loss of property beyond the structure occurred and that home was demolished we also had a commercial fire at the line mews off his distributing company and their great business and it was unfortunate to see that happen but the building was saved because it had an excellent sprinkler system we also had a fire over it rose prior that was a residential structure fire and a venice heights firefighter and that had been part of the organization notified the family of the fire and helped them exit this isn't even a current firefighter but somebody that once a firefighter always a fire friend i always say jumped in and made sure they were safe and they were able to get in and have a good result with regard to that house the fire department also as you may know implemented a new program called the duty crew system and that is and that's just on the  weekends that's where the hourly firefighters will stay in the fire department rather than having all of the firefighters called all the time into the station and that was done too for two reasons to allow them to get to calls faster and as a result of that program they've been able to lower their response times by approximately a minute per call which is a lot and it also allows the firefighters then to know when they'll be on call on weekends when it's their turn versus everybody needs to be on call every weekend and that has not been without controversy but i believe that the vast majority of the fire department does like the new program and its seems to be working  we were approached about expanding the program so the council will be discussing that as well so i'd like to move on and talk about our financial health of the city and i i can report to you that venice heights is an excellent financial health a primary indicator of the health of our financial life is the fact that we have one of the most affordable tax rates in the entire metro area and this tiny graph compares the most expensive tax rate which is st paul to the least expensive tax rate which i can't light i believe is that last one and vadis heights is the orange line so that that graphically demonstrates that we're able to keep the cost of government down to a very bare minimum and i can say to you that over the my tenure on the council we've been consistently either the lowest or the second lowest whenever we've seen that survey at least for the last fifteen years and we work very hard to provide a good level of service at an affordable cost over the years we've been able to match our levee rate with our need and also not have to have large tax increases there was one year where we did have an increase and that was a planned increase and that was to fund the nurse service center the new fire station public works garage and the venice commons and that was an increase that wasn't to supported by the council but that building has really serve the community well and we were able to do that without having to go out and have a bond referendum or or really spend overspend on that project and it's going to be an amenity for the community for years to come now looking forward to two thousand and sixteen all there is our final tax rate and i like the trend we're going down some of the exciting things that are coming i talked about them already is fresh time will be moving in to where festival used to be we had a very productive meeting and they're very excited to come to venice heights we're going to only be the third location for this venture i think they're going to you're going to enjoy them if you haven't had a chance you can go out to their website and look at their product they have a store in bloomington they also have a story believe in plymouth going to be a great addition that's going to be a part of the space and you see the work that's going on in the old festival space on the other half of the space  they're going to be i think a pet supply provider is going to be in that side and we're hoping to have that area fully occupied soon i think by spring because the idea or mid summer going to be a great opportunity we also talk to them about something really fun that's going to be happening in that's an alcove of the city center task force is we're going to be having a farmer's market here one day a week here in city center and it's going to be a great chance to sort of build on our history for those of you that don't know venice heights was a truck farming location many farmers over the years used to and one farmer still does just up the road farm here in venice heights and so w back a little bit to our roots to have the farmer's market they're going to be here and the combo of fresh time in our other grocery providers in our businesses i think is going to be a great opportunity to build community have healthy food work with our health care providers we're getting a subspecialty of health here in venice and it's so they go very nicely together we're also very excited to welcome the people's bank they're going to be building their current location don and maplewood they're just moving up the road and i'm happy and very excited to welcome them to the community they should be and again the summer the council did approve a quick trip you've probably seen the work started on highway ninety six across from berkeley  that was a very underlying underutilized area of the city and one of our objectives was to try and look at redevelopment and try to get higher and better uses in various areas of the community and that's an opportunity we did have a gas station in that region and i believe that convenience store and gas station will be a benefit to everybody and i had a few people even this morning say they're excited to see them come i certainly am and i love their coffee you've got to got to have the coffee revolution sports also came in next to saks restaurant and they're a great addition to the community i already talked about punch pizza this is a real feather in the communities cap to get such a quality business we're really excited to have them come that's neapolitan pizza for those of you that have not had an opportunity to try them out and then the luther group we did approval for them to do a major remodeling project at their site and we're really excited to have them expand their operation in the community as well now looking forward we have some great opportunities here as a community working with the business folks and our residents one of them is participating in the business retention expansion program hoping all of you have heard about it but the v h e d c under the leadership of laying in the city partner together to work with businesses to find out how are things going how can we work together what are your needs as businesses what can city government do to make your job better and make you more successful and then also to i don't identify opportunities for ways in which you can become more involved in the community it's going to allow us to have a really good communication dialogue between the two very important parts of making a successful community so we're really excited about that  have not conveyed participated in such a program since two thousand and four and we're we're happy to do it again and i hope we're going to do this on a more regular basis going forward and i'm going to participate in coming out to do some of that work as well so i'm very interested in working with those businesses that are going to participate we did a sample and we have a large number of potential folks that are going to participate in that and then when the information is complete it will be available to the business community  the residents and we're going to hopefully use that as the as a jumping point for the city council and business to work together and figure out how we can do things better we were also in two thousand and four we were based upon that study when we did the last time we were responsive to some of the things we learned by one of the things was that they wanted more hotel space and so we worked with a developer to come in and that they outgrowth of that was the fairfield inn which is across the street another one is that we needed more conference space this is a great location and i love it here in i'm glad they're here i agree with lang they have been a great community participant but we needed more space because we were having bigger events and more opportunities so we did have the common space available but i think that's that relationships worked well and there are always busy here and the situations worked out quite nicely we also will make the community survey a result of vailable to you and if you have any ideas for questions or concerns from the business community let kevin know we're in the process of formulating questions and we would be interested to know if you do have questions you want us to ask we're open to considering that as well it seems like we just did it but we're redoing our comprehensive plan again and this is an opportunity for business leaders to come in and also give us advice about zoning issues and things like that so if you have questions or concerns or things you advice to us please let us know recently the city did approve that some new street work were going to be read  certainly it'll be an opportunity for folks afterwards to go to all the area businesses and shop the city will also be having hosting in the city but not sponsored  by a business expo and that's going to be up at the sports center that's going to be sponsored by the venice heights press in the view d c this is going to be a great event if you haven't heard about it it's coming up in may and you'll be hearing a lot more about it there was a flyer just went out recently about is going to be an excellent event and i hope you can attend we anticipate approval or completion of the men past project and of i would hear this fall goose lake road is going to be closed until that project's done i know that's difficult for a number of area businesses don't forget to go and get pizza up there she really needs the help it's all great place great pizza road work will be starting at six ninety four for my st up to lexington and that is a project called the corridors of commerce that will be happening the summer and we're hoping to coordinate with ra county serbian little canada to replace the street race street bridge that's been an ongoing effort between our communities and it's been on the list to be replaced and we've been working with the county probably for sixteen years i'd say at least and it was in the governor's recommended plan prior to this recommended plan but it isn't in the governor's recommended plan this year but it is the last bottleneck and six ninety four it is what causes all of the slowdown and backup that you are experiencing and both directions and i can understand why they didn't want the road to be created and that bridge to be and you fixed all the other bridges to the east but you leave that one it makes no logical planning sense so ramsey county has taken the lead of recommending and asking the that worked on it really needs to be done for the north and east metro it is really slowing our traffic down and you can see that at rush hour time finally i'd like to invite everyone to attend the business appreciation event which will be here held on march first at the commons this will be sponsored by the city of venice heights and the venice heights economic development corporation i am very thankful for the business community i'm very thankful for the on tears and the great people that live in this community i've been honored to serve as your mayor over the last five years approximately and i look forward to working with all of you to continue to make feticide it's a great place to live work and do business all right any questions this is your sho  i've five talked with our metropolitan council representatives and trying to understand why we don't have any kind of a bus route or bus access for our community and the answer i was provided is well we don't have ridership but we don't have ridership because we don't have a bus line so it's a chicken and egg problem we are part of the rush rush line corridor study group and they are looking at that piece of it it is a real problem and i agree that there is more that needs to be done because we need to get workers to and from all of these great businesses that are here and anything the community can do we did support the park as ride as one opportunity to it at least have a spot where people can get a bus here in venice heights but again that's on an express you know morning evening route so it's not ideal but we need to get there but certainly i believe the council is receptive and supportive of that so please let us know what we can do and if flatters or testimony would be helpful we'd be glad to do that if we explored that opportunity for a number of years i want to say maybe eight years and we had a plan that i thought could have worked but it didn't get the buy in from the land owner we had worked out with wiper township wiper lake and the city what we believe to be a workable plan but it was blocked by the landowner not wanting to participate in the plan so i recognize it's an important connection and i would like it to go through but i think until we get a some buy in from the last and owner there was no desire on the part of the council to go in and take the land by condemnation  because of the philosophical belief that we shouldn't do that but if if there's a change of heart we're always open to the discussion of how we can get that road through because we need to relieve congestion and bring march traffic to this side of the highway and certainly as we've experienced with thirty five you being perpetually repaired at seymour six ninety four centerville and low bar road really become the relievers and we need to get people to and to and from home and up north because we function as one large community people are going to wait there they go to the northern suburbs and we move around that way and thirty five years our best way to get to and from places in this region when that stops like it is half the time now unfortunately we really see how important it is so long answer we are supportive of it but it's not no immediate plans at the present time but  if you want to go lobby the landowners and have them change their mind we'd be glad to have that discussion again my favorite thing that i get to do as mayor is do ceremonial things like recognizing people for their contributions to the community and i am very pleased today and bob joined the trails and pathway committee on may seventh one thousand nine hundred ninety two and he served as a member until it was disbanded in september of two thousand and three from there he became a member of the planning commission on october twentieth of two thousand and three and he served in that capacity to all of the end of last year he's been a member of the venice heights lions club since february of one nine hundred ninety one and he started as their secretary in one nine hundred ninety four he still holds that very busy position in two thousand and thirteen he spent many hours helping to set up the venice heights lions club foundation which is their five zero one c three corporation he's the assistant gambling manager of for the lions where he works hard on all of the records and reports required in order for them successful gambling operation he received the melvin jones fellow award in may of one thousand nine hundred five in the progress of melvin jones award in october of two thousand and fifteen which is the highest honor members of the lions club can receive from lion's club international he also received a hall in color award in december of ninety two thousand and nine in the progressive helen keller award in two thousand and eleven which is the minnesota lions vision foundation award he's consistently received the district governors annual of one thousand one hundred percent secretary awarded in january two thousand and fifteen he received a lions club international president's leadership medal through his attention to detail and mentoring of the members of the lion's club they have one of the greatest clubs around bob also was awarded the paul harris fellow word by the venice heights rotary and this is an honorary membership it's the highest distinction that the club maybe stole for meritorious service in the further into ideals and for the support of the rotary cause bob volunteers that vendor cites elementary school where he tutors children and chaperones their swim lesson and field trips we will really miss bob and want to thank him for all his years and commitment to this community and he comes to his come to almost all the events that i've been to with regard to volunteer appreciation i can say that and i say it at every meeting a we can't do this without great volunteers and bob is a great volunteer soul think you on behalf of the city of only we have a plaque for you bob and it's old map of the area before venice cites was venice high it's the plate nineteen range twenty two but the old lambert for your insights and your vision this morning i want to say a special thank you to you on one particular thing i've noticed in working with you over the past year and a half is just your deep desire to elevate the quality of life  businesses and residents so thank you and i certainly believe the future is bright for the community with the dedicated city staff involved residents are excellent location in many of our thriving businesses and i do believe that new collaboration's and partnerships are going to be the key for our businesses to get over some of these issues that kind of are hindering their growth and so we look forward to helping you work on those and so thank you for coming and have a wonderful day i'd like to put one more plug in for the business appreciation feel free to send kind of your executive groups or sales groups of people can be a really big fun networking event for you to attend march first four pm to six thirty we have some great door prizes and we look forward to seeing you there play thank you