well welcome to everybody here and anybody who's viewing us to this fabulous new facility which we thought would never happen not recently but when we were trying to plan for this we all thought we in the future this is going to be and look  to the work of a lot of hard work and a lot of people and i just it's even beyond with a expected but i think everyone not just the people in south lake but everyone should be very happy silly and just very thankful to our council and everyone who was able to make this possible as well as the gratitude to all of our firefighters who's do such hard work each and every day they're very deserving of having a station like this to work out and so i want to thank everybody who worked so hard on the opening today for the maple wood fire and police sal the station we've been waiting for this for an awfully long time and we're really pleased that the stay is here under the leadership of our fire chief steve lucan he said a wonderful job of pulling this together because this has been a major project with support of three hours and wells fargo bank of course the city council passes long before i was there and our legislators they all us to pull together the funding for that so it's an important day here while we're here for the grand opening on the new south fire station in south police substation we're excited about being here it's located on the north west corner of the three am property right behind the wells fargo bank and we're so happy for three m who donated the property to us our firefighters are excited and everyone here is well this new station now will haul well how's people around the clock and will be able to cover the south leg of maplewood out of this station and should be an added service level to those in the southern leg i'm really excited about opening up the new stage great combination of police and fire  comedy of both the needs of the police fire new mask there will be two squads based out of the station cops will start and end their shifts here and have the full capabilities of connection to the main police day to day basis the different areas of the city beginning in january officers will be stationed either in the south of the north ends of the city officers are looking forward to start and be in station down here what we believe is that this will help us be more problem oriented and focused on issues and get to know the community better so the police fire facility makes a big difference in helping us achieve that goal so it's a great day this is really important the people of south maplewood and that closer and the police in january will be opening those have officers out of the station and do more community policing and so we're excited again self a forward we're going to have cops that know you better know your neighborhoods and are going to help you so big day big day here maple was excited to be here take everyone for coming this morning for the ribbon cutting of the new south player station in south police substation this is a very very him new addition to the maplewood fire department actually to maplewood as a whole as well as the police department to serve this the lady of the city of maplewood really short we don't have a lot but we do have a few people that would like to their concerns always is response times right if there's a heart attack if there's a stroke are they in t's the paramedics going to get there and what we know is now for people in south me what i hope all those cell think what people i see out there are you feeling better right because their response times will be the same if not better but they will be coming from right here and i think that's really important so i want to thank our e m t as our paramedics our firefighters for all you do for maplewood every day and for helping with the opening of th i want to make sure that i think three am no doc staying is here so i would like to recognize him thank you for the donation of the land wells fargo has been a great partner right next door of our legislators represented joy and ward represented susan representatively on lowly representative peter fisher are all here so thank you for your part we know that this was funded through money with the legislature through the tip process and i also a special thanks to our council members that are here today  kathy gentleman mark koeppen merrily abrams and probably bob cargill is around here somewhere and i thank you for making this happen the police are going to be here but there are not start until january right so the police will be down here till january so we'll be very reassured when the police are here and they're also doing more community policing so we'll have police that are here that will become familiar with the public and another big first today is this is our first green building and there's heated floors in here as the garage doors instead of and up they open out which is also energy efficient and then you know my favorite thing they have to check out is the toilets have to flush isn't so you know kind of for when you're doing a little are you doing a little more but they're not cheap are they know so go and going environmentally friendly and green has a price to it but i think as being the first building in minnesota to be green to be certified we should be very proud of that so i just want to thank everyone for coming out today we appreciate you being here this is really exciting for us in maplewood and specially for people in south maplewood and i want to thank the chief for all of his one of the council members kathy june when i wanted to see if you were this is indeed an exciting day and as norah said it's restarted working on this so long ago and it was a dream that we thought would happen but we weren't sure how soon and i think we were all happily shocked when it came to be as fast as it did is fabulous and i want you to be aware or to remind you that there are two people who are no longer with maplewood but who actually had a lot to do with the initial push to plan this and that's our retired city manager chuck all and former mayor will ross back will was a really strong pusher supporter for this so i just wanted to acknowledge them having sat at the table at the same time and i agree with nora this is fantastic and it's actually a dream come true much sooner than most things you dream about become reality we wouldn't be here without the support of three m by three m providing us this beautiful chunk of property we actually have i believe it is about a six point buck that runs around the back here so that adds to the overall look of where we're at where that i'd you we're very excited as is as excited as a community three am is part of the community very excited when we talk i was telling some of the folks here that employees at three am a day as i've driven past have commented about how beautiful building that is and for those who were at the ground by concern money for our building right next door our c e o in the tulane talked about maple ward and how three am as a part of the community and i think our involvement this partnership shows that we are very committed to mabel ward where happy and excited and proud to be a member of the community and this is just an example of a great partnership between us in the city and the residents and and we're as excited as the residents are to see this building and and to see such a beautiful building here right on the corner really excited about opening up the new stage to all of our firefighters who do such hard work each and every day they're very deserving of having a station like this to work out