twenty thirteen in spotlight in twenty thirteen the city of maplewood want a prestigious award for leading the sustainability effort in the nation only one organization nationwide is chosen annulling the award was presented to maplewood by the american public works association our city has and continues to adopt many programs and policies to reach toward a sustainable future every city department deserves commendation for these efforts many of these programs have been covered on spotlight the first episode of twenty thirteen featured the solar panel dedication celebration at the maplewood community center our city campus has nearly five hundred solar panels they were paid for by grants from xcel energy three m and a federal stimulus dollars and a complex agreement for tax credits that allow the solar panels to be installed at no cost to maplewood and our citizens the weather is  that our solar rays are still generating electricity and so one of the things that we hope to gather data on in the process and i want to make it clear that we went into this as a city as a demonstration project in so we it's not like we figured we're going to put up these solar arrays and we're going to be no longer needing to buy any electricity off the grid but we wanted to be able to experience the process  and then be able to gather data in so that other people then it's could learn from what we've done and in hopefully in some areas the process can be improved i can tell you that all the way  particularly for the novice it's an extremely complicated process we had some council meetings where our staff was doing their best to tell us how this was all going to work but quite frankly they weren't completely sure either  but it all came down eventually as far as the city's approval to the fact that the way it's set up in the long run the city will not have any capital expense and alternately the way it's set up we would and that's going to save taxpayers money and with any extra that they collect off their panels they're going to redistribute it back to district energy which is going to help the business district in st paul even more successful and so solar who's been able to you know work and employ more people and make the united states a leader in clean energy three am you know always on the cutting edge of innovation and how do we move forward to make life better you know their contribution to this everybody who had a hand in this congratulations and there are so many more that we could talk about so i just wan congratulate xcel energy who's also been a collaboration it's good was a time in which energy companies didn't look for collaboration they had their turf they protected that was it l has been on so many fronts out there working in ways to make america minnesota more energy independent and deliver value to their customers so we're really fortune to have excel as our energy company and i say this with great sincerity i served on the interior environment committee and when people were trying to roll back standards for some of our power plants we called excel and said look you know i want to take a look at this language and you're doing great things and you know what do you think and excel said we can live up to a standard of providing clean air for our children to read and feel very very fortunate your honor to represent the syrian congress with the city of maplewood you know here again that public private partnership in two thousand and eleven passed a renewable ordinance and that's a commitment that's a commitment to the citizens of maplewood there were only were investing in buildings were using energy we're going to do it in a way that's good for not only the environment but what's good for taxpayers so we've the project that we have today of hiring your project which will lead the way for you to become more innovative but also other municipalities all around is a growing as bob pointed out other municipalities looking at here going to be a leader you're going to be in the history books that you were willing to step out sustainability comes from all levels of the city's elected and appointed officials so you staff and our citizens together we can create a sustainable maplewood the next spotlight of twenty thirteen featured former host and former city manager jim manton and with city finance director gail bomb and me when i was act the assistant city manager and we were reviewing the two thousand and thirteen adopted city budget the cities that you read about on a national basis where they've ignored their infrastructure so they've ignored the expenses and really not put money aside and plan for were well planned financial city and that's what moody's looks at that's what these national agencies say these are great information that we have what's happening to our tax levy and and can you explain the tax capacity raid in and why it's a decreasing so much oh the tax levy have a shot here of that the change in the tax levy between two thousand and twelve and two thousand and thirteen and it is increasing by the three point seven eight percent and you can see that the operations section takes the biggest part of the tax levy just over seventy three percent now the general fund remember is part of the operations section sixty seven percent of the tax levies going to the general fund so you know that's your fire your police your parks your streets and there are a few new tax levies this year the development within the city also we have a new were added back we used to levee for park development in the past and we haven't for for number of years now we're i think we're allocating thirty thousand dollars for the park development fund which is in need of funding and you know it hasn't seen in the because of the economic downturn we've had we've always had to take things off the table also redevelopment there's a twenty thousand dollars levy for that this year that hasn't been there for a number of years so you know that's how we arrived at the tax levy the tax capacity rate it's a very complicated formula in the next episode we focus the spotlight on the highway thirty six an english intersection project public works director city engineer michael thompson was the guest where the project is mainly focused along highway thirty six right in the area of hazelwood street in english street and it is right now there's a traffic signal it english street i think everybody's where everybody knows about that a lot of backups a lot of accidents so what this project will do it will put a bridge over the highway where english street is so it'll  separated interchange so a diamond interchange type diet and what that will do it will allow that through traffic to move reduce accidents many people may not know but this is a rate within the top one hundred intersections on trunk highways for crashes so we do have a real problem out here that needs to be fixed so that the bruce vento trailer bridge that just before the interchange yes there can be dose it time  specially with the weather in the pavement conditions and you just never know you can look ahead and see the green light but still there's traffic backed up there and almost stop there's a real problem out there with crashes like you maplewood citizens get you know on and off highway thirty six much quicker and more efficiently and the main part of the project is removing that traffic signal at english street so that's going to help  reduce accidents improve safety also help with the local access right now people are waiting long times to get through that signal so safety of mobility local access there there's a whole lot of things that i like her so there are some other local improvements like on county road b by highway sixty one and a connection from the local neighborhood to  on improvements in our public works snow and ice program in the past two years alone trucks of the material spreader controls upgraded this is a significant improvement to the operation the new controllers law for each truck to be calibrated for each device and material that is used in operation the controllers are then programmed to place a pre determined amount of the ice and material purl a mile and record the information the amount of material the trucks are programmed for is specific to each store based on current and extended forecast the soaps reduce the amount of salt which we use which saves money in minimizes impacts to the environment in the next show we featured fire chief steve lucan discussing long range plans for the fire department as well as plans for the new fire station on the three m so we talked to three m and we were able to get a piece of property that was not large enough for them to really do anything of their own on and they were very generous to provide their property to us and so our whole goal now is in talking with the council and moving forward is to building that station on mcknight and many haha and then we would just be south of the wells fargo bank there facing that's a great location super location i mean it puts us almost in the center and we little bit south would have been stake in making sure that that facility is protected as best we can and provided emerged medical services with what eleven thousand people working anywhere between eight and eleven thousand people as of grow two during a day so  significant amount of people in a small confined area watch for some upcoming news on the progress of the new fire station the maplewood parks department was featured in this episode of spotlight adria robins jim taylor and ne brennaman each discussed the programs and services of our city parks department parks and trails are important because they contribute to the quality of life in our community both for our residents and the businesses that are  located here i mean all it gives our residents a sense community a sense of community pride with a gathering place and we have a lot of people that are are definitely connected to their neighborhood parks and that's where their families spend their time and it's great that we have so many parks and open spaces and we can and we can accommodate that so overall i think it just it really contributes are all the life in the city that's a very good very important program multiple in lots of different programs from recreation to you know some that are non sport not you know not as much sports related and also schedule and rent and program three different gyms in our community wanted edgerton community gym and carver community gym residents an opportunity to take part and be involved in their park system and we hope that you know taking part in the it up to par program that we have will encourage them to take ownership the parks and jim taylor touched on that i his first segment about taking pride in that sense of place in their parks and just offer a way for them to feel part of the process and also exciting things coming in our parks department as the park system taskforce continues with their we shot our spotlight at the st paul police gun range located in south maplewood on land leased to the st paul police department by ramsey county and open house was held to introduce neighbors to the range and address those noise and safety concerns in the area today we're having an open house you've invited some neighbors from around the in the neighborhood some neighbors from the community to come out and check out the facility educate them a little bit  on what exactly we do down here but you see behind me is our is our village inside the village we do our force on force training where we set up scenarios for the officers to run decision based scenario tree gives us a lot of opportunities to to put the officers in real world situations to keep them trained having our officers well prepared and with the facility that we have out here at the range it definitely does give us that opportunity to get our officers well prepared for situations that they'll be faced with ambush type scenarios we do not do any live fire training in this in this section of the range this is all just training good we will see some exciting footage as three broke ground on a new state of the art laboratory facility maplewood citizens and public officials attended the groundbreaking ceremony that new facility provides a creative collaborative work environment for about seven hundred researchers we featured two guests from three elizabeth and blum and doug stang to tell us about the six sighting development and maple one tell me this is a new r and d building what is three m's investment in research and development a in financing their districts that are created by cities and it's probably the most common economic development tool used by cities across the state most cities have one if not a couple different districts within their communities and what it really is intended to do is help develop existing property that's vacant or redevelop a property that needs to be redeveloped in this case we came together and three m had a piece of property that there was nothing on it's fake and and we built our lab just ninety three days after it began the highway thirty six improvements were substantially complete and the highway opened again public works director michael thompson and lead engineering technician jason krieger were featured on our next spotlight giving details of how the project progress also we will hear from fire chief steve luke and telling how the highway thirty six improvements aid in fire response times at the end of the program we will hear from paul schnell informing us about the new text attempt program first i wanted to talk a little bit about our highway thirty six in english street interchange project and the changed and morphed over time good example as we had to neighborhood citizen committees who helped influence design on making road connections and instead of a noise wall we heard people wan i burned with landscape on the north side of thirty six in the neighborhood so we took that input and we really found a good way to deliver on those expectations now we're joined by one of our senior engineering technicians jason craig or who has been our lead city inspector on the highway thirty six english street interchange project as a city inspector it's imperative for us to forge working relationships with businesses in utilities second harvest heartland regional mattress factory as well as our residents in the neighborhood surrounding the interchange project to make sure that they feel comfortable and informed during the construction process we typically go out of our way to make sure that any questions are answered in a timely fashion that any problems are handled quickly and we work closely with the contractor to resolve issues that residents and businesses might have steve lucan fire chief for the city of maplewood one of the real advantages the fire department won't fire any a mass will be receiving out of the changes that have been made on thirty six and english street will be a safety aspect in the past we've always had to enter on to highway thirty six from hazelwood and nine controlled intersection which is very very unsafe to both the firefighters in the trucks or the ambulance as well as to those motorists on the street sometimes not being able to see red lights during the day any been hearing a siren becomes very difficult and so this will be a real safety feature the other big safety feature will also come at the corner of thirty six an english that in the past that has been a very dangerous intersection for border us we've had numerous serious accidents at that location for years with people my name is paul snow i'm the police chief for the maplewood police department if you go to the city of maplewood website and to have been to the police department section you can find my name email address and phone number and i would always encourage people to reach out to me or any of the members of our staff that are identified on that website but the web it also provides links to these various options like our facebook page like our twitter account and we're really excited about the launch of a new development that is a tool called tips for one one and tips for one one allows people to enter a tip anonymously from a smartphone or any type of cell phone that has text messaging capabilities where they simply have been tip for one one eight four seven tip the keyword which in our case will be maplewood followed by a space and whatever information that they want to share and that information gets sent anonymously to staff within the police department now tip for one one while it's an incredible tool should not be a replacement for diamond want if there is an emergency nine one one is always the mechanism to get assistance what tip for one one can be used for is a variety of community concerns or complaints or somebody had information about a crime that occurred but they were afraid to call and report that the text messaging system allows them to send that information our last episode of twenty thirteen spotlighted the minnesota house capital investment committee's two maplewood sites that are seeking a portion of the two thousand and fourteen state bonding bill the harriet tubman family alliance is in line for funds to remodel two additional floors of the old priory building the additional space will be used for young victims of sex exploitation and trafficking and for homeless you i'm representative alice housman i chair the house capital investment committee that's the group visiting today we have many members here they represent districts all over the state and are with maplewood as a community and really as a representative of u a very important city in the state of minnesota together we've worked with their police force we've worked with prosecutors we worked with their hospitals we work in their schools with the children we have this wonderful harriet tubman cent east available for community groups and work people want to come in and have meetings and forums here and of course to serve families that are in a great deal of stress the east metro public safety training center will be located on vacant land property west of five n one twenty the training center would be used by maplewood oakdale nar st paul and numerous other area fire departments in the metro area it's a regional facility we heard from fire chief luke and explaining the value of the training facility to the entire east metro community other communities that were actively involved in that making sure that happened and you can see that there are a lot of them are represented here today as we do that the other big portion of it i think that's really important for better standards that we have this whole green area like a mention on the bus for expansion at some point in time this is there needs changes  our job changes which is always happening we have the opportunity to make those changes here and provide that kind of training the skills arses and equipment amongst all communities this is a very important site for us it's a piece of property that's been here for quite some time and not only the cleanup of the property but the redevelopment of the property for the public safety enterprise also police chief paul schnell talked about the issue of domestic violence each year in the city of maplewood maplewood police officers respond to more than five hundred domestic violence related incidents these incidents run the spectrum from matters of family disputes all the way to utter and complete violence that occurs inside these homes we know that domestic violence is a chronically under reported crime it affects people from all socioeconomic backgrounds and is something that as a community we need to have a high level of concern regarding the reality is that the mass the violence whether it's occurring in our homes or not has significant impact on our community each year in our country more than five billion dollars is spent on direct costs related to domestic violence including medical care or mental health services that are provided to victims of domestic violence as a city and as a police department along with our partners in advocacy and prosecution we stand ready to do anything and everything we can to keep victim safe and whole batteries accountable it has been a great run with spotlight beginning in early two thousand and ten with former city manager jim antonin as your host as those of you that watch have noticed we're changing our format a bit and we're excited to continue to bring you up to date information on our great city until next time stay warm this is city manager chuck all thank you for watching