[Music] so the city of blaine right now is just in a great spot and we have a lot of great things happening the changing of the seasons i think the leaves are beautiful right now we've just got a great community so much activity is happening so many great things are happening and as we move into the holiday season too we just hope everybody has a great time with family and friends and stays safe and really continues to to move blame forward our our main priority and focus still continues to be development and that's development of infrastructure we know that trunk highway 65 is still our number one priority and really the number one influencer and how our city goes so we know that that continues to push traffic into our neighborhoods and really kind of escalates traffic congestions and traffic issues so we're continuing to do that because we also know that once trunk highway 65 is done we know that that will also open up and continue to improve economic development which is the second priority for us and making sure that the residents of blaine have the businesses the amenities the retail options that they're looking for in the city and really trying to do it in a cohesive manner so that blaine feels like it makes sense and you can really do your shopping your eating you're hanging out with friends and family all in the city of blaine and not feel like you have to go to other communities and then really capture the over seven million people that come to our city every year to participate in what's happening in our community to really help capture that economic activity and give them a place to also spend their downtime as well but we're just so impressed how many people believe in the city of blaine and what's happening here in the vision of what's coming and are still saying now's the time to open a restaurant now is the time to open our business in the city i think we have excellent leadership we have a police chief that is excellent at what he does he has extremely high standards i have very high standards for our law enforcement and public safety team members but in and of that the community respects them and they feel respected and many of our public safety personnel live in our city or around our city and they they care about the residents here and care about the safety of the residents of blaine and the businesses of blaine and those that are in blaine like i said we have almost seven million visitors a year and so also in addition to just keeping us residents safe is how do we keep other people safe when they're inside of our community as well so i think that honestly the respect that our community members show law enforcement and public safety really goes a long way in helping them again just to feel that confidence and to feel uh that professionally uh you know they serve with the utmost of integrity and we have the highest of expectations and they're meeting that and they're serving us with excellence in in first and foremost we look at how do we keep blaine safe that is something that we look at sometimes um you know things are foreseeable and sometimes things aren't foreseeable sometimes things are directly under city control and sometimes we have to rely on partnerships with other governmental agencies whether it be a county anoka county or the state sometimes a federal government in how we provide those safety measures so one thing that we have done in the city out of response of a tragedy was created traffic commission where we can help study what's happening in neighborhoods what's happening inside of the city in particular on city streets so that we can respond with data not just react but how do we respond correctly to a situation to make sure that we are providing the best safety and the most you know the most efficient mode of transportation uh possible so it's really important for us to hear from residents but residents also need to understand that change takes time even designing a sidewalk designing a trail takes time and takes a lot of collaboration with developers with other units of government and so hearing from residents is really important for us to help us make sure we're prioritizing those areas to make sure that things are safe as possible and sometimes you know it's good for residents they feel like oh man we i fought that battle for 10 years and i just well you have a council and a mayor that maybe wasn't there 10 years ago wasn't there 15 years ago and we need to hear about it again so if there's an issue or an area you say hey i really think a sidewalk a trail i think another stoplight i think a stop sign would be really important bring it to our attention and we will study it we'll look at it we'll try to move as quickly and as efficiently as as possible to make sure that we get safety right and that we get it as quickly as possible city hall is going through a pretty big renovation right now again it's been just over 20 years since city hall was last really updated renovated built and so now that the city is over 70 000 people and again over 7 million visitors a year city hall didn't need to expand and one of the great things and the vision that the council and the the mayor had at the time was to build the building originally in a way that it could be renovated and expanded at a future time so we were able to expand up in the building and finish out the third floor but a lot of the changes that a resident would see when they first walk in the door is the expansion of public safety in the police department they needed more space as they continue to grow as a department to keep us safe and then also adding more community rooms we know that city hall belongs to the people to the residents of blaine and so we wanted to have more space and opportunity for residents to be able to come in whether it be a youth sports or cub scouts or just a neighborhood homeowners association we want the residents of blaine to also have the opportunity and the access to city hall it's their building and so we want to take care of it as best we can and also provide as much space as we can for the residents to utilize the space right now we have the north town area redesign so all along county 10 all of that area in blaine north town mall included we're going through a redesign and master design we've hired a great group that's redone malls such as roseville and burnsville and other other great malls throughout the country but bringing them in to help us redesign that we obviously need a reinvention we need a revitalization of of the north town area but we'd love to hear from more people we'd love to hear what they'd like to see in that area as we reimagine what the whole north town area can look like and be looking similarly for areas like 105th as well to be redesigned and then coming up in february you will see plans start to come out from the state and the city on what the redesign of trunk highway 65 will look like as well [Music] 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