I think one of our biggest problems right now is taxes. It's easy to say, 'Oh, we're less than everybody else.' It's easy to say we haven't grown as much as everybody else, but we all have to make a decision in our city. And I think we all need to. My taxes since I've lived in this city are up 30%. Have you gotten what you wanted out of it? So, I really think we need to first start right here and look at how we increase our revenue. We don't need to put more taxes out.

I would say our biggest challenge is economic development, and specifically, the Eden Prairie Center. The Eden Prairie Center has languished for many, many years. We've lost, speaking of tax revenue, over the years. What was yielding us $4.66 million from the mall is now only about $2.5 million; but it is in many ways our city center, and we need to, I think, focus more on that, to create a sense of community, and to address the issues of high taxes and so forth, and relieve some of the tax burdens on the residents.

I think the biggest challenge we face right now is preparing for the future. Mayor Case laid out how well we've done to get to this excellent level in our city, and the question is, how do we sustain that for the next 20 years? How do we manage the generational transition in our community while sustaining the culture of excellence and operational efficiency that has made our city one of the most wonderful communities at the lowest cost in terms of taxes relative to our neighbors?

Yes, I do. One of the reasons that we hire full-time firefighters is to decrease response time. A consultant did a study with the city and found that the average firefighter response time was 11 minutes and 48 seconds, and we needed to decrease that. So, if you think of the taxes that we pay, I suggest you think of it as a gift to the community, right? So if our taxes go up by $40 this year for the average homeowner, we're all in agreement to give that gift to each other to increase the speed of firefighter response.

I support that completely. I've read the 2024 Coverage Standards Study that called for more of that. I also know from my work in this school district how critical that is. When we talk about response times, we're talking about the lives of our kids, our staff, and our broader community, let alone everyone who resides or visits in our area. And one of the questions that's raised about this is funding. I've read all 99 pages of the 2027 budget report, and I know that there is a $2.2 million safety grant earmarked that covers 75% of the cost of this for two years. So, I don't understand why we would argue against something that is 34% covered for our community and contributes to our safety.

Believe it or not, I'm one of the on-call staff. I actually do think we need more full-time. I also think we need to review our on-call staff and make sure that we're full there. The interesting thing about the study that was brought up is I've looked into this quite a bit because it affects me personally. They have hundreds of studies all across the United States. No department, no city, no entity in the United States has been able to apply what they do to an expensive cost. They always ask us, 'We want better response times. How much is it?' They can't answer. Hundreds of studies. That's all they do. And they tell us to spend it. If we look at it, they mention it's $2.2 million for the first two years. That's for the eight full-time firefighters we have now. We want to get to 36. That's over $12 million. What are we getting out of it? Can we study it deeper? That's what I think. Thank you.

We have at any given time six or seven squads on the road. Sometimes a little bit more than that. Obviously, we can't continuously cover 36 square miles everywhere. The technology is out there today. At these conferences I go to, sometimes I'll go to some of these, not only with the digital readouts that we sometimes see when we're driving down the road, but also with this digital camera—it may look like a flat camera, so you don't have to worry yet—to take a picture of the car, take a picture of the driver to make sure it's the right driver, send it back to the police department, and in some cases, send a citation. I'm not suggesting that.

One of the things I would have loved—and maybe we talk to some of the schools—is that they would bring car accidents out and show the students what happens. It doesn't take much to do a lot of damage to yourself for a long time. So, I think putting the police in the right spot, working with our city engineers, whether you guys know it or not, you can paint roads differently, and people will slow down by how narrow it is.

I think it speaks to the change that's taking place in Eden Prairie. So, if I look out my front door and I'm on a Southwest Regional route, I can see electric bikes, electric skateboards, bicycles, pedestrians, runners, EVs. We have the Green Line LRT under construction. We're a more complicated traffic environment. So, we have these issues, and our resources are limited with respect to police. I think one of the things that would be immediately helpful to the residents of Eden Prairie is to get some more specific numbers that show how many e-bike accidents, how many regular bike accidents, and so forth.

I think when we talk about land use over the next 20 years and our comprehensive plan, one of the most important things to consider is Eden Prairie is mostly built out. So, there isn't vast new swaths of land or new developments for us to think about. We have to manage what we have well. And I think a key to that is flexibility. We need to think innovatively about multi-use developments and existing sites and existing properties. We need innovative partnerships like we had with the school district in the city around the former SuperValu headquarters, which is now a school district education building.

As we look at development, we're going to look at redeveloping underperforming industrial areas, which are often in the Golden Triangle. We really need to look at our NOAH housing, naturally occurring affordable housing, as being preserved. Obviously, the Golden Triangle itself, which I just mentioned, is going to become more dense. Especially around the transit stations, transit-oriented development. We're going to see a lot of commercial and residential development out there. And then finally, the mall, right? I mean, we don't know what malls are going to look like throughout the country in 2050.

So, the 2050 plan, I think we have a tremendous opportunity to think boldly about the future. Most of what we're going to do in a plan like this is integrate what we have. So we can think of, you know, family spaces, community-focused properties, multi-use, and tie that thinking into bold thinking. For example, let's tie it into the Flying Cloud landfill being redeveloped into a solar farm that can power up to 43 megawatts of power for up to 20% of Eden Prairie's homes.

I think this is one of the most important challenges our city faces. Our community has become more diverse, and as you now see, how do we reflect that diversity and bring voices from marginalized and vulnerable communities to the table? I think one of the most important things we can do is give them an opportunity to participate meaningfully. And I think we achieve that through direct outreach, through policies and visions that support vulnerable communities, not just through resources and housing and grants and affordable housing policies, but through our city committees and our council, and how we make space for them at the table; and more importantly, empower them to tell their stories and give them an opportunity to advocate for themselves.

I think it starts with the great culture we have within the police department, where our officers are trained to treat all people equally. During the George Floyd crisis, I asked the police, 'Can this happen here?' And I think it can, I mean, things can happen anywhere, but our de-escalation training is two weeks, Minneapolis was two hours. It's a completely different culture here, treating people well.

I'm a professor at the University of St. Thomas Business School, and I'll be teaching students tomorrow, and they come from every background imaginable. And I've found a way to think about it is, even if you have a beautiful, perfect home, you're still working on it and managing things that are constantly changing in it. At least that's what happens in my home. And we have in this community also this great diversity of people. And I think we need the key, which is awareness. If you look at the Eden Prairie Quality of Life survey, it paints a very rosy picture, right? But if you look at the key numbers, if you dig into some of the details, people from various segments of society, from diverse groups, are having a very different experience in Eden Prairie than the majority of the population.

I think the answer is no, because the city has already taken action on this. It's been proactive in aligning its Aspire 2040 plan with the city's climate goals. It's put forth a vision that has helped protect our community and put controls on what data centers should look like and how they align with our energy and clean water goals. Those are two of the biggest issues around data centers: energy consumption and water quality.

So the short answer is no, we already have data centers in Eden Prairie. United Health Group has a data center. Pretty much every company has a smaller data center of its own. But obviously, people when they think of data centers, they think of those big ones that get built out on Highway 42 in Rosemont. We can learn from other cities throughout the country, both their successes and their failures, regarding data centers. And that's one of the reasons why we went with a proactive ordinance that hopefully sends signals to any company coming in the future about how to do it right.

I have a very strong opinion on this. I'll tell you about it in a minute. I have seen what big data centers can do to communities, and they are capable of destroying them, especially the big ones. And I was one of the ones that put the current plan in to rethink all data centers and be sure what we were willing to do. There's a difference between small and big, and there's a difference in how they use water, and things like that.

No. There's obviously problems, or at least some positive aspects to this, like flame cameras. I'll get to that in a minute, but as far as plate readers, we've all read about missing people that have been found, stolen cars that have been found. Our police department that uses them ethically and legally correctly, and I realize there are some conditions. It can be very helpful to the community. However, there is a question of data protection, storage, and the laws regarding who can access it. We're currently using Motorola cameras here in the city. Our data is well protected and excellently stored, and it takes a judge and a subpoena to get into it.

No, I don't think Flock is right for our city. We're close enough with Ring cameras everywhere. You can even go to deflock.com, and you'll see how many Flock cameras there are at businesses. I don't think that's really what we want from a personal privacy standpoint. License plate readers. Yes, there's a lot of value to it. When I lost my dog, you know, Ring cameras helped take care of it. There's value, but not at the cost that I see Flock cameras.

Flock cameras. No, we have Motorola cameras. I think there's more that we can do with the Motorola cameras by the police. For example, we could decrease the number of days that data is retained, right? I think we're at 60 days now. We could decrease it to 30, for example. There's another issue, which is the number of commercial properties that are using this type of surveillance camera. Those cameras exist in Eden Prairie. One potential solution is to apply a licensing fee, especially if the camera is pointing into public property, because the issue is security, yes, but also privacy.

I think this is one of the things that we as neighbors need to bring up to the municipality. We have an excellent code enforcement team here. Even our fire inspectors go out and meet with people. They try to do all that they can to help get the repairs in place. We have partnerships, too. One of the fire departments has a partnership. We work with some of the buildings to try to get sprinklers in, additions like that, to make sure these things happen. But I'll go back to the speed thing. Not everybody sees every part of the city every day. So, we've got to start again being neighbors and helping each other out. If there's an issue, tell someone.

I've noticed the same thing in Eden Prairie. What I see is many of the homes, and they don't seem like they were built that long ago, where they were built somewhere in the 70s to early 80s, that they're just not of the quality of some of the newer homes. And that creates a lot of problems, because if it continues to go without stronger enforcement, or in other words, more frequent inspections of the properties and repairs, then it quickly deteriorates in quality. And I'm aware of that. So, I would stress my support for stronger code enforcement, specifically as it relates to rental properties.

So, the question, as I understood it, was about rental properties, perhaps large apartment buildings, I'm not sure, but perhaps large apartment buildings and sometimes individual apartment units that are not maintained. And I agree with Tony, we have very competent inspectors and compliance staff here in the city. So, a lot of it is communicating back to us. But I would like to say that once there's a problem—and I'll broaden this now—it can include owned homes, or rented homes, or even rented buildings, our compliance officer has to follow the law. And the law sometimes is very complex, and it creates frustration with our residents who live around these dilapidated homes and apartments.

So, the question is, do I support citizen involvement in this type of thing? Absolutely. For example, we have, you know, the Friends of Eden Prairie Parks. That's one of the most beautiful partnerships, and I believe in Eden Prairie and the work that they do in the parks, and I have a beautiful old oak tree in my backyard. So, I'm very partial to tree preservation. So I say yes, and I think there's enthusiasm for such a group of citizens.

Yes, I support citizen involvement not only in these types of decisions, but in most decisions. I think one of the critical roles that the council has to play is creating opportunities for citizen input, and trusting our city staff regarding the interaction around this, and by setting a vision and a value that reinforces the importance of this to us. This is what we do in the school district. We have executive limitations from our school board on community engagement, and we have to abide by those before important decisions are made.

I think my answer is 'maybe.' I know that sounds like it's waffling. If it's about interaction, about educating the public and letting them know more about our procedures, then I would definitely support that. If it's about oversight and veto and refusal, no, because we have the best tree replacement and preservation policy in the state of Minnesota. We have excellent procedures, and we have the best staff of arborists out there. So, when a decision is made to remove a sick oak tree, the public can have confidence that it's done with careful thought and research.

It's a good question. That's directly from the Eden Prairie Police Department. They provide no assistance to federal agents, nor will they interfere with their work. And I think that's a wise position to take. It's the position the League of Minnesota Cities recommended, and they're following it, and they have a good working relationship with the federal agencies.

I want to start my comments with a value statement, and that is that I believe every resident in our community deserves to feel safe in our community. And I think this question comes in response to the 'Metro Surge,' which was wrong. And I want to create a community where everyone feels welcome. I also think the answer to this question is no, we have no role to play, nor should we focus on federal immigration enforcement. We need to be doing the right work, which is maintaining our laws and supporting our residents, and we're too busy to do other people's jobs.

We have no role to play in enforcing federal policy on immigration. We have worked for 20 years with federal agencies appropriately, including ICE, which is highly scrutinized and legal. But under state law, we can't assist ICE in their work of immigration enforcement, and that became very clear, especially during the 'Metro Surge.' And I think we lauded our police department, and I think we handled it very well during those difficult times, and I commend our police department for that.

Regarding the city's role in addressing gun violence, including suicide, homicide, and other injuries, I think we need to focus first and foremost on mental health and the actions taken to support our residents. I really appreciate our police department, and especially having embedded social workers, and even more so increasing social workers in the police department. I think that's a critically important support service that helps to mitigate some of these issues. I also think the city has a role to play in enforcing laws, particularly red flag laws and responsible firearm possession and use.

I'll answer that question, specifically regarding gun violence. I understand there's a suicide aspect, and I completely agree with more social workers and working with them on that. But from a gun violence perspective, as a city, we have limited federal capacity due to federal laws to make a change. But as individual leaders, we have the capacity, in my opinion, to act responsibly, and I personally, this is my personal opinion, to push for gun regulation, whether that's purchase weight limits or banning assault rifles. I think there are things that we as individual leaders can push for.

So, it's interesting to me that many of the questions really focus on public safety, which is appropriate because public safety makes up the largest part of our city budget. By the way, I was at Shields covering the suicide for the Eden Prairie Local News. My son was there, at the AMC center, and he worked there. And when I work with students as a professor, I don't think we can solve the problem of gun violence and suicide through public safety alone. I don't really think that. But I do think that we as community leaders can specify meaning and purpose and direction.