[Music] welcome to agenda Edina a program summarizing the actions taken at City Hall that affect you most I'm your host dorothia Marty city manager Scott Neil has trimmed the city's 2025 budget by 1% as requested by the city council when it approved the levy increase in December the city council approved a formal budget amendment at its February 4th meeting finalizing a budget of $ 47.3 million with an 8.44 per Levy increase for 2025 the approval included a spending reduction package totaling $545,000 some of the items removed from the budget include a half mile of the Public Works Department's Mill and overlay program the chatbot feature on the city's website eliminating or delaying a revision of the Southdale District design guidelines and reducing money allocated for equipment replacement I was able to work with the Department directors in our police and fire and public works and parks and all of our other uh directors to to find areas where we could reduce spending that would have the least amount of negative impact on our residents I presented the the package of reductions to the council at the February 4th council meeting uh they received those they had a chance to look through them ahead of time uh they asked me some questions about it at the meeting and then they approved the package unanimously the early 2026 2027 budget projections with current service levels and planned projects require a significant Levy increase that is not palatable to members of the city council the finance department is leading the effort to get ahead in the budget planning process to examine all options for reducing those projections two work session were held with the city council earlier this month to provide members with a better understanding of each Department's Services before a retreat to talk more about the budget in March a small housing project is being considered on Vernon Avenue abundance properties is proposing to replace a single family home at 5516 Vernon Avenue with four town homes on the 1 acre site abundance properties presented a sketch plan last month to the din City Council Members gave non-binding feedback on the project the super exciting thing about this project is one the size of the lot the location of the lot and uh really what we're planning to do with it our project adds density along a busy uh street so the families coming in uh are one building Community but also more likely to use that Transit uh which helps the environment over for all to move forward the developer would need to request comprehensive plan Amendment resoning and site plan review anyone who has driven walked biked or traveled in any way through Edina over the past 12 years has experienced the work that engineering director Chad Milner has supervised the impact that civil engineering can have on a city and a region is significant and as demonstrated at a recent award presentation the city of Edina has one of the best in the business overseeing its engineering department Edina TV has the story we're going to be putting in a new lift station here starting next year prior to working here I worked for a consulting firm Municipal engineering consulting firm for 11 and a half years had the opportunity to work for the city directly for many of those years so I was very familiar with projects and people and decision makers in the early 2000s I was a project manager for short Elli at Hendrickson's minetonka office when he started like any young engineer uh it's a challenge to learn where do you put the foot on the gas and where do you take your foot off the gas pedal he kept watching I knew he was watching I knew he the brain was always engaging you could see the the wheels spinning and and he picked up on that and that's when he began to move on those things and and really progress and it was a bummer quite frankly when he said I was moving along from short Elliot and taking the job with the City Vio we hired Chad Milner to be uh the assistant u city engineer um not long after that the city engineer uh left for another position and we promoted Chad into into the role that he's currently in now but I really like the projects the scope of projects the community is highly engaged in the projects there's funding to do projects that makes it fun as an engineer to actually get to see your projects be scoped out studied and built I've known Chad for over 20 years Chad works on uh numerous projects all the way from conceptual development all the way through construction project types include roadway Transportation traffic projects utility Improvement projects for water and sewer structural projects for roadways I could go on and on he really has a very important job in the community because the community depends on the infrastructure that Chad has designed and and built in this Town Chad is you know quite the athlete natural athlete anything I think that's out there with a ball or a stick or running or riding a bike the guy just excels at it being active and doing races is real similar to planning a project you have goals of what you want to get to you got to develop steps to get there you have to develop a plan there's a schedule and you take incremental steps to either get to your race goals and hopefully get the outcome at the race event he's very intelligent he's in the community he's talking to people and when we do that we want to make sure we we meet The Guiding principles right the comprehensive plan he's listening to what people say about uh where they live and really calculating that into the engineering design and principles that he uses this year's engineer of the year is uh Chad M we had multiple entries this year nominations which was a wonderful problem to have and Chad really Rose to the top the work documented that was submitted for his work at Dina really showed his commitment to not only the profession but his community and his staff um thanks to the association thanks for everybody showing out uh highly appreciate it you know I may have received the award from the city Engineers Association but that's a team effort we've had great staff great residents great city council really takes a team to do all these projects you know I think the the job of being a city engineer is so critical for uh any City to have have somebody leading that department you're not only leading your own troops but you're interfacing a lot with the public and the public has to have a lot of confidence in you too and we have confidence in you as a council member makes everything so much easier I think it just means that we're doing the right thing when we can be recognized for an award like this it's not just me it's the team it's the city it's the projects I think we're all going in the right direction when it when it matters for infrastructure so I think it's just a great honor for for everybody involved thank you other Awards recently received by the Dina engineering department include co-winner in the environmental category for the Morningside flood infrastructure project and honorable mention in the transportation category for the Blake Road reconstruction project both awards were given by the American public works association's Minnesota chapter at its conference in November 2024 thank you for watching this episode of agenda Edina I'm your host dorothia Marty [Music]