Welcome to Agenda Edina, a program summarizing the actions taken at city hall that affect you most. I'm your host, Doroththa Marty. Edina's love affair with pickle ball is about to get a major boost. All thanks to a local family honoring a legacy. Bruce Moody and his family first brought pickle ball to Rosland Park in 2015. Building Edina's very first dedicated courts to remember his father John and uncle Melvin Moody. Now they're going for the putaway. The city council just approved donation from Bruce and his siblings Dave and Chuck and Melvin's children Paul and Mary to expand and upgrade the popular Moody pickle ball courts. The project will take the park from five dedicated courts plus four makeshift overlays to 10 high-end fully dedicated courts. Each will have its own fencing and gates improving safety and play. The work will happen in two phases starting this year with crews from Batuminous Roadways aiming to finish the season. >> It'll be something that even the beginners can enjoy to the tournament type people could enjoy. So many people have just learned to play this game that is a big part of our our family to have this be a place where families and friends can come together and and just have a great time. And pickle ball is a game you can pick up quickly. So you got grandkids playing now for us and and you get people even older than me uh still playing too. And it's it's just fabulous. Future improvements could bring windcreens and shaded seating, all helping make Rosland Park a true pickle ball destination. John and Melvin Moody are gone, but the game they first played on a driveway before a family wedding is building community in their name. Looking to add more housing options in Edina, the city council just signed off on a small project with big goals. Two new double dwelling homes are planned for Vernon Avenue. The project by Abundance Properties will replace a single family house with four twostory units designed to fit right in with the neighborhood. >> It's a beautiful space. We were able to put a vision together that, you know, really made sense, made sense to the city council, uh, and just makes sense for the community. The school is right behind it. We know some great families are going to want to move in, so we're grateful to be a part of that. The move lines up with the city's comprehensive plan goal to accommodate opportunities for missing middle housing. That is multi-unit homes or clustered living that blend with traditional single family neighborhoods, giving more people a chance to live in walkable, vibrant parts of town. To make it happen, the council approved a comprehensive plan amendment, resoning, preliminary plat, and site plan. It's a small step, but one that could help Edina grow in ways that welcome residents of all ages, incomes, and household sizes. It's not every day that a kid gets an opportunity to drain a three-point shot over the head of a police officer, but thanks to a program called Cops on the Court, that's just one of the things that took place recently at the Southdale YMCA. Edina TV shows you more about the program that brought kids, cops, community members, and even the Chick-fil-A mascot together on the same basketball court. So, Cops on the Court was focused to partner us together to kind of bring this organic relationship between policing and youth because we were seeing some like an influx of incidents there and the gym was kind of feeling a little at loss on how we can bridge that. So we met with the gym leaders and then we came up with the idea that maybe we should just pick a sport they really love and use that as our bridge to come in. Then they see smiling faces of officers, MAC members from our multicultural advisory committee. So they volunteer with the city. They come and help with the event as well. So they get to see us and then they drop their ticket in, they sign up on their name and then they get their jerseys which the South YMCA gave to us and then we enter into the gym. There's one to two officers assigned to each team and then they start to practice through working together who are going to be the first player, how we're going to do sub outs just so we can really start working with them on how they're going to play together. Um, and then a lot of it's music playing. It's just a lot of positivity. It's a lot of fun. We have our kids who want to be the DJ, our kids who want to be the refs, our kids who want to do this. So, we kind of rotate and give them that opportunity to do it. So, we're empowering them while we're working on that emotional regulation. And it's all about our our officers being able to engage community and engage youth in particular. One to get them busy. Uh two to get them to meet our officers and see our officers in a different light and really just build out the relationships to show that you know we support our youth here in Edina and nearby communities. And we want to make sure that we're engaged with that. >> Basketball is a big part of why a lot of these kids come to the YMCA. So, we just thought to have something connected to basketball, to connect the kids to a program that allows them to play basketball while also collaborating with the local police. With basketball, it's very inclusive. So, when you're playing basketball, a lot of different people could come together. >> Everybody gets a jersey. There's teams, you know, we keep points, feed the kids every week. Uh we even sometimes have sweep stakes with Chick-fil-A coming in here to help out. I get a great chance to connect with kids, especially me being a part of the younger crowd. It's fun to, you know, get the kids to actually play team basketball. Uh, I found out I still had a little bit in me. I was able to dunk on a kid the first week. Ever since then, though, it's been a little little tough to get back up there in the air, but >> Oh my gosh, the energy is loud. It's big. You walk in and it's just non-stop smiles. It's Miss Jessica, Miss Jessica, or hey officer, can I ask you something? Can I do this? Everyone's excited, everyone wants to play. It's more of a first name versus officer this, officer that, or maybe met with aggression because they feel uncomfortable. It's more like, "Hey, Nick, who is a community engagement officer, it was so cool to see you on Cops on the Court, blah blah blah." >> Four. >> Who's left? >> And I played my game. I made a few shots and I think my team won. >> I'm here to like help bring back the community and stuff. They're very excited to be here and they're very nice people. So yeah, >> I think people should come to these games. >> Relief from late night train horns could be on the horizon for Edina residents. The city is taking its first big step toward creating quiet zones by moving forward with a railroad crossing safety action plan. A rail line owned by CPKC cuts right through Edina from St. Louis Park to Bloomington. Most crossings here are bridges or underpasses, but seven crossings are still at street level, requiring trains to blast their horns as they approach. That wasn't much of an issue when trains mostly ran during the day. But in recent months, the railroad has started operating at night, waking up many nearby neighbors. In order for the city to apply for a quiet zone, we first have to mitigate the increased uh risk at each crossing that's caused by the absence of a train horn. What this means is we have to install additional safety infrastructure. We'll have to determine a source of funding for that safety infrastructure. Once that funding is determined, then we will determine a construction schedule to build that safety infrastructure and then go through the process of applying for a quiet zone. >> The city tried to get federal dollars to pay for the plan, but came up short. Instead, council approved $250,000 from its 2024 surplus to fund the work. It could still be many years before a quiet zone becomes a reality in Edina. But for residents tired of late night horns, it's a start. Thank you for watching this episode of Agenda Edina. I'm your host, Doraththa Marty.