Tomorrow night, I will be giving my annual State of the City address at Turtles Bar & Grill’s fundraiser for the Downtown Flower Baskets. Tickets to the fundraiser are $30 and must be purchased in advance at Turtle’s or call Bryan at 952-445-9668.
The City and the downtown businesses are partnering to get the flower baskets back downtown this year. Shakopee Public Works is watering and maintaining the flowers ($6,000) while the downtown businesses are purchasing them ($5,000). Turtle’s Bar & Grill is donating the entire dinner and 100% of the proceeds from the dinner and silent auction go toward purchasing the flower baskets.
I will also be broadcasting the speech live and you will be able to watch it live at 7:45 pm, here in this website. I can’t guarantee the quality of sound, but hopefully it will work well for you!
Tonight, I held a video chat discussing the critical week coming up with securing a metro-wide, comprehensive transit system. I need your help.
Archive of the Video Chat we conducted about Transit
A fully functioning, metro-wide transit system is key to our future development and growth as a region and local community. Please contact our legislators today to let them know why you support sales tax for transit.
A fully-funded transit system provides:
Variety of options to commuters to use transit and relieve congestion on the roads
Gives people access to more jobs throughout the metro
Gives Shakopee’s entertainment customers more avenues to get to Canterbury Park, Renaissance Festival, ValleyFair and more
Rep. Mike Beard (Represents majority of Shakopee) – 651.296.8872 / rep.mike.beard@house.mn Sen. Eric Pratt - 651.296.4123 / sen.eric.pratt@senate.mn
Itasca’s transportation task force posed three questions:
1) A built-out regional transit system would require substantial investment. What would be the return on that investment?
Answer: Between $6.6 and $10.1 billion in total direct benefits, on a $4.4 billion investment (benefits accrued 2030 – 2045).
2) Investments can be made more or less quickly. Would accelerating the build-out change the return on investment?
Answer: The total direct benefits would increase to between $10.8 – 16.5 billion, on a $5.3 billion investment (benefits accrued 2023 – 2045).
3) Many communities with developing transit systems experience more growth near transit stations. Would such expectations for regional growth change the return on investment?
Answer: More community growth near transit stations would increase net benefits by another $2 – 4 billion (2030 – 2045).
Contact Legislators
Now is the time to help solve the transportation challenges you have been discussing at RCM meetings. Legislation now moving through the legislature would sustainably fund regional transit build-out and operations, and raise revenues for roads and bridges.
This legislation needs your support to advance.
If you support this legislation, the most important people to call are:
Rep. Mike Beard (Represents majority of Shakopee) – 651.296.8872 rep.mike.beard@house.mn
Last week, I floated the idea on twitter/facebook of setting up a monthly Google Hangout to talk about things happening in Shakopee. I got some great response and we will be having our first Hangout with the Mayor on:
Next Wednesday, I am holding a roundtable discussion with Shakopee business and employment leaders to help find answers to daytime fire response issues. If you are a Shakopee employer, I would much appreciate you meeting for lunch and discussion.
The goal is to find avenues to solve our growing problem with having on-call firefighters available to respond during the day as opposed to hiring full-time firefighters and increasing taxes.
March 20, 2013
12:00 PM
Fire Station I – 2700 Vierling Drive East
Please RSVP to Edna at enicholas@ci.shakopee.mn.us or call 952.233.9314 and feel free to invite other leaders in your network.
