Can We Trust Our Edina Leaders?

Right now, Edina has a chance to make another signature mark that will last ages. Not just doing something with the old Public Works site, but creating another standout redevelopment, a city gateway, which by-the-way, nearby neighbors seem to endorse. 

What? How? Will it cost me money? 

When I started Edina Patch blogging with , I wanted to disabuse some newer residents from the idea that Edina just appeared, or has always been “Edina”—a remarkably unique place. We are fortunate in having had a lot of reasonable but bold thinking by deeply involved community members right up through today. A widespread community spirit not found in all “cake eater” communities. 

So today, instead of focusing on all that is great—and most is—let’s look at some that is/was not, for the sake of keeping community focus on careful decisions: 

The Edinborough Park complex was and, yet today, is a remarkable idea. Thank you.

A large indoor park surrounded by complimentary buildings. It is old enough that we took my children frequently when they were young. Winter, of course, and especially rainy days. Originally, most everything was free, before the city figured out a lot of family users were not Edinans.

Where is the negative? Edinborough was set up to be quite self-sustaining, with maintenance covered by a combination of interest from a $9 million endowment fund, fees from connected buildings and user fees, plus taxpayer funding like other parks.

• Over time, that endowment fund has not been increased with deposits to keep up with inflation. Instead, the endowment has been looted so that only $3 million is left (in 2011 dollars). The funds are predicted to disappear in five years, according to Parks Director John Keprios, as annual costs are deducted from the remaining principal.
• The annual cost for this unique amenity is about $10 per Edinan (or a couple visits to Starbucks). A lot of the endowment money has been taken by previous City Councils for site capital improvements, including equipment replacement. For any other park, that would have been funded out of general funds or the city’s capital improvement budget. Yes, today's interest reduces annual return, but the looting was already out of the bag.
• Leaders of Edina, a city with one of the lowest metro tax rates, did not meet its comparatively miniscule capital site-maintenance obligation out of city budgeting. They looted a trust fund, thus pushing reality off into the pocketbooks of the next generation! That means you, today!
• With the bill starting to hit now, the City Council is asking the Park Board for recommendations on how to either downgrade a wonderful site in order to lower maintenance costs or the means to produce revenue. One proposed solution is take out the wonderful vegetation so they don’t have to pay for heat, humidity and growing lights.
• I should point out all this penurious foolishness occurs in a city where residents—most of whom do not have children—regularly vote for big school bonding programs. It is also a city where innumerable generous residents donate tremendous funds that help fund big extras for the city, schools, police, fire, historical and arts sites, etc.
• How is your “anger factor” after hearing this? I place the elected officials who caused this looting in the same class as those elected officials who over the years for other purposes looted the trust funds of  Social Security, Medicare, the Permanent School Fund of the Minnesota School Trust Lands and Taconite Economic Development Fund, as well as the Minnesota Tobacco Lawsuit proceeds which were dedicated to ongoing healthcare. I’d like to erase a dedication name or two off of some Edina public facilities.

When the Public Works site issues first came up, a number of city leaders wanted to trade away or sell off the old site, again expressing a concern for fiscal conservatism.

That reminded me of the Cahill School mistake. Ever heard of it?

Not Historic Cahill School built in 1864. I'm referring to the then modern brick Cahill Elementary School that replaced Historic Cahill at 70th Street & Cahill Road in 1958, for which there is almost no mention or photo on the internet or city writings. Today, it is as if it never existed. 

• Nearly fully developed Edina experienced a decline in young child population. To listen to school administration at the time, elementary enrollment would never rise again. Short-sighted School Board members at the time closed three elementary schools. The old part of 1926 Morningside School was torn down, while the 1951 addition was retained and is used by a private school. Old 1926 Wooddale School became a park. 1958 Cahill School, then only 30 years old, was torn down, kicking out tenant Wooddale Montessori, and then was sold off to get a few bucks cash from a townhouse developer and produce residential property tax revenue.
• Literally only a couple years later the remaining 5 elementary schools were overcrowded and the School Board had to create a central Kindergarten Center in the old Edina-Morningside East High School, which was slowly becoming the Edina Community Center. Very unhappy parents!
• At the same time, another overcrowding solution emerged which created now nationally acclaimed Normandale French Immersion Elementary School—its booming success going to Lily Schroeder. Sometime I’ll tell some of the intrigue. French Immersion first and second grade started in Concord School. By 1993, third-grade French Immersion was named Normandale as it moved-into ECC. Other relieved Edina parents saw mainstream kindergartners return to the five near-home elementary schools.
• In the ensuing years, tremendous millions have been spent—and taxed—in repeatedly expanding Edina’s elementary schools, not just renovating and updating.
• Had 1958 Cahill Elementary been kept or maybe mothballed a few years just in-case—even if Normandale had been invented—Edina would not be in yet another expansion mode due to growing student population. Cahill was a good school building younger than , and .

Once the public sells off land, it is gone forever. Replacing lost, but needed public facilities becomes very expensive and sometimes requires “taking” other peoples’ land to recreate facilities.

Out of countless “negatives” our leaders have created, I’ll explain just one more—a simple one. A story I alluded to in my first blog .

Not long after the Morningside area reunited with Edina in 1966, some standard street, sewer, water projects were undertaken as promised by then Mayor Beedle to get residents to vote for annexation. Morningside, developed in 1905, had seceded from Edina in 1920 because farmers in the rest of Edina were uncooperative over utilities and paved roads.

• One day a young man noticed a city worker orange lining and “X”ing every boulevard tree on all the streets in the area scheduled for work. Talking to the worker, he learned all the boulevard trees were being cut down. The worker sent the city’s project manager to visit the young man. He explained “Edina is doing Morningside residents a favor” by “getting rid of all the old trees” (which provided a beautiful street canopy).  The young man then talked with the City Manager, and was told “We had a public hearing, the Council voted, and now it is over”.
• Never mind that about a year before in the neighboring Country Club, Edina had carefully retained the tree canopy, planted extra trees, narrowed most streets, widened the boulevards, and put in decorative lighting. Morningside’s project notifications had only notified residents about a street and utility rejuvenation project. There was no notice of clear-cutting trees, nor that Morningside Road itself was actually going to be widened to a full four-lane through-street between St. Louis Park’s Wooddale Avenue and Minneapolis on France Avenue, nor that along with narrowing or near eliminating boulevard grass, Morningside was going to be provided with the benefit of uniform six-foot-wide sidewalks (which then varied from 3-6 feet. Existing was 6 feet in front of our family home).
• The young man hastily called a meeting of nearby neighbors. Then using family printing facilities, he produced a booklet which teens and children, whenever possible, personally handed to every resident within 12 blocks so the residents would actually read it. The booklet gave the time of the next City Council meeting.
• Several hundred residents packed the City Council Chambers, even though the item was not on the agenda. At that meeting, the City Council paused the project in progress, had public works redesign it, narrowed most streets just like in Country Club, widened boulevards, sidewalks were to be a nice four-foot width like Country Club, kept all the trees not already cut, and a few other items. The city stopped at decorative lighting and burying power lines as done elsewhere, after-all, Country Club was an area of better homes. Besides, Morningside only had one member on the Council, C. Wayne Courtney.
• The city also would not plant trees, but helped dig holes for trees the residents bought in bulk as arranged by the young man. The project manager worked closely with residents making decisions on the spot about individual situations, which was great. I was totally shocked at the dinner thrown for me after that project was done.

Edinans can and do work well together because most residents are driven people who care and become engaged in their community. There have usually been enough of such people active in Edina to help as needed. Yet, now and then someone misses what politicians call "the tails." Unintended consequences.

Get engaged now. Edina still needs people of the type that made Edina what it has become. People who think bold in a reasonable manner. People who watch their leaders and question, trying to catch mistakes with unintended consequences or future “tails” that will come back to bite the next generation.