Eden Prairie City Manager Rick Getschow: State of the City
Our featured speaker Rick Getschow has been Eden Prairie’s city manager since 2011 and his annual “State of the City” talks typically have a unique theme. This year it’s “State of the City Bingo”: Each square on the bingo card is a city topic that Rick may or may not mention during his talk.Describing Eden Prairie’s current condition would be incomplete if one didn’t mention the numerous construction cranes dotting the landscape. These have been or still are for projects such as the new Scheels store, the Elevate at Southwest Station apartment complex, the new Hampton Inn hotel, major housing complexes where Resurrection Life Church and Broadmoor Apartments used to be, and of course the light-rail transit project from Eden Prairie to Minneapolis. A lot of these projects are in the “redevelopment” category, as not much vacant land remains.
Other topics touched on by Rick include road construction, the city’s sustainable-energy effort, a new affordable-housing task force, scores from the every-other-year Quality of Life Survey, and a soon-to-be-opened drop-off site for certain yard waste.
Announcements
- Upcoming A.M. Rotary programs include packing meals March 3 at Feed My Starving Children in Chanhassen; Julie Bluhm on “Mental Health in Minnesota: Current State” on March 10; and Hamline professor and author David Schultz talking politics on March 17.
- Our inbound Rotary Youth Exchange students for the next school year will be from Austria and Italy. Stay tuned for details.
Spotlight on Josh Swanson
Club member Josh Swanson is known to us as the superintendent of Eden Prairie Schools, but he actually started out working for a Fortune 500 company, then pivoted to a career in education that also included stops in the Wayzata and Buffalo/Montrose areas. He and his wife Stephanie and two children enjoy a wide range of outdoor activities, and his ongoing search for adventure includes SCUBA diving and piloting aircraft. Thanks, Josh, for being an active part of A.M. Rotary.Happy Fives
We’re happy and we’ll happily pay $5 to share our stories, because doing so also helps The Rotary Foundation eradicate polio worldwide. Kevin Kraemer is happy to have our exchange students attending, even though there’s no school today. Jon Melander is happy about a 20th wedding anniversary and a long, celebratory weekend in Scottsdale. Glenn Olson is happy to have attended a grandson’s hockey tournament in Fargo. Roger Jorgensen is happy to be heading south to see his 4½-month-old grandson. PG Narayanan is happy to be celebrating a 36th wedding anniversary later this month. Holly Link is happy to announce she’ll be seeking Republican endorsement for the 48B House seat. Andrea Jamison is happy about a recent gun-range outing that included John Crudele and also happy about a cute grandson story. Jenifer Loon is happy about Holly Link’s big news.
Visitors
Tim Connors - Prospective Member
Kurts Strelnieks - Prospective Member
Ricky Arteiro - RYE Student
Clementine Depierpont - RYE Student
Jack Kuehn - Burnsville Rotarian
Kayla Keddie and Kevin Gao - Student Interns