Making normal happen: Support for the new PDPW campus

At the October 19 City Council Candidate Forum, I was asked for my thoughts on both the City’s Life Time Fitness and Police Department / Public Works projects.

I have supported both of these projects, and for very different reasons. 

First, with regards to the LifeTime Fitness partnership. 

Community surveys had, for years, expressed our residents’ desires for a community recreation center. Long before I was a member of Council, I recall the City exploring this possibility and reviewing designs… But the long-term economics of that effort just weren’t fiscally viable.  

With that project shelved, the city turned to other hopes of developing the Akron and 42 intersection. And met with developers’ resistance that the intersection just wasn’t ready, for a variety of reasons.

The public/private partnership with LifeTime Fitness finally gets our residents the recreation center option they’ve craved, with discounted memberships and significantly upgraded amenities. But more importantly, LifeTime has also stepped up as that long-sought developer of that intersection. And the cherry on top is that prestige of the LifeTime brand is attracting far more excitement and interest in business opportunities at that intersection than we anticipated at this time.

Second, with regards to the PD/PW campus. 

In my original application for City Council, I shared my view that local government is responsible to maintain and enhance livability. This entails administering all the little things that add up to our daily resident experience: park and trails, snow removal, public safety, and more. It’s not all exciting all the time, but these are the little things a city needs to get right. 

In Rosemount, we call it “making normal happen.” And to keep making normal happen, it is painfully clear that our Police and Public Works staff have outgrown their current physical spaces. A resident task force came to that same conclusion years ago, and began the planning effort for the facility we see being constructed on Biscayne Avenue today.   

In my work as City Councilmember, I’m proud to have been involved in this home stretch. We weighed project inclusions and exclusions in the name of fiscal responsibility. And we weighed funding options with the successful goal of maintaining our AA+ credit rating. 

This modern facility will better enable our public works crews in their work at making normal happen for all of us. And for our police team - working in a profession that is coming off some very trying years - this facility includes amenities for their physical, mental, and professional preparedness. 

I stand by my support of this project. And to steal a line from Police Chief Dahlstrom, I will stand by my decision to “help the people who help the people” of Rosemount.