New sports editor
Barn quilts
Eric Kraushar joins Villager
Effort mixes art with historic structures
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CHANHASSEN
THURSDAY, JULY 14, 2011
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www.chanvillager.com
Villager
The muscle behind zebra mussel prevention Locals continue push for gates at area lakes BY FORREST ADAMS fadams@swpub.com
A group of local residents scrambling to gain local government support for their plan to prevent zebra mussels from entering Chanhassen lakes got mixed results Monday night. Their good news came out of the city of Shorewood, where the Shorewood City Council passed a resolution allocating up to $2,000 for the installation of a gate at the Christmas Lake public access. Most of Christmas Lake is in Shorewood, but the southern tip is in Chanhassen. Their not-so-good news came from Chanhassen City Hall, where the City Council and city manager said they
still need clarification from state regulators before moving forward with the group of Lake Minnewashta, Lotus Lake, and Christmas Lake residents, which calls itself the Lake Action Alliance. The Lake Action Alliance has proposed a pilot program that would involve the installation of a gated access at Lotus Lake and Christmas Lake public accesses. The gate could be opened only by a boater who had passed a boat inspection, which would take place in Lake Minnewashta Regional Park. The boater would use a code to open the gate that had been provided by the boat inspector upon completion of the inspection. Steve Jenks, a Lotus Lake resident and member of the group, told the Chanhassen City Council he thinks their support of his group’s proposal is vital to its overall success because members of the alliance plan to pool their resources together to pay for the costs they incur. Considering the city
PHOTO BY FORREST ADAMS
Pictured on the public beach in Lake Minnewashta Regional Park last weekend, Brian Kirkvold, Dave Susla, Joe Shneider, Steve Jenks and Steve Gunther are proposing a project to county, city, state and watershed district leaders that they think could prevent zebra mussel infiltration of local lakes.
Zebra Mussels to page 2 ®
SPECIAL PROJECT: DIGITAL DEMOCRACY
STATE SHUTDOWN
Jumping on the bandwidthwagon
Legislators defend pay decisions
Unlimited possibilities meet limited resources
Online government Carver
Chan
Chaska
E.P.
Victoria
Dist. 112
Dist. 272
BY RICHARD CRAWFORD editor@chanvillager.com
Website started
Carver Cty. 1996
Late-90s
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Facebook*
No*
Yes/2011
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For the past several years, local units of government have been dabbling in social media circles. Some, like the city of Chanhassen, have been actively managing Facebook pages to provide new channels of communication for residents. Some, like the Carver County Sheriff’s Office, are somewhere in the middle. The Sheriff’s Office hosts a Facebook page but is grappling with the direction for the site and the amount of staff time necessary to maintain it. Still others – such as the city Victoria – aren’t jumping into to the social networking scene. Chanhassen’s Facebook page has more than 900 people who “like” the page and get regular updates on everything from the city’s Water Wise program to crime alerts to photos from the recent Fourth of July celebration. Residents have expressed appreciation for the “heads up” on criminal activity and have given plenty of thumbs up for details on community events. In Victoria, the city is focusing on upgrading its website rather than social media initiatives. “The city has discussed social networking, but hasn’t spent too much time on it,” said City Administrator Don Uram. “There are numerous improvements we need first, for the website to be more user-friendly.” Also, it’s a staffing issue, he said. “We’re [staffing] pretty lean. It’s hard to implement new things that will take up staff time when we need to be focused on running the city.” Greg Swan, a Chaska resident and vice president of Digital Strategy for Weber Shandwick, believes social media can be a powerful way for local governments to connect with its social-savvy citizenry.
No
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Yes/2011
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Blogs**
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E-newsletters?
Yes
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Yes
BY FORREST ADAMS fadams@swpub.com
Rep. Joe Hoppe and Rep. Ernie Leidiger and Sen. Julianne Ortman are still taking home their legislative salaries, and apparently it’s with the backing of their constituents. Hoppe, a Chaska Republican, reported “a handful of e-mails from people that are unhappy about me getting paid,” but both Leidiger, a Mayer Republican, and Ortman, a Chanhassen Republican, said they have received no pressure from constituents to stop accepting a paycheck from the state, even as 22,000 state employees have been left unemployed during the shutdown. Twin Cities media outlets have recently published lists showing which legislators are still accepting pay and which are not. The gesture of foregoing pay in light of the government shutdown began in late June when Gov. Mark Dayton, a multimillionaire, announced that he would not collect his salary during the shutdown.
* Carver County plans on launching a Facebook page. Other county entities have sites: Currently Sheriff’s Office, Parks and 4H. Park site uploads to Twitter. ** Carver mayor has personal blog. District 112 has no blog, but Chan High Principal Tim Dorway has one. E.P. school district used one for transformation taskforces.
Five social media trends to embrace I Online monitoring of what people are saying about your community I Social community building and engagement with two-way conversations I Real-time event coverage (photos/ video/news) on social channels I Social focus-grouping, letting your online advocates get involved I Live streams of public meetings with real-time chats
Shutdown to page 2 ®
SPECIAL SECTION ON DIGITAL DEMOCRACY ON PAGES 6 AND 7.
Annual Compensation
The city of Minneapolis uses Facebook and Twitter to announce snow plowing. Stillwater residents promote community garage sales via Facebook. Shakopee posts video from their music in the park series on a city YouTube channel. However, not every effort in social media pays dividends. In many cases, he said, a dormant social media profi le is worse than a non-existent one.
Legislators: $31,140 per year Per Diem: Senators, $96 per day; representatives, $77 per day Governor Compensation: $137,869 per year
INSIDE OPINION/4 OBITUARIES/6 SPORTS/9 SHERIFF /12 CALENDAR/14 CLASSIFIEDS/18 TO REACH US SUBSCRIBE: (952) 345-6682 EDITOR: (952) 345-6471 OR E-MAIL EDITOR@CHANVILLAGER.COM.
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