•  Fire Department certified in Basic Animal Rescue Training (B.A.R.T)
•  Fire Department participates in terrorism excercise
•  Best in Real Estate Awards
•  University of Park Receives Award
•  Federal, State, County officials tour St. Louis Park
•  One of the Nation's 100 Best Communities for Young People - 2008
•  St. Louis Park group attends youth forum in Washington, D.C.
•  City official pushes through legislation

• Ciprico—A NASDAQ listed Software Company focused on developing and selling software that allows users to store and manipulate large media files. Customers range from government (military and homeland security) to moviemakers and videogame designers. Ciprico brings 50 jobs, mostly engineers, to St. Louis Park.
• Synergy Products—A privately held company that specializes in high-end windows, doors and cabinets. Synergy will bring 26 jobs to the Highway 7 Corporate Center when it relocates from Eden Prairie in early January 2008.
• Quad/Graphics—One of the world’s largest privately held printers of magazines, catalogs and other commercial products, and the third-largest in the Western Hemisphere. For the past two years Quad/Graphics has made FORTUNE magazine’s list of the “100 Best Companies to Work for”. Quad/Graphics plans to move in June 1 and will employ approximately 40 workers. 

Federal, State, County officials tour St. Louis Park
Transportation is a critical issue throughout the metropolitan area, and St. Louis Park is no exception. Improving the ways motorists, bicyclists and pedestrians traverse the community is a top priority for the city.

In an effort to increase awareness of local transportation needs, St. Louis Park officials on July 5 organized a bus tour of five key locations in need of upgrades.

The delegation included U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison, State Rep. Steve Simon, State Sen. Ron Latz, and Hennepin County Commissioner Gail Dorfman. Accompanying the dignitaries on the bus were Mayor Pro-tem Susan Sanger and City Manager Tom Harmening.

The five areas of focus included:

• Highway 100 (full completion of widening project)
• Highway 7 and Wooddale (grade-separated crossing)
• Highway 7 and Louisiana (grade-separated crossing)
• Southwest Transit corridor (future mass transit – www.southwesttransitway.org)
• Glencoe railroad mitigation project (project to eliminate need for trains to block and sort in St. Louis Park, Hopkins and Minnetonka)

"The city is working very closely with federal and state legislators to help them understand the transportation needs in St. Louis Park and how funding is necessary," Harmening said. "We believe they are interested and engaged in finding ways to address these gaps as quickly as possible.&qout;

Transportation was one of the eight key elements in the recent Vision St. Louis Park community visioning process. Vision participants imagined a community with expanded use of mass transit, bicycle trails and improved roadways that will reduce congestion and pollution.

"By collaborating with others at various levels of government, the city is striving to solve these issues and obtain the needed funding,” Harmening said. “And after seeing the interest of these officials, we are optimistic things will move forward."

St. Louis Park Named
One of the Nation's 100 Best Communities for Young People

Competition Showcases Successful Efforts by U.S. Cities and Towns to Help Young People Succeed
America's Promise Alliance (the Alliance), the nation's largest alliance dedicated to children and youth, in partnership with Capital One, today announced that St. Louis Park has once again been named a winner of its 2008 100 Best Communities for Young People (100 Best) competition. The 100 Best competition recognizes the 100 outstanding communities across America—large and small, rural and urban—that are the best places for young people to live and grow up. More than 300 communities in all 50 states applied for the honor this year.

St. Louis Park is recognized as one of 100 Best for a third year, in part, because of the city's work to introduce its young people to the arts. The Friends of the Arts program works to ensure young people have access to art and culturalexperiences. The program provides youth with donated musical instruments and holds creative writing classes for teens. In addition, the Lake Forest Neighborhood's Arts Crawl sponsors family art programs and the Lutheran Church of the Reformation works with young artists, giving them a place to perform and display their art. The city also invites young people to participate in decision making on special neighborhood and community issues.

"The prosperity of every community and this country depends on how well we care for our children and youth," said Marguerite W. Kondracke, president and CEO, America's Promise Alliance, "Although no place is perfect, when we have communities that make young people a priority and are working to make sure they stay in school and have all the resources necessary to lead healthy, productive lives, we must recognize them and by extension inspire other cities and towns to follow their lead."

"At Capital One, we are committed to building stronger communities, one neighborhood at a time," said Carolyn Berkowitz, Vice President of Community Affairs for Capital One. "That's why we're proud to partner with the Alliance on the 100 Best competition to recognize the tremendous work in communities across the country to create environments where children and families have boundless opportunities as well as the support systems necessary to champion their growth and encourage their success."

The 100 Best competition was first held in 2005. This year's winners were selected by a distinguished panel that included some of the nation's most well-known civic, business and nonprofit leaders such as: Gayle Manchin, first lady of West Virginia, United Way President Brian Gallagher, former Mayor of Denver and President of Webb Group International, Wellington Webb, Thomas Donohue, president and CEO, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Carol Coletta, president and CEO, CEOs for Cities, Christine James-Brown, president and CEO, the Child Welfare League of America, and Dr. Suzanne Morse, executive director of the Pew Partnership for Civic Change.

"This honor, for a third year in a row, is a real testament to this community," said St. Louis Park Mayor Jeff Jacobs. "We're extremely proud of our youth, and I am continually impressed by the adults in this community creating opportunities for our kids. At the end of our lives we can look back and know that we created a place where children could grow and be safe and laugh and work hard and take risks and be better people and help others and in their turn inherit a society and a way of life that was made better because the adults in their lives showed them how to make it better for themselves.

All communities that completed entries in the 100 Best competition were required to submit detailed information to the Alliance on existing community programs and initiatives that help deliver the Five Promises—resources identified by America's Promise as being critical to the development of healthy, successful children: caring adults; safe places; healthy start; effective education; and opportunities to help others; to their young people. Applicants were also asked to describe how different sectors of their community come together to deliver the Five Promises and specific efforts and programs developed to ensure that their young people graduate from high school prepared for college and/or the workforce. Each of these communities, regardless of whether they were selected as a winner, will be eligible to apply for $300,000 in grants from the Alliance next month.

For more details about the 100 Best competition and to see a complete list of the 2008 winners, please visit www.americaspromise.org

SLP keeps Best 100 ranking - MNSUN article

St. Louis Park group attends youth forum in Washington, D.C.

St. Louis Park, Minn.— In recognition of St. Louis Park’s award as one of America’s top communities for youth, Mayor Jeff Jacobs recently led a contingent of officials and young people to Washington, D.C. to participate in the America’s Promise forum and conference.

Accompanying the mayor to the nation’s capitol were St. Louis Park High School students Madee Weisner and Erica Seltzer-Schultz, City of St. Louis Park Management Assistant Marcia Honold, St. Louis Park School District Community Education Director Linda Saveraid, and Friends of the Arts Planning and Development Director Margaret Rog.

St. Louis Park official pushes through legislation for building inspector minimum competencies
July 24, 2006
Current Minnesota law states that most anyone can be hired as a building inspector. But, thanks to the initiative of a City of St. Louis Park official, that’s about to change.

St. Louis Park Inspections Director Brian Hoffman, serving as legislative liaison to AMBO (Association of Minnesota Building Officials), was instrumental in crafting and successfully lobbying for legislation requiring all newly hired inspectors to meet minimum competencies before being hired. "Right now, anyone can be a building inspector," Hoffman said, "and this legislation changes that."

Effective Jan. 1, 2008, all building, plumbing, and mechanical inspectors in Minnesota must meet competencies which will be developed through Rules by the State Construction Codes Division over the next year. The legislation also requires inspectors take continuing education credits during their career to keep current with industry developments. "It’s a win-win for our city and residents," Hoffman said.

Contact: Brian Hoffman, (952) 924-2584

return to top of page

Documents identified with the icon require Adobe Acrobat Reader.
Guidance using PDF Documents is provided.