What's New

Beautify the Park
Participate in the city’s Beautify the Park initiative this April. Take some time to walk around your property, your alley, your neighborhood, and your community. Pick up litter, leaves, and any other remnants of winter, and give your neighborhood a fresh start this spring. It’s amazing what a few minutes can do, and it’s a great way to show community pride.

Photo op! Once you’re done cleaning up, take a minute and let us know what you and your friends did to Beautify the Park with some photos. Email photos with short descriptions of what you did and where, to jzwilling@stlouispark.org, and watch the city website for a special feature highlighting your hard work.

Help plant flower gardens in city parks
Volunteers are needed in mid-May to help beautify our city by planting flowers in park gardens. Planting a garden usually takes one to three hours. If you would like to help, please call the Volunteer Office. The city gardener will work out a planting schedule and flower delivery with you when the flowers arrive in mid-May.

Resources/Maintenance volunteer needed
Enjoy puttering? Like to fix things? Plant trees?

Consider volunteering at the beautiful Westwood Hills Nature Center. Volunteers are always needed for help with fixit projects, preparing for seasonal programs, planting and watering trees and the list goes on! Help out in one- to two-hour blocks of time, minimum of four hours a month.

Cleaning up Creekside

Approximately 150 people came out (far beyond the city’s expectations and twice as many as those who preregistered) to clean up the creek, with folks as diverse as our Parks and Recreation Advisory Commissioners, St. Louis Park High School girls’ Lacrosse team, two Boy Scout troops, several businesses and many individual residents. Park Commissioners, along with staff, lead groups to different areas of the creek to maximize the effectiveness of the clean-up. There was a great deal of debris collected.

The response of participants was terrific and kept growing throughout the three-hour event. There was enough time and volunteers to move away from the creek and clean-up a section of the nearby SW Regional Trail (west from Louisiana Avenue to the City of Hopkins border).

Questions? Please contact Jim Vaughan at (952) 924-2699.

Pick up the Park!
Help clean our city before the busy summer season; call the Volunteer Office and sign up to help Pick up the Park! Businesses, civic groups, families and individuals can volunteer. You will be assigned an area to clean and be provided with instructions and a garbage bag. Park clean-up should take place between early April and mid-May on the day of your choice.

Sign up today to help by contacting Sarah Krzesowiak at the City and School Volunteer Office, (952) 928-6025, krzesowiak@slpschools.org.

• Outsourcing
• Internal efficiencies and resource pooling
• Outside collaboration and partnerships
• Service changes or reductions

• Solutions the city implements will be sustainable and responsible for the long term.

• The city will focus on mission delivery– making sure it delivers things that maintain and grow the strength and viability of the community.
• The city will be innovative and adaptable and look differently at what it does.
• Internally, city staff will think “city first” and then department or division (thinking of the good of the entire organization and then individual departments).
• City staff will understand and accept the fact that budget “solutions” may not appear to be fair and equitable to all employees or all constituents.

City Hall closed on July 3
City Hall is closed for the Independence Day holiday on Friday, July 3. If you need to pay a utility bill, you can use the drop box located outside of City Hall's south parking lot.

The Rec Center is open on July 3 and 4. The trails at Westwood Nature Center are open; however, the Interpretive Center building is closed.

Even though it's a holiday, City staff from Police, Fire, Facilities Maintenance, and Parks and Recreation will be on the job. If the need arises, staff from Equipment Maintenance, Streets and Utilities may also be called in.

The city will begin publishing two monthly newsletters in June – one filled with business news of interest and one filled with general interest news and events much like Park Perspective.
Click Here to sign up now!

Enhancing Road Safety in Minnesota

Primary Seat Belt Law — Effective June 9, 2009
Minnesota's seat belt law is a primary offense, meaning drivers and passengers in all seating positions must be buckled up or in the correct child restraint.

Law enforcement can stop motorists directly for seat belt violations. A seat belt ticket is $25 to more than $100.

Booster Seat Law — Effective July 1, 2009
Under Minnesota’s new booster seat law, a child can not use a seat belt alone until they are age 8 or reach4 feet 9 inches tall — whichever comes first. It is recommended to keep a child in a booster based on their height, rather than their age.

Boosters are seat lifts that help raise a child up so a seat belt its properly.

Kids that are shorter than 4 feet 9 inches aren't ready to use a seat belt alone. Poor belt it can contribute to death or serious injury. A sign a belt does not it properly is if it rubs against a child's neck, or the child tucks the belt behind their back.

Be sure to view the Bike Safety Video under the "News and Events" section of the police department page.

First-ever Community Open House successful!
The St. Louis Park Community Open House was held Tuesday, June 9th, at the Rec Center and Wolfe Park.  Despite the cloudy weather with a high of 66 degrees, there was a fantastic turnout for the event! Community Open House Photo Gallery

Representatives from every city department participated in the event.  Residents had the opportunity to learn about the city in fun, interactive ways.  Whether it was checking to see how well you wash your hands, playing a recycling game, voting for your favorite sport, or checking out the red tailed hawk, every department had something fun and educational to offer.  Of course the kids also enjoyed checking out the city vehicles, swimming, ice skating and everyone enjoyed the free food!

July 4th Fireworks Celebration
All ages
Fireworks at Aquila Park are a St. Louis Park tradition! Concessions, vendors and a special performance by Stevie and the Table Rockers (rock-n-roll music) will be at the park 7 p.m. - 10 p.m. Fireworks begin at approximately 10 p.m. Although leashed dogs are allowed in our parks, we strongly discourage them from attending due to their hearing sensitivity.

• Saturday, July 4 (rain date is Sunday, July 5)
• Aquila Park, 3110 Xylon Ave. S.
• Free - no registration required

Live Where You Work
Grant program encourages local employees to live in the Park
Unless you enjoy sitting in rush-hour traffic for long periods of time, commuting is no fun. It’s no wonder lengthy commutes are frequently mentioned as one of the least favorite parts of working. But what if you could both work and live in St. Louis Park? That’s the goal of a new city program called “Live Where You Work.”

Live Where You Work is an assisted home ownership program providing employees of St. Louis Park-based businesses with a grant toward the purchase of a home near their workplace.

The employer and the city provide a grant up to $2,500 for each eligible employee. Employers are invited to contribute a matching or lesser amount to the city’s contribution.

Once the employee obtains a mortgage from a participating lender, the grant can be used to help finance a down payment, closing costs and gap financing. The program not only gives workers an opportunity to own a home close to their job, it increases employee loyalty, retention, and morale, and creates a positive community building environment for the homeowner and their family, the company they work for and the city. Having employees living in the community also will reduce commute times and fuel costs.

Live Where You Work also allows the city to partner with local businesses, make home ownership more affordable, revitalize neighborhoods and schools, encourage shorter commutes, and set an example for other cities. Banks participating in the program so far include Associated Bank, Bremer Bank, US Bank, Wells Fargo and Citizens Independent Bank.

The city also sees this as an opportunity to have foreclosed properties occupied by home owners. As a result, qualified buyers purchasing foreclosed properties in St. Louis Park would be eligible for an additional $1,000 grant from the city in recognition that these homes have additional maintenance needs.

For further details about this program and eligibility requirements, contact the City of St. Louis Park’s Housing Supervisor, Michele Schnitker, at (952) 924-2571 or mschnitker@stlouispark.org.  For a copy of the Live Where You Work brochure, please click here Brochure.If you are interested in applying for a forgivable loan call the Center for Energy & Environment (CEE) at 612-335-5891.

Minnesota Energy Challenge
St. Louis Park is committed to being an environmental steward. Find out how you can be a steward too and save some money by pledging to be a part of the Minnesota Energy Challenge. Click here for details.

In addition to general perspectives about the city, the survey asked residents about public safety, city services, taxes, environment and energy issues, City Hall, community, neighborhood, diversity, transportation, parks and recreation, communications and more.
To read complete press release...
Executive Summary
Residential Survey Results

Senior High Ranked the Top High School in Minnesota
in Newsweek’s List of "America’s Top Public High Schools"
Newsweek has named St. Louis Park Senior High School the top high school in Minnesota in its list of "America’s Top Public High Schools," (June 2009).  Public schools are ranked according to a ratio of the number of Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate and/or Cambridge tests taken by all students at a school in 2008, divided by the number of graduating seniors.

St. Louis Park Senior High School is ranked 105 in the list of the nation’s top 1,500 high schools.  For more information and to see the complete list for Minnesota and the U.S., visit http://www.newsweek.com/id/201160/.

St. Louis Park in Review - 2008
From earning the Standard’s & Poor’s AAA Bond Rating, to national recognition of our innovative staff and programs, to providing outstanding services to our citizens every day, the City Council and staff work hard to make St. Louis Park a great place to live. The following table represents all awards and recognitions for St. Louis Park in 2008.

Sprinkling ordinance conserves water
Permanent restrictions
To conserve water, St. Louis Park prohibits lawn sprinkling between noon and 6 p.m. In addition, all households and businesses must

follow an odd/even schedule when sprinkling lawns. (Properties with odd-numbered addresses sprinkle on odd-numbered days on the calendar; properties with even numbered addresses sprinkle on even-numbered days.) Additional conservation measures may be required during critical water shortages. These can include limiting watering to once every five days or banning all outdoor sprinkling. Should this situation arise, a public notice will be given.

Exceptions
New sod or seed, and newly planted shrubs, trees and landscaping are exempt from the odd/even schedule. Flower gardens are also exempt. Even in these circumstances, sprinkling must be done before noon or after 6 p.m.

Enforcement
The first offense fine, for failing to follow sprinkling restrictions, is $25. After that, the fine rises by $10 for each additional violation. (For example, the second violation is $35, the third violation is $45, etc.)