Today’s meeting was off-site at the Mounds View Public Works Facility. While we were preparing to tour the facility, Cindy Carlson introduced Residential Real Estate Agent and prospective member, Elizabeth Tanner. Elizabeth’s father, an Iowa Rotarian, encouraged her to investigate Rotary membership. Elizabeth is a New Brighton resident with 3 kids at Bel-Air Elementary.
Mounds View City Administrator, Nyle Zikmund, introduced Public Works Director Don Peterson. Don said that the Public Works Department has 18 employees who are responsible for water, sanitary sewer, storm sewer, parks, trails, as well as all vehicle and building maintenance. Don is especially proud of their new Geographic Information System (GIS). GIS is a spatial system that creates, manages, analyzes and maps all kinds of data, allowing Public Works employees to have real-time data about city infrastructure at all times from any device. Don proudly offered a tour of the 4 year old state of the art facility. The new facility is a big improvement over the previous disconnected and cramped arrangements, and features heated inside storage for all maintenance and plowing vehicles, roomy service bays and full administrative functions… all under one roof. Don said that new snow plowing equipment and technology allow their skilled drivers to clear the snow from Mounds View streets in just 6 hours. Laser guided plowing technology expedites plowing and minimizes damage to property. A few photos of the facility follow. You may notice the Rotary Lift logo on the mobile lifts in the service bay, but Rotary International hasn’t (to my knowledge) diversified into vehicle maintenance yet. Many thanks to Nyle and Don for an interesting tour.
You may remember that we supported the Magnus Veterans Foundation by providing an all-weather shell for the passenger cart that will transport Veterans around the Magnus facility. The cart will be presented on January 12th. An invitation is shown below.
To see a map showing the location of the Magnus Veterans Foundation, click
here. Please park in the east entrance on the east side of the large barn (signage will also be posted on the road). You may walk through the barn to the MVF main building where the cart presentation will take place.
Don’t forget the upcoming
District 5960 “Taste of Rotary” event being held at the DoubleTree by Hilton in Roseville from 8:15-11:30AM on Saturday January 8, 2022. Think of it as a Rotary enthusiasm booster shot, featuring Idea Sharing, Breakout Sessions, Foundation Information, Club Visioning Information and more.
Next week’s meeting is back at the Exchange and our presenter will be Carol Donahue from Achieve Services.
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