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• FALCON HEIGHTS CITY COUNCIL MINUTES Apri127, 2005 '6- INFORMATION AND ANNOUNCEMENTS (continued) Council member Lamb said the 2005 Living Green Expo will feature over 200 businesses, food organizations, State and local agencies, and environmental groups showcasing environmentally sound products, technologies, information and practices. There will be many ideas for how Minnesotans can reduce their environmental impact. The Expo will also include workshops. The family friendly event features art displays, children's activities, food and musical entertainment. Check out their web site at livinggreen.org. Mayor Gehrz read a letter from Mr. Kurt Mueller, TIF Division, State Auditor's Office, in which he stated he did his periodic review of the City's TIF plans to determine if the TIF plan budget amounts agreed with the amounts submitted by the City on the 2003 TIF reports. He found the City's reporting to be accurate for its active districts. She reminded the viewing audience there is still time to sign up for the CERT training program, which will be held on eight consecutive Thursday evenings, beginning May 5, 2005, at 6:30 PM. Right now seventeen people have signed up, thirteen from Falcon Heights and four from Lauderdale. The cost is $15.00. A meeting was held at City Hall on April 18 with Jerry Hammer, Executive Director of the State Fairgrounds, and residents were able to speak directly with Jerry about the State Fair. About 40 • people attended the meeting and everyone learned a lot about the future plans for improvements to entrances and transit areas. Most of the people in attendance had a lot of compliments for the State Fair, particularly with regard to traffic management and control. She gave a brief update regarding the future construction of the Bell Museum on the southwest corner of Larpenteur and Cleveland Avenues. She and Administrator Worthington attended a meeting with architects, University facilities management people and Dan Soler, Traffic Engineer with Ramsey County. This was an opportunity to do some very, very preliminary discussion. They are in a fundraising phase and will need to raise a lot of money. They are hoping to be able to be a model and demonstration site for sustainability with regard to energy and sewer systems, etc. There was good discussion about pedestrian safety and crosswalk issues, parking and site location. It was wonderful to be included in the process because the City was able to identify things that will work well and things that will need careful consideration. There will be a community wide informational meeting scheduled within the next few months, possibly in June. They won't have a building design or concept plan to present, but they will be able to talk with the community about their goals and programmatic concepts. She said she wanted to express her appreciation to County Commissioners Janice Rettman and Jan Wiessner with regard to the issue of consolidated dispatch centers for public safety. Ramsey County has been working on the 800 MHz conversion for public safety communications. One of the issues that needed to be resolved was the number of dispatch centers for Ramsey County. Currently there are four, and there are some real advantages to merging them into one dispatch center that will serve the whole county. It looks like there is strong interest in doing that, but what happened at the County Board meeting on Tuesday, April 26, was a proposal to shift the cost of the dispatch centers off the . municipal tax base onto the County tax base.