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<br /> <br /> STAFF REPORT <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />TO: Mayor Keis and Members of City Council <br /> <br />FROM: Joel Hanson, City Administrator <br /> <br />DATE: February 19, 2016 <br /> <br />RE: Info Update Workshop <br /> <br />Renaming Savage Lake: <br /> <br />Heather Worthington, Deputy County Manager for Ramsey County and Chad Roberts, <br />President of the Ramsey County Historical Society will be present at Wednesday’s workshop <br />to discuss the renaming of Savage Lake. It is my understanding that a lawful petition was <br />submitted to Ramsey County to rename the lake. The Board of Commissioners is willing to <br />consider this request, subject to the input of our City Council. <br /> <br />I have attached a memo received from Heather for your review. I also attached the same <br />material we had in the last agenda packet as follows: <br /> <br />• Minnesota Statutes Chapter 83A – Attachment A <br />• Minnesota House of Representatives’ Information Brief – Attachment B. One issue of <br />note in reviewing this information is that a name that has existed for 40 years can’t be <br />changed by the process defined in Minnesota Statutes 83A. I would think Savage <br />Lake’s name has existed for at least that long. <br />• Information from a reference to the establishment of the name from a Little Canada <br />Historical Society calendar published for 1984 - Attachment C <br />• Tom Day’s blog on the subject (below) <br /> <br />After talking with City Council candidate and best-neighbor-in-history, Rocky <br />Waite, yesterday, I learned there are two issues up for grabs concerning our <br />abused lake. First is an issue Rocky has been working on for a couple of years; <br />renaming the lake to something less racially abusive. Rocky has collected enough <br />city and lake shore owner names to petition the state to rename the lake, but the <br />petition has stalled in the state bureaucracy. The proposed name for our lake <br />would be "Métis Lake," obviously substantially less racist than the current name. <br />According to a brief conversation my wife and I had with our state representative, <br />Jason Isaacson, there are a couple of missing hoops needed for the renaming <br />proposal to be properly presented to whoever the Powers That Be might be for this <br />to happen. According to Rocky, the petition is all the state needs to get moving on