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City Council Regular Meeting Minutes June 13, 2006 Page 5 2 Councilmember Stille enjoyed visiting with the Salo, Finland visitors. He felt it was a good 3 cultural exchange. It was truly an honor to have the people from Salo here. He learned so much 4 and feels they did also. The Salo visitors participated in a ride -along with the police and toured 5 the area. Councilmember Stille discovered that Salo has a number of other sister cities besides 6 St Anthony. He stated we could learn from this and perhaps have more than one city also. He 7 thanked the staff and the Mayor for putting this together. 9 Mayor Faust reported meeting with the League of Minnesota Cities on May 25 in Eden Prairie to 10 do strategic planning on issues and challenges facing cities over the next three years. The League 11 discussed what role it will play in serving cities in the future. They valued what St. Anthony had 12 to say. 13 14 Mayor Faust attended the quarterly School Board meeting also. He believes the meetings are 15 productive and a good opportunity to bring both the school and City Council up to date. He also 16 indicated attending the meetings promotes a good relationship between them. 17 18 On June 1, Jan Parker, Ramsey County Commissioner, hosted the Minnesota Chapter of 19 Planners. The St. Anthony mission statement about walkable communities was mentioned. 20 Mayor Faust believes we are on to something with the sidewalks, bike paths and health. 21 22 Mayor Faust and Councilmember Horst attended Fin Day at St. Paul Technical College on June 23 4. They visited the Finnish sculptor and said he is doing a great job. Mayor Faust found it 24 remarkable that St. Anthony, Vadnais Heights and St. Paul are the only three cities in Minnesota 25 taking part in Minnesota Rocks. 26 27 Mayor Faust mentioned the comments from the Finnish guests on how clean St. Anthony is. 28 Mayor Faust commented on how the City and residents take pride in keeping St. Anthony clean. 29 The City Public Works Department keeps the streets clean and swept and residents take a great 30 deal of pride in keeping their lawns attractive. As the Finnish guests were leaving, they 31 mentioned the great attention to detail in planning the Salo Park dedication. He congratulated the 32 staff for doing such a great job. Each department did an excellent job of portraying what they do. 33 34 The highlight for the Finnish guests occurred on Wednesday when they met with former Vice 35 President Walter Mondale at his office. Everyone sat at his table and conversed very casually. 36 They discussed issues facing the country, states and cities. The Finnish commented how 37 interesting it was to see this conversation take place without the news media. They felt very 38 fortunate to meet with him. 39 40 Mayor Faust said now the park can officially be called Salo Park. The ceremony was very good 41 and very well attended. Everybody pitched in — Chamber of Commerce, Sister City Association, 42 Minnesota Rocks, the developer and departments. He cannot say enough about how well this 43 went. It takes more than one person to make something like this work. It speaks well of the 44 community. This does build bridges. If anyone is interested in Sister City, he highly encourages 45 involvement. 46 47 VIII. COMMUNITY FORUM.