By Forrest Adams

For the second consecutive year, more than 2,000 common carp have been removed from Lake Riley in Chanhassen/Eden Prairie by University of Minnesota researchers and commercial fishermen.

The researchers are developing a carp management plan by researching carp populations in several area lakes. Commercial fishermen working with the university try to sell the carp for a profit.

Eden Prairie’s most historic piece of property is now in the keeping of the Eden Prairie Historical Society. The Eden Prairie City Council approved a lease agreement Tuesday evening that would allow the historical society take responsibility for upkeep and improvements to the Cummins-Phipps-Grill Homestead, 13600 Pioneer Trail.

The Eden Prairie City Council approved a conditional-use permit for the Eden Prairie Dunn Bros. within the Smith-Douglas-More house. The business, which has grown over the years to be a community gathering spot, now has a clearer set of guidelines about what can and cannot go on at the property, which is owned by the City. Among the official allowed uses is amplified music on the patio, something that the tenant, Ann Schuster, was looking to secure.

As he prepares to leave the nest, Charlie Crocker reflects on the busiest job at EPHS

They said, as long as he was cool with wearing tights, “I could get the job,” said Charlie Crocker. That was three years ago, and since that time, Crocker has dutifully donned the Eagle suit for game after game at Eden Prairie High School. Life as the Eagle mascot might be one of the busiest gigs at EPHS, but it's something that Crocker, now a senior, has set his sights on since he was a little kid.

“I’ve always wanted to be the mascot.”

Being a native Kansan, I was delighted by the news that Topeka, Kansas unofficially renamed itself "Google, Kansas" in an attempt to curry favor with Google and be named a test city for an ultra-high speed broadband project.
Think of it as magic fairy dust for cities to get super-fast Internet. Topeka is known for jumping through hoops for even less ambitious causes, having temporarily renamed itself "ToPikachu" back in 1998 to recognize the "Pokemon" madness, according to the Topeka Capital Journal.

Also, the city jumped on KFC's offer to fill potholes, for some reason. The photo on the following link pretty much sums that up:

http://cjonline.com/news/local/2009-04-09/kfc_picks_topeka_for_pothole_f...

Duluth is in the hunt as well, as evidenced by the following delightful YouTube clip:

A fire at Extended Stay hotel, 7550 Office Ridge Circle, left approximately $10,000 in damage Wednesday evening. No one was injured in the fire and the damage was contained to the hotel room where it started. According to Fire Marshall Allen Nelson, the residents of the room were cooking French fries and left to get ketchup, but forgot to turn off the stove top. Had the room’s sprinkler system not been in place, the fire would have been much more extensive, noted Nelson.
”The sprinkler functioned very well.”

Other public safety briefs are below.

Decision on long-awaited expansion for Flying Cloud Fields still percolating

For years now, Eden Prairie city staff has been waiting for the opportunity to expand the playing fields near Flying Cloud Airport. What they’re waiting for is agreement from the Metropolitan Airports Commission to lease an additional 25 acres to the city, a stipulation that is part of the Final Agreement that the city of Eden Prairie and MAC signed in 2002.

They’ve been waiting, and in the years that have followed, the demand for athletic fields has continued to grow.

By Karla Wennerstrom

With residents lining the halls of the Administrative Services Center, and after hours of discussion Tuesday, the Eden Prairie School Board approved the facilities option that will make Oak Point Intermediate School the site of a K-6 Eagle Heights Spanish Immersion School and another K-6 school.

In addition, the option OK’d by the board on a 4-3 vote sends the district’s fifth and sixth-graders back to the elementary schools. The district is to have six schools that serve kindergarten through sixth grade.

An Eden Prairie resident managed to catch a thief red-handed when he set up a camera in his closet and video-taped a repairman stealing coins from his bedroom. After losing a number of coins over the course of a few months, the victim suspected that his handyman had stolen the coins since there was no evidence anyone had broken into the residence.

The video footage from Feb. 19 shows the handyman, Robert Edwin Taylor, 47, of Mound, enter the bedroom and take coins from a closet.

This year’s Eden Prairie High School Winterguard show goes in different direction from last year’s child-like frolic. How different? The title of the show is “Hitchcock.”

The group’s show is set to the score of “Psycho,” with occasional audio clips of famed director Alfred Hitchcock.

“It’s really suspenseful and full of surprises,”said senior Jessica Hanson.

Winterguard director Molly Norton got the idea for the show based on an album she discovered a few years ago, titled “Music to be Murdered By.”