Eight Ways to Green Your Road Trip
Save fuel, save money and cut global warming pollution

Tuning your car's engine, driving the speed limit and not driving aggressively can improve your gas mileage.
Peak driving season, when many Americans hit the road to visit relatives or see the sights, is now in full swing. With U.S. gas prices topping $4 a gallon in some places — and likely to edge up more during summer's high demand — you may want to consider taking more efficient mass transportation.

There's a lot of buzz about who won, really. And which districts they won and why.

Though Aho beat Case by 102 votes, Case beat out everyone, district by district; his votes were spread out over 3/4 of Eden Prairie, more than all the candidates.

He won in Republican districts and districts most impacted by the airport.

In fact, everyone on the council is aware of it, and MAC has taken note.

So, though he had a "I'm the low tax guy" sticker on his signs, that wasn't what put him over the top.

Maybe we all should ask ourselves, no amount of money could get Brad Aho the Eden Prairie News endorsement, which he did not get. He's had his face on their online banner ad for over three weeks. It didn't buy him their endorsement.

WHY didn't he get it?

Why did the Eden Prairie News allowe Brad to come out with an ad that contained unsubstantiated allegations? A that was 2 weeks after the no-endorsement.

Butcher and Case got the endorsement, not Aho, despite his politcal and monetary backing.

What was it about Aho that they couldn't endorse?

What we have to fear in Eden Prairie is personal attacks and gotcha politics.

These candidates are all running for local office and they're all deserving of scrutiny.

Scott Neal wrote in 2006 in defense of the council budget, "I will not characterize the information politically because that is not my role."

What changed for Neal in 2008, when he made a false statement that was politically charged in a recent Eden Prairie News commentary??? The answer is different leaders, different governing philosophy. Neal backs the people who write his checks.

If only the Tax Alliance were here to spend the $14,000 they spent on Young's campaign, to boost Aho's.

The Alliance headed by Tom Briant, followed the same precepts Briant applies to higher cigarette taxes.

He's against higher cigarette taxes because he's a Tobacco Lobbyist.

He doesn't care that the taxes are used for cancer research and education to get people to stop smoking.

Maybe this is where the Republican idea of freedom goes awry.

Freedom doesn't come free, there's a price we all have to pay.

Remember the Final Agreement and the Expansion are Mutually Exclusive--You have to have money to do the job and MAC didn't until the city stepped in and "Changed the direction" from one of neutrality to one of proaction: support and lobbying federal legislators. Numbers of operations have been on a steady decline for a decade; more recently hobbyists and small plane owners have decreased because of high fuel costs; and new regulations make it both more costly and more complicated to fly.

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Well, we didn't get a green roof.

Under the leadership of Brad Aho and Phil Young we got an oblisk: a tall, narrow, four-sided, tapering monument which ends in a pyramidal top with no explanation why we need it.

There are several of them on a street median and side curbs adjacent the city's Water Treatment facility. Two sets, two larger, and two smaller, were constructed between pavers the entire lenth of a curb divider. Set in expensive field stone with no marker or directional; they are basicially ornamental and purposeless.

The recent ranking by U.S. World News Report of Eden Prairie as one of the Best Healthy Places for Seniors to live is not attributable to the budgeting contributions of Brad Aho; that was his claim in a recent commentary in the Eden Prairie News.

In fact Aho wanted to cut senior services and eliminate the senior center to save money.

Aho is on record for 100% support for Scott Neal's letter lobbying for federal funding, though Neal responded to the public outrage by retracting the first letter and sending out another.

State law requires our government to operate with full disclosure, unless such information is privileged or protected. Anyone can request the government to disclose its data, and the government must provide it, unless the data is of a kind specifically excluded because it needs to be protected.

The covert stifling of information related to the airport continues to trickle out, in spurts.

The latest data practices request sent to the city this September revealed a group of emails that confirmed residents’ belief that the city was in fact working along with MAC to obtain federal funding for the expansion.

www.zeroexpansion.org