Budget Advisory Commission members named

The Eden Prairie City Council announced the members of the new Eden Prairie Budget Advisory Commission at its meeting March 20.

Katherine Kardell of Eden Prairie was named chair of the commission.

Kardell said she’s lived in Eden Prairie since 1988 and worked in public finance since 1985. “I work with local and state governments in Minnesota and around the country primarily helping them finance their infrastructure needs,” she said. Kardell is a financial adviser with Ehlers and Associates.

She became interested in the commission after following discussion about the idea of creating a budget task force during last fall’s election. Kardell, having served on the Planning Commission for six years previously, said she thought, “That would be an area in which I have expertise, not an agenda, just a willingness to try and be helpful.”

The other members include vice chair Don Uram, Jon Muilenburg, Gwen Schultz, Mark Kantor; Richard Proops and Richard King.

“I think it is a good cross section of people from Eden Prairie,” said Mayor Phil Young. Young said the pool of candidates for the commission was excellent.

“The council had to make some hard decisions on picking the best seven from that group,” Young said. “Any of the applicants would have done a good job. We have a pretty strong group of very sophisticated and intelligent and high achieving people who I think are going to add value to our process.”

The first meeting of the group had not been scheduled as of Tuesday, Kardell said.

“I hope that the commission can bring … an openness to just thinking about the way that the city plans for and budgets for services and is helpful to the council in thinking about how to proceed with the budget on a biennial basis,” she said.