Editor's Note: Due to space constraints, several of the following letters did not make it into the Aug. 23 print edition. Those letters will appear in next week's paper.

Stop speeding

on local streets

The untimely passing of Yasir Mohamed is tragic beyond belief.  I express my deepest sorrows for his family and friends.  I too, have a 6-year-old boy and would be devastated if anything happened to him, especially something as unwarranted as what happened to Yasir. 

However, the gauntlet of streets that Yasir Mohamed needed to cross from his apartment to Pheasant Woods Park virtually made his odds of getting hit by a car a certainty. I walk along both Mitchell Road and Anderson Lakes Parkway almost every day of the week.  The number of vehicles traveling well in excess of the speed limits posted on these roads, coupled with the total inability of drivers to stop at the highlighted crosswalks when pedestrians are trying to cross, makes walking a high-risk adventure in Eden Prairie. We could even make a our own TV show, something like "Survivorman,” but in our show the "challenge" would be to see if the pedestrian could survive a normal walk to the park. 

 The speeding is certainly worse when it happens in a truck or SUV as the weight, and therefore stopping distances of these vehicles, is well beyond what should be allowed on residential streets. As a result, these vehicles should be focused on in an effort to stop the dangerous residential speeders.

The most dangerous time is when people are coming home from work, as they seem to think Anderson Lakes Parkway and Mitchell Road are alternate highway routes. I know for a fact that at least 80 percent of these vehicles are going at least 10 mph over the posted speeds. Many drivers dare you to cross the road.

As commuters race down streets that connect pedestrians to parks and lakes, where are the police? Typically on Highway 5 or 212, trying to get speeders. I have seen up to four police and two highway patrol officers on the Shady Oak Road entrance to Highway 212.

I wonder how unsafe this road is for pedestrians? How many kids, dogs, parents with strollers are walking across that entrance ramp to get to a lake or park. Why aren't these resources lined up along our 30 and 35 mph residential streets? The police obviously need to monitor these side roads. These roads are where people are at the most risk. There are so many people speeding on these roads on their commutes in the morning and afternoon, that if we ticketed 25 percent of them we probably would be able to drop property taxes in the city by 50 percent. 

Let’s get a clue and stop the residential speeding. Drivers – take some responsibility. Your five minutes saved racing through the streets each day isn't worth anyone's life. Police, step up to the plate and tag these offenders – no warning tickets allowed as more people will die unless you do your job on residential streets.

Bob Krausert

Eden Prairie

Cuts unneeded

As a business owner and resident of Eden Prairie, I urge the Eden Prairie City Council not to make proposed cuts to the Housing and Community Services Department or cut the social services grants that our city makes to local organizations.

My wife and I chose to relocate to Eden Prairie eight years ago because we thought it was a great place to raise our family – and grow our business. We are very involved in our local community, including school activities and youth sports, and we spend tens of thousands of dollars each year in Eden Prairie on both personal and business expenses.

It is my understanding that Eden Prairie does not face a budgetary crisis and that the total of all housing and community services expenditures represents only about 1 percent of the total Eden Prairie budget. I question why this department has been targeted for such deep cuts and why any cuts have to be made in the first place.

As a business owner who started my own business 13 years ago, I know from experience that my business grows when I invest in it, not when I make cuts. I urge the Eden Prairie City Council and mayor to continue investing in our city and making it a great place to live … not by making unneeded cuts that may actually wind up costing the city more in the long run.

There are two documents that many Americans hold as sacred. Both are relevant and I hope the Eden Prairie City Council and mayor will consider these passages.

First is the Constitution, which states: "We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

Our Founding Fathers knew that helping everyone in our society was important and wrote it right into the Constitution.

Second is the Bible, where Paul wrote in Philippians 2:3: "Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others."

I urge the City Council and mayor to heed that advice.

Reade Bailey

Eden Prairie

‘Provide a net’

At a time when the suburban poverty rate is growing, we should not be considering cutting services to the needy amongst us. We may turn out to be one of them. How many of us are just a job loss, a health crisis, or a broken relationship away from needing these services ourselves? Social services provide a safety net to help get us back on our feet and adjust to the changes in our lives.

The de-concentration of poverty out of the central cities and the increasingly diverse populations of suburban communities are a national phenomena. Unfortunately, social service agencies still remain concentrated in inner-city neighborhoods, leaving suburban cities to fend for themselves.

I experience this growing trend daily in my work as the housing director for Interfaith Outreach & Community Partners in Wayzata. Increasingly the "working poor" find themselves in desperate straits, given rising home foreclosures, limited health care coverage, and wages that lag behind cost-of-living increases.

In the big picture, Eden Prairie will not be seen as a community with a serious poverty problem. So we have to turn to each other in times of need and crisis. In the past, our local government has supported programs to help families meet basic human needs. Now, it appears our new leaders feel we should turn our backs on these people.

Can't we, as a community, afford 1 percent of our local taxes to meet these growing needs? These issues increasingly affect us in Eden Prairie and we need to realize that our community's well being depends on our willingness to respond in a caring way.

Kim Vohs

Eden Prairie

Important asset

When I recently heard about the proposed cuts to human services in the Eden Prairie city budget, there were two major things I felt the mayor and City Council must know. First, these cuts don't reflect the spirit of this community. I have lived in Eden Prairie for over 20 years and have always found the people who live here to be kind, caring, and willing to give a hand to those in need.  The majority of people in my community would not be in favor of dismantling the support system we have built in our city.My second concern involves simple logic. I truly believe there will be negative consequences in our city if these cuts are made. If we don't support people in times of transition or crisis, we may very well find ourselves facing social consequences we do not like.These proposed budget cuts are such a miniscule portion of the budget but an important asset to our community.

Lauren Weaver

Eden Prairie

Keep investing

in social services

I am writing to encourage my fellow citizens to speak out to the mayor and City Council, calling upon them to leave in place the modest funding the city provides to human services organizations serving Eden Prairie citizens and to retain the current Housing and Community Services Department staffing level.

Why should we, as taxpayers, invest in these line items in the city budget? Well, consider who in your neighborhood will be served.

Perhaps it’s the EPHS teen living in his car whose home situation is so untenable that the parking platform of [the local bus] station looks like a better option. Is he worth your $4 investment? How about the mother in an affluent household who is being battered and needs help extricating herself from domestic violence? Or the newly arrived immigrant facing language and cultural barriers? Or the precipitously unemployed? Or the suddenly separated parent in need of food for their family? Or the senior citizen who cannot stretch a fixed income during a health crisis?

Our nonprofit directors report that people from all corners of Eden Prairie have tapped into the resources of our valuable social services agencies. Who in your neighborhood would you let fall through the cracks?

I am also distressed that we would cut the only staff position that supports our new immigrants – a growing population that is struggling with assimilation issues. Why would we make the incredibly inhospitable move of eliminating funding for this role?

Budgets are moral documents. They reflect the purpose and will of the people and are about, in my mind, the common good. It is my understanding that the funding at the city level is being represented as somehow inappropriate, that the county and state need to serve these needs.

I vehemently disagree. I particularly disagree out of my experience running a nonprofit for five years here in Eden Prairie (The Leaven Center at Pax Christi). The extremely modest support of the city is leveraged by every nonprofit we support into funds from other grantors. The "buy in" of local government is a key demonstration of viability and value in the minds of other funding sources, particularly foundations. 

So I ask my friends and neighbors: Which of us are you willing to sacrifice to save the cost of a hamburger at McDonald’s or a latte at Dunn Brothers? If the answer is “none,” join the members of the nonpartisan action group Eden Prairie Cares (www.epcares.org) in speaking out and reversing this course of action.

Trish Sullivan Vanni

Eden Prairie

Befuddled by

possible cuts

I drove by the Community Center building project the other day and noted with pride how willing the folks in Eden Prairie are willing to invest in their community. 

This feeling is in contrast to the befuddlement that I felt after learning of the proposed severe budget cuts to the modestly sized city Housing and Human Services department.

I am confused at the demonstrated willingness of Eden Prairie’s citizens to support a multi-year multi-million dollar capital expansion to our Community Center while at the same time there is thinking in the city government that the city’s taxpayers don’t want to support the meager budget of the city’s Housing and Community Services Department. I think Eden Prairie’s citizens are more generous than that.

The total H&H Services Department costs the average taxpayer less than $10 per household while providing key threads in the social safety net. Eliminating two out of three positions in the department will seriously understaff a department that provides a coordinating influence with charitable organizations like Meals on Wheels, PROP (food shelf) and Cornerstone (domestic abuse shelter); this reduction will save an average EP taxpayer a whopping $5.75 annually. Additionally, the proposed budget eliminates 40 percent of the nominal support to the same organizations; this saves an average EP taxpayer another $2.75. 

Also, the city supplies only token monetary support for these organizations, much of their support spent in our city comes from other sources. The existence and influence of the H&H Services Dept. permits these charitable organizations to access state and federal grants that would not otherwise be available to them. As a result, they are able to do work far in excess of the meager $10 per household that it costs us as Eden Prairie taxpayers.

On a personal note, I’m now a pretty lucky fellow and presently don’t use the services that I’ve written about. That hasn’t always been the case and it might not be the case in the future. My mother-in-law utilized Meals on Wheels when she was too ill from chemotherapy to cook for herself.

Also, a few years back, I found myself in graduate school chasing a Ph.D., married with three young children. When I found myself unemployed one semester, my children didn’t have to suffer for my dream and were able to eat with help from the local food shelf. By being able to complete that degree, I’ve subsequently been able to contribute to the economy in many positive ways. I don’t mind helping the next guy with a dream or going through a string of bad luck with this small incremental tax burden; especially when it is such a value. 

And I don’t think that I represent the minority of Eden Prairie citizens either. I think that most Eden Prairie citizens are willing to support good efficient city government such as that represented by the Housing and Community Services Department.

John Jarvis

Eden Prairie

Thank You, NHS

On behalf of Andy, Erin and Connor (and myself) Maruska, I would like to thank the Eden Prairie High School National Honor Society for their successful car wash. 

Special thanks to Adam Lueck and Julie Smith for their planning and organizing. The funds they raised were donated to "Caring for Connor,” a fund which helps with Connor's medical expenses and with spreading the word about [the disease], Omegaven. I am happy to report that Connor has finished his treatments in Boston and is back home in Arizona and making terrific progress!

For more information on Connor and Omegaven or to donate to "Caring for Connor,” see his Web site at www.connorcharles.com.

Jan Maruska

(Connor's grandmother)

Chanhassen