The Eagan City Council held its final regular meeting of 2024 on December 17, 2024, at 6:30 PM in the Eagan Municipal Center. The meeting began with a moment of silence for longtime city employee Kevin Peterson, who passed away on December 2. The council recognized Brian Thom as APWA Supervisor of the Year, approved a consent agenda with 21 items, conducted two public hearings, and approved a major redevelopment project for veteran housing known as Veterans Village.
Welcome everyone to our December 17th regular meeting of the Egan City Council. It's our final meeting of 2024. Unfortunately, I want to start on a uh sad note. Um tonight uh we uh want to share the news of losing a truly dedicated and valued uh City of Egan employee. Uh Kevin Peterson was a part of the Civic Arena and Cascade Bay team for nine years for the City of Egan, and he passed away uh the morning of December 2nd uh after a brief uh battle with cancer. Uh if you were involved in hockey in Egan, uh you knew Kevin, he had a passion for hockey and spent most of his career uh in the hockey industry. Uh he joined the City of Egan in 2015. Uh so if you'll take a just a brief moment and uh um uh send some thoughts out to the many people who uh will miss Kevin uh and uh maybe take a sign a moment of silence just to honor Kevin and his work for the year thank you with that uh we have a uh fairly um brief agenda tonight with a little bit of substance on it. Um so I'll start uh right in and uh ask the council or ask uh Ms. Miller for any changes the agenda for the evening. No, Mr. Mayor. Uh council, any changes the agenda. No, sir. Councilman Bakken for a motion. Move to adopt the agenda as presented. Second. That's moved and seconded. Is there any further discussion on the agenda? Seeing none. All in favor is gonna say aye. Aye and oppose nay. That motion carries, and we have an agenda for the evening. Um first up on the agenda is recognitions and presentations, and we're gonna recognize Brian Tom for the APWA supervisor of the year. I'm gonna turn it over to Ms. Miller, uh, who's gonna tell us uh all about Brian's work. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, members of the council. It is my true pleasure tonight um to let you know that the American Public Works Association, which is a Minnesota chapter, has recognized our shop supervisor and chief mechanic Brian Tome as a supervisor of the year for 2024. And there's a lot of competition for that award, so it's a wonderful recognition. Uh Brian supervises our street and fleet division, leading a team of three full-time fleet technicians and as well as a few seasonal employees. He's been with the city for over 19 years um and just does a wonderful job. To give you an idea, Brian's team maintains over 350 vehicles and over 100 other pieces of mobile equipment for the city. So a large amount of equipment for a very small team. And mostly Brian's incredible commitment and work ethic, really what make him shine. So glad to see him get this award. I'm going to turn it over to Monica Heil, who's here on behalf of APWA Minnesota to present the award. Monica, welcome. Thank you, City Administrator Miller. Mr. Mayor, members of the council, thank you for having me here this evening. I'm here representing the Minnesota chapter of the American Public Works Association, which is a professional organization that seeks to promote and support uh those working in public works and their efforts to serve their communities. And for more than 30 years, the Minnesota chapter has been very fortunate to be able to support an awards program where its members submit nominations each year for both projects and personnel awards. And as City Administrator Miller stated, uh Mr. Thom was recognized as supervisor of the year. Now we receive many applications each year, and we carefully peruse through them, review the content, the data, how many vehicles, how many lane miles are supported by the work that these supervisors do. But I think most impressive is some of the accolades that Brian received from some of his co-workers here at the city. In addition to his extensive knowledge of the city's fleet and all the related processes, and being the first person to arrive at work and also the last person to leave at the end of the day, Brian motivates his team to work harder, according to his co-workers. He genuinely cares about the team's performance. He goes out of his way to help everyone he meets, fostering a sense of community and support with his infectious enthusiasm and guidance.