Oakes Park Lift Station: How’d We Get Here?
Patch sat down with City Engineer John Bradford to better understand the process that led to the controversial project.
The decision to put a lift station in Oakes Park sparked swift criticism from neighbors who both disagreed with the decision to put sewer infrastructure in a park and felt they’d been left out of the planning process. Hopkins Patch sat down with City Engineer John Bradford to better understand the process Hopkins and the Metropolitan Council used and why they made the decisions they did. That process is specific to the lift station in its details. But in its broad brushstrokes, it echoes the steps for any project undertaken in the city. Whenever a community undertakes a major project, it will face many of the same challenges. “The idea is how do we best use public money, how do we get the infrastructure the city needs—and you can’t make …
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Norman Teigen
8:40 am on Thursday, June 14, 2012
Nice piece of reporting, James. I, too, think that the City Council and the staff have handled this situation with due care for the best interests of all. Public policy law requires that public matters be done in the open. I think that your reporting indicates that this has been accomplished. Our little city has its own history and identity but at the same time it is part of the larger community… more ›