HomeMy WebLinkAbout7.b. Board of Regents Tour Updatec i s
TO: Mayor Knutson
Councilmembers: Napper
Tucker
Walsh
Willard
FROM: Stephan Jilk
DATE: July 16, 1987
RE: Board of Regents - University of Minnesota
Tour of Rosemount Facilities —July 9, 1987
,/--TAW 1(-e)
On July 9th Joe Walsh and I, representing the city, attended the tour of
Agriculture and Research centers of the U of M property. This was a tour set
up for the Board of Regents by Cliff Wilcox, director of the Agricultural
Research Center.
Nine of the twelve regents were in attendance along with the Dean of the School
of Agriculture, several campus chancellors, David Lilly, vice president of
Finance, Al Thomas, research center operations director, Dr. Faye Thompson and
other U of M Staff.
Steve Loeding and Dennis Ozment also attended.
The first half of the tour covered the Agriculture side of the facility and
Cliff Wilcox conducted that portion of the tour. I found it very interesting
and was fortunate to sit in front of the Dean of the school Agriculture who was
very cordial and explained many items of interest.
The group then stopped for a picnic supper at the Agriculture center
Administration building grounds at which time individuals were introduced.
Steve Loeding and Dennis Ozment were asked to say a few words.
Steve Loeding presented information on the need for the construction of 160th
Street. My concern about this is that he made it seem as if that was the only
problem facing the county and city in regards to the University and its
property here.
Dennis in his brief talk, stress the need for the University to put more
emphasis on the cleaning up of the problems on the research center facility
stating that their efforts this year to get money from the legislature fell for
short.
The group then took a brief tour of the "other" side of the facility and this
was conducted by Al Imfioff. I must repeat brief in describing this part of the
tour which really comprised of taking a rather direct route from the
Agriculture Administration offices to the Research Administration offices where
we received a presentation by Al Thomas and a few words of wisdom from David
Lilly as to the operations of the research facility.
Page Two.
At several times throughout the evening Joe and I had an opportunity to bend a
few ears and address our concerns for an improved relationship between the
University and the City and other matters such as:
1.) The pollution problems
2.) The tax free status of the properties leased to farmers and businesses
and;
3.) The selling and development of University property in Rosemount.
Some of the regents seemed to be informed well enough to ask pertinant
questions on all of these matters, some seemed very ill informed and, as is
usually the case, some seemed oblivious to it all.
To sum up my feelings, and Joe can brief you more as to his thoughts, I would
have to call the evening informative, cordial but not extremely productive. I
do believe we made some good contacts with the members of the board we are able
to talk individually with and can utilize these contacts in the future.
I feel our position at this point should be to extend our involvement with the
University and begin some discussion on the sale and development of the
property. This discussion should also include the tax free status of certain
properties there. David Lilly referenced a time period of five to ten years
when discussing the sale of the property. Considering the impact of putting
that amount of property on the market, for anything other then agricultural
use, could create a major impact on our cities development and five years could
laps very quickly.
I feel we must also, in a postive but direct manner, keep pressure on the
University to help the communication and cooperation going in the direction on
which at can benefit Rosemount.