Editor's Note: Dakota County Commissioner Tom Egan represents Mendota Heights, Lilydale, Mendota and a portion of Eagan. He was elected to office in 2004 and is now serving his second four-year term. Egan writes regularly to Patch readers about county government. Recently, there has been a sharp increase in the amount of public interest in the Robert Street Transitway planning. Last year at this time, I reported that Dakota County had successfully applied to the Federal Transit Administration for and received $1.18 million in funding to cover the cost of what is known as an Alternative …

Editor's Note: Dakota County Commissioner Tom Egan represents Mendota Heights, Lilydale, Mendota and a portion of Eagan. He was elected to office in 2004 and is now serving his second four-year term. Egan writes regularly to Patch readers about county government. The days when Dakota and the other seven counties of the Minnesota Regional Medical Examiner's Office (MRMEO) conduct morgue and medical examiners services out of the cramped, windowless 4,000 square feet of basement space in the Regina Medical Center in Hastings may soon be over.   Early last year, I reported that Dakota County was …

Editor's Note: Dakota County Commissioner Tom Egan represents Mendota Heights, Lilydale, Mendota and a portion of Eagan. He was elected to office in 2004 and is now serving his second four-year term. Egan will write regularly to Patch readers about county government. I am pleased to say that the city of Mendota has successfully applied for Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funding from the Dakota County Community Development Agency (CDA) for a second year in a row. This time, the two successful Mendota applications were for the construction of a gazebo and construction of a storage …

Editor's Note: Dakota County Commissioner Tom Egan represents Mendota Heights, Lilydale, Mendota and a portion of Eagan. He was elected to office in 2004 and is now serving his second four-year term. Egan will write regularly to Patch readers about county government. The Dakota County Board of Commissioners recently adopted a new county commissioner redistricting plan for the next ten years. This is to meet the legal requirement of insuring the principal of "one person, one vote" to the greatest extent possible.   Counties are able to set their redistricting plans only after congressional …

Editor's Note: Dakota County Commissioner Tom Egan represents Mendota Heights, Lilydale, Mendota and a portion of Eagan. He was elected to office in 2004 and is now serving his second four-year term. Egan will write regularly to Patch readers about county government. Mendota Heights, Mendota and Lilydale benefit greatly from their proximity to the Dakota County Recycling Zone in Eagan. The Recycling Zone provides a one-stop shop for residents to drop-off unwanted electronics, fluorescent lightbulbs, fertilizers, paint and more. Additionally, I am pleased to report that Mendota Heights will…

Editor's Note: Dakota County Commissioner Tom Egan represents Mendota Heights, Lilydale, Mendota and a portion of Eagan. He was elected to office in 2004 and is now serving his second four-year term. Egan will write regularly to Patch readers about county government. The Dakota County Board of Commissioners hopes that it is running into a temporary hiccup in completion of the North Urban Regional Trail (NURT) anticipated by many residents of Mendota Heights, Mendota and Lilydale for years. After planning the nearly eight-mile long NURT for fifteen years with a segment of approximately one …

Editor's Note: Dakota County Commissioner Tom Egan represents Mendota Heights, Lilydale, Mendota and a portion of Eagan. He was elected to office in 2004 and is now serving his second four-year term. Egan will write regularly to Patch readers about county government. In typical fashion, the Dakota County Board began formal business of the 2012 new year Jan. 10 with a flurry of meetings.Before the scheduled board meeting, a subcommittee of commissioners that I belong to received an hour long briefing from transit and transportation staff pertaining to progress on the Cedar Avenue Bus Rapid …

Editor's Note: Dakota County Commissioner Tom Egan represents Mendota Heights, Lilydale, Mendota and a portion of Eagan. He was elected to office in 2004 and is now serving his second four-year term. Egan will write regularly to Patch readers about county government. From years of experience, the Dakota County Board knows how important timing can be in acquiring land for strategic purposes. This was especially true in 2008 when the opportunity presented itself to the County Board to purchase 456 acres of land in Empire Township, commonly referred to as the Butler Trust property, for …

Editor's Note: Dakota County Commissioner Tom Egan represents Mendota Heights, Lilydale, Mendota and a portion of Eagan. He was elected to office in 2004 and is now serving his second four-year term. Egan will write regularly to Patch readers about county government. Are you, your family or your friends among the 460,000 people who visited Dakota County's Lebanon Hills Regional Park this past year? Did you enjoy swimming at Schultz Beach, fishing, kayaking or boating on the park's lakes, walking, cross-country skiing or riding horse on the park's trails, utilizing the Visitor's Center or …

Editor's Note: Dakota County Commissioner Tom Egan represents Mendota Heights, Lilydale, Mendota and a portion of Eagan. He was elected to office in 2004 and is now serving his second four-year term. Egan will write regularly to Patch readers about county government. The Dakota County Board of Commissioners reached a major milestone Nov. 29 in the extensive process of setting the 2012 county budget and tax levy by holding its truth-in-taxation public hearing. This year-long process began with an early strategic planning session setting the county's priorities, goals and objectives followed…

Editor's Note: Dakota County Commissioner Tom Egan represents Mendota Heights, Lilydale, Mendota and a portion of Eagan. He was elected to office in 2004 and is now serving his second four-year term. Egan will write regularly to Patch readers about county government. Dakota County provides many services such as our parks and open space and library systems that are very attractive, popular and well used. But there are a lot of other services in which Dakota County is involved that are not as glamorous yet perhaps even more essential.  One of the systems that the Dakota County Board of …

Editor's Note: Dakota County Commissioner Tom Egan represents Mendota Heights, Lilydale, Mendota and a portion of Eagan. He was elected to office in 2004 and is now serving his second four-year term. Egan will write regularly to Patch readers about county government. Dakota County and the Dakota County Community Development Agency (CDA) recently co-sponsored a meeting at the Eagan Community Center entitled "Dakota County—Good for Business."  The meeting was a kick-off for Dakota County and its many public and private members who have financially joined in sponsoring a newly formed regional…

Editor's Note: Dakota County Commissioner Tom Egan represents Mendota Heights, Lilydale, Mendota and a portion of Eagan. He was elected to office in 2004 and is now serving his second four-year term. Egan will write regularly to Patch readers about county government. The Dakota County Board of Commissioners recently passed a resolution joining the vast majority of Minnesota counties that support legislation known as the Minnesota Accountable Government Innovations and Collaboration Act or “MAGIC” for short. MAGIC represents a change in the state/county relationship by allowing counties …

Editor's Note: Dakota County Commissioner Tom Egan represents Mendota Heights, Lilydale, Mendota and a portion of Eagan. He was elected to office in 2004 and is now serving his second four-year term. Egan will write regularly to Patch readers about county government. In this dispatch, Egan explains how commissioners are joining with Ramsey County to determine the best mode of transportation for the Robert Street Transitway. The Dakota County Board of Commissioners, acting as the Dakota County Regional Rail Authority, recently submitted a successful application to the Federal Transit …

Editor's Note: Dakota County Commissioner Tom Egan represents Mendota Heights, Lilydale, Mendota and a portion of Eagan. He was elected to office in 2004 and is now serving his second four-year term. Egan will write regularly to Patch readers about county government. Now that the state budget has been resolved, commissioners are reviewing how the county's budget will be impacted. With a genuine sense of relief, the Dakota County Board of Commissioners gratefully looked this past week at the Minnesota state government shutdown through the rearview mirror. What remained to be done was a …

Editor's Note: Dakota County Commissioner Tom Egan represents Mendota Heights, Lilydale, Mendota and a portion of Eagan. He was elected to office in 2004 and is now serving his second four-year term. Egan will write regularly to Patch readers about county government. In this column, Egan reports on the first budget workshop on 2011, which was dominated by talk of a shutdown. Even without the threat of a state government shutdown, June 21 was already scheduled to be a very busy day for the Dakota County Board of Commissioners. After a full County Board Meeting including confidential …

Editor's Note: Dakota County Commissioner Tom Egan represents Mendota Heights, Lilydale, Mendota and a portion of Eagan. He was elected to office in 2004 and is now serving his second four-year term. Egan will write regularly to Patch readers about county government. In this column, Egan reports on the results of a survey conducted earlier in the year polling Dakota County residents. Communication and collaboration are vitally important to the Dakota County Board so that we can more efficiently and effectively represent the interests of the residents of Dakota County. To that end, the …

Editor's Note: Dakota County Commissioner Tom Egan represents Mendota Heights, Lilydale, Mendota and a portion of Eagan. He was elected to office in 2004 and is now serving his second four-year term. Egan will write regularly to Patch readers about county government. In this report, Egan notes that Lilydale has been in the forefront of county discussion this spring. During this spring, the City of Lilydale has drawn quite a bit of attention upon itself with Dakota County perhaps to an extent greater than might be expected considering its over all size. FIRST, in March of this year the Dakota …

Editor's Note: Dakota County Commissioner Tom Egan represents Mendota Heights, Lilydale, Mendota and a portion of Eagan. He was elected to office in 2004 and is now serving his second four-year term. Egan will write regularly to Patch readers about county government. In this report, Egan explains how and why the board is setting goals and strategies for the future. The Dakota County Board of Commissioners is undertaking a vitally important endeavor to help determine the course of the county well into the 21st century. To support that end, we held two workshops in March and April in …

Editor's Note: Dakota County Commissioner Tom Egan represents Mendota Heights, Lilydale, Mendota and a portion of Eagan. He was elected to office in 2004 and is now serving his second four-year term. Egan will write regularly to Patch readers about county government. In this report, Egan recaps a recent workshop that dealt with the findings of the Living Longer and Stronger in Dakota County volunteer initiative. Faced with the complexity of the issue made apparent by the study's results, Egan said it's time to regroup and move forward with a more collaborative effort. The County Board views …