VICTORIA CITY COUNCILMEMBERS
ARE READY FOR 2006

(L-r):  Mary Thun, Richard Tieden, Mayor Jerry Bohn, Kim Roden, Terry Bishop.  One of their newest initiatives is to stand at the beginning of each Victoria City Council meeting and say the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag of the United States of American, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

A COMMUNITY FOR A LIFETIME
VICTORIA WANTS TO BE "SENIOR FRIENDLY"
in recent months the City of Victoria approved the formation of a Victoria Senior Commission comprised of seven residents:  Ron Allen, Peter Crawford, David and Marilynn Boorsma, Dave Lind-gren, Dawn Peterson, and Mayor Jerry Bohn.
Two members of the Victoria Senior Commission, Dave and Dawn, spoke at the November 10^th city council meeting about the vision and mission of the Commission. 
"The vision of the Victoria Senior Commission is that Victoria will continue to be a vibrant and senior-friendly com-munity prepared for an increasing number of seniors."
"The mission of the Victoria Senior Commission is to mobilize seniors, elect-ed officials, city staff, and community leaders to plan and prepare for the needs and contributions of the aging and senior residents."
Dave said that the Commission found 326 seniors in Victoria, age 55 and over, and sent them each a survey.
Maureen Schneider, a county consul-tant, reported that 146 surveys were re-turned and the Commission's priorities are now to "inventory current assets and do some awareness campaigning."
She said, "The Commission views seniors as a resource, part of the asset base.  Seniors are the fastest growing group in Carver County; there are 5,300 seniors in the county today and will grow to 15,000 by the year 2025."
Dawn said, "We are preparing plan-ning for the future.  Those are the key words - preparing and planning.  I challenge the council and staff to get educated  I challenge you to get acquaint-ed with our toolkit.  Every city in the county is doing this.  What can cities do to be more senior friendly?  It's a win-win situation.  They are good citizens, good volunteers."

SENATOR JULIANNE VISITS VICTORIA
ASKS MAYOR TO VISIT TAX COMMITTEE
Senator Julianne Ortman spoke to Victoria councilmembers on November 10^th.  "I came to offer my services to the city," she said.  "Sometimes if we com-municate properly, we can help each other."
"I love my work," she said.  "There is so much still to learn.  I'm on the Tax Committee, and feel lonely there some-times.  It would be nice to have the mayor come and talk to us and educate the committee, to tell us of your issues so we're not working in a vacuum."
About the past state legislative session, she said, "We put a lot of new money into education.  Carver County receives the most dollars per capita for those ages 0 to 18 than any other county in the state."
Senator Ortman said that her and husband Ray's four children attend Chaska public schools and "they get the best education."
In highlighting a few issues she said, "We have some of the toughest sentencing for drug offenders in the country.  We've never before studied the recidivism rate of drug offenders returned back to the community."  She spoke of working with Carver County Sheriff Bud Olson.
"After 60 years Highway 212 is final-ly underway … And we've finally per-suaded MnDOT to recognize that High-way 5 needs to be widened west of Hwy 41.  It's officially on their list of unmet needs.  We actually got Hwy 5 on some-one's radar at the State!"  She also spoke of the new Chanhassen License Center.
"We actually accomplished quite a bit," she said.  "We can be proud of the end results."
"The crystal ball is very cloudy on a Twins stadium," she said, adding, "We would love to hear from the City of Vic-toria on the Tax Committee."

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