Eagan Area Business Council

3rd Thursday of the month
7:30-8:30 a.m.
DCR Chamber Conference Room

 

Operational

Eagan Business News
Quarterly news journal of the Eagan business community, published in cooperation with the City of Eagan. Chamber and business members sit on the editorial board and participate in submission of content. Chamber and City initiatives are highlighted.

Membership
All council members are to choose 1 new member per month (depending on list), to deliver new member packet; or visit a chamber member and discuss the member business issues, making sure the contact is the appropriate person, briefly discuss the DCR and the EABC, ways to get involved and upcoming events.

Government Affairs
Continue developing relationships with our elected officials on the local, state and federal levels in order to get their help with issues directly effecting businesses in the EABC community. Update the EABC members and members at large about important government issues. Work to involve EABC members in the Chamber's Government Affairs Committee. Encourage members to serve on city commissions and run for elected offices. Sponsor issue/candidate forums and debates.

Initiatives / Programs / Events

Coffee Breaks
A morning comfortable, casual networking event held every month at member businesses. Held the 2nd Thursday of the month @ 8:30 a.m.

Eagan Mayor's Breakfast
Businesses are important to Eagan and are vital part of our local economy. One of the Mayor's top priorities is to spend time with business owners of our city to understand the opportunities and challenges they face as a business owner in Eagan. The City of Eagan and the Dakota County Regional Chamber of Commerce partner each month to hold a Mayor's Breakfast. This breakfast is a roundtable type forum with Mayor Maguire and Eagan business people.

The meetings are held once a month or as organizations deem appropriate, from 8:00 to 9:30 a.m.

Eagan State of the City
Sponsored by the Chamber, a review of the year in Eagan.

Eagan Sign Task Force
DCR Chamber initiated a request for the formation of a Task Force to study an Eagan City Council amendment of the city sign code pertaining to window signage after 67 businesses were visited by code enforcement employees in March of 2006. The Task Force consists of city staff, Planning Commissioner, and DCR Chamber member, John Curlee, Curlee State Farm..

Four areas were considered:

  1. Grandfather of signage for existing signs.
  2. Permit fee / process
  3. Coverage of window
  4. Interpretation and enforcement.

Recommendations will be posted as soon as they are available.

Eagan Technology Working Group
In 2004, Eagan became the first city in Minnesota to map the specific locations and amount of high speed Internet access for residents and businesses. DCR Chamber President and Chamber members served on the 15-member task force and worked for six months to inventory communications providers and services and made recommendations for continued improvements.

The Task Force concluded that cable modem service from Comcast is available to virtually every home in Eagan, but that less than half of residents and small businesses had access to digital subscriber lines (DSL) from either Qwest or Frontier. Large businesses, on the other hand, have a wide variety of providers to choose from with significant fiber networks. After extensive discussions, Qwest has now improved DSL coverage in Eagan to approximately 85%.

Residents expressed concerns about the price of Internet services and a lack of adequate competition.

In January, 2005, the Task Force made several recommendations to the Eagan City Council to begin addressing those concerns. It recommended several roles the City of Eagan should play including:

  • Maintaining an ongoing technology advisory body
  • Establishing citywide technology goals and monitoring progress
  • Researching market opportunities of potential interest to providers
  • Identifying barriers to technology investment and deployment
  • Identifying service-level gaps and opportunities
  • Evaluating emerging technologies and keeping leaders abreast of opportunities
  • Marketing Eagan's technology advantages
  • Leveraging the private sector to provide needed services, or lacking that, determining other options including acting as a wholesaler or retailer of services

The Task Force, which included the chief technology or information officers of Thomson West, Northwest Airlines and Blue Cross Blue Shield, evaluated current and emerging wireless technologies, potential partnerships, and city policies with respect to water tower leases. Its report specifically called for several goals, including:

  1. A minimum of one wired broadband provider for each address with a target of spurring multiple providers for each address offering a choice of price, service and reliability
  2. In areas where there is a monopoly service provider, the City should encourage competition
  3. Encourage Wi-Fi "hot spot" deployments
  4. Work with providers to identify and fill service gaps in citywide cellular phone coverage.

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