Mendota Heights City Council
City of Mendota Heights
1101 Victoria Curve
Mendota Heights, MN 55118

07 January 2003

Dear City Council Member:

As a resident of Dakota County and a lifelong resident of the state of Minnesota, I am strongly opposed to the proposed development for Pilot Knob and I am asking you to vote FOR the preparation of an EAW for this project.

A comment made by one of the Mendota Heights City Council Members in defense of the proposed development for Pilot Knob was that the city "needs this development for their tax base." Exactly how much annual revenue would the new townhomes generate for the City of Mendota Height's tax base? Or phrased another way, exactly what is the going rate for destroying an ancient, sacred, historical site?

If you look at history as nothing more than cold, hard facts ~ something that happened long ago and far away to persons unknown and no longer living ~ then you are disconnected and it becomes easier to forget.

If instead you feel for history and recognize it has the power to awaken us, sustain our connections, and nourish our current relations with one another, then you demonstrate reverence for remembering and one another.

Look beyond the "facts" of history and look to history for what it does for a community and its people. See how it binds all of us together. There's a multitude of ways that forgetfulness is imposed upon us in this life. Don't vote to impose forgetfulness tonight. Vote to sustain our connections with our collective history and preserve this sacred, historical site. Our State's indigenous ancestors are buried there and our State's earliest history lives there. We can't afford to ever pave them over.

Alane Roundtree
Eagan