By Mollee Francisco

Facing a $500,000-plus deficit for 2011, city staff is hoping to rely on taxes and deferments to balance the budget. The Chaska City Council met in a work session Monday night to review the five-year forecast for the general fund.

Among the items included on tonight's Chaska City Council agenda are:

*Presentation of 2011 prosecution contract

*Bids for West Creek Corporate Center Street

** A work session will be held at 6 p.m. to discuss the five-year general fund budget.

Chaska City Council meetings are held the first, third and fifth Mondays of each month at 7 p.m. at Chaska City Hall, One City Hall Plaza.

By Mark W. Olson

The primaries are over, the filings have closed. Now the real work begins – putting up lawn signs, knocking on doors, placing advertisements.

But what do you do if you don’t have an opponent? Is it all sunshine and lollipops?

This year a few local high profile races will be unopposed – including mayoral positions in Chaska and Chanhassen and the 34B State Representative seat.

By Mark W. Olson

After a year on the backburner, negotiations to acquire 5.6 miles of abandoned rail line in Carver and Scott counties appear to be heating up.

The track was officially abandoned following the March 2007 collapse of a railroad trestle. Since then, cities and counties have eyed the property for everything from trails to utility corridors to road expansion.

The latest proposal for the city’s long-dormant 1911 C.P. Klein mansion is a center for the arts.

The talks are still in the early stages, but Chaska officials have had talks with the Arts Consortium of Carver County over potentially leasing space in the building. “They are looking forward to creating, for lack of a better word, an arts house,” Podhradsky told the council at a Monday night work session.

By Mark W. Olson

A Chaska trail that’s been dug up since late 2008 has raised some questions from a local resident.

The paved trail, which skirts wetlands and runs from the north end of Eitel Road, south to Hundertmark Road, has been damaged due to projects by Chaska Public Works.

It is now akin to a “rough gravel road” as opposed to a paved trail, said Carroll Aasen, an Eitel Circle resident who uses the trail and recently e-mailed the city asking about the delay.

Dan Geiger, city of Chaska electrical director, sent in a news release outlining the Tuesday afternoon power outages that hit most of Chaska:

It’s not a good way to start out the day when a lightning storm rolls through Chaska and the lights start to blink.

At about 9:30 Tuesday morning a thunderstorm went through Chaska that caused blinks on a few of the distribution feeders and one outage for about 10 minutes. But that was just the start of the day.

Residents across the city gathered at more than 35 parties Tuesday to celebrate National Night Out. The event is designed to increase awareness for crime prevention in community neighborhoods.

Greg Swan organized his first National Night Out party at Hickory Park for residents in downtown Chaska. He was pleased with the turnout.

“It’s been great,” said Swan.