EAGAN, Minnesota - Eagan Police are searching for the person who sent a handwritten death threat to Eagan City Hall. City Administrator Tom Hedges opened the letter Tuesday morning.
It said: "Any council member voting for developing Parkview will die!! You are all in on it with the developer!!"- FOPV, an assumed acronym for "Friends of Parkview."
The letter referred to a controversial plan to turn Eagan's Parkview Golf Club into a new residential housing community developed by Hunter Emerson real estate development company. The letter came on the same day the city council held a public hearing on the debate.
"My first thought is that it doesn't seem at all representative of the community. Eagan is a city of neighborhoods, a lot of cohesiveness, and I thought gosh, this seems out of context. I was a little discouraged, a little disgusted," said Hedges, who said it's the first time in his 36 years as city administrator he has dealt with a death threat.
Eagan Police call the letter a terroristic threat. The crowd gasped when Eagan's mayor read the letter in council chambers Tuesday night, but after a five hour meeting, the council voted unanimously to move the plan forward. The Met Council will now consider a land use change to the 80 acres of the last 18 hole golf course in the city of Eagan.
Opponents have placed dozens of protest signs in neighborhoods surrounding the golf course, saying it would ruin open space, affect property values and endanger the environment.
"While it is not a final decision on whether the Council would approve or deny the change, it starts a process for further consideration of a possible redevelopment of the site," city leaders said on the city's webpage.
Eagan Police launched an investigation to try to find the person who wrote the death threat.
(Copyright 2012 by KARE. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)