Re: park board and dog parks
FYi A small crew was out yesterday putting up fence posts for the new fence going in for the dog park here in Seward right at the end of our little street on Franklin Terrace. Looks like this one will be completed by 2001. In peace and cooperation, Cam Gordon 914 Franklin Terrace Mpls. MN 55406-1101 612 296-0579, 332-6210, 339-2452 Seward Neighborhood, Ward 2 = "Significant, enduring change will require an institutionalized shift of power from corporations and government to ordinary Americans." - RALPH NADER www.jimn.org/gpm/gpm.html (MN Green Party) www.mngreens.org www.votenader.org
Re: Library Referendum - Gratia, New Library Location, Ballpark Stadium ?????
Are you just a little curious about the Subject Line. . .Read on. (To read the original post drop to the end and then return to mine) Jan: I'm a resident in South Minneapolis, who read an unrelated article in the Strobe today regarding the stadium. Although I realize there are 1000s of out door ball fans, I am not one of them, so sorry. I am not loyal fan of any sports (boo hoo) and perhaps fall in the category of fair weather fan. If they are winning, i.e.. World Series I may buy a T-shirts. So some of you may wonder the connection with Gratia Countryman, ballparks, and libraries. I will find and connection if it kills me. Here's the article on the ballpark followed by the stadium webpage for your comments good or bad. http://webserv3.startribune.com/stOnLine/cgi-bin/article?thisSlug=STAD18date= 18-Oct-2000word=stadium Anyway I too wish to rename my local East Lake Regional Library. And this is part of the connection to Jan recommendation."Gratia Alta Countryman" does have a great ring to me. So now that I heard about "stadium" discussion today, oh, boy did I grow a few gray hairs, Jan. So I am going to have to mix things up again and see if others are might be receptive to thinking about what a stadium might do to the scale and urban feel of our neighborhoods in south Minneapolis? I thought I would take an another direction with your idea. I pitched the name idea to several residents this past year. Including some of the local East Lake Library patrons, and to the library board this winter at one of the Library Board meetings held at the East Lake Library. I agree with you that Gratia was a great women, a single women, educated, and leader and visionary and I believe the first single women in Minnesota to adopt a child. Way ahead of her time. She had great ideas we still enjoy today, like the book mobile, and providing books in many languages to the communities she served. Nearly like the needs of today's library users and immigrant communities today. She deserves the recognition. Further, here's my selfish idea. Push the public and officials to again open the discussion to moving the NEW Library into the Hiawatha Corridor instead of the proposed location. South Minneapolis neighborhoods needs a destination that could serve EVERYONE, not just one audience, as I feel a stadium in my neighborhood might if that becomes a more solid plan. http://www.mpls.lib.mn.us/2010.htm I'm one of those perfectly fine with Bloomington as a location. Where it used to be. A just-outside-the-urban ring outdoor stadium. Okay fine with me. Package the whole kit and caboodle with that other wonderful amenity, the Mall of American. And place it at the end of the line for LRT. So Jan, there my connection. 1) Yes, Gratia should finally receive the recognition due her 2) I think this referendum is a for a plan downtown plus renovation to communities eventually. http://www.mpls.lib.mn.us/2010.htm 3) I recommend to all readers to rethinking the location of the main library one more time. I am not particularly bothered with those who might say it is too late.Because if enough people like this idea even just a little they will tell two neighbors and so on and so on. And just because we need to go to the voting polls to vote on the referendum. A good or bad idea may be born right this moment. 4) The Hiawatha corridor is presently bombarded with ideas. We are planning development in the corridor and together with LRT this could be the jump start of other development. Would not a new library be wonderful? 5) Let's all try to avoid placing more auto related development and pouring traffic into our urban neighborhoods. Enough is enough. In closing, I really haven't changed my mind on the library money, but we all know that one of pushes behind the referendum and funding for the main library was to also provide money for the community and regional libraries renovations and upgrades. Nothing has changed but perhaps moving things around a bit. Like chess. Okay I have run out of breath, I need to inhale. Gratia Alta Countryman, was a great women. If the reading audience hasn't read the book on Gratia Countryman, Her Life, Her Loves, and Her Library please do. You can pick up a copy at the local library, the author is Jane Pejsa a local author from Minneapolis. Good reading. Nodin Press, Minneapolis. Katie Simon-Dastych Cooper/ Longfellow Activist 9th Ward 612-724-1570 __ Jan's post on Minneapolis issues. Library Referendum Date: 10/18/2000 11:20:55 PM Central Daylight Time From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Multiple recipients of list) Okay, so say the library referendum passes and there will be a wonderful new facility. I am going to start lobbying right now that it should be called the Gratia Countryman
Re: Library Referendum/FewerBoards
Ah, RT, you silver-tongued wonder, you. Even though I am running for the Library Board next year, I too think we should have a serious debate about separate boards for library and park (I cannot say the same for Board of Estimates since I cannot figure out what they do). However, if a separate library board were cancelled, I would like the city council to have a board of advisors made up equally of citizens and retired librarians. The intricacies of running a library system take a long learning curve and I don't want to lose ground during the interim. As to open air baseball parks, a memory: Wayte Hoyt announcing the game for the Cincinnati Red Legs (circa 1950-60), "And it's up and up and. . .over the laundry!" That was a home run over the laundry across from Crosley Field. Those who could not afford a ticket to the ballgame (kids mostly) would stand on the laundry roof and watch the game. My brother and I sat in the bleachers along the first base line with our dad watching Johnny Temple and Ted Kluzuski. Pete Rose was somewhere else in the stands with his dad who was a "business" acquaintance of our dad--a bookie. Wizard Marks, Central. R.T.Rybak wrote: I'm with Jan that we should take a very serious look at eliminating the Park and Library Boards; concentrating the decisions under the city council. Along with the obvious cost savings, it would force the city council to help make the tough decisions about how to balance these various needs. Here are two quick examples of how this could change two hot topics: 1. The library: One reason this project has floundered for so long is that it is in the hands of a board that has very little authority and visibility...so it sits like a wallflower in the corner while all the fancy megaprojects get asked to dance. If the city council was responsible for libraries, we could finally have the very-needed debate about whether this is a higher priority than the many other developments the council has funded ahead of it. In private Library Board members complain that the council hasn't done enough, the council complains that the Libary Board hasn't done enoughPut the decision in one place so voters know who to credit and/or blame. 2. Stadium. Ask yourself how much energy has been spent talking about a new stadium over the past decade. Now ask yourself how much you hear about the critical state of playing fields in the city. While we spend days and days focused on the Twins, thousands of kids are playing on substandard soccer fields with dangerous draingrates at midfield and rock hard baseball diamonds that are laughed at by the teams that come from the suburbs and St. Paul. Large sections of the city have almost no organized team sportswhich is a disgrace. Again, coordinating these functions under the city council would force the same debate about priorities. I don't think anyone has taken a hard enough look at what would actually be saved if you fully merged the complete organizations, which may or may not make sense, but at the very least the decision-making should be in a single place. R.T. Rybak East Harriet
Re: Minneapolis bond debt
GARY SCHIFF wrote: Nobody had much to say about Councilmember Barret Lane's post about Indianapolis' financial situation yesterdaysnip...Is AA bond status (and the higher interest it brings overtime) good enough for Minneapolis?...snip...It's vital that Minneapolis have a first class central library downtown, and improved branch libraries. Are you telling me the city can't afford to build a library? At least without serious financial consequences? But, but, but, times are great! Office buildings in the shape of tissue boxes can't go up fast enough- and nearly some of them will be close to half full when all the dust settles (or maybe they'll be full of the tenants currently in other downtown office buildings). Soon a city financed Target Store will be available to everyone who has been crying for years that the city doesn't heavily finance enough mid-priced retail for the people's taste, even though downtown was not all that long ago teeming with mid-priced retail (remember Woolworth's, Donaldson's, Penney's, and I believe Powers was there too) that I am guessing wasn't underwritten by the City Council et al. And now Block E, in all of its impending tasteful glitziness will be in her honor's own words, "happening!" In a couple of years Gameworks will offer everyone the chance to sit in life-size Indy cars and race against your friends in virtual reality while simultaneously eating REAL mozzarella sticks and other exotic fare one couldn't possibly find anywhere else in the city limits without walking seventy-five feet. When you're done racing you can walk across the hall and plunk down $8 to watch Val Kilmer affect some phony accent while chasing Brendan Fraser through the Alp's in the "Hannibal Story", and have a really nice velveteen padded cup holder for your 67 ounce CocaCola. So even if Minneapolis can't REALLY afford a new central library everyone is okay, with all the neat new stuff the city has bought its residents, who will have time to read, anyway? It's all about priorities folks! richard carney st. paul formerly Ward 10- ECCO I would personally like to see a stadium/ballpark/dog park in place of the Nicollet Ave. K-Mart, but built on stilts so that the Avenue's traffic flow would not have any impediments. With "Eat Street" only a couple of blocks down the road, it would, culinarily speaking, be the envy of the Major Leagues.
