DeWayne Townsend wrote: Well yea, Park buildings are not just for kids anymore.
[RF] Were parks ever just for children? Annie Young writes: We have hundreds�of youth that use our parks. We also have�ballet, storytelling, environmental education, wrestling�, drama, teen programs [etc.]. The computers are few and far between and please remember many of our park kids probably do not go home to a computer in their home. And could you be more specific as to which poorly cared for outdoor play areas you are referring too? We have just dedicated and opened several new ones these past few weeks�. By the way, the computer services are with a private-public partnership� so none of your taxpaying dollars lost there. And with more taxes we could probably keep more of the play areas in a pristine manner as you suggest. And like it or not most of us probably sit in front of our computers more than we should and should go visit our parks and walk around the lakes or river more. I'll throw mine out if you throw out yours - right? [RF] Oh, such Green bait, Annie, thank you. (Smile.) Computers are tools that have wonderful benefits, if used wisely. The same is true with cars. I would love to spend less time in front of my computer, but find that elected officials and the bureaucracy grown to serve them cost me considerable free time. Thus, instead of playing in parks, I am gathering research or writing yet another round of endless letters pointing out the consititutional (or charter) issues that the officials are neglecting to observe and which are creating hardships for the people I know. Open space/parks/green space is used as an interchangeable commodity. In Massachusetts, a state law made parks the easiest place to build new schools, until one city said, 'no.' In Minnesota, we are tearing down houses to put in neighborhood parks. Yet, we have a housing shortage. We then use the parks for all sorts of activities that do not require grass, flowers, trees, or other open air features that require high maintenance. Thus, it should not be long before we pave over the grass to put in parking lots to make it easier to drop children off to use computers. Compare this mission creep of the Park and Recreation Board to that of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The Corps bid to clean up a superfund site, in Oklahoma I believe. Because the Corps was neither experienced with superfunds, nor had the resources for the job, the job was botched, at a high cost to the health of the surrounding population and to the budget.Yes, several children and adults in Minneapolis do not have computers at home; neither do they have Internet Service Providers, which often is what we really mean when we talk about computers in education. However, there are other boards, such as library and school, that can povide this service. Amazingly, the other boards' services tend to co-incide with the hours of operations for Park buildings. The Park and Recreation Board should be concentrating on providing tactile experiences for the population. What does it feel like to smell a flower, gather pine cones, touch a fish, chase baby ducks, step around a goose, roll around in the grass? The schools might be able to do this on an occasional field trip, if there's any money in the budget. The libraries would probably rather keep flowers out of the buildings. After all, food is not allowed in the libraries, and dandelions are a delicacy. As for poor maintenace of parks, I've talked about that before, undoubtedly will talk of it again, and would rather turn off my computer for now and explore the strange world of REM sleep. --Rosa Field Lowry Hill East __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Listen to your Yahoo! Mail messages from any phone. http://phone.yahoo.com _______________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest option, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
