Keith Reitman asked how safe would a park be at the Riverview Supper Club site? 
As I mentioned in an earlier post, I've been involved with the Twin Cities River
Rats water ski team that has held shows at this site for the past five years or 
so.  We started out getting a dozen or so spectators coming to our shows each 
week and by last season we were getting over a hundred sometimes (we get several
hundred when we do our shows for Aquatennial weekend).  

This is despite the fact that there's really no place to sit except on a 
poorly-maintained and rocky hillside, there's no on-site restroom facilities and
until this past summer when we were granted a concessions license, no place to 
get a snack or a pop or water.  I can only imagine what kind of turnout there 
would be if we even had the kind of facilities found at Boom Island.

I can't really recall during that time many instances that would suggest the 
area is unsafe.  We've held shows on Thursday evenings from June through August 
as well as practices on other weekday evenings and on weekends.  I think I 
recall one case where a member lost her purse, but I don't remember whether it 
was stolen or just misplaced.  I also remember one instance where our storage 
shed was broken into and some equipment was taken.  Certainly, nobody's ever 
been assaulted or anything.  The worst thing I can recall was an instance where 
somebody (we suspected a group of kids) tossed one of our show props in the 
river and even that was rescued by a barge crew that recognized it from our 
show.  There is the occasional inebriated person that hangs around - but we've 
never had problems with any of them.  On one occasion, a fellow picked up a wet 
suit one of our members had forgotten and kept it for us until the next time we 
were there for a practice.

While the Supper Club itself had it's share of bad publicity over the years, 
there certainly hasn't been any rampant bad activity going on in the area around
it, at least not in the summer when we're all out there.  I think people 
visiting a park at this site will be perfectly safe.  I was pleased to see in 
today's Star Tribune that all the folks who have been working so hard to get a 
park in this area are finally starting to be heard!

Sincerely,

Mark Snyder
Ward 1/Windom Park

 

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