The city council postponed the zoning and planning decision for the Riverview
supper club until Dec. 14, 2001.
In my opinion neither the city council nor the Park Board is willing to do
the heavy lifting on being responsible for taking the blame and / or lawsuits
for what the master plan recommends. The Park Board has already made a
decision to only acquire the land if Baylor's proposal falls through. There
is now money from:
MNRA $850,000
DNR Gateways $500,000
Middle Mississippi Management $1,000.000 for upper river projects
Metro Parks Open Space/ Regional Parks 40/60 split costs
The property is in the $ 1.8 million dollar range.
Did the Park commissioners know they had enough money to acquire the land
when Mr. Baylor made his presentation? Probably not. Would that have changed
the decision? I don't know.
The Park commissioners could amend their plan at their November 28th meeting
(now that there is more public support and more money) to acquire the
land through condemnation. But they prefer that the city to keep the current
zoning so that the land is not acquired through condemnation (lawsuits and
public controversy).
But the city won't act unless the Park Board plans to purchase the entire
site, which the Park Board has already said it will do if the Baylor plan
falls through. They are waiting for the city to make a land use decision that
would prevent the Baylor plan.
So either the city or the Park Board can make the decision to follow the
master plan and create a regional park. Right now they are pointing fingers
at each other saying the other entity is responsible. It is hard to watch.
Right now the ball is in the court of the park board.
I would like to post a correction about campaign finance reports being
available online. When I went back to find the specific language that
prevented online posting, I was informed by the Hennepin County Elections
Dept. that they had given me the wrong information and that there is actually
a plan to look at how they can make the disclosure forms available online. My
thanks to Eva Young for looking up the statue and helping me find out the
correct information.
Scott Vreeland, Seward, Ward 2
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