Mr. Neiman, First of all, thank you for you efforts and hard work over the past twenty years! As a long time resident of Minneapolis I appreciate your service to our community.
However, I do not want to lose my point in all the positive progress that has been made in recent years - The Neiman sports facility will definitely be a jewel, if not the only jewel in the Park Board facilities crown. The Boston report seems to have created a new energy to re-designing sports particpation. In these I am truly happy! What still bothers me is the attitude of the Park Board when it comes to working with neighborhood organizations who are trying to fill the void of a higher, more competitive experience in youth sports. Many times our baseball organization has had to take a back seat to the scheduling of facilities. Many times the fields we do have are not maintained. When we do maintain them we are reprimanded for doing union work. Our fields are in terrible condition. More weeds than grass. Rocks and holes. Infields are dirt with no mounds for kids playing on 60-75 foot bases. I could go on. I single out baseball because it is the only outdoor activity that I coach and participate in. I have read recent posts that suggest that soccer fields are in the same condition. If we were to go to the suburbs we would not find that kind of facility management going on. Parks work with youth organizations. Volunteers maintain fields or have access to field maintenance equipment for after hours maintenance. A number of posts in here in the past few days have indicated parental decisions to move their children to other programs outside the city for a better experience. THIS SHOULD NOT BE HAPPENING!! So...I rejoice with the current improvements and the future program changes that will occur. But lets not lose sight of the big picture: With programs goes facilities. Thanks for reading! Rick Kuhlmann HPDL _______________________________________ 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
