Keith: I agree wholeheartedly with your comments regarding the possible homelife of children suspended from school.
The reference to the poverty line also says it all. As to comments regarding "certified dysfunctional" people living in Loring Hghts/Stevens Square/Whittier neighborhoods I would beg to differ and the idea Tom B. is objecting to piling more junkies and alcoholics into a very small space is equally unfair. I daresay there are just as great a number of dysfunctional folks(certifiable and latent) and junkies and alcoholics, certainly alcoholics, in neighborhoods throughout the city. The very point of the existence of Lydia House is that these "certified dysfunctional" folks as you refer to them are trying to turn their lives around. I do not want to suggest that other neighborhoods might not "suffer the pain" as it were of the establishment of places like Lydia House but the fact of the matter is that prior zoning codes being what they were precluded the siting of nursing homes, etc. which are now undergoing an industry-wide retrenchment and are becoming available for conversion. Indeed, I believe the Kingfield neighborhood where progressiveness seems to reign supreme, considered the possibility of converting a unused nursing home into affordable housing and would have looked favorably on a "Lydia House establishment". But perhaps I presume too much. The point is and always has been that the LaSalle Convalescent Home existed for quite some time in this location, and has fairly recently become available, that Plymouth Foundation purchased it either ill-advisedly or with superior judgement as opposed to venal instincts of profitmaking by an otherwise non-profit organization depending on your point of view, and that it is a site that places people with few resources near growth opportunities that could help them stabilize their lives. Tieing the closing of Kowalski's to neighborhood demographics rather than the store's limitations as stated by the management without words to that effect misleads and attempts to take an independent business decision and mold it to one's own purposes. I would suggest that since this question is in a court of law and that we have hashed and rehashed this subject endlessly for months and months we do what you suggest and give it a break and say: WE AGREE TO DISAGREE. I'll await the fusillade. Tim Connolly Ward 7 Downtown resident who foregoes the pleasure of shopping at Kowalski's on Nicollet for the less convenient options of shopping at Lund's, Whole Foods(Whole Paycheck), Wedge, Surdyk's, et al depending mostly on price, quality, time restraints, and just plain where I happen to be at the time, etc though I have frequented Metro Ace Hardware and the tobacco shop next door before I quit smoking 6 months and 6 days ago. But who's counting! At this point, if you have read this far, I bet you're wishing I would start smoking again. In good humor!!!!! TC __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? LAUNCH - Your Yahoo! Music Experience http://launch.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
