The following letter to the editor was published in the November edition of the Whittier Globe. The author does not use e-mail, so I am posting it on his behalf.
Mark Knapp -------------------- Are you really Green, Dean? Your equivocal positions on both the design for MIA's expansion and on the 35W access project have many of us bewildered. They're pale green, if you follow. We're looking for a Lincoln or Kelly green, O'Zimmermann. Pastel works nicely in an Eisenhower era house, but it's time to repaint in bolder colors before you fade out completely. What's so confusing? MIA's design is massive. It's overwhelming at street level. It's oppressive and not built to the human scale. Aren't those Green issues anymore? It's in a public park, greenspace, in case you've forgotten. On Stevens, even the shade trees will be in the shade, if they survive. Is it in any way wrongheaded of us to expect more sunlight, moonlight and sky *outside* the museum than MIA's design allows? Those "sublime" American landscapes, those Monet clouds and Van Gogh stars aren't enough for us in our day-to-day. We need the real things, the blue and green things. Is the corporate/arts influence so frightening and overbearing, like the design itself? That's the problem. That's why you were elected, pal. The autocentric, pedestrian-unfriendly 35W access/excess project should be a no-brainer unless you're still thinking in the outdated, 50s/60s mode of expanding interstates, parking lots and ramps and the imperious displacement of people, homes and businesses -- move the community. It's not convenient for us to accommodate day-trippers and those who fear our neighborhoods at the expense of our neighborhoods. We *live* there. Marginalizing pedestrian, bicycle and bus traffic with a design that overemphasizes the automobile and widened roadbeds on Lake Street and 35W itself, is going from green to gray to charcoal in my coloring book. So what's the problem? Got a mental roadblock? MNDOT has a solution, but so does your party. "Be true to your school," Dean -- true blue, true green, true evergreen. Jim Hruby Whittier Resident __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus � Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com _______________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
