I attended the Park Board meeting today about what was, or wasn't, canceled concerning an Earth Day Watershed clean up. I know what I will be doing- organizing a cleanup event at E. 24th St. and West River Road and I know that the City of Minneapolis will be "picking up the slack" to advertise and promote this as an important city wide event. Thank you Susan Young. It is astounding that in this case the weakest link in providing protection for our natural resources is the Park Board. This is a opportunity to build a volunteer base that has a great connection to parks and is probably the largest gathering of park volunteers of any Park Board event. I am really bothered that the Park Board is not only bailing on an event that has a 10 year history but is also setting up a competing event that will reduce the pool of volunteers for shoreline clean up. This whole process at the Park Board seems totally screwed up. No one who made the decision to end this 10 year commitment was at the meeting and the staff person they sent, Abby Schrader, was just sent there to make the best of a bad situation. It is also totally mind boggling that the Park Board staff is blaming the city for funding cuts which caused this and the City staff who were at the meeting said that any budget cuts had nothing to do with funding provided to do a watershed cleanup. If my math is correct, the city is still providing $110,000 to do this Earth Day Clean up and water quality education. So the Park Board will be picking up trash (not solid waste and recycling) and solid waste and recycling will be organizing the clean up on park land (not the Park Board) and neighborhoods will have to compete with some new Park Board event that has nothing to do with picking up trash in the watersheds. And the Park Commissioners will be out of the loop on making any of these decisions. Hopefully there will be a citywide Earth Day watershed cleanup this year and if you want to organize a watershed site, contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] (mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]) to be included in the publicity. Thanks, Scott Vreeland Seward But a $100,000 putt putt miniature golf course on park land- instead of Environmental staff- that makes sense.......... REMINDERS: 1. Be civil! Please read the NEW RULES at http://www.e-democracy.org/rules. If you think a member is in violation, contact the list manager at [EMAIL PROTECTED] before continuing it on the list.
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