I gather that the De LaSalle commissioners on the Park Board are preparing to cross the Rubicon and lay siege to our fair city, cheered on by a coterie of the school's students and alumni and turning a deaf ear to the reasoned arguments that come to them despite their best efforts to stifle these voices.
This is a public policy disaster in the making. Breaking long-standing covenants arrived at by a many-sided negotiation process is bad enough. Abusing public process by blatantly advantaging the school's spokespeople in violation of the Park Board's very rules of engagement - can this be "conflict of interest"? Will this attempt at shared-use agreements open the door to the gradual transfer of our park land to private use on a broader scale? I have every reason to agree with those who say that the De LaSalle commissioners have turned a deaf ear to history. It was not by accident that the St. Anthony Falls Historic District came into being. Nor was it by accident that the Bicentennial Commission under Gladys Brooks' leadership chose to invest their budget in a bicentennial park on the South Tip of Nicollet Island, nor that major parks and open space money was applied to the establishment of ribbon parks along both banks of the Mississippi, to the transformation of Boom Island and the East Bank part of the Nicollet Island East Bank Urban Renewal Area and its environs and to the improvements on Hennepin Island, Father Hennepin Park, the Stone Arch Bridge, and the Mill District on the West Bank. Nor that a hefty sum of MHRA's money was spent moving the old fire barn into Riverplace's plaza, that another major gesture by the Hennepin County board put a span of the old Broadway bridge between the South Tip of the Island and Main St., that the new suspension bridge over the main channel at Hennepin Ave. is designed with an eye to its predecessors built in 1890 and before that in 1876. De LaSalle spokespeople have tried to paint the north tip community as being elitist, wishing to reserve this end of the Island for their exclusive benefit. I can't begin to estimate how many thousands of people have been able to view the old Queen Anne structures or admire the restored Limestone Flats on Grove St., or stroll comfortably around the Island's perimeter or stop by the vest pocket park we established within the heart of that cluster of buildings on the North Tip so many years ago now. Or to walk safely down the old rail bed and across the bridge to Boom Island Park. We argued a generation ago that a residential presence was an essential ingredient for reasons of safety and I have no doubt that the attitude of stewardship of the public's trust that has characterized good faith dialogues with the larger community in the vicinity - for decades now - remains a shining beacon and a reassurance that the grasping excesses of this De LaSalle crowd will not prosper in the fullness of time. There are a lot of Catholics in this town, Commissioner Dziedzic is alleged to have said. Do not Catholics also hear the songbirds in the back channel? Have not the residents in the vicinity put up with De LaSalle keggers by the black bridge for generations? There is a long-standing reality called "live and let live" that is being breached here and to me this is a far deeper wound in the life of the city than the recent ambitions the school has put forward so clumsily in public process. All the city benefits from the Historic District. The folks I drove around the Island in the 1980s via horse-drawn carriage came from around the region and beyond and from four generations of our families. There are memories of the Island we will never be able to recapture in their entirety, but surely we can do more to preserve the sense of history that pervades this place. Fred Markus, Ward 6, Phillips West 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. 2. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. For state and national discussions see: http://e-democracy.org/discuss.html For external forums, see: http://e-democracy.org/mninteract ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[email protected] Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
