Park Concessions
Both MPRB Superintendent Jon Gurban and General Manager Don Siggelkow have for sometime been out of compliance with the Minnesota Government Data Practices Act (MGDPA) by failing to respond to numerous requests for public information from members of the public. And now they are out of compliance with the $440,000 exclusive 5-year contract that the Park Board signed with Coke in 2003.
By Scott Russell , as originally published at the Twin Cities Daily Planet July 27, 2008
Several for-profit concessionaries and caterers operating on Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board property have had a leg up on the competition because they have not had to pay property taxes.
That’s changing. Tax bills are going out to Mintahoe Hospitality Group (which has its corporate headquarters at the Nicollet Island Pavilion); Twin City Catering (which has its headquarters in the Park Board’s riverfront headquarters building); Schwick, Inc., which runs the Lake Harriet refectory, and others, county tax records say.
"One of the most popular places in the entire metropolitan area of Minneapolis and St. Paul is a chain of four lakes about two miles from downtown Minneapolis.
» A whimsical craft runs into the Minneapolis Park Board's hard business realities
It was 3 years ago on March 6, 2002 that angry citizens expressed their outrage in person at the regular Park Board meeting over the Board's proposal to put Dairy Queen franchises in the Lake Harriet and Lake Calhoun refectories.
Our country is at a crossroads.
It seems that over the last 24 years there has been a general movement within many levels of government to shift power away from the people, the public sector, to business, the private sector. Nationally, it started with the Reagan administration and their repeated indictment of government as "Bad" and regulation as "Bad" and business as "Good".
Spurred by declining tax dollars and the success of Lake Calhoun's Tin Fish restaurant, the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board is considering developing a restaurant in Loring Park and at least three other park sites.
By Scott Russell
Life is imitating art.
This summer, the Walker Art Center opened a popular miniature golf course as part of the Sculpture Garden -- 10 holes designed by area artists and architects. The course is scheduled to close Monday, Sept. 6 -- but the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board staff may create a permanent Putt-Putt to make some bucks-bucks.
Tom at Click Me Hard wonders why the MPRB has a hard time freezing water in the winter and selling ice cream in the summer.
