Monthly Archives: April 2009

LAKE HARRIET CONCESSIONS CAC APPOINTED; MEETINGS BEGIN MAY 19

The following press release was issued on April 24, 2009. All meetings are open to the public.

LAKE HARRIET CONCESSIONS CAC APPOINTED; MEETINGS BEGIN MAY 19

The Lake Harriet Citizens Advisory Council (CAC) has been appointed to give citizens a voice in the future of the Lake Harriet concessions. The citizen’s advisory committee will be reviewing various options for future concession operations at Lake Harriet and making recommendations to the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board.

Meetings will be held at 7 p.m. at Linden Hills Recreation Center on Tuesday, May 19, which includes a site visit of the concession area; and Mondays, June 1, 22, and July 13.

Members of the committee are: Matt Perry (chair), Joel Chechik, Roann Cramer, John Finlayson, Sarah Harris, Donovan Hart, Janet Holloway, Elizabeth Larson, Bruce Manning, Lisa McDonald, Mark Peterson and Joseph Schmidt.

Committee members were appointed by the MPRB, Minneapolis City Council, Mayor Rybak, the East Harriet Farmstead and Linden Hills neighborhood associations, and the Metropolitan Open Space Commission.

CONTACT: Janell Wojtowicz
Communication Specialist
612-230-6414
[email protected]

HEADS UP FOR THE APRIL 15, 2009, PARK BOARD MEETING

TELECASTING BLACKOUT AT THE MPRB

In the name of “community input,” the Park Board will be dropping six upcoming Park Board meetings from its telecasting schedule if approved by the commissioners at the upcoming April 15 Park Board meeting. The first meeting to be blacked out will be on May 5.

General Manager Don Siggelkow has sent a memo to the commissioners recommending that six regular Park Board meetings be held in the MPRB’s neighborhood rec centers instead of at Park Board headquarters. That means that one-half of the meetings leading up to the November election (six out of twelve) will not be televised unless special arrangements are made. He is asking the Board to approve the schedule at Wednesday’s meeting.

The dates of the blacked out meetings are May 6, June 3, July 1, August 5, September 2 and October 7.

Because technology to accommodate offsite telecasting does exist, it would seem appropriate that the MPRB would make arrangements to make sure that the viewing public is able to view the meetings no matter where they are held.

But if the MPRB chooses not to make the necessary arrangements to televise the offsite Board meetings, then the “community input” should be separated from the Board meetings and the Board meetings should be rescheduled in the MPRB boardroom where they can be televised.

Citizens concerned about the telecasting blackout should contact their Park Board commissioners to express their concerns.

To contact your District Commissioner and three At-Large Commissioners go to: http://www.minneapolisparks.org/default.asp?PageID=36

CROWN HYDRO–THE MYSTERY

For the past couple of weeks, the lobbyist and spokeswoman for Crown Hydro has been waging a publicity campaign for a presentation that Crown Hydro is scheduled to make at the April 15, 2009, MPRB meeting. The purported purpose of the presentation is to present new expert information about the project to the commissioners.

However, when Park Watch went to the Park Board on April 10 to preview the information that Crown Hydro was required to submit to the MPRB in advance of Wednesday’s meeting, we saw nothing new. The information about the hydropower project that is being presented to the Administration and Finance Committee on Wednesday appears to be the same information that was presented in 2007 when the Board voted against advancing the project.

So for what purpose did Crown Hydro ask to speak before the Board?

Arlene Fried
Co-founder of Park Watch