5:00 P.M. REGULAR BOARD MEETING. The meeting will be held in the boardroom at Park Board headquarters, 2117 West River Road, just north of Broadway Pizza. Visitors to Park Board meetings can find at the back of the meeting room the agenda book with all the printed materials for the meeting
5:30 P.M. OPEN TIME. Speakers can call 612-230-6400 before 3:00 p.m. the day of the meeting to sign up or they can sign up at the Board meeting prior to the start of “Open Time.”
Perhaps the most significant item on the agenda is Resolution 2016-148, which would approve a proposed agreement between the City and the Park Board that would provide extra funding for maintenance and repair of the 160 neighborhood parks in Minneapolis. The Park Board would receive a minimum of $10.5 million per year for 20 years under the agreement.
The Park Board voted in January to seek an amendment to the City Charter that would have allowed it to collect about $15 million per year in extra property taxes to maintain the neighborhood parks. Negotiations between the City and the Park Board have led to the proposed agreement. Part of the Resolution says that the Park Board will not seek another Charter amendment unless the $10.5 million is “substantially reduced” for three years in a row.
If Resolution 2016-148 is approved on April 6, a public hearing will be announced and it will be presented for final passage on April 20. The City Council is supposed to pass a corresponding ordinance by April 15.
The agenda also includes recommendations from the Operations and Environment Committee that call for the elimination of glyphosate-based herbicides (e.g. Roundup) in neighborhood parks, and for experimenting with using goats to clear out invasive vegetation in two test areas.
The complete agenda, with staff reports, for the MPRB Board of Commissioners meeting on April 6, 2016 is at http://minneapolisparksmn.iqm2.com/Citizens/Default.aspx
Board meeting agendas and related information are posted on the above web page two business days prior to meetings. Webcasts of MPRB regular board meetings are posted on the same web page two to five business days following each meeting and are available for viewing, along with webcasts for the previous two months.
Also of interest and now available to the commissioners and the public are the monthly reports that Superintendent Miller has initiated for construction permits and for Planning Department projects. The availability of these reports is one of the important changes instituted by Superintendent Miller. They are normally in the agenda packet for the first regular meeting of the month.
View Minneapolis Park & Recreation Board meetings live from 5-9 p.m. on the Minneapolis Government Meeting Channel 79 on Comcast Cable. You may also view live meetings online on the Channel 79 webpage: http://www.minneapolismn.gov/tv/79
Regular meetings are typically re-telecast on Channel 79 on Saturdays and Sundays at 11 a.m. and on the second and fourth Wednesdays of the month at 5 p.m. Telecast schedules are subject to change.
The Park Board’s website is www.minneapolisparks.org . The phone number is 612-230-6400.
Arlene Fried
Co-founder of Park Watch
http://www.mplsparkwatch.org
