Delasalle Stadium Supporter Tactics
During Open Time at the March 2, 2005 meeting, self-described "soccer mom" Judy Blaseg appeared to plead for letting DeLaSalle High School have park lands on Nicollet Island. Ms. Blaseg, of 4236 Linden Hills Boulevard, was rather disingenuous when she claimed that "we the parents" had only known about the plan for 2 weeks. How could Ms. Blaseg not have known about the plan earlier, given all the press coverage in January?
In fact, she herself wrote a letter to the Editor of the Star Tribune on January 28, 2005 arguing in favor of it. Moreover, another letter favoring the park privatization plan appeared just three days later, in the .Jan. 31 Star Tribune, written by an 11th grade DeLaSalle soccer player named Meredith Engelen. It appears that Meredith is the daughter Judy Blaseg referred to in her Open Time statement.
It's also interesting to note that each commissioner received a "pile" of letters supporting DeLaSalle, but more than half of those letters were written by people who did not live in Minneapolis. Perhaps Minneapolis Park Board decisions ought to slightly favor Minneapolis residents and taxpayers over those of people living elsewhere?
Lastly, Ms. Blaseg took pains to note that she was not a lawyer or political figure. Was that a subtle jab at Nicollet Island resident and stadium opponent, attorney Barry Clegg, or maybe at stadium opponent and Nicollet Island resident, state representative Phyllis Kahn?
Comments
In the March issue of the TriPark NNN, it was reported that Barry Clegg said of the proposed DeLaSalle stadium ,"the facility is "ugly" and that it will cause parking problems and endanger residents' safety." "Ugly" is subjective so I will leave that alone. Concerning parking, DeLaSalle currently has parking lots which accomodate hundred of "guests" for other functions. To build the facility somewhere else, "not in Clegg's backyard" would mean building additional parking lots, ie. loss of green space, or park in someone else's neighborhood and congest their streets. Neither seems justifiable. As far as safety, since the Fire Chief said there was no safety problem with the proposal, I am assuming there must be some other concern. The student body of DeLaSalle is 56% people of color. I would hate to think that the fear of this upper middle class neighborhood is racially motivated.
Posted by anonymous | Tue, 03/08/2005 - 7:06pm | Login to post comments
Wow Mr. Anonymous! Accusing a whole Neighborhood of being racist because they don't want a football field in a City park? It might be more useful to start with some facts.
On parking, DeLaSalle's parking lot has space for between 100 and 150 cars. They anticipate an average of 600 attendees per game, presumably more for "big" games. The Neighborhood also has the event center on the south tip of the Island, which also frequently has events on football nights - they use the land on the east side of Island Avenue as overflow parking, but under the DeLaSalle plan, those lots would be paved over to make tennis courts. Sounds like a parking problem to me.
The NIMBY accusation is also unfair. The Island hosts more events than just about any other neighborhood in the city. They have festivals, concerts, fireworks, 30 trains a day, horses, and a lot of park visitors and traffic, a busy high school and more than their share of transients. The neighbors don't mind. Part of the reason they live there is to enjoy the history of the Island and the River, which is why events are held there and why visitors come - that's why the property is "open space" and development, even into a football field, is prohibited by a deed restriction. Football just doesn't belong there.
The Park Board's priority should be to value the interests of the park users of the City of Minneapolis. While it's hard not to sympathize with DeLaSalle students, it's not the job of the Park Board to provide a private school with a football field, it's their job to provide Minneapolis residents with the best park system they can. I think most would say that doesn't include a football field dedicated primarily to a private purpose.
The Neighborhood (not only Nicollet Island, but Prospect Park and Marcy Holmes are also on record as being opposed to this plan) has tried to keep the discussion factual and rational. Unfortunately, many supporters of the plan (which seems to be pretty much limited to DeLaSalle parents and alumni) are resorting to the tactics of the previous post - if the entire neighborhood weren't all just a bunch of NIMBY racists, they'd undoubtedly be in favor of a giveaway of public land worth millions (it was condemned in the mid 80's for $1,065,000) to a private school. Shame on the previous poster!
Posted by anonymous | Thu, 03/10/2005 - 5:40pm | Login to post comments
Many of the proponents of this idea of giving valuable land to DeLaSalle have used the argument that the poor students have no home field, that they always have to travel to their home games. One would think from their statements that this is a rare and horrible affliction.
In fact, it is fairly common in the Twin Cities metro area among school districts. Just ask the the students of Armstrong High School on Medicine Lake in the Robbinsdale school district. Guess where their home field is. It's not adjacent to their school on Medicine Lake; it's in Robbinsdale, a 4.5 mile drive away.
Many metro-area school districts have to share atheletic fields among their schools this way. It's just too expensive, and real estate is too valuable, for every school to have its own football field.
Posted by Chris Johnson | Fri, 03/11/2005 - 10:16pm | Login to post comments