Minneapolis Park Watch

1. "... a small island which over the past 20 years has been transformed from a slum to an enchantment."

- The transformation from a slum presumably began more like 35 years ago, with the federal urban renewal program that was intent on razing the neighborhood. Renter resident resistance forced an architectural study, which discovered an intact 19th-century cluster of houses worth preserving. A number of those houses are decades older than DeLaSalle.

2. "Nowhere else in America can you glimpse blue herons and skyscrapers through the trees while strolling down quiet lanes ..."

- The editorial blithely overlooks the fact that whatever its design niceties, the current stadium plan will close one of those "quiet lanes" forever.

3. "[DeLaSalle] could have fled to the suburbs, but instead has stuck to ... educating inner-city kids, rich and poor."

- The student body is by no means all inner-city, or even all Minneapolis. Should the schools that cannot flee to the suburbs, the Minneapolis Public Schools, perhaps have higher priority for free park land?

4. "In 1983 ... the school negotiated a joint agreement with the Park Board to construct an athletic field for the school's use, partly on park land. Now, 22 years later and still longing for a field of its own, the school wants to resume the project"

- The school did not negotiate an agreement with the Park Board in 1983. An agreement between the city and the Park Board said the school, as a third-party beneficiary, should have a regulation size football field and a minimum of two tennis courts using public land as necessary. In 1984 the city allowed the school to expand its field onto the public right-of-way along Grove Street for a regulation field. Then in the 1990s three tennis courts were constructed on adjacent public park land for DeLaSalle's use. The school got what it was promised: that is why DeLaSalle said nothing about wanting a more elaborate facility even as the Park Board was building the school tennis courts on the very park land the school now wants for its stadium.

This completely faulty bit by the Star Tribune is particularly egregiuos because the facts have been correctly reported more than once in the Southwest Journal and the Skyway News, and because the Star Tribune made the same mistake a few weeks ago and I wrote to them about it and pointed them to references for the correct information I gave them. They have no excuse.

5. "... affluent neighbors who have arrived in the interim are furious."

- Half the households on the north tip of the island are organized as a low-income housing cooperative. It is inaccurate to characterize the island neighbors as affluent. It is in fact a mixed-income neighborhood.

6. "The Park Board is obligated to pursue some sort of "athletic facility," as the 1983 agreement stipulates."

- The 1983 agreement called for a regulation size football field and tennis courts, nothing else. Those have been provided. Even if the Park Board was obligated further, the agreement required action within eight years, and the statute of limitations has long since passed. The school apparently saw a compliant Park Board stacked with commissioners with ties to the school that might not survive the fall's election.

7. "There's nothing sinister about such a partnership -- the Sculpture Garden and the Nicollet Island Inn are examples of others."

- Neither of those examples gives priority use of public land to a religious institution. The DeLaSalle deal would give the Archdiocese of St. Paul authority over public land. And if park commissioners approve the deal, it will be by the slimmest possible margin, with "yes" votes from commissioners who had children at the school as recently as last year.

8. "... the neighbors are right, too. Although the Park Board owns the land on which their homes rest ..."

- Half of the island's households, including all of those who live along the street DeLaSalle wants to close, live on private property, not park property. They have the same interest as any other city residents would in not having the public street they live on closed for a private development.

9. "The unique character of Nicollet Island demands that DESIGN be the primary factor in this decision ..."

- No, the unique character of the island demands that LAND USE be the primary factor in this decision, as described in the Park Board's own master plan and in the restrictive covenant on the parkland in question. Nicollet Island Park, like all other regional parks, is designed for passive recreation. Athletic fields, however pretty, are specifically prohibited, because regional parkland is there for everyone's enjoyment and use -- not just the athletes on Sundays.

10. "A well-designed field could easily improve the current landscape ..."

- Consider that without the trio of tennis courts built at DeLaSalle's behest, the current landscape could have natural park features which would need no improvement. As it is, the courts only occupy half the parkland in question, the other half consists of grassy slopes that host wildlife and more than 30 trees that are part of a long-term University of Minnesota experiment.

11. " ... if the field's programming were limited to a half-dozen varsity football games a year and a limited number of soccer matches."

- Yet the whole deal is contingent on much more use than that, if the school allows outside groups to rent the facility. The public will not enjoy the full access to its own parkland it enjoys now, but the Park Board may ask the school to allow supervised, programmed activities by public users. Those arguing for the stadium need to show how the private developer of this project will ensure both limited programming and public access. The current proposal only provides 350 hours of usage to the public, that is, less than 7 hours on every Sunday of the year. All of the rest of the time is dedicated to DeLaSalle only.

12. "We doubt there's a need for more parking. There's plenty at the school and at several ramps a few blocks away."

- The school has fewer than 200 spaces -- not enough for a facility that will hold 750 spectators. And where will the overflow go, to the ramps that charge money, or the "quiet lanes" of the immediate neighborhood? Clearly the folks in the "we" at the Star Tribune who "doubt" there's a need for more parking are completely ignorant of the facts. There is an existing problem with parking on the Island; adding 750 spectators is not going to make it better!

Posted by Chris Johnson | Tue, 08/16/2005 - 8:52am | Login to post comments

In the side bar to the Star Tribune editorial, park commissioner Walt Dziedzic is quoted as saying: "It's pretty hard to deny DeLaSalle two acres when private houses are taking 30 of the 45 acres of Park Board land."

It's pretty hard to get the real story to the public when commissioners like Dziedzic can't even be honest and get the facts straight: Looking at the map, it's apparent that even though Walt is only talking about "park board land" and not the whole island, there's no way the land lease houses take up 2/3 of it. The Park Board owns everything downstream of Hennepin Avenue, everything upstream of the railroad tracks, plus the riverbank all around the island, plus the property in question.

Walt is mistaken that the Park Board owns 45 acres. The total acreage of the island is usually given as just under 50 acres, and there are several large outparcels the park board doesn't own: DeLaSalle, Grove St. Flats, the Grove St. "Nicollet Island Building" converted truck garage lofts (another place where un-affluent neighbors are living), the West Island Condos, and the Grain Belt sign. There are 22 Victorian-era homes on leased Park Board property, with no more than about 1/3 an acre each. So instead of Dziedzic's nonsense about 30 of 45 acres being taken by private homes, it's more accurately quite a bit less than 10 acres.

It would be interesting to find out how many acres DeLaSalle occupies on this tiny island, and of those, how many were obtained from the City and the Park Board.

Posted by Chris Johnson | Tue, 08/16/2005 - 9:56am | Login to post comments