Minneapolis Park Watch

HEADS-UP FOR THE OCTOBER 20, 2010 PARK BOARD MEETING

5:00 P.M. REGULAR BOARD MEETING. Committee meetings to follow. The meetings will be held in the boardroom at Park Board headquarters, 2117 West River Road, just north of Broadway Pizza.

5:30 P.M. OPEN TIME. Speakers need to sign up before 3:00 p.m. the day of the meeting.

This meeting is the last meeting that David Fisher will be attending as Superintendent. His four month stint as interim superintendent ends on October 31. We are grateful that he accepted the invitation to come to Minneapolis to fill this position.

Posted by Arlene Fried on Mon, 10/18/2010 - 3:37am. | Permalink | Login to post comments | Read more

The following press release provides an update on the DeLaSalle Stadium project:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

info@ourbeautifulriver.org http://www.ourbeautifulriver.org

DELASALLE STADIUM FACES DIFFICULTIES BEYOND COURT DECISION

Posted by Arlene Fried on Mon, 06/30/2008 - 12:12am. | Permalink | Login to post comments | Read more

Posted by Arlene Fried on Sun, 03/16/2008 - 12:03am. | Permalink | Login to post comments

This article appeared in the Minneapolis Star Tribune on March 1, 2008.

DeLaSalle Playing Field

By STEVE BRANDT, Star Tribune

In other vegetative news, the question of grass versus artificial turf at DeLaSalle High School's controversial planned athletic field was settled when the school withdrew its bid for a synthetic field.

Posted by Arlene Fried on Fri, 03/07/2008 - 3:05am. | Permalink | Login to post comments | Read more

Posted by News junky on Sat, 03/01/2008 - 4:59pm. | Permalink | Login to post comments | 1 attachment

Council member Cam Gordon writes on his blog:

As incredible as it may be, the Council seems posed to vote to allow DeLaSalle High School and the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board to install artificial grass (or "AstroTurf") on their proposed stadium on Nicollet Island.

Posted by Chris Johnson on Wed, 02/27/2008 - 5:16pm. | Permalink | Login to post comments | Read more

By Shawne FitzGerald. First posted on the Minneapolis Issues Forum.

Posted by Arlene Fried on Wed, 02/27/2008 - 12:00am. | Permalink | Login to post comments | Read more

Backers of an Athletic Facility to be shared by DeLaSalle and the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board (MPRB) on Nicollet Island will be surprised to learn that artificial turf is one last vote away from covering that field.

Posted by Arlene Fried on Mon, 02/25/2008 - 1:58am. | Permalink | Login to post comments | Read more

Posted by News junky on Mon, 01/28/2008 - 2:48pm. | Permalink | Login to post comments

Park Board's Planning Committee approves amended agreement with DeLaSalle that has a poison pill obligating the Park Board to build DeLaSalle a new stadium if it later decides not to renew the lease.

With a clause like this, it makes one wonder who exactly is protecting the interests of the taxpaying public with this deal?

From the Downtown Journal website

Amendments to DeLaSalle agreement approved UPDATED January 24, 2008, 5:08pm

By Mary O'Regan

On Wednesday evening, the Planning Committee of the Minneapolis Park & Recreation Board (MPRB) approved amendments from Tom Hanson, the state Finance Commissioner, to a Reciprocal Use Agreement (RUA) between the Park Board and DeLaSalle High School for a shared athletic field to be constructed next to the school, which is on Nicollet Island.

Posted by Liz Wielinski on Sun, 01/27/2008 - 11:56pm. | Permalink | Login to post comments | Read more

This was submitted to the Minneapolis Issues Forum on 01/22/08 by Liz Wielinski and Shawne FitzGerald.

On Wednesday, the MPRB Commissioners are being asked to amend the Reciprocal Use Agreement (RUA) with DeLaSalle High School - including these key provisions:

Posted by Arlene Fried on Wed, 01/23/2008 - 1:37am. | Permalink | Login to post comments | Read more

From The Bridge

By Liz Riggs (January 15, 2008)

Despite a recent groundbreaking and favorable court ruling for DeLaSalle High School, several hurdles still remain in the school’s push to get an athletic field on Nicollet Island.

Posted by Liz Wielinski on Tue, 01/15/2008 - 11:03pm. | Permalink | Login to post comments | Read more

The Minneapolis Park Board has a deal, or had a deal, to let DeLaSalle High School build a football stadium on park property. This is supposed to be a public-private partnership. Three questions:

First: What kind of public-private partnership has a groundbreaking ceremony that's closed to the public? Last month several park commissioners and staff attended just such an invitation-only, private event at DeLaSalle. A private groundbreaking doesn't bode well for public access to the project.

Posted by Liz Wielinski on Mon, 11/12/2007 - 12:03am. | Permalink | Login to post comments | Read more

Parks notebook originally published in the The Southwest Journal on November 5, 2007

By Mary O'Regan

DeLaSalle High School still faces several hurdles before construction can begin on its proposed athletic field on Nicollet Island.

The Park Board currently owns about half of the land where the stadium will go, having purchased it with a grant from state bond proceeds in the 1980s. Roughly two years ago, the MPRB entered into a Reciprocal-Use Agreement (RUA) with the school that must abide by state statutes because state money is involved. According to the state's Assistant Commissioner of Finance Peter Sausen, the current agreement doesn't meet the necessary requirements.

"They have to make changes to the reciprocal use agreement and come back to us which they have not done yet," Sausen said.

Posted by Liz Wielinski on Sat, 11/10/2007 - 1:38am. | Permalink | Login to post comments | Read more

Reprinted from the Star Tribune Website Netlets for Wednesday, Oct. 24, 2007 with permission from the Star Tribune and the author.

Though the publicity about DeLaSalle's groundbreaking last week creates the impression that the school's athletic field is a "done deal," this is far from the reality, as a listing of the remaining hurdles quickly shows.

Currently three lawsuits are moving forward, including one in the Minnesota Court of Appeals where the ruling will be issued by mid-December. That court can order DeLaSalle to search among the many options that have been identified for an alternate location that would not destroy historic resources.

Posted by Liz Wielinski on Thu, 10/25/2007 - 10:36pm. | Permalink | Login to post comments | Read more

Reprinted with the permission of Ms. Viken

Yes, DeLaSalle had a groundbreaking yesterday, but here's a few clues that this is NOT a done deal:

1 - the ground they "broke" was their own.

Since the Reciprocal Use Agreement (RUA) that was the basis for use of Park Board land has been voided by the State Finance Commissioner, DeLaSalle could only dig at home.

Posted by Liz Wielinski on Fri, 10/19/2007 - 2:32am. | Permalink | Login to post comments | Read more

Reprinted from the Minnneapolis Issues Listserve with permission from Ms. FitzGerald

DeLaSalle and the MPRB will have to rewrite their Reciprocal Use Agreement (RUA) to "conform to the requirements of the [State] Finance department" according to MPRB General Manager Don Siggelkow. The MPRB and DeLaSalle met with staff of the State Finance Commissioner in September. The project needs the approval of the State Finance Commissioner because state bond dollars were used to acquire 201 East Island, the so-called "tennis court parcel" that DeLaSalle wants for the athletic facility project.

Posted by Liz Wielinski on Wed, 10/17/2007 - 12:21am. | Permalink | Login to post comments | Read more

A web only update to the September 3, 2007 edition of the Downtown Journal covering the September 5th meeting of the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board

Park Board approves DeLaSalle plan By Michelle Bruch and Mary O'Regan

The Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board approved the final plan for DeLaSalle High School's athletic field on Wednesday.

The Park Board also voted on a request to the City Council asking that artificial turf be installed on the DeLaSalle field. Commissioners said they would like to see the same turf that was installed at Parade Stadium, a field west of the Walker's Sculpture Garden.

Posted by Liz Wielinski on Sun, 09/09/2007 - 12:49am. | Permalink | 1 comment | Read more

From the September 3, 2007 edition of the Downtown Journal

Neighborhood notebook By Michelle Bruch

.........

Nicollet Island

The Metropolitan Council is negotiating a land swap with the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board that would enable DeLaSalle High School to build its city-approved athletic field.

"We struck a deal for them to give us more land," said Metropolitan Council Chair Peter Bell.

The Council acquired the site behind DeLaSalle, now home to tennis courts, in 1986 for $1.06 million.

In exchange for that land, the Park Board has offered about 2.9 acres of river frontage north of Plymouth Avenue on the West Bank. According to Friends of the Riverfront, a group opposed to the DeLaSalle stadium, the city appraisal for that approximate acreage is $94,416, while the Nicollet Island land is valued at more than $2 million.

Posted by Liz Wielinski on Tue, 09/04/2007 - 2:00pm. | Permalink | Login to post comments | Read more

From the Friends of the Riverfront Website

Park board attorney Brian Rice's pleaded with the Met Council to save his swap: But the Met Council said it went against their fiduciary duty to protect regional parksA "done deal" to let a private school build a football field on public Nicollet Island parkland fell into disarray Aug. 22, 2007 when the Metropolitan Council rejected a land swap proposed by Minneapolis park board administrative staff. Met Council members said the deal, which the Metropolitan Parks and Open Space Commission had also rejected, would violate their fiduciary responsibility to the regional park system.

Posted by Liz Wielinski on Fri, 08/24/2007 - 12:52am. | Permalink | Login to post comments | Read more