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A new era for community engagement
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By Jake Weyer
A new group of 16 elected and appointed community members responsible for managing city-citizen relations and neighborhood funding met for the first time this month to start tackling some daunting issues.
Among the initial charges: To find a way to engage citizens of all races, genders and ethnicities throughout the city and to figure out how to distribute dwindling Neighborhood Revitalization Program (NRP) dollars to cash-strapped neighborhoods. The group, dubbed the Neighborhood and Community Engagement Commission (NCEC), will also recommend someone for the job of overseeing its new managing department — Neighborhood and Community Relations (NCR).
“That’s all pretty challenging,” said East Harriet neighborhood leader Matt Perry, a mayoral appointment to the NCEC. “That’s a pretty steep curve right there.”
NRP has been the city’s system of community engagement and neighborhood funding for two decades. Developed through legislative action in 1990, it was funded through large tax-increment-financing (TIF) districts and split into two 10-year phases. The program allowed neighborhoods to revitalize housing stock, invest in crime-prevention initiatives, create and enhance public spaces and do much more for the benefit of their communities.
But tax legislation in 2001 destabilized NRP funding, making the program unsustainable and prompting the city to create the new system. The NCEC will oversee the future of neighborhood funding — which will come from reserves after the TIF districts are decertified this year and from new TIF districts starting in 2011 — and will advise city staff and elected officials on community engagement issues.
The NCEC will eventually replace the NRP Policy Board, which managed the old system.
Two members of that board — Shingle Creek resident Jeffrey Strand and Kingfield resident Mark Hinds — will serve on the new commission. Strand was among eight appointees from the mayor, City Council, and Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board. Hinds was one of eight neighborhood representatives elected June 16.
The elected members each represent a district of the city, sectors created based on population and neighborhood synergy.
Except for Bryn Mawr, which is in district five, Southwest was split in half. District six to the north includes Kenwood, Lowry Hill, East Isles, Lowry Hill East, Stevens Square, Whittier, East Calhoun, CARAG and Lyndale. District two to the south is made up of Cedar Isles-Dean, West Calhoun, Linden Hills, East Harriet, Fulton, Lynnhurst, Tangletown, Armatage, Kenny and Windom.
Hinds, a longtime community organizer who serves as executive director of the Lyndale Neighborhood Association, was elected to represent district six. John Finlayson, another community stalwart who serves on the Fulton Neighborhood Association board and multiple other city boards, was elected to represent district two.
Both are eager to get the new system moving.
“There are no sets of processes for the NCEC at this point,” Finlayson said. “It’s a clean slate. I’m looking forward to setting up procedures that basically have a lot of transparency and allow for communication going up and down.”
He said his first priority is to get status updates from the other neighborhoods in his district.
“I want to find out what their individual neighborhood needs are because you hear stories about some neighborhoods being close to running out of money and I want to find out where everyone’s at in the second (district).”
Hinds said the NCEC’s role is an important one because strong community engagement is crucial to maintaining a viable city.
“The biggest thing is neighborhood organizations are critically important to Minneapolis’ future,” he said. “I think if you take a look back at the last 20 years of this city’s history, a big part of why Minneapolis did so well as a city, especially compared to other urban areas around the country, is because we have neighborhood organizations, we have this way for people who live in the city and work here to invest themselves in what happens in their neighborhood.”
David Rubedor, senior project manager with the new NCR department, said the NCEC’s first election process went smoothly. Electors from each neighborhood organization in the city cast ballots for their districts. In all, 35 candidates ran for the commission.
Though the elections worked as planned, the makeup of the commission ended up being predominantly white and middle-aged. The City Council foresaw that issue in February and made recruiting and engaging a more diverse group of citizens one of the commission’s first charges. A report on that topic is due to the council in August.
The commission met for the first time June 23.
For more information about the future of community engagement in Minneapolis, visit www.ci.minneapolis.mn.us/ncr.
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Commission members
The city’s new Neighborhood and Community Engagement Commission will be responsible for city-citizen relations and allocating neighborhood funds. Here are its members:
Appointed
Ami Thompson, Longfellow
Breanne Rothstein, Windom
Crystal Johnson, Near North
David Crockett, Stevens Square/Loring Heights
Jeffrey Strand, Shingle Creek
Matt Perry, East Harriet
Tony Anastasia, Audobon Park
Elected
District one: Matt Massman
District two: John Finlayson, Fulton*
District three: Bill Helgeson, Page
District four: Doron Clark, Windom Park
District five: Karen Lee Rosar, North Loop
District six: Mark Hinds, Kingfield*
District seven: Melanie Majors, Bryant
District eight: Marcea Mariani, Cooper
* Southwest districts
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Newest development proposal: A courtyard with pool and movie screen in the heart of the Uptown nightlife scene
UPDATED August 31, 2010, 11:04am
By Nick Halter
A new development proposal in Uptown calls for the construction of a three-level restaurant with a rooftop patio, plus a private, ground-level courtyard with a pool and movie screen in the heart of the Uptown nightlife scene. The courtyard would go between Cowboy Slim’s and the new restaurant, which would be built directly across from the Lagoon Cinema on Lagoon Avenue, according to a plan submitted to the city of Minneapolis. The owner of the site is Uptown Gassen LLC, which is owned by Clark Gassen. Gassen is proposing a 3,000 square-foot, single-level retail building that would go along Girard Avenue between Lake Street and Lagoon. Underneath the proposed development would be a 125-car parking ramp. The restaurant’s three
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Harriet concession contract nears approval
UPDATED August 30, 2010, 1:00pm
By Jake Weyer
1 Comment
The board will decide this month whether to approve local restaurateur Kim Bartmann’s concept, Bread & Pickle.
After more than a year of community review and a selection process that narrowed a field of nearly a dozen applicants, the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board is scheduled to vote this month on a new Lake Harriet concession contract.
Staff recommended local restaurateur Kim Bartmann’s concept, Bread & Pickle, based on the suggestion of a community group that reviewed and interviewed the applicants. That group was made up of former members of a Citizen Advisory Committee (CAC) the Park Board assembled last year after public outcry over a proposed concession change that would have required a new building. The CAC examined concession opportunities and drafted recommendations used to review applicants.
“The CAC was really a lengthy, drawn-out, long process,” said Park Board General Manager Don Siggelkow. “But it yielded the information and the understanding that I think brought this conclusion the way it needed to happen.”
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Urban fashion store and art gallery opens on Hennepin
UPDATED August 26, 2010, 10:14am
By Nick Halter
With rare Michael Jordan sneakers dating back to 1985, local art work, a DJ table and pinewood floors, Moh Habib on Aug. 21 unveiled Studiiyo 23, an urban fashion store and art gallery at 2319 Hennepin Ave. Everything about Studiiyo 23, from the name to the design to the merchandise, is a reflection of Habib, a 34-year-old world traveler who spent his high school and college years in Minnesota. “In those travels — I’ve been to 30 countries and 169 cities so far — I picked up the best of what I like from all those spots, and what I did was try to merge everything I love in life into one space,” he said. Habib has spent the last eight years working in Japan and Switzerland, first for Northwest Airlines and later as a
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Bryant Lake Bowl operator plans to buy Casey’s Bar and Grill
UPDATED August 25, 2010, 2:12pm
By Nick Halter
Kim Bartmann, who runs popular Lake Street establishments Bryant Lake Bowl and Barbette, said she has a purchase agreement for Casey’s Bar and Grill, 3510 Nicollet Ave. Bartmann wouldn’t offer specifics on what she will do with the space. She is asking to present to the Kingfield and Lyndale neighborhood groups soon to show them her plans. She said the renovation will last a couple weeks and said work will be done on the kitchen and dining area. Casey’s has a very limited food menu. “We’re a very food-focused company, so I think that will be a major change,” she said. Bartmann said Casey’s current owner has taken good care of the place and kept it clean. “It has a lot of potential,&rdq
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Neighborhood notebook
By Dylan Thomas, Nick Halter and Sarah McKenzie
THE WEDGELHENA hires new newspaper editorLowry Hill East Neighborhood Association hired a new editor for its monthly newspaper, The Wedge. Wedge resident Quentin Skinner took over with the July issues of The Wedge. Best known as the theater critic for City Pages, Skinner also has written two novels set in the Wedge, where he has lived for 15 years, according to an announcement posted Aug. 2 on thewedge.org. ——— WHITTIER Rex Hardware demolishedWrecking crews in early August demolished the former Rex Hardware building at 2601 Lyndale Ave. S. The demolition came 11 weeks after the Minneapolis City Council overturned a Heritage
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Parks update // Lake Harriet health
By jake weyer
Park Board applies for grant to study Lake Harriet healthThe Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board has decided it’s time for Lake Harriet to get a checkup. The board frequently receives complaints about the lake’s smells and surface algae and is hoping to perform a diagnostic study — funded by a $55,000 matching grant from the state — to see just how healthy the popular body of water is. “These grants are specifically being put out to prevent lakes from being designated as impaired lakes,” said the board’s Environmental and Field Services Director Debra Lynn Pilger. Pilger presented the details of the “clean water partnership grant” to the board at its Aug. 4 meeting. A
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Green digest // More mini markets
By Dylan Thomas
Farmers market season is at its late-summer peak, and more neighborhoods this year have easy access to fresh tomatoes and sweet corn thanks to an expansion of mini farmers markets sites. The number of mini farmers markets located mainly in low-income neighborhoods has tripled between 2008 and 2010, reported the Whittier-based Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP), which established the market program in collaboration with the city. The Walker Place Farmers Market in the East Harriet neighborhood near a senior housing facility was one of the mini farmers markets to debut this summer. The Stevens Square Farmers Market, Southwest’s only other mini farmers market site, opened in 2008. The mini farmers markets are limited to five or fewer
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Wine may flow, after all
By Dylan Thomas
Uptown wine tasting was in question this springStart working on your swirl, sniff and slurp technique: The annual wine tasting sponsored by Hennepin Lake Liquors may go on this year, after all. This spring it appeared the wine tasting, an important fundraiser for Uptown-area neighborhoods, might not return for its 28th year. In mid-August, though, event organizer Pat Fleetham said he was nearly ready to announce a fall wine tasting. Fleetham said he was “tentatively proposing” a date in October for the tasting but still needed to finalize agreements with event sponsors before he could announce a time and location. The event in recent years had been held in early June. In March, though, Fleetham wrote in an email to
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Biz buzz // New improv theater
By Nick Halter
New Lyn-Lake improv theater will focus on long-formA new improv theater is coming to Lyn-Lake this fall, leasing the space formerly held by Lava Lounge clothing store at 3037 Lyndale Ave. Huge Improve Theater, the nonprofit company that is leasing the space, plans to have a roughly 100-seat theater open in late October and is pursuing a beer and wine license from the city. While Minneapolis already has improv theaters like Comedy Sportz and Brave New Workshop, HUGE Executive Director Butch Roy said the Lyn-Lake theater will be dedicated to a unique form of improv — long-form. No theater in the Twin Cities is devoted to the form. Most know improv in its short form through the “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” TV
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Schools notebook // Southwest steady on AYP
By Dylan Thomas
Six Minneapolis Public Schools in Southwest met goals for student proficiency in reading and math this year, down from eight schools in 2009. The district as a whole saw slightly fewer schools making AYP, or Adequate Yearly Progress, toward student achievement goals. About 14 percent of district schools met benchmarks on state standardized tests, down from nearly 19 percent in 2009. The slide means more district schools will face escalating sanctions under the federal No Child Left Behind law, although many in education say the law sets an unachievable goal. Approved by Congress in 2001, No Child Left Behind set a goal of 100 percent proficiency on math and reading assessments by 2014. But the ever-rising benchmarks mean more schools every year are
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Park Board organizing LRT advisory group
By jake weyer
Adding another facet to the ongoing Southwest light rail discussion, the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board voted last month to organize a citizens advisory committee (CAC) to mitigate the impact of the route on parkland. Park Board commissioners, City Council members, neighborhood associations, Mayor R.T. Rybak and County Commissioner Gail Dorfman will appoint the 17-member CAC. The group will consider historical, cultural, visual, social, and safety issues associated with the 14-mile Southwest Light Rail Transit line (LRT). The route will start Downtown, travel along the Kenilworth trail between Cedar Lake and Lake of the Isles, then stretch through St. Louis Park, Hopkins and Minnetonka, ending in Eden Prairie. Along the way, it will intersect or run
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