FREE SPEECH ZONE | Neighbors seeking support for potential off-leash dog area at Martin Luther King Park

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A group of Kingfield resident leaders is organizing support for a potential off-leash area in MLK Park. This part of the city has the highest density of licensed dogs, but no off-leash areas. An off-leash area would be good for dogs and people, create an alternative to unlawful off-leash use of the park, build community among neighbors, and add to the positive activities taking place in our neighborhood park.If you think a dogpark is a good idea we need to know who you are so we can get in touch with you about future events and plans.Please visit http://kingfield.org/dog-park, fill out the attached contact form and, if you can’t wait for our next event, also email info@kingfield.org or call 612-823-5980 to find out our plans!Free Speech ZoneThe Free Speech Zone offers a space for contributions from readers, without editing by the TC Daily Planet. This is an open forum for articles that otherwise might not find a place for publication, including news articles, opinion columns, announcements and even a few press releases.Ways you can help right now:* Become a Friend on Facebook here!* We are collecting photos of dogs with their human families…send one jpeg per family to dogpark@kingfield.org. We believe the diversity of our community and those that own dog (in race, age, marital staus, etc) will be a strength for this park. Continue Reading

In selling parkland to pay bills, mighty Duluth joins little Lilydale

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Recent headlines out of Duluth haven’t been pretty — except when they’ve been over pictures of the Tiffany window that the city may auction off to get out of a $6.5 million budget hole. City officials’ efforts to sell off another public asset — parkland along picturesque Park Point — puts Duluth in the same league as one of the Twin Cities metro area’s tiniest towns: little Lilydale, Minn. That mini-municipality decided last spring to put up for sale a less-than-one-acre park parcel on a bluff overlooking the Mississippi River as a way to erase its own $230,000 debt in one fell swoop. In both cases the properties had been donated as dedicated city parkland, but legal oversights left them vulnerable to re-purposing as cash cows. Even amid sizable city layoffs, fire truck decommissionings, and library and school cutbacks, the sale of the parkland and the Tiffany window have attracted attention as marquee public assets, the sale of which would be key money-makers in the effort to balance the city’s budget. Continue Reading

Minneapolis parks’ Red Bull and Pepsi dealings put Coke contract at risk

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The Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board appears to have strayed from its obligations under a lucrative but restrictive contract with Coca-Cola. The park board signed the $440,000 contract with Coke (pdf) five years ago, promising to sell only Coke products and not sell competitors’ products. Yet drinks from competitors such as Pepsi and Red Bull are being sold and advertised at several park board outlets—even from a vending machine at the park board’s headquarters building. And by selling a $25,000 permit to Red Bull for the drink company’s photo cube installation on the Stone Arch Bridge last month, the park board appears to have violated broad prohibitions against promotional activity by competitors in park board-managed places. At stake is a deal potentially worth $500,000 or more in funding to the park board and the Foundation for Minneapolis Parks, taking into account the park board’s 32 to 40 percent cut on sales of Coke products. Continue Reading

Park Board preparing Northeast Park for mini-golf course

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Sure, it won’t have the natural beauty of Minnehaha Falls or Lake Calhoun. But Minneapolis Park & Recreation Board officials hope a new investment in Northeast Park might make it a family friendly destination in a section of town historically lacking in park amenities. Crews have piled up dirt and started landscaping for construction next spring of an 18-hole miniature golf course. It’ll be accompanied by a four-station batting cage in the southeast corner or the park near Lupient Water Park (pictured). “The Northeast area doesn’t have the same type of large attraction like the falls or the lakes,” parks spokesperson Dawn Sommers said. Continue Reading

Grand plans for the ‘Missing Link’

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Completing the 50-mile trail that winds through Minneapolis sounds like a good idea, but some residents are up in arms about one of the proposed routes, saying the proposal could mean bulldozing their homes. This is the first of three articles on the Grand Rounds Missing Link. The Grand Rounds is a picturesque 50-mile roadway that includes walking and biking paths that wind around the city’s parks, lakes and streams. A 3.5-mile stretch between St. Anthony Parkway south and East River Parkway, however, has never been finished. Some community members, government officials and other stakeholders would like to see the “missing link” of the Grand Rounds National Scenic Byway in Minneapolis completed as landscape architect H.W.S. Cleveland envisioned it over a century ago. Continue Reading