As a Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board candidate for District 3, I
would like to respond to some current issues.
Dysfunction is in the eye of the beholder. The last city council meeting I
attended in Nov. seemed pretty dysfunctional to me. The council and the mayor
dropped the ball in coming up with graffiti strategy because of election
politics and the park board got screwed when the city council played politics
with $700,000 the park board was expecting vis a vis a referendum request.
The last Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board meeting I attended this month
was collegial, professional and functional.
The second issue is related to dissolution of the park board. Sure, it's good
to think outside the box but it is also good to know how the box got there in
the first place. The establishment of the park system was very controversial
and opposed by the city council. The system of the parks as we know them is
the result of the great vision of a landscape architect H.W.S Cleveland who
not only sought the acquisition of beautiful undeveloped land but also
integrated a system of boulevards and parkways to form a frame work to
emotionally and physically connect these surroundings.
Theodore Wirth, also an incredible visionary, and superintendent for almost
30 years, developed and secured this vision.
The park board has a different history and a different mission than the city
council. In 1883 the park system was a great experiment in what we now call
sustainability livability issues. The commissioners of the Park and
Recreation board are advocates of a different vision than the Mayor and
council. It is the park board's mission to permanently preserve, protect,
maintain, improve, and enhance the city's parkland and recreational
opportunities for all current and future citizens of Minneapolis. Certainly
there are shared visions, but as they say on Star Trek, the prime directive
is different. What if our stewardship of our parks was like the city's
preservation of historical buildings? Parks give all of us a chance to
experience beauty, to personally connect with nature even in an urban
environment. Parks are places we can run around and have fun and meet our
neighbors, teach our children. Our park system is not perfect, but it does
contain the elements of what we, at our best, aspire to be. The parks are our
lungs they let us breathe.
Clean water, Beautiful Parks, Commitment to youth, and lifelong sports...A
Park Board that is accessible informed and informing...
I also like having the Park Police seperate from MPD, they have more time to
deal with park issues, and in Seward more time to relate to kids in positive
ways.
Thanks, Scott Vreeland, Seward, Ward 2, where (some)
dogs run free
