Meg 2005 Park Campaign

Two things energize Meg’s candidacy

1) OPEN SPACE
2) CITIZENS

Parks have shaped our quality of life in this City. Our livable communities are laced together by our parks natural and built environment. As your Commissioner, Meg promises to continue to recapture these open space opportunities, for the long view of our City, opportunities like Above the Falls and the Midtown Greenway, both citizen committees, with public agency backing, that she has been appointed to and participates on today.

These committees are charting sensible development that is also sensitive to our environment. They each have plans for STRONG OVERSIGHT, which is so very imperative today. With so much development pressure, the balancing act of the natural and built environment is tenuous and continually vulnerable. Green spaces need strong oversight, with a navigated course of appropriate development for downtown, above the falls, along our new trail systems, around our City lakes and parklands. Strong oversight that protects the hallmark of our City: the egalitarian access to our parks.

The present vision for our parks is based on a decades old comprehensive plan. Meg will advocate for strengthening our open space policies. These two open space corridors, Above the Falls and the Midtown Greenway, can diversify use and revitalize other areas of the City. Both of these projects are rooted in citizen participation and their viewpoints.

Meg’s other mission as your future Commissioner is:
Citizen participation and Citizen “investment”

The City has changed its face. In the ‘60’s there was a stable, homogenous population … 96.8% being white families. Today 62.5% are white. It’s older, with fewer households with children, an increasingly more diverse, constantly changing population. The Park Board’s present Comprehensive Plan was created in the ‘60’s. A revised plan is needed, reflective of our current City’s face through organized outreach. It needs to be systematic, democratic and inclusive of everyone of us through real citizen participation.

Your “buy in” of your parks, your home park as well as your regional park, like Minnehaha Falls and the Chain of Lakes, is beneficial to our community.

In 1978, within 9 months of moving into Meg’s home, 13 elms were taken down on her block’s boulevard. She organized her block through the newly formed Shade Tree Committee of ECCO and replanted that street. Meg has seen how citizens are willing to roll up their sleeves and give back to the livability of our City. We all are “invested” in our home park. We as citizens need systematic opportunities to give back to our community, through time, attention, contributing for generations to come.

Meg has the proven leadership to do just that. Since that fateful year in 1978, she has been steadfastly leading. And Meg didn’t do it alone. She has worked with hundreds of volunteers through the years and she is humbled by the fact that so many came back year after year, because they were productive, they felt valued, and they even had fun! As a professional, Meg’s role is to bring parties together in consensus, find common ground and forge win-win solutions. Her 28-year role as a volunteer has also called on these skills. She is a consensus builder, has a collaborative style. She is experienced, with a balanced perspective and reasoned approach. These skills are needed on the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board today.

We need parks that work in the 21st century, meeting the needs of our growing city. The Minneapolis park system today needs new, more responsive leadership.