Looks as if Stinson Parkway maybe spared from bad citizen committee suggestion

It is pretty clear that the majority of the residents in and around Northeast Stinson Parkway want it preserved just the way it is now. The folks of savestinson.org get the Minneapolis Shadow’s community “Thumbs Up” award. Nothing is for sure, yet, but it looks as if the Park Board members are hearing the roar of citizen disapproval and are going to take the Stinson Parkway loop out of the Ground Rounds missing link completion plans. A few problems I see here with this whole story.
1. The complete stupidly of adding this loop into the proposal by the citizen’s council in the first place. There are a ton of reasons why this is a bad idea including safety, removal of trees, legitimacy of adding to the project, and waste of money.
2. This group was to be a citizen’s advisory board. One would think they would have been interested in the citizen’s point of view on this, but they made a bad suggestion and didn’t back off of it.
3. The Park Board staff’s arrogance and inability to be honest with the public is a huge issue. They have the attitude of “we are the Park Board and we can do what we want to” is unacceptable. The Park Board is a public service owned by the taxpayers. This attitude doesn’t serve the public and therefore those uttering such crap should be fired. The public should expect to get straight answers when a public service organization is questioned in regards to proposals and actions. The Park Board and staff have given the citizens the “Grand Run-A-Rounds” on this issue which is unacceptable.
4. The funding for this whole project is heavily dependant on state and federal money. I’m one all for completing the Grand Rounds and recognize the national treasure that it is. We are talking about using state and federal funds from pockets such as the highway fund and bonding. These sources are what is relied on for building and repairing bridges and roads. So the next time you hear of another bridge out, or road in disrepair, you can thank you luckily stars we at least have the Grand Rounds completed. The eastside of Minneapolis doesn’t have a lake or the type of niceties as the south side of town has. I’m all for getting those things put into place for the eastsiders to enjoy, but at what cost? Of course we have the state elected officials (Diane Loeffler) from this side of town telling the park board their plans aren’t grand enough (ie not spending enough) to past state muster. Good grief Charlie Brown why do we want to spend more money on non-essentials from essential funding sources in a suckey economy? People are certainly proud of Jim Oberstar for promising to secure federal money for this project. He is also the first to complain about the lack of funding for bridges. You can’t have it both ways Representative. Minneapolis is on the hook for 1 million a year for this project, but can’t seem to come up with the money for projects already committed to. Where is that going to come from, trees? I suppose you’ll print it from the trees you’ll cut down to get this project completed.

All in all this entire project is screwed up from the word go.