HELP SAVE OPEN SPACE ON NICOLLET ISLAND
Friends of the Riverfront has filed three lawsuits challenging the plan to build a football stadium on Nicollet Island and the process by which local government has approved it. The first case ended when the Minnesota Supreme Court declined FOR's petition to appeal a ruling by the state Court of Appeals, but two more cases are still pending at the Court of Appeals. Friends of the Riverfront was joined in the first two cases by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, and the Preservation Alliance of Minnesota. The three citizen groups are asking that the City of Minneapolis and DeLaSalle be made to comply with state law and explore alternatives before destroying natural or historic resources. Donate to the legal fund online or send a check to Preservation Alliance of Minnesota, 219 Landmark Center, 75 W. Fifth St., St. Paul, MN 55102-1406 (put "Nicollet Island" on the memo line).
Preservation magazine features stadium threat to Nicollet Island
The National Trust for Historic Preservation publication highlights development threats to the St. Anthony Falls Historic District. Click here to read more.
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Environmental
Parks attorney promised alma mater would pay
Changing the tune on who pays the piper: In the video clip at left, Minneapolis Parks Attorney Brian Rice promises that DeLaSalle and not the Park Board will pay to replace regional parkland. Instead, Rice's deal with Met Council Chair Peter Bell (above) lets DeLaSalle off the hook, leaving the Minneapolis Park Board — and taxpayers — to pay the tab for land now valued at $2 million.
Minneapolis park commissioners agreed last year to allow DeLaSalle High School to build a stadium on regional parkland only after repeated assurances from Park Board Attorney Brian Rice that the park board and the public would not have to pay the cost of replacing the land. Rice promised commissioners over and over that the Reciprocal Use Agreement between DeLaSalle and the Park Board required DeLaSalle to cover any such expenses. "That's going to be a cost DeLaSalle's going to have to bear, not this board," Rice told the Minneapolis Park Board at its March 1, 2006 meeting. Relying on those statements, the park board voted that day to enter into a Reciprocal Use Agreement with DeLaSalle.
Fast forward to August 2007: Parks Attorney Rice, without any specific or formal authorization from the park board, offers up Minneapolis parkland to the Metropolitan Council in exchange for removing restrictions that prohibit DeLaSalle from building on regional open space parkland. The Met Council rejects that proposal as insufficient and scolds Minneapolis park staff for hiding crucial facts about the public land they wanted to trade. But still the Met Council agrees to let its chairman, Peter Bell, work out a new deal behind closed doors for land the Minneapolis park board already owns or would buy, at taxpayer expense.
Elevated green roof field proposed in front of DeLaSalle
This aerial photo shows how an elevated green roof field could be built over parking in front of DeLaSalle High School. 
"Elevated Green Roof Field" proposed for Nicollet Island Third Ward City Council Member Diane Hofstede presented a new proposal for an elevated green roof field in front of DeLaSalle High School on Nicollet Island at the Minneapolis City Council Zoning and Planning Committee September 14.
The design has the support of Tom Fisher, dean of the College of Architecture and Landscape Architecture at the University of Minnesota, she said. Hofstede cited other fields built over parking lots in California and Washington, D.C. to say that the design uses a "proven technology."
The alternative site to DeLaSalle's proposal for a field built over a street and public parkland behind the school is "resolving a major concern," Hofstede said. It would allow one of only three remaining public streets that cross the island, Grove Street, to stay open, and would not require three tennis courts, which she said were built at taxpayers expense for $150,000, to be demolished.
Public officials with ties to DeLaSalle push stadium plan
The Minneapolis City Council will vote Friday, Sept. 22, 2006 on whether to overrule the Minneapolis Heritage Preservation Commission's unanimous rejection of DeLaSalle High School's proposed stadium development as unfit for the St. Anthony Falls Historic District. City Council President Barbara Johnson is expected to vote to overrule the HPC to advance a project for which she is represents the developer.
Barbara Johnson is both president of the Minneapolis City Council and a trustee of DeLaSalle High SchoolOn Dec. 23, 2005, Minneapolis City Council Member Barb Johnson refused to recuse herself from voting on the adequacy of the DeLaSalle stadium Environmental Awareness Worksheet (EAW).
The DeLaSalle stadium proposal will come before the city council again, for issues such as the vacation of Grove Street.
At the time of her 2005 vote, Johnson simultaneously represented both the official Responsible Government Unit (the City of Minneapolis) that the state authorized to evaluate the project, and the Proposer (or private developer) of the project, as defined in the city's EAW.
In a January 3, 2002 memorandum, City Attorney Jay Heffern (himself also a DeLaSalle trustee) said city council members with close ties to a party in any "quasi-judicial" matter such as DeLaSalle's HPC appeal should recuse themselves from voting. At stake, the city attorney wrote, is the public's "confidence in the City's decision-making process."
City Council President Johnson is just one of several elected and appointed officials with ties to DeLaSalle High School who have or soon will be in a position to cast votes or take official actions on the school's proposal to build a football stadium over a public street and on public parkland
An open space advocate with horns
Wild animals vote with their feet: A young buck visited a Nicollet Island thicket on June 25, 2006.
National Park Service says stadium hurts historic district
The National Park Service wrote to the City of Minneapolis in November 2005 that the DeLaSalle stadium proposed for Nicollet Island would do damage to a national historic district, and alternatives should be considered. Here is an excerpt:
"The proposed DelaSalle Stadium development would adversely affect the St. Anthony Falls Historic District in a number of ways. Grove Street is one of the physical anchors that define the historic setting of Nicollet Island... [T]hough we recognize that the proposed facility would be a convenience for the operation of the DeLaSalle High School athletics program and could help the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board in meeting some of its program needs, the proposal nonetheless is inconsistent with riverfront location guidelines, open space protection goals, and historic preservation purposes... [N]ew activities that do not need a river location, that do not contribute to the riverfront environment ... should be located outside the riverfront area. We recommend that other alternatives be more seriously evaluated to meet the proposers’ needs, including an alternate location for a new stadium complies in a less sensitive area, or use of existing facilities."
Click on 'read more' to see the full National Park Service letter.
You can comment on DeLaSalle stadium's environmental impact!
The City of Minneapolis is asking individuals and organizations to comment on its Environmental Assessment Worksheet (EAW) for DeLaSalle's proposed athletic stadium on Nicollet Island.
