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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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:
Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board:
- Walt Dziedzic, a former DeLaSalle teacher, voted to let DeLaSalle build its stadium on public parkland
- Jon Olson, a former DeLaSalle parent as of 2004, also voted to let DeLaSalle build on public parkland
- Marie Hauser, recently a grandparent of a DeLaSalle student, cast votes to advance DeLaSalle's stadium before her term on the park board ended in early 2006
Minneapolis City Council:
- President Barb Johnson (member of DeLaSalle Board of Trustees, holding the Executive Committee position of Secretary) has cast votes favoring DeLaSalle's in 2005 and 2006.
Others:
- City Attorney Jay Heffern (DeLaSalle alumnus and DeLaSalle trustee)
- Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board Attorney and Lobbyist Brian Rice (DeLaSalle alumnus)
- Interim Police Chief Tim Dolan (DeLaSalle alumnus) may be asked to decide whether closing a city street impedes emergency access
- Metropolitan Parks and Open Space Commissioner Michael Rainville (DeLaSalle trustee and alumnus) is Minneapolis' only representative on this Metropolitan Council commission. DeLaSalle wants the MPOSC to revoke a restrictive covenenant prohibiting athletic stadiums on the regional parkland where DeLaSalle want to build its stadium. (The Metropolitan Council put the restrictive covenant on the land to preserve it as open space for the public when it paid more than $1 million in taxpayers' money for property 20 years ago.) DeLaSalle also wants the MPOSC to approve a land swap so land in some other part of the metropolitan region could be identified as making up for the loss of open space parkland in the heart of the city.
- Thomas Johnson (past chair of DeLaSalle's board of trustees and former DeLaSalle vice president of development) voted as an appointed member of the park board's Citizens Advisory Committee on the DeLaSalle stadium proposal. He was supposed to be representing "youth sports" on the committee.
In the video clip above (press play), Jay Heffern stayed mum when asked a question but stayed put in the City Attorney's seat during the City Council's hearing and vote overturning the unanimous HPC ruling on Sept. 22, 2006. If Council Member Cam Gordon, who asked the question, didn't know Heffern was quiet because of his conflict of interest as a DeLaSalle trustee, then Heffern's staffperson, who rose to answer the question, surely knows his boss's dual role, and that of City Council President Barbara Johnson, also a DeLaSalle trustee.