Longfellow Community Council, 5/22 board meeting
EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE ELECTIONS: The board elected former secretary, Ed Leaf, president. DeWayne Townsend was re-elected vice president. Marcea Mariani was elected treasurer. Outgoing president, Melissa Erjavec, was elected secretary.
GOOD LUCK AND GODSPEED: Howe Reuse Task Force (HRTF) member Sarah Nassif told the board that HRTF won an award from Minneapolis’ Heritage Preservation Commission to validate and acknowledge its efforts to preserve the Howe School building. The award was inscribed “Good Luck and Godspeed.”
BOARD SUPPPORTS HOWE REUSE TASK FORCE RESOLUTION: HRTF members Beverly Conerton and Kevin MacDonald told the board that the Minneapolis Board of Education agreed to hold off on submitting Requests for Proposals (RFP) for Howe School until LCC had a chance to weigh in.
The LCC board supported HRTF’s resolution to the Board of Education. The resolution asks that LCC be allowed to review and comment on any RFP before it is released to developers; that any RFP contain a statement reflecting the community’s desire to reuse the school building and preserve publicly accessible green space; and, that LCC be allowed to evaluate responses to any RFP.
The resolution also asked that the Minneapolis Public Schools work with the city and its police department to address crime and loitering concerns on and around the Howe property.
HOWE PLAYGROUND MAGNET FOR CRIMINAL ACTIVITY: Taskforce member Bernadette Ammon lives right across from the unused Howe School playground. Since the school closed about four years ago, Ammon told the board the playground has become “a festering ground of criminal activity.” “We are asking that the playground be removed so that we can live our lives,” said Ammon.
Ammon told the board that she has spoken to the School Board and Ward 12 Council Member Sandra Colvin Roy to no avail. “If it takes another two to three years to get the reuse project done, we won’t have a viable neighborhood left,” she stated. Ammon and her neighbors call the police almost nightly. “The police don’t come when you call. And this was ‘shots fired’. And they didn’t come.”
The board agreed to discuss what it could do to help.
NEXT: Board meeting, June 17, 2008
MEETINGS: 3rd Thursday monthly, 6:30 p.m., LCC website or call 612-722-4529 for meeting location
CONTACT: 722-4529, www.longfellow.org
BORDERS: Mississippi River to Hiawatha Ave., Minnehaha Park to 27th St. railroad tracks
last revised: May 23, 2008