Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board

[fehler]

The Park Board has started charging non-profit organizations for use of meeting rooms in park buildings, at a rate of $25 an hour. Previously, they only charged for-profits and private groups for use of the space. Now, if I wanted to hold twice-monthly Cub Scout meetings in a Park Building, I'm out $400 for the year. Our budget can't absorb that.

[trigonalmayhem]

It was more of a rhetorical question of why we let it remain like this, not why it got that way. They are a mess and I think as citizens of Minneapolis we need to take a long hard look at the utility of the current setup and whether or not it's really the best way to handle parks. I'm more curious about what it would take to eliminate them as a separate elected body and if that's something we can initiate from the citizen level or if we have to rely on the broken system of representation we have.

[EOst]

While it's easy to criticize the current body and its decisions, keep in mind that an independent park board is what gave Minneapolis the best and most extensive urban park system in the country. It was the board's independence which gave it the freedom to focus on acquiring the city's most valuable land (the lake shores and riverbanks) for public use, among many other things. There are plenty of books and websites that can spell out the history of this for you.

On a more fundamental level, I sincerely doubt that a city-controlled parks department would be better in any of the ways you seem to imagine.

[FISHMANPET]

Apropos of very little, but just because there was a valid reason in the past and it produced positive outcomes in the past doesn't mean it that it should be free of criticism merely because it worked once upon a time.

[EOst]

Sure. On the other hand, in this specific case I don't see any of those reasons being any less valid now.

But as David said above, this issue is done to death and we should move on. So how about Water Works, huh? Bet that'll be cool.

[trigonalmayhem]

Oh we should move on only after you said your piece and have the last word, right? I'd take issue with the assertion it's magically the 'best' park system in the country. That's meaningless boosterism and has zero bearing on the way they conduct themselves now. It's a good park system, but I wouldn't say by any measure it's objectively the 'best in the country.' Even if it were, it certainly won't stay that way under the current direction it's taking. Where better to discuss the mess of the park board than in the thread titled "MINNEAPOLIS PARK AND RECREATION BOARD?"

And yeah, water works is partially exciting, mostly unfunded and makes the stone arch bridge bike connection to DTE more difficult than it needs to be. If the board doesn't get their act together it probably will either never happen or get massively scaled down to something underwhelming just like every other big project lately.

[EOst]

Oh we should move on only after you said your piece and have the last word, right?

Fair enough. I'm just trying not to instigate these (pointless?) debates. But clearly I don't always succeed.

I'd take issue with the assertion it's magically the 'best' park system in the country. That's meaningless boosterism and has zero bearing on the way they conduct themselves now. It's a good park system, but I wouldn't say by any measure it's objectively the 'best in the country.' Even if it were, it certainly won't stay that way under the current direction it's taking.

I don't know. Minneapolis has great destination parks (the Chain of Lakes, Minnehaha, the River, Theo Wirth) and great neighborhood parks, which is something a lot of major cities can't say. Are there problems with maintenance and other things? Sure. But no-one's saying that the parks here are perfect, just that they're better than other places. And by the same token, I bet there isn't a city on Earth where people don't complain about their parks. Almost everyone here is within walking distance of a park, which most cities can't say. Most parks have facilities for recreation and play, which most cities definitely can't say. What is the main criticism of Minneapolis parks? That they don't sufficiently plow their sidewalks? That seems like a pretty petty complaint, on balance.

Where better to discuss the mess of the park board than in the thread titled "MINNEAPOLIS PARK AND RECREATION BOARD?"

100%

And yeah, water works is partially exciting, mostly unfunded and makes the stone arch bridge bike connection to DTE more difficult than it needs to be. If the board doesn't get their act together it probably will either never happen or get massively scaled down to something underwhelming just like every other big project lately.

I doubt it'll be scaled down, unless they fail to make their fundraising goals. This is the biggest destination park for downtown Minneapolis, so it'll be hard to let it go to the wayside.

[LakeCharles]

I'd take issue with the assertion it's magically the 'best' park system in the country. That's meaningless boosterism and has zero bearing on the way they conduct themselves now. It's a good park system, but I wouldn't say by any measure it's objectively the 'best in the country.'

The Trust for Public Land has named Minneapolis the best park system in the country for 3 years running: http://parkscore.tpl.org/rankings.php
You can obviously disagree with them, I have no idea how we compare to DC's park system, but it's not just local boosterism, national entities also agree with the assertion.

Even if it were, it certainly won't stay that way under the current direction it's taking. Where better to discuss the mess of the park board than in the thread titled "MINNEAPOLIS PARK AND RECREATION BOARD?"

That is a reasonable discussion to have, but I think it turns people off when you come at every discussion from the viewpoint of "Minneapolis is the shittiest place in the world for everything, and if you like anything here you are just a dumb booster who is part of the problem."

[MNdible]

I'd argue that if Minneapolis Parks are the best in the nation (you can quibble with the metrics they're using), it's in spite of the recent actions of the Parks Board, not because of them.

[David Greene]

Agree 100%.

Sent from my Z958 using Tapatalk

[trigonalmayhem]

Even if it were, it certainly won't stay that way under the current direction it's taking. Where better to discuss the mess of the park board than in the thread titled "MINNEAPOLIS PARK AND RECREATION BOARD?"

That is a reasonable discussion to have, but I think it turns people off when you come at every discussion from the viewpoint of "Minneapolis is the shittiest place in the world for everything, and if you like anything here you are just a dumb booster who is part of the problem."

Cherry picking a result that says it's the best *is* just boosterism. Something like 'best park' or 'best hot dog' will always be a subjective assessment and treating it like fact is silly to me. I come from a math and science background so calling anything you cannot objectively quantify 'the best' or 'the worst' rubs me the wrong way. At the very least it requires specifying the metric used to determine its status as 'best' or 'worst' before I can take it seriously.

That said, I'm glad we can at least mostly agree that the current park board is destroying what we do have (which I subjectively enjoy, despite not thinking it 'the best') and that they probably needs to be stopped.

[FISHMANPET]

There is no 100% objective measure on most of these things so you're always going to be dissapointed.

How would you rate your apartment in LPM with your previous one, being 100% objective and bringing none of your subjective bias into it? Picking a single metric would reveal bias, based on which metric you chose. Rating various objective factors (rent, average decibel level from noise outside the unit, average response time of management) to create a single metric is also subjective, based on what things you pick and how you rate them.

I also come from a math and science background where there are Truths with a capital T, but one you get actual people involved and what they like and dislike, the best you can hope to come up with is that the individual subjective opinions of a lot of people start to form something that vaguely resembles an objective fact.

[RailBaronYarr]

I'll pile on, I would bet that you could pick any number of metrics, give them different weights across multiple ranking runs, and Minneapolis would come out in the top 5 park system 90% of the time.

We all agree that the parks aren't maintained as well as they should be, and the MPRB has internal management issues. I can guarantee every park department in the country is like that too (hell, they made a very successful show poking fun at the widely-accepted notion that many city departments like parks/rec face these issues). I've been to a lot of cities and seen plenty of shitty benches and unmowed lawn and recreation buildings in disrepair. I follow plenty of pro-bike/walk orgs and people on Twitter from other cold cities and their trail plowing has the same issues as here. So yeah. ?

[MNdible]

I guess my beef is partially on the maintenance side, and I know we live in a climate that's really rough on built stuff.

But my bigger issue is that when I travel to other cities, I see parks where the details are done right. We have impressive parks because some smart people had the foresight to buy key pieces of land for the public good. But the support infrastructure, the improvements, the design, the execution, the hauling the trash, the landscaping, the edging -- all of it seems mailed-in, like the staff from the bottom to the top just aren't performing like the Best Park System in America.

[EOst]

I think most cities have significantly higher operating and capital budgets, especially on a per-park basis. The MPRB manages 137 parks (including park police, something most systems have provided for them by the city) for an operating budget of $52 million, or about $380k per park. Portland (~279 parks, #5 on the list above) has an operating budget of over $127 million, or $455k per park. That extra $70k would buy a lot of shoveling and mowing.

[Sacrelicio]

We can always improve our parks, and I'm all for holding government bodies accountable, AND I agree that park maintenance seems rushed, but I worry about bashing the park board in today's rage-against-all-government political environment.

[David Greene]

That should never be an excuse for not holding people accountable.

[Sacrelicio]

That should never be an excuse for not holding people accountable.

I said I am all for holding people accountable, I just don't think a super negative pile-on is a good way to go in today's political environment.

[RailBaronYarr]

There is a point to be made that the MPRB budget per capita is lower than Bloomington and St Louis Park, and basically on par with Edina, despite having a much larger system and some major regional-serving parks. https://streets.mn/2016/01/03/minneapoli ... -high-why/

One could say that, despite management issues, a little extra $ under the current regime could still net an improvement.

[MNdible]

Couldn't tell from those numbers if that was just municipal spending on the parks? Minneapolis does receive significant regional funds for parks operations (as well they should, since they are heavily used regional amenities).