Star Tribune
Three Rivers Park District board discusses offloading or moving Silverwood Park programming
Silverwood Park, on the shores Silver Lake in St. Anthony, features trails, an art gallery, sculpture installations and roughly 600 programs and events a year.
Most of the people who bask in its beauty are from Ramsey and Anoka Counties, data show.
So why should suburban Hennepin County residents continue to pay for it?
The Three Rivers Park Board, which owns and manages the park — and gets its tax funding largely from suburban Hennepin County communities — is debating the question.
Superintendent Boe Carlson said that as a regional park agency, Three Rivers owns properties located throughout the seven-county metro. But the board has debated where to spend park money over the last decade-or-so, as tax dollars have gotten harder to come by.
“It has been a challenge that the board has brought to us as staff to say you know, we want to look at how we’re allocating resources and really have a better idea of where we want to program,” Carlson said.
Silverwood, located in Ramsey County near the border of Hennepin, gets 45% of visits from Ramsey County residents, 22% from Anoka, 15% from Minneapolis and 12% from suburban Hennepin County, according to a Three Rivers visitor study. The study did not break down program participation by county of residence.
Three Rivers Park District, established by the Legislature in 1957, is supposed to “acquire, develop and maintain large park reserves and regional parks and trails for the citizens of suburban Hennepin County, the metro area and the State,” according to the park website. It purchased a former Salvation Army summer camp and opened Silverwood in 2009.
At an Oct. 19 meeting, several park board members pointed out that Hennepin County taxpayers are largely footing the bill for a park that few of them use.
Erin Kolb, elected to the Three Rivers Board in 2022 to represent the area including St. Anthony, said when she was on the city of Crystal parks board, said she often heard Three Rivers didn’t do enough in Hennepin County’s first-ring suburbs. With French Park in Plymouth and Elm Creek in Maple Grove, some suburban Hennepin County residents have the impression, she said, that Three Rivers caters to wealthier, white residents of the county.
Silverwood is “a lovely park that has fantastic, art-centered programming, and it should exist in the world,” Kolb said in an interview. “Really, the hyper-focused question is ‘should suburban Hennepin County residents pay for it?’ “
Other commissioners agreed.
“It really is outside our mission. As you look at the visitation that comes from our district, which is our primary area, it’s the lowest-visitation park we have from within our area,” Commissioner Marge Beard said.
But the agreement wasn’t unanimous. “Silverwood is the seventh most visited park in 2022 and to consider a ramp down is tough for me,” Commissioner Jesse Winkler said. He argued people don’t choose which park to visit based on which county it’s in, but rather based on parks’ features.
The Board decided to ask staff to prepare a report that explores options, and listed a range they’d like to see included, from doing nothing, a gradual redistribution of programs to other Three Rivers parks, getting Ramsey County or another party to subsidize the programs and potentially trying to get Ramsey County to buy the park. The board will discuss the options at a future meeting.
Ramsey County spokesperson Eve Onduru said in an email that Ramsey County hasn’t been approached about Silverwood Park and didn’t have additional information to provide.
Anna Sharratt said she is concerned that moving programming away from Silverwood would remove an access point to nature for many people who depend on it. Sharratt is the founder of the Free Forest School, which used to meet weekly at Silverwood Park.
She said she has long admired the range of programs staff have put on or been involved with, including Hiking Hijabie, a group of Muslim women and their kids getting outdoors, as well as programs for people with developmental disabilities.
“It’s not only a wonderful physical space, but they’re doing the work to connect members of our community who might otherwise face barriers to access,” Sharratt said.
Carlson said no decisions have been made.
“I realize Silverwood is a little unique because it is such a unique programming component [with] the artistic bend of it or twist of is different than what we do in other locations,” he said. “But this is one of those ongoing conversations we had with have with the board on how we’re going to go about providing programmatic services.”
Northern State 35, Concordia (St. Paul) 34: Wyatt Block’s 2-yard TD run and the PAT with 10 seconds remaining lifted the Wolves past the host Golden Bears. Block’s touchdown capped an 11-play, 72-yard drive by the Wolves, who trailed 24-7 in the second quarter. Jeff Isotalo-McGuire’s 34-yard field goal with three minutes, 32 seconds remaining gave the Golden Bears a 34-28 lead.
Winona State 31, Bemidji State 28: Cade Stenstrom rushed for two TDs and passed for 150 yards and a TD to help the host Warriors outlast the Beavers. Stenstrom’s 1-yard TD run and the PAT with two minutes, 10 seconds remaining gave the Warriors a 31-21 lead. The Beavers responded with an 11-play, 93-yard drive to pull within 31-28 with 18 seconds remaining but the Warriors recovered the ensuing kickoff.
Div. I-AA
North Dakota State 59, Murray State 6: The top-ranked Bison built a 42-3 lead in the first half and went on to defeat the host Racers in Murray, Ken. CharMar Brown ran for 97 yards and three TDs for the Bison.
South Dakota State 20, South Dakota 17 (OT): Amar Johnson’s 3-yard TD run in overtime lifted the host Jackrabbits to the victory. The Coyotes opened the OT with a 40-yard field goal.
Youngstown State 41, North Dakota 40 (OT): The host Penguins went first in OT and scored and then stopped North Dakota’s two-point conversion to hold on for the victory. The Penguins sent the game into OT on a 35-yard field goal with 12 seconds remaining.
Div. III
Augsburg 35, St. Olaf 34 (OT): The host Auggies stopped a two-point conversion in overtime to outlast the Oles. The Auggies went first in the overtime and scored on a 25-yard pass from Ryan Harvey to Tyrone Wilson. It was Harvey’s fifth TD pass — the fourth to Wilson. After the Auggies’ PAT, the Oles scored on a 25-yard TD pass from Theo Doran to Braden Menz. But the Oles’ pass attempt for the conversion failed.
After splitting their two-game West Coast trip to begin the season, the Wolves improved to 2-1 with a 112-101 win over Toronto in their home opener. It was a wire-to-wire win that featured some strong bursts of play from the Wolves and other times when their decision-making was suspect. But those moments when they were on, specifically the start of the game and most of the third quarter, were enough to carry them against a shorthanded Raptors team that was without RJ Barrett, Bruce Brown and Immanuel Quickley.
Julius Randle had 24 points while Anthony Edwards had 24 on 21 shot attempts. Donte DiVincenzo had 16 off the bench. Nickeil Alexander-Walker left the game in the fourth quarter and did not return, though he was in the bench area for the final minutes after going to the locker room briefly.
The Wolves’ starting lineup had its best stretch of basketball on the season after that unit started off sluggish in the first two games. Mike Conley, who was 3-for-16 to open the year, hit two early threes to set the tone, though Conley would finish 2-for-8.
Donte DiVincenzo replaced him at point guard halfway through the quarter and continued the hot shooting from the point guard slot with three threes of his own. The Wolves forced five Toronto turnovers and had a 32-18 lead after one.
Coach Chris Finch toyed with some different lineup combinations in the first half as he had Conley and DiVincenzo begin the quarter together while having Joe Ingles run the point later in the quarter. It led to an uneven second, and the Wolves led 56-44 at halftime.
But the Wolves played inspired coming out of the break. Jaden McDaniels, who didn’t take a shot in the first half, had nine points in the opening minutes of the third. Edwards hit a pair of threes as they pushed their lead to 22. The Wolves weren’t sharp closing the night, and the Raptors had the game within right inside of two minutes, but the Wolves had built enough of a cushion.
Rudy Gobert. Gobert had 15 points and 13 rebounds and was the beneficiary of some lobs from his teammates like Edwards, Conley, Nickeil Alexander-Walker and Joe Ingles. Gobert also finished with four blocks.
Gobert had two blocks on one possession in the fourth quarter that got the crowd off its feet and Gobert pounding his chest. Gobert blocked D.J. Carton and Jamison Battle.
Star Tribune
Trump denigrates Detroit while appealing for votes in a suburb of Michigan’s largest city
NOVI, Mich. — Donald Trump further denigrated Detroit while appealing for votes Saturday in a suburb of the largest city in swing state Michigan.
”I think Detroit and some of our areas makes us a developing nation,” the former president told supporters in Novi. He said people want him to say Detroit is ”great,” but he thinks it ”needs help.”
The Republican nominee for the White House had told an economic group in Detroit earlier this month that the ”whole country will end up being like Detroit” if Democrat Kamala Harris wins the presidency. That comment drew harsh criticism from Democrats who praised the city for its recent drop in crime and growing population.
Trump’s stop in Novi, after an event Friday night in Traverse City, is a sign of Michigan’s importance in the tight race. Harris is scheduled for a rally in Kalamazoo later Saturday with former first lady Michelle Obama on the first day that early in-person voting becomes available across Michigan. More than 1.4 million ballots have already been submitted, representing 20% of registered voters. Trump won the state in 2016, but Democrat Joe Biden carried it four years later.
Michigan is home to major car companies and the nation’s largest concentration of members of the United Auto Workers. It also has a significant Arab American population, and many have been frustrated by the Biden administration’s support for Israel’s offensive in Gaza after the attack by Hamas against Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
During his rally, Trump spotlighted local Muslim and Arab American leaders who joined him on stage. These voters ”could turn the election one way or the other,” Trump said, adding that he was banking on ”overwhelming support” from those voters in Michigan.
“When President Trump was president, it was peace,” said one of those leaders, Mayor Bill Bazzi of Dearborn Heights. ”We didn’t have any issues. There was no wars.”
While Trump is trying to capitalize on the community’s frustration with the Democratic administration, he has a history of policies hostile to this group, including a travel ban targeting Muslim countries while in office and a pledge to expand it to include refugees from Gaza if he wins on Nov. 5.
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