Star Tribune
Three Rivers Park Board supports plan to keep programming, expand partnerships and funding at Silverwood Park
Thursday night’s Three Rivers Park Board meeting discussing the future of Silverwood Park wasn’t the kind of local government meeting you hear about that often.
Neighbors and fans of Silverwood Park from around the metro packed the park district’s small boardroom until it was standing room-only, and filled two overflow rooms. More than 30 people got up to speak, all of them telling commissioners how Silverwood Park has been important in their lives, their friends’ lives or their children’s. Some became emotional in the process.
One of the speakers, Colin Silver, of Northeast Minneapolis, recalled numerous trips to Silverwood, which is located in St. Anthony Village.
“I have brought my two sons for Nerf war birthday parties and I have had friends visit from both coasts and I’ve always said, ‘Check out this incredible place that we have that is so nearby,'” he said. “I have done walks with my father, who’s 80, and I have done walks with friends in recovery and we have had incredible experiences in this place.”
In the end, everyone seemed to agree that Silverwood and its programming are worth preserving, and even expanding so more people can enjoy it.
This discussion about Silverwood’s future began in the fall, at a Three Rivers meeting where some commissioners expressed concern that Hennepin County taxpayers largely fund a park that isn’t in their county and that data suggest they don’t heavily use. In the last decade or so, commissioners have debated where to spend park money as tax dollars have become harder to come by.
Three Rivers Park District’s tax base is suburban Hennepin County, where it gets 79% of its operating budget. But Silverwood Park, which the district opened in 2009, is located in Ramsey County. The park is unique, Three Rivers Superintendent Boe Carlson said, in its dedication to arts and arts programming. Silverwood features sculptures, an art gallery and hundreds of programs that focus on art and nature each year.
A study found 45% of visits to Silverwood are made by Ramsey County residents, compared to 22% from Anoka, 15% from Minneapolis and 12% from suburban Hennepin County. Forty-five percent of participants in Silverwood’s on-site programs live in suburban Hennepin County.
In October, commissioners directed Three Rivers staff to develop recommendations for the park, given comparatively low visitorship from suburban Hennepin County.
Those recommendations, presented Thursday, included focusing more of Silverwood’s off-site programs on suburban Hennepin County, better publicizing Silverwood events and programs in suburban Hennepin County, developing more partnerships with surrounding local governments, potentially increasing revenue from renting facilities and advocating for more outside funding from the park. This year, Three Rivers began giving priority registration for summer camps to residents of suburban Hennepin County and Scott County, with which it partners.
Erin Kolb, one of the commissioners who had expressed concern about the burden on Hennepin County taxpayers in October, said she left that discussion hoping to see the park’s partnerships expand and said Thursday she felt optimistic, given the overwhelming community support, that could happen.
Board members said they received hundreds of written comments from community members, too. Kolb thanked community members for their enthusiasm. “It’s left me confident that we’d be able to continue existing levels of servicing and also, using these staff recommendations to expand and share that love and that impact to you to our other Three Rivers areas,” she said.
Concluding the discussion, Board Chair John Gibbs said he sensed genuine support for staff recommendations.
“It was a clear … opportunity that’s been surfaced that we can get contributions from others because this particular park is so well-loved,” he said. “Clearly there are opportunities to address the funding, opportunities to not just support this park but have it thrive.”
Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan and her daughter were among the throngs Friday as President Joe Biden delivered the apology that many Indigenous Americans thought would never come.
“I think he really said the things that people have been waiting to hear for generations, acknowledged just the horror and trauma of literally having our children stolen from our communities,” said Flanagan, a member of the White Earth Band of Ojibwe. “It’s a powerful first step towards healing.”
Hundreds of boarding schools operated in the 19th and 20th centuries, separating Indigenous children from their families and forcing them to assimilate to European ways. Many children were abused, and at least 973 died, according to a report from the U.S. Department of the Interior.
Other Minnesotans reacted similarly to Flanagan, saying they welcomed the apology but that additional action is needed to help Indigenous people move forward.
Anton Treuer, a professor of Ojibwe at Bemidji State University, wrote in a newsletter that the apology was “a welcome first step on the journey to healing.”
“There is no way to truly right historical injustices for the children buried at Carlisle, Haskell, and other schools, but these words set a new tone for the country and will help heal the anguish so many Natives have carried for so long,” Treuer wrote. “It gives me hope that we can come together to reconcile and heal our troubled nation.”
Sen. Mary Kunesh, DFL-New Brighton, the first Indigenous woman to serve in the state Senate, called Biden’s apology encouraging.
“This recognition of past wrongdoings is an important step towards healing relationships between the United States and the sovereign nations affected by these past systems,” Kunesh said in a statement. “This dark period of American history must be remembered and taught.”
“I have done everything in my power to remedy this situation, and it continues to get more and more violent by the day,” Moturi wrote. “There have been numerous times when I’ve seen Sawchak outside and contacted law enforcement, and there was no response. I am not confident in the pursuit of Sawchak given that Sawchak attacked me, MPD officers had John detained, and despite an HRO and multiple warrants — they still let him go.”
On Friday, five City Council members sent a letter to Mayor Jacob Frey and Police Chief Brian O’Hara expressing their “utter horror at MPD’s failure to protect a Minneapolis resident from a clear, persistent and amply reported threat posed by his neighbor.”
Council Members Andrea Jenkins, Elliott Payne, Aisha Chughtai, Jason Chavez and Robin Wonsley went on to allege that police had failed to submit reports to the County Attorney’s Office despite threats being made with weapons, and at times while Sawchak screamed racial slurs. Sawchak is white and Moturi is Black.
The council members also contend in their letter that the MPD told the County Attorney’s Office that police did not intend to execute the warrant for “reasons of officer safety.”
At a Friday afternoon news conference at MPD’s Fifth Precinct, O’Hara said police had been working to arrest Sawchak since at least April, but “no Minneapolis police officers have had in-person contact with that suspect since the victim in this case has been calling us.” The chief pointed out that Sawchak is mentally ill, has guns and refuses to cooperate “in the dozens of times that police officers have responded to the residence.”
O’Hara put aside the option to carry out “a high-risk warrant based on these factors [and] the likelihood of an armed, violent confrontation where we may have to use deadly force with the suspect.” The preference, he said, was to arrest Sawchak outside his home, but “in this case, this suspect is a recluse and does not come out of the house.”
ROCHESTER – The Federal Transit Administration has green-lighted an $85 million grant supporting the development of the city’s planned Link Bus Rapid Transit system.
The FTA formally announced the grant on Friday during a ceremonial check presentation outside of the Mayo Civic Center, one of the seven stops planned for the bus line. The federal grant will cover about 60% of the project’s estimated $143.4 million price tag, with the remaining funds coming from Destination Medical Center, the largest public-private development project in state history.
Set to go live in 2026, the 2.8-mile Link system will connect downtown Rochester, including Mayo Clinic’s campuses, with a proposed “transit village” that will include parking, hundreds of housing units and a public plaza. The bus line will be the first of its kind outside the Twin Cities — with service running every five minutes during peak hours.
“That means you may not even need to look at a schedule,” said Veronica Vanterpool, deputy administrator for the FTA. “You can just show up at your transit stop and expect the next bus to come in a short time. That is a game changer and a life-transformational experience in transit for those people who are using it and relying on it.”
The planned Second Street corridor is already one of the busiest roads in Rochester, carrying more than 21,800 vehicles a day, and city planners have talked for years about ways to reduce traffic congestion in the city’s downtown. Local officials estimate that the transit line, which will rely on a fleet of all-electric buses, will handle 11,000 riders on its first day of operation and save eight city blocks of parking.
Speaking to a crowd of about 100 people gathered on Friday, Sen. Amy Klobuchar said the project shows Rochester is thinking strategically about how it handles growth.
“If you just plan the business expansion, and you don’t have the workforce, you don’t have the child care, the housing or the transit, it’s not going to work very well as a lot of communities across the nation have found,” Klobuchar said.
