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Columbia Park Neighborhood News
March 2014
Columbia Park Neighborhood Association Meetings are open to the public, and are held on the third Monday of the month at Columbia Manor 3300 Central Ave. NE, beginning at 6:30 p.m.Future meeting dates:March 17thApril 21th May 19th June 16th
[email protected] Facebook page
City of Minneapolis 311 — Non-emergency calls
City Council member Kevin Reich 612-673-2201 [email protected]
Park Board Commissioner Liz Wielinski 612-230-6443, Ext 1 [email protected]
County Commissioner Linda Higgins 612-348-7882 [email protected]
East Side Neighborhood Services 612-781-6011Northeast Citizen Patrol 612-788-3544 (Duane Van Vickle). Meets every other Wednesday at 7:00 p.m. (May-October) at corner of 37th Ave. and 5th St.
The Gateway Community Gardens at 37th Ave NE and University Ave. have been around for nearly 20 years!Our registration and plot assignment meeting is on Wednesday, March 26 at 7 PM at the Columbia Park Manor, 3300 Central Ave NE. Property own-ers, renters, and business owners and employees within the boundaries of the Columbia Park Neighborhood are given first choice for a plot. A lottery will be held if we have more garden-ers than plots. We will also discuss rules for for water supply access and overall use of the site. The registration process is in March so cold weather plants can be plant-ed as soon as possible. Please note that our garden site is very wet at first thaw, as the water flows downhill to the plant-covered wetland beyond.There’s a limit of one plot per house-hold. If plots are still available at the end of April, additional plots may be offered. The rental for a plot is $20 for
the season. A $20 deposit is required, returned at the end of the season when plots are left properly cleared.Make checks out to CPNA for $40. Although cash is accepted, checks are preferred.
Soooo looking forward to gardening and getting my hands in soil instead of wrapped around a snow shovel! Welcome back to all the gardeners who reserved their plot last year. To register or get more info, please contact Sue Bembenek at:612-788-8274 Phone calls are preferred. [email protected]
Photo by Sue Bembenek
Gateway Gardens 2014
Columbia Park Earth Day — Saturday, April 26Join us on Saturday, April 26 for the annual Minneapolis Earth Day Clean Up at Columbia Parkway & 35th Ave. NE (playground parking lot) between 9:30 am and noon and check-in at the registration table. It’s easy to get involved, no pre-registration required. Bring a food item or beverage to share.A site coordinator will provide you with gloves and bags, instruct you where to go, and where to leave the collected trash. Contact Jane McCarney at [email protected] with any Earth Day questions.The goal of Earth Day is to provide a volunteer experience and environmental education to Minneapolis residents and park users.
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Alley Cat GardenThe Alley Cat Garden, located between the 3600 blocks of Architect and Van Buren Street in Columbia Park, has a few plots still available.Alley Cat is much smaller than Gateway Gardens. One of the plots is maintained by Girl Scouts from Troop 13533, where they grow food for their families and donate extra produce to the Little
Kitchen Food Shelf. This photo is from early summer plot planting. You can see how dirty the girls got! Photo tak-en by troop leader Vanessa Crohn.
Contact Jolana Bernhard for more information at [email protected] Rain Garden ProjectMany of our neighbors expressed interest in the Columbia Park Neighborhood Association’s Rain Garden project! Rain gardens will help us beautify our homes and keep the lakes and rivers cleaner by preventing runoff. We will be building ten rain gardens with the help of experienced staff at Metro Blooms next Fall.Neighbors chosen by lottery for those ten spots will receive a confirming e-mail. Because we had more interest than available slots, we plan to do this again in 2015. Lottery runners-up from this year will be given first consideration next Spring. Meanwhile, expect to see rain garden installations happening over a four-day period this September around the neighborhood! – Darielle Dannen
University Ave. Landscaping UpdatePlanning is ongoing for ordering materials, sched-uling site prep, and recruiting about 13 volunteers for planting and spreading wood chips. Watch the CPNA web page for further details.
New Crosstown NE Bus RouteBeginning Monday, March 10, Metro Transit will begin operating Route 30, a crosstown route operating primarily on Broadway. The route will go from the Golden Valley/North Minneapolis border at Xerxes east along Golden Valley Road and West Broadway, cross the Broadway bridge, then through Northeast along Broadway St., with a deviation to 18th Avenue between Johnson and Stinson, serving Quarry Center. The route will then travel the NE Industrial area before taking Hwy 280 to another industrial area just east of 280 on University Ave in St. Paul, ending near a Green Line light rail station opening in June. Service will operate from 5:30am to midnight Monday through Friday, except holidays. PDF of schedule here: http://tinyurl.com/k2cenzj Northtown Bridge Update Construction is expected to start next fall or early 2015 on the new bridge, which has a $30 million project cost, all but $1 million of it funded. It will be wider than the current span, and the project will include upgrading two nearby streets.Construction will start Fall 2014 and road clo-sures will go from Spring 2015 until Spring 2016, strongly affecting drivers and bus riders, as both the bridge and the east and west bridge approach-es will be closed. The detour for Route 11 buses is currently still being studied.The city has been working since the late 1980s to replace the fracture-critical 1925 bridge that scores only two points on a bridge evaluation index of 100 possible. That’s the worst rating in Hennepin County. It also has weight restrictions, and even the sidewalk that serves adjoining Park Board bike and walking paths has been restricted.The project is complicated by crossing a railyard of 24 tracks, and the railroad’s request that it be limited to two piers, according to Public Works staff. One of the three spans will be a 305-foot truss that visually echoes the five-truss design that makes the old bridge distinctive.
photo by Peter Doughty
Webmaster NeededThe CPNA is looking for a new webmaster. This is a part-time paid position maintaining the page’s domain hosting and registration and regularly updating the content. Please contact Liz Wielinski at 612-788-5688.
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Home Improvement Loans Minneapolis offers amortizing loans at 1 percent interest for home repairs. The maximum term is 20 years and the maximum loan is $25,000. Qualifying income is 80 per-cent of the median income for the metropolitan area. This loan can only be used to com-plete code repairs.Greater Metropolitan Housing Corporation 612-588-3033 http://www.gmhchousing.org/ MN Homeownership CenterWe provide assistance in all aspects of homeownership and foreclosure prevention, offering extensive home help services in Minnesota, includ-ing first-time home buyer as-sistance, foreclosure process assistance, and home mort-gage assistance. Contact:651-659-9336 http://www.hocmn.org/
Announcements
The location of the bridge on the Grand Rounds parkway system and over the rail yard, both con-sidered eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places, complicated the design process. There were lengthy consultations with federal and state agencies, providing about half of the project’s funding, and a series of community meetings. The parkway nearby carries several thousand vehicles per day. The new bridge will have a 14-foot
traffic lane in each direction, a 14-foot trail space on the south side, and a 10-foot sidewalk on the north side. The project also includes realign-ment where California and Main Streets SE connect with the bridge approaches to improve vis-ibility for drivers. Both streets are to be rebuilt, with California going from an oiled-dirt road without curb or gutter to a modern street.
— Star Tribune, 2/24/2014
Paint-A-Thon Each year, on the first weekend in August, Metro Paint-A-Thon rallies volunteer teams from corporations, congregations, and civic groups to paint the homes of seniors and people with disabilities.Paint-A-Thon welcomes refer-rals and accepts applications from all eligible homeowners. To be considered, completed applications must be received by mid-April. Selected home-owners are notified by mail in early July of each year.To qualify, the applicant must be over the age of 60 or have a permanent physical disability, own and occupy a single-fam-ily home in Anoka, Carver, Dakota, Hennepin, Ramsey, Scott or Washington county, that needs the exterior paint-ed, but does not need major repairs. To apply contact:www.paintathon.gmcc.org Molly Chandler 612-276-1579
HOME Line ServicesHOME Line provides free legal, organizing, educational and advocacy services for tenants throughout Minnesota. For 22 years, HOME Line has provided Minnesota renters with legal information regarding their rights. Staffed by lawyers, law students, and community volunteers, the tenant hotline has prevented over 11,700 evictions and saved renters over 21 million dollars in returned damage deposits and rent abatements. All calls are free and all infor-mation is kept confidential. Beginning April 1, 2014, if you are a tenant in Minneapolis, you can receive free legal advice by contacting:http://tinyurl.com/nhh7evv 612-728-5767.
bridge rendering provided by Minneapolis Public Works Department
Columbia Park Neighborhood Association board:Jane McCarney, co-chair Darielle Dannen, co-chair Irro Mohamed, treasurer Matthew Stellphlug Jeff Schalles, CPNA newsletter & Facebook page
Liz Wielinski, bookkeeper and staff 612-788-5688Special thanks to those who help make this newsletter possible, especially Do-good.biz for printing and mailing. To get current Columbia Park information visit:http://columbiapark.org https://facebook.com/ColumbiaPark NeighborhoodAssociation
The opinions expressed here do not necessarily reflect the views of all members of the Columbia Park Neighborhood Association (CPNA).
Let your ideas and concerns be heard! Contact the editors, Jeff Schalles & Jane McCarney, c/o CPNA, P.O. Box 21593, Columbia Heights, MN 55421 or via our webpage, Facebook page, or email: [email protected]
Columbia Park Neighborhood Association
CPNA, P.O. Box 21593, Columbia Heights, MN 55421 columbiapark.org
PRSRT STDUS POSTAGE PAIDTWIN CITIES MNPERMIT 30308
Northeast Crime MapThe Columbia Park neighborhood crime maps through January 27, 2014, are now posted at the Minneapolis Police Department’s 2nd Precinct webpage: http://tinyurl.com/k55wudb
Minneapolis Police Department, 2nd Precinct 1911 Central Ave. N.E.Katherine Waite, Inspector (612) 673-5702 Minneapolis, MN 55418 Susan Webb, Crime Prevention Specialist (612) 673-2874 [email protected]
Columbia Park Neighborhood Association now on Facebook!In addition to the CPNA’s web page and email addresses, we now have our own
Facebook page. We welcome your thoughts and photos about our neighborhood. Updates on local matters will cross-post to both the web and FB pages, and you can also message the neighborhood association through the FB page.
