As the District Council Prepares to Move...

As our organization prepares to move to our new location within SunRay Shopping Center, we are changing the way we will hold our public meetings.

Starting in January 2010, we will be holding our regular board meetings at different locations around the district. In addition, we will spend the first 15-20 minutes of each meeting asking residents of the neighborhoods around the meeting-place to talk about their interests, their concerns, and their dreams for their community. We will also try to focus the main topic of our meeting on matters relevant to the hosting neighborhood.

On January 25, we will be meeting at Merrick Community Center (1526 E. 6th St.) and will discuss neighbors visions for Eastview Park (Park staff will be present).

On February 22, we will be meeting at La Quinta Hotel (1870 Old Hudson Rd.) - topic to be determined...

And during the week of March 22, we will hold our Annual Meeting and an Open House at our new office, 2105 1/2 Old Hudson Rd, in SunRay Shopping Center - details to follow...

We are excited about the changes coming to our organization, and hope you will join us as we visit different neighborhoods in our district to talk about what is on everyone's mind!

We are also looking for people willing to serve on our board, especially people living in the Eastview neighborhood (north of I-94, south of Minnehaha, and west of White Bear Avenue to Birmingham...). So let us know if you want to join us in guiding the council into the next decade.

New School Superintendent Named

Valeria Silva, the current chief academic officer of the St. Paul Public Schools, has been named as the new Superintendent of the public school system. She has been the Director of English Language Learner Programs, and principal at both Adams Spanish Immersion School and Dayton's Bluff Elementary. She began her career as a teacher in St. Paul's public schools.

Her start date as superintendent is still to be negotiated, but it should happen relatively quickly.

Submitted by Office of Community Relations for SPPS

3M Chemicals in the News Again

The Star Tribune has published an article about new research that indicates a correlation between the chemicals that were found in Oakdale's municipal wells and high cholesterol levels in people drinking the tainted water.

The link to the article is here.

A reminder that the suit brought against 3M about the contamination ended with the decision that the chemicals were not harmful. 3M paid for residents of surrounding communities to have carbon filters put on their faucets. They also paid for Oakdale to make arrangements to get clean water from the municipal sources.

Arrangements were not made for Highwood residents with private wells because, although the contamination was headed in our direction, the estimates are that it will affect aquifers not tapped by private wells. If residents are concerned about their private water sources, the recommendation is that you use carbon filters on your faucets.

But we will keep an eye on this situation.

Too many phonebooks??

You do not have to continue receiving all those different phone directories... Here's how to opt out of them:

• Dex - www.dexknows.com, click on "select your Dex", enter your zipcode and click on "Proceed to select your Dex", enter your address and put a zero in the number of books to receive; or call 1-877-243-8339;
• Yellowbook - call 1-800-929-3556;
• Verizon Yellow Pages - 1-800-888-8448.

All these books can be recycled, too, so put your old phone books in your blue recycling bin with your paper and cardboard.

Info from the Star Tribune "Fixit" column...

Proposed Cell Tower at Eastview

The City of St. Paul is proposing to install a 100 ft cell tower at Eastview Park. This new installation will also involve improvements to the floodlights. The project will generate a bit of money for the city, too.

The District Council is holding a meeting on Monday, November 23 at 6:30p at the Conway Rec Center (2090 Conway) to hear from the city about the project and to take comments from neighbors.

Please join us if you can, or send your comments to district1council@aol.com.

St Paul Schools Superintendent Search

First a note, in case you didn't hear... Tom Goldstein retired early from the school board to allow newly elected Jean O'Connell to participate in the selection of the new superintendent... a class act all the way around!!

Then, the finalists have been chosen and interviews with the candidates are open to the public, although the public will not actually be participating. For more information about the interview process, which takes place starting next week - November 16-19, check out the St Paul Public School website.

The Problem of Hunger

There is an article in the 11/12/09 Minneapolis Star Tribune about hunger in Minnesota and how Second Harvest Heartland is dealing with the situation. Check it out at Star Tribune.

The thing to keep in mind about this article is that 1 in 10 people in Minnesota suffers from hunger - that is, skips meals because of lack of food, worries about where their next meal is coming from, has their health endangered because of lack of proper nutrition. This is something that should not be tolerated in a country that produces so much food...

This problem is also why the district council is interested in starting another community garden in our area - specifically north of I-94. The meeting on November 18 is a starting place to plan for this garden (see this blog for specific information about the meeting), but another meeting will be planned for early in December. All around the city, neighborhoods are setting up community gardens, and looking for other ways to assure that their residents have healthy foods available. And every community garden makes donations of excess produce to local food shelves - our own Totem Town Community Garden donated almost 500 lbs of produce this year alone.

If you are able, consider making donations to local food shelves - what they most need is cash to purchase items that are not donated seasonally and to make sure that healthy foods are available. You can contact Merrick Community Services to donate to the two eastside food shelves they run - call 651.771.8821 to find out how.

Water Quality of the Mississippi

A lot of times people ask the district council why we are so concerned about what happens to the land above the Mississippi River - the Highwood Hills area with its bluffs and tree cover.

Well, perhaps you didn't know, but the Mississippi River is a major source of drinking water for several cities along its banks, including St. Paul. In addition, we have residents in Highwood who have private wells, some of them quite shallow. In order to assure that ALL of us have safe drinking water, we need to make sure that the water in the river and below the surface is as clean as possible. (Remember the water cycle from grade school??)

The Friends of the Mississippi River have a short article with links that explains how the river provides drinking water - and an upcoming event. Check this out at this link - Drink the River.

Visit the On-line Auction!

District 1 Community Council has an on-line auction underway with some very interesting items.

The auction is a new effort to raise money to support our work in the community.

You can visit the auction at this link - D1 Auction.