Fall Reminders

First, a reminder that the city has started its fall street sweeping that will go through the middle to late November. Please remember that it is illegal to sweep leaves into the street. Getting up the leaves in the street is a very costly job for the Public Works Department AND having all that organic matter in the streets adds tremendous amounts of phosphorus to the river and lakes. All that phosphorus encourages algae to grow, which will quickly kill off our surface waters. DON'T DO IT!! You can take all your leaves to the free county compost site off Londin Lane, near Afton View Apartments. You are paying already for the compost site to be there - why pay again for the massive clean up by Public Works?? Especially when city budgets are already strained?

Second reminder - backyard burning of leaves (and trash) is illegal in the city. This is another hazard to our public health. Composting is a much better solution - and avoids all kinds of pollution.

That is today's poem...

Comment on Parks Plan

In November, the St. Paul Parks and Rec Dept. is hosting a series of open houses to get people's reactions to their draft system plan. The open houses run from 7-9p and one is at the following location on the eastside:

November 8 at Phalen Rec Center, 1000 E. Wheelock Parkway


Other meetings will be on Nov 3 at 1978 Ford Parkway, Nov 9 at 179 Robie, Nov 15 at 270 Lexington Parkway, and Nov 18 at 1414 N. St. Albans.

The city is proposing to close many of its existing recreation centers and develop key multi-use centers throughout the city. The proposal relies on a model that is similar to how suburbs run their parks and is being proposed to save significant amounts of money on maintenance of many older facilities.

If you have comments or questions, go to the open houses and speak your mind...

More CleanUp News

enter the Clean-up

demolition debris is always part of the Clean-up

The bicycle recyclers

D1 residents brought 3 walkers and 3 sets of crutches to the clean-up. These items were taken to GoodWill where they will be refurbished and added to the Easter Seals equipment loan cupboard. Residents can always bring health care items such as these to any GoodWill drop off site. The equipment loan office is in St. Paul at Fairview and Charles (just off University Ave.).

Submitted by Kris Gjerde, resident and former D1 Board chair.

Paying for College

There will be free family scholarship information meetings on the eastside over the next two months. The first is the Gates Page Scholarship Night (focusing on students of color) on October 21 from 5-7:30p at Metro State University, 700 E. 7th St. The second is the Hmong Family Scholarship Information night on November 30 from 5 - 8:30p at the Eastside YMCA, 875 Arcade St. An Immigrant Family information night will be held on November 16 5-8:30p on the westside at Neighborhood House, 179 Robie St.

Although these meetings are set up to encourage students of color to think about how they might finance college, they are open to all families with children of all ages.

Judicial Candidate Debate

The candidates for the 2nd District will be debating on Monday, October 18 from 7-8:30p at the Hamline University Law School room 105. This site is located one block east of Snelling and one block south of Hewitt. Take the I94 west from District 1 to the Snelling exit, go north to Hewitt (last light before the bridge over the tracks near the fairgrounds) and turn right.

This event is co-sponsored by the League of Women Voters and the Ramsey County Bar Association.

D1 Clean Up cleans up...

the Bridging volunteers

cars lined up to unload

the reuse center 

The District 1 Community Clean Up took place at the Slumberland Clearance parking lot on Saturday October 9. We had a beautiful day and a lot of wonderful volunteers helping out. Preliminary numbers indicate that we had more people dropping stuff off this year and we helped out 40 seniors to bring their stuff to the event.

In addition, we filled up the truck that Bridging brought with furniture, bedding and household goods that can be used by families in transition. We had lots of bicycles that were worked on and refurbished to be donated to people working with victims of torture. We had community garden, physical therapy, Books for Africa, and animal rescue organizations receiving donated goods. And our reuse center saw an incredible amount of stuff get picked up by residents - children's toys, glassware, sports equipment, household goods, entertainment equipment.

Little Oven, Brueggers, and Cub Foods were our sources for food for the volunteers, and Slumberland, Culvers, and Perkins made donations of coupons for visitors and volunteers.

Special thanks go to Pete Emeott for his heroic efforts organizing the 3 crews (4 or 5 trucks) that went to seniors' homes and transported their stuff to the clean up site. This was a record number of elders in the neighborhood that we could help out. These crews deserve a big round of applause!!

Thanks to everyone who participated!

Totem Town Community Garden Needs New Leadership

Totem Town Community Garden is looking for some help with the administration of the garden for 2011. The garden is financially sound, and all garden plots have been occupied for the last three years. After the passing of John McDermott, who for many years ran the garden by himself, we need to find some one (or multiple people) who can help in the day to day operations of the garden.

The garden members are meeting at Conway Rec Center (2090 Conway St.) on Monday, October 18 at 6p to discuss the garden's future. There will be several gardeners who will not be returning next year, so we have an opportunity to open those plots to new gardeners interested in helping out.

If anyone wants an overview of the garden and to discuss the challenges facing the garden next year, they can contact Joe Reiter at JoeBarbCo@aol.com or by phone at 651.738.8865.

Submittted by Joe Reiter of the Totem Town Community Garden

Community Journalism

The district councils and the City are jointly sponsoring workshops on community-based journalism. There was one held on October 2 with a discussion by various media outlets on how to get stories of the community into the "press". A link to the video of the discussion is here.

There will be a second session on November 6. If you are interested in attending from our area, let us know and we will get you signed up (district 1 Council). You must register beforehand.

Platting changes proposed for Highwood

The owner at 589 Burlington is proposing to replat his very large lot into 7 lots of varying sizes. This proposal is not yet scheduled for review by the city, but if you are interested in seeing the proposal, we have the proposed plats in our office.

We will take comments from residents about this proposal by phone, email, or in person.