Annual Fall Festival at St Pascals

Saint Pascal Baylon's annual fall festival is Sunday, September 27 from noon to 5p. Join the family

fun with children's games, a spaghetti dinner, tacos, beer and wine, bingo, raffles, a boutique and football! This is taking place at the church at 3rd Street and White Bear Avenue. For more information call 651-774-1585.

Community Gathering - Meet your Neighbors!! 9/19

East African Community Link and the Lower Afton/South East Ramsey County community are holding a neighborhood gathering on Saturday, September 19 from 4-9p at Highwood Hills Elementary School, 2188 Londin Lane, St. Paul, 55119.

This is the second annual "Meet your neighbors Gathering" and their will be free food, fun activities, and artifacts from Africa and Sweden.

Food and space is donated by Saint Paul Public Schools and neighborhood businesses.

Notes from Steering Committee of the Dialogue to Action project

In attendance – Lisa (D2), Christine (D3), Leslie (D5), Chia, Betsy (D1)

The agenda for this meeting was approved and there was a review of notes from June and July by those members who had been absent, with time for any questions or clarifications about the notes.

Status of the work: Chia had spent some time looking for Parks curriculum because Everyday Democracy is no longer advising us closely as they have been. She found a set that had been based on Everday Democracy’s work on the website for the Parks and Recreation National Association. Steering committee members present in July worked on localizing it to our area. In addition, 4 Community Action Team members came together to work on a different curriculum that de-emphasized using a racial equity lens. The Steering Committee decided to take the second curriculum and use it as comments to tweak the original curriculum to assure that these dialogues continue to focus on how our racial and social positioning effects how we interact with city services. The purpose of these dialogues is to create a safe forum for open and honest conversations about racial equity in our city.

We reviewed the August timeline – It is time for Steering Committee members to send their second invoice to the D1 office. We are getting ready to train facilitators on Saturday August 29. We need to assure that we have at least 3 facilitators per group if the groups are going to be large (i.e. 25 or so). CHIA will create a flyer to recruit for both dialogues that can be distributed to potential recruiting partners. Both sets of community dialogues will be done before Thanksgiving. Locations are now set (Police/Youth at Wellstone Center, and Parks at Arlington Hills). We will look at fall events prior to the Parks dialogues starting on October 19 to see if there will be continuing opportunities to recruit. Our police partners are recruiting both police members and reaching out to local faith organizations for potential participants. We need a concentrated push to recruit.

Review of the budget: To date, most of our expenses have been in staff time. Most additional funds are set to be expended when the actual dialogues are taking place. We had a lengthy discussion on how to award stipends for facilitators, given that the PED event has a separate planning group. This PED dialogue could be a large group. District Council staff members will facilitate the PED dialogues. WSCO had a staff member on the planning group for the PED discussions, WSCO will look who it can send as an alternate to that group. The budget line for participant stipends led to lengthy discussion given that we are looking at more participants now than when the proposal was developed – two times as many… The emphasis will be on using these funds to minimize impediments to people’s participation. 

LISA (with help from Chia) will draft a participation form that will alert us to the barriers folks may face.  BETSY will draft a standard form people can fill out to receive the stipend to address their barriers to participation. BETSY will contact Smart Trips about potential help on free bus passes (NOTE: Smart Trips was able to get Metro Transit to donate free bus passes). BETSY and CHIA will go over the specifics of the budget line items and let the steering committee know how stipends will be dealt with (NOTE: up to 10 district councils can receive stipends for staff participation – starting with $360/council. Should fewer than 10 councils participate, additional funds will be available to the PED Planning group members). Printing costs should be covered by the line item amount with additional printing being provided by participating steering committee councils.

CHIA will send out both versions of the curriculum for Parks so committee members can edit.

Recruiting – need to recruit district councils for PED dialogue; LESLIE will check with Arlington Hills about PED dialogue location (NOTE: that location is now confirmed).

Next meeting for Steering Cmte will be September 8 from 10-12p at D1 office.

NOTE: Police and Youth/Family dialogues are Mondays September 14 – October 12 from 6-8p at the Wellstone Center, 179 E. Robie Street

Parks and Community dialogues are Mondays October 19 – November 16 from 6-8p at the Arlington Hills Community Center, 1200 Payne Avenue

PED and District Council dialogue is Wednesday October 14 from 2 – 8p at Arlington Hills 

Notes from 8/3/15 Community Action Team Meeting

The Community Action Team of the Dialogue to Action Project met on Monday August 3 at the Wellstone Center, El Rio Vista Rec Center on the West Side.

There was an initial welcome and personal updates from individuals attending. It was a small group this month. In attendance were Chia and Betsy (District 1); Clara, John S and Steve (D4); John L, John B and Kurt (Police Dept.), and Diane (City and D16)

We had a recap of ground rules and added a rule to stay on task, noting that we have had a lot of side conversations in previous meetings that have taken us a bit off track at times. In light of this we reviewed the purpose of this group in the Dialogue to Action project – trying to clear up misunderstandings about what this group is. This group is not focused on having the actual but is intended to do the planning needed to have the dialogues be successful in the fall. The 4 task forces set up at the July meeting with membership from this planning group are going to do work on Police guide, the Parks guide, on recruiting for the dialogues, and on finding the background data that is necessary for each dialogue.

Diane reviewed the data used in the original cross cultural dialogue. These included data from MN Compass showing disparities in median income, home ownership, poverty level, non-insured status, and education level among different racial and ethnic groups. There were also data at the state level on the prison population by ethnicity. We discussed what of these data we wanted to include and what additional data we would like to have. The main focus was on looking at the local level as much as possible. There was a suggestion that we look at ASANDC survey of Frogtown residents about  their use of Parks for the Parks guide. The CAT asks the data task force to get together and then look at the options and figure out what needs to be background information for the fall dialogues. Diane will send out a meeting wizard to set up a meeting of this group.

The next topic was Strategic Planning for the dialogues. The steering committee proposed dates and locations for each set of dialogues. They proposed that the Police and youth dialogues take place at the Wellstone Center from September 14 – October 12, with a goal of 50 participants. These will be divided into 2-3 groups each with 2 facilitators – the number is dependent on the total number of facilitators. We discussed the breakdown of composition of these groups in terms of the proportion of youth, to community members to police. The suggestion was that there be no more than 1/3 of the total be police officers and 2/3 be youth and community members. Then the question was how do we recruit police officers? It was determined that 5 officers per district (E, W, C) is the goal. There was a lengthy discussion on how to keep youth and their guardians engaged throughout the process.  Police have tried several approaches and are concerned about long term commitment through the entire dialogue process. They have found that focusing on the very, very local means that there actually weren’t incidents that people had experienced that they could talk about. There was some discussion about whether a 5 session model would really work and some discussion of different models of how to do this. In the end, we will stick with the dialogue model and its curriculum.

We decided that by recruiting from churches throughout the city we could enlist the pastors to help identify families that would be interested and have the commitment to stick with the process. A list of faith organizations was developed and a plan for contacting them and recruiting. We discussed that the final location needs to have breakout rooms, need to be accessible for a variety of transportation options and that we will need to identify transportation needs of potential participants. We will limit the space for other community members (not youth and their families).

The critieria for participation are that folks be residents of Saint Paul, committed to the effort, that the youth be mature enough to participate, that all parts of Saint Paul are represented, that the family be willing to attend, and that we are made aware of any transportation needs.

The facilitator training is proposed for August 29, noon to 4, Saturday – MayChy and Thaoke will be providing the training at the District 1 offices.

There will be a run-through for Police Guide – August 17 location TBD 5:30-7:30

There will be a run-through for Parks – September 15 location TBD 5:30-7:30

Additional materials to be included in Police guide should be a list of law enforcement agencies operating in Saint Paul, flyer of how police prioritize calls, etc.

The meeting was adjourned at 7:20p. Next meeting is the run-through for Police Guide.

Notes of the June 22, 2015 Community Meeting about Boys Totem Town

The meeting was called to order by D1 President Paul Sawyer at 6:35p. Paul welcomed the 40+ people present in the gym at Battle Creek Rec Center and introduced Ramsey County Commissioner, Jim McDonough.

McDonough talked about the changes which have taken place and will be taking place in Ramsey County Corrections, specifically in the Juvenile Corrections Division. These changes in administration reflect the demographic changes in Ramsey County generally, with a large number of baby-boomers at or near retirement. This change reflects an opportunity for community members interested in good paying careers in corrections and other aspects of county government. Michelle Finstad is the new coordinator of Juvenile Services.

McDonough then gave a history of Boys Totem Town and the recent efforts to evaluate the alignment of the facility and programming at the institution. Boys Totem Town originated 101 years ago and has been at the current location since the 1930s. But recently the number of young men at the facility has decreased and the staff had become aware of some problems with the match between needs and opportunities. A consultant was called in and made the recommendation that the mismatch be addressed by building a new facility that supports the programming currently in place. The options it proposed were that a new facility be built at the current location or at a new location, and that consideration be given to merging the programming with other similar operations – other counties. So for the past several months, Ramsey and Hennepin County Juvenile residential facilities have been discussing whether it makes sense and is possible for them to merge their programs to the benefit of both populations. This has been phase 1 – what would be the reasons to say yes or no, and what would be the deal killers? The results of phase 1 have been presented to a steering committee that includes County Commissioners from both counties, and juvenile judges from both counties. This steering committee voted unanimously to go on to phase 2, to be completed by November of this year. Phase 2 will get us to the actual decision point of saying yes or no to the merger itself. There seems to be more of a commitment from both boards to get more people working on this merger possibility. Ramsey County currently doesn’t deal with sex offenders or girls at Boys Totem Town, but Hennepin County does – Ramsey County recognizes that adding these services to its programming would be a huge benefit. Both systems are in agreement philosophically and programmatically, but they will continue to look at funding and administration. There is also a recognition that some kids don’t go to either system and are sent to Red Wing or out of state but we know that keeping them closer to home is better, so they will be looking at potentially including them locally as long as they can have the support structure for the kids as they move toward re-integration with the society.

McDonough recognizes that the D1 local community is supportive of Boys Totem Town as it is. But there are some realities that are coming clear. His commitment is that when the counties decide yes or no to merge, it still won’t be decided where the facility will be but it is highly likely that it would not be at current site. So in November will be the point where we need to begin talk about reuse of the current site and creating a community process for this discussion.

McDonough promises, “We will not move off that property or sell it until the community has a decision of what it wants to do with the site.” He is committed to coming back to the community at each point along the way so that the community knows where things stand and how the county will help it deal with the changes

Phase 1 report summary – looked at governance (County knows how to do joint mergers – has done several of them); The County doesn’t want to see the kids back in the corrections system, want to see them in mental health, chemical dependency and other programs to help them; they know that keeping kids as close to home as possible, but more support is needed in the community if the youth are not kept confined; we know that the deeper into the system kids go, the more likely they are to come back into the criminal justice system later. We also are aware that there are a lot of cost-sharing with merger so the funds can be invested back into the kids or to other parts of county services or in tax relief.

The question of leaving or staying – County board took a long look last year at its mission in light of the fact that Ramsey County has the largest area of racially concentrated poverty in the state. This is a huge issue and the disparity is at the heart of the Ramsey’s concern – the kids in BTT are coming disproportionately from this area of racially concentrated poverty – so the County’s number 1 mission is to deal with this concentration of poverty and the disparities that arise from it. Corrections is a human services field – not a public safety field within the County structure.

Questions from the community:

Where would the merged facility be if not at the current site? – The County is not at the point of deciding that. It would not be at either current location in Ramsey of Hennepin County. It would be a brand new facility at a brand new site.

What effect would leaving make on the community garden and compost site adjacent to BTT site? Response: The County is committed to increasing composting and finding locations for compost sites is difficult so it is highly unlikely that this would move. But it is important that these concerns be a part of the community discussions about reuse of the site.

The local Somali community is in need of a community gathering space, and a space for that community to come together with other parts of the local community. They urge that creation of a community gathering space be located at this site should BTT leave. This would be a reuse that would strengthen the community. Response:  This should also be a part of the community discussions after November.

The Highwood Plan – created in the 1990s – had a lot of community input at that time. It states that the space should remain as public open space. Response: Consideration of these old plans must be a part of the community discussions after November. This will be a community decision about reuse.

There was a lengthy discussion of the reasons why the population at BTT has decreased but also why it is overwhelmingly made up of youth of color. The question was asked whether the numbers are lower there because kids are going deeper into the system. Response: Crime is down nationwide, juvenile crime is also down, but we also recognize that youth are better served with lower recidivism rates if they are kept closely connected to their families and community (with extensive support). A large portion of the kids in the system have mental health issues and we know that a corrections setting is not an appropriate setting for treating mental health issues. We do not want the corrections system to become a recruiting ground for gangs. We also need to recognize that Saint Paul’s population is actually increasing, and that the young aged portion of the population is increasing even faster. Unfortunately, a disproportionate number of these youth are born into areas that have concentrations of poverty. We must deal with the disparities that arise from this.

Comments were made that even though crime is down, our prisons are still full so we are still sending too many people to prison.

Timing for all this should be considered as November being the starting point of a community process that will define community priorities. District 1 will be asked to lead this community process (but will need added resources to do so…)

Meeting was adjourned at 7:40p.

Gold Line Comments and SunRay-Suburban Small Area Plan

The Saint Paul Planning Commission will hold a public hearing on the proposed Gold Line Station Area Plans, the Gold Line Zoning Study, associated amendments to the Comprehensive Plan and Saint Paul Bicycle Plan, and de-certification of the Sun Ray-Suburban Small Area Plan on Friday July 24, 2015, at 8:30 a.m. in Room 40 of the City Hall/Courthouse at 15 Kellogg Boulevard West.

Information on the proposed plans, plan amendments, and property rezonings to be considered by the Saint Paul Planning Commission can be found atwww.stpaul.gov/GoldLineSAP or by contacting Bill Dermody at Bill.Dermody@ci.stpaul.mn.usor 651.266.6617.

To provide official comments to the Planning Commission on the proposed plan amendments or rezonings, attend the July 24^th public hearing, or send written comments by 4:30 p.m. on July 28^th to Bill.Dermody@ci.stpaul.mn.us or Bill Dermody, Planning and Economic Development, 25 W. 4^th Street, Suite 1400, Saint Paul MN 55102.

MPCA Environmental Justice Plan – share your feedback.

The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency would like your feedback on its draft environmental justice framework, the state's plan for reducing pollution, increasing livability and preventing harm in historically overburdened communities. Environmental justice means that all people – regardless of their race, color, national origin or income – benefit from equal levels of environmental protection. It also means that we actively seek out the involvement of people who may be affected, increasing our work in certain neighborhoods and communities around the state.

For more information and a copy of this plan, please visit www.pca.state.mn.us/ej

Please provide your feedback by July 15, 2015. 

Written comments may be submitted to ned.brooks@state.mn.us.  You may also attend a meeting to learn more about this plan and offer your comments in person.  Meetings will begin with an overview of the plan followed by a discussion and comment period.  Meetings are scheduled for:

•Tuesday June 23, 4:00 – 6:00

Rondo Community Outreach Library, 461 Dale St. N., St. Paul, 55103