Tidbits
Garage Sales September 17th,
18th, 19th.
The Liaisons are hosting the
popular SE Como Neighborhood Garage Sales upon residents’ requests! Utilizing the past success of SECIA’s
organized garage sales, the Liaisons are continuing the tradition of having
WHEN: September-Thursday 17th,
Friday 18th, Saturday, 19th…and we need participants to
sign up!
For 7$ registration, we will
provide advertising, signs, & maps!
Please email neighbor@umn.edu
or call Elora Turner at 651-353-8672 to join!!!
The Student Neighborhood Liaisons are partnering with SECIA,
Van Cleve Park and the neighbors of
We also encourage residents to send in a short story about
their history in
The deadline is
rolling but we strongly encourage residents to send their recipes by July 20th
so the cookbook team can have time to design the book. We will be collecting
the final cookbook recipes at National Night Out events! If you wish to be included in this design
process we encourage your participation!
Our goal is to have the Cookbook printed and available at the
Como Cookout!
Together we can cook up a recipe for building positive
relationships and a vibrant neighborhood!
Please submit your recipe/story via email at: neighbor@umn.edu with “Recipe” in the subject line or drop off at SECIA’s office. Call Elora Turner with questions or ideas at 651-353-8673.
Summer July 15th Barbeque & Concert
Excited for summer and getting the neighborhood together,
the Student Neighborhood Liaisons will be hosting a Barbeque and Concert on
July 15th from
Help Make
You can help the City improve walking in
Pedestrian master plan walking workshops and
public meeting
Thursday, July 16
Walking
workshops at
Public meeting
Master
plan presentation at
300 Nicollet Mall
You can also learn about the plan and provide your comments
online at www.ci.minneapolis.mn.us/pedestrian.
The plan addresses a broad range of pedestrian issues beyond
simply providing sidewalks. It includes
ways for
The City Council directed the preparation of a citywide
pedestrian master plan. The plan
includes recommendations on policies, projects and procedures related to
pedestrian facilities and programs.
To learn more about the Minneapolis Pedestrian Master Plan
and for more information on the walking workshops, visit www.ci.minneapolis.mn.us/pedestrian.
The meeting site is wheelchair accessible. If you need other
disability related accommodations, such as a sign language interpreter or
materials in an alternative format, please contact Anna Flintoft
at (612) 673-3885 or anna.flintoft@ci.minneapolis.mn.us
before July 9
Community Meetings Set for Proposed Ordinance Change to
Fund Streetlight Operations
Two meetings are set for the public to comment on a proposed
change in the way the City pays for the operation of thousands of streetlights
throughout
Currently, the $3 million a year needed to keep the
streetlights on in the city comes from the general fund, which gets around 20
percent of its money from the State of
Before any such fee could be assessed, the City’s ordinance
would need to be changed to allow such funding.
Two community meetings are being held for you to learn about that
proposal:
The City operates and maintains approximately 17,000 street
lights and 1,700 Parkway lights. It also
contracts with Xcel Energy to operate and maintain an additional 28,000 wood
pole streetlights.
Taking an historic step in seeking total governmental
independence, the
The resolution comes on the heels of yet another action by
the Minneapolis Charter Commission that affects the fate and future of the park
system. At its July 1 meeting, the
Charter Commission voted in favor of a November referendum to eliminate the Park
Board and two independent elected members from the Board of Estimate and
Taxation and replace them with the entire Minneapolis City Council. The
Park Board’s resolution notes that such a change will give exclusive control of
the Park Board’s budget to the City Council.
The resolution also affirms that the Park Board does not believe the
City Council will protect and preserve parklands in light of the difficult
financial circumstances the City regularly faces.
Earlier this year, several members of the Minneapolis City
Council proposed a Charter amendment to eliminate the Park Board and have the
parks overseen by the City Council. The
proposal went to the Minneapolis Charter Commission in June for placement on
the November ballot, but failed due in part to broad public support for the
Park Board voiced during a series of public hearings.
“This Board must commit to the challenge to be separate and
independent. It will take hard work from
each of us, but success ensures that our parks and recreation centers will not
be lost for the sake of development or sacrificed in tough economic times,
which will happen,” said Tom Nordyke, Board
President.
“We have no choice but to seek independence. It’s our responsibility to care for the parks
and we are committed to this challenge,” reaffirmed Mary Merrill-Anderson,
Board Vice President.
A recent survey commissioned by the Minneapolis Parks
Foundation and conducted by Decision Resources Ltd. found that 82 percent of
the respondents decisively supported an independent Park Board compared to
seven percent that opposed an independent Board.
The survey reported that the Park Board has established “not
only a deep and broad reservoir of goodwill among
“The survey illustrates that the public supports the Park
Board’s mission that our parks be held in trust forever. We believe that the public response to seek
total independence will be overwhelmingly in our favor,” Nordyke
said.
The just-released 2008 Use Estimate of the Metropolitan
Regional Parks System reports that of the 38.5 million visits to the regional
parks, 15.4 million – 40 percent – were to the Minneapolis Park System. Visits to
The
“The study indicates the continued popularity and
recreational demand for our park system, particularly while people stay close
to home in tough economic times,” said Jon Gurban,
Superintendent of the
Visits to the seven
The 15 million visits is a five-year high compared to 2004
(12 million), 2005 (14 million), 2006, (13.8 million) and 2007 (13.4 million).
The drop in 2007 can be attributed to the closure of the popular Wabun picnic area in
Fifty-two percent of the visits were from
Visits to all regional parks in the metropolitan area rose
8.3 percent from 35.5 million in 2007 to 38.5 million in 2008 and 20 percent
from 2004. Use estimates are reported in
“visits,” thus one person entering the park represents one visit.
Free Falun Dafa
Yoga at Van Cleve
Come experience Falun Dafa. Se Como resident, Akiko Tsutsui,
will be teaching this type of Qi Gung yoga, which is
a high-level cultivation practice, guided by the characteristics of the
universe-Truthfulness, Benevolence, and Forbearance at Van Cleve Park every
Monday from
Fruits of the City –
Gleaning Days
Do you have an apple, plum or pear tree in your yard that
produces more than your family can eat? Do you know a friend or neighbor
with a very productive tree? Volunteers from the Minnesota Project’s
Fruits of the City program may be able to help. This fall we’ll be harvesting
excess fruit from trees in
Our goal this year is to donate at least 2,500 pounds of
fresh fruit. Please help us meet and surpass this amount!
To register a tree or to volunteer, call Ben at
651-789-3320 or e-mail fruits@mnproject.org.
Harvest days will be held regularly from August through October. See our
website and Facebook page for more information.
Webpage: http://www.mnproject.org/food-FruitsOfTheCity.html
Facebook : http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=113173678440
Contact: Ben Hellerstein
(651) 789-3320
Meet the New 2nd
Precinct Commander
The 2nd Precinct wants you to meet the New Inspector, Bryan
Schafer. The 2nd Precinct will be hosting a reception from
It's Tuesday, August 4.
Important deadlines:
·
JULY 14--Eligible for additional door prizes
drawing, if you register your event by this date.
·
JULY 21--Free street closure, if you apply by
this date. It will cost you $100 to
apply to close your street if you miss this deadline!
All registered NNO event will receive Mystery
Point Passes for Nickelodeon Universe at the Mall of America and vouchers (each
good for 2 tickets) for Minnesota Twins games to use as door prizes. Each Mystery Point pass is worth either a single ride, a day of rides or a whole season of
rides.
There is a single online process to register your NNO event
and apply to close your street. If you
want to close your street for your event, you will need permission of 75
percent of your neighbors to be approved for street closure. Please have their names and addresses with
you when you apply. (You do not need
their signatures.) Get started at www.ci.minneapolis.mn.us/nno. If you don’t have Internet access, you can
register your event and apply for street closure by calling 311 (or
612-673-3000).
National Night Out
The Student Neighborhood Liaisons want to help blocks
organize their National Night Out events! We can help with permits, food and supplies,
but we need your ideas and suggestions for what you would like to see happen.
The liaison program will also help sponsor 50$ for SE Como National Night Out
block events! So if you are interested or planning on hosting a National Night
Event, we would love to hear from you! Contact
the Student Neighborhood Liaisons at neighbor@umn.edu
or call Elora Turner at 651-353-8672.
Protecting your Home
While You Are on Vacation
Excited about your vacation plans? Go ahead and tell your friends — but only in
person — not on Facebook or Twitter. Sharing your plans on online social
networking sites might inadvertently give a tech savvy burglar an invitation to
your vacant home. Instead, wait until
you’re back from vacation and use your tweets and postings to tell folks what a
great time you had
The following steps may discourage burglars and thieves.
·
Install good locks on doors and windows.
It’s true that an intruder who really wants to get into your house
probably can find a way, but most burglaries are crimes of opportunity
committed by amateurs. This means that the more difficult you make it for
someone to enter your house, the more like it is a burglar will not make the
attempt – or at least an alert neighbor will see or hear the burglar.
·
Write down the serial numbers of your valuables,
so if they are stolen and recovered by the police, they may be returned to you.
·
Have a neighbor pickup the mail and newspapers daily, consider stopping the mail and canceling the
newspaper.
·
Install motion detector lights on the outside of
your home. Use automatic timers on inside lights and photoelectric
switches on outside. A week or two before you leave,
set your timers so you can establish a pattern while you are still home.
There are even timers available that will vary the on/off times.
Occasionally have a radio or TV turned on.
·
Don’t leave valuables where they can be easily
seen from the windows. Video equipment, TVs, stereos, gun collections,
etc. should be stored in basements, closets, on the second floor, or left with
a friend or neighbor. Equipping a storage closet with a good deadbolt
lock makes a safer storage area too.
·
Leave your drapes in the normal position.
Have a neighbor close them at night and open them at daylight, or use
sheers. Sheers help to obscure the view into the house without making it
obvious, as drapes would, that no one is home.
·
Put at least two lights and a radio on automatic
timers.
·
Leave the bathroom light on with the door ajar
to add to the impression that someone may be home.
·
Close and lock your garage doors to prevent
someone from stealing the contents of the garage. Consider putting a
padlock in the track of overhead garage ddors.
Also, attached garages that are not kept locked provide the opportunity
for intruder to enter the garage and work in privacy at breaking into you
house, perhaps with the assistance of your tools.
·
Cover your garage windows to prevent anyone from
seeing the contents of your garage and whether you car is at home.
·
Don’t let your travel plans be widely known.
Try to arrange for house-sitter, but if you can’t, provide your immediate
neighbors with your itinerary and emergency contact information.
·
Ask that some one checks your home daily, possibly
parks in your driveway or in front of your home, occasionally places garbage in
your garbage can, mows the lawn, etc. In general help make your home live
looked in.
A Note on Burglary
Prevention from CPS Juarez
As you conduct your safety walk and community outreach
please let people know we have a continued pattern of occupied dwelling
burglaries. The suspect(s) are cutting screens and entering through open
windows.
Remind people to lock doors and windows even if they are
home.
If they have windows open make sure that they are open no
more than 6 inches and make sure they have some sort of device to prevent the
window from opening any further. They can use window locks or nails into
the frame. When you push up on the window you don’t want the window to
open any further even if you push hard.
Lock garages and ensure they have adequate lighting on their
property. Make sure there are no hiding spots on your property.
Be Wary of
High-Pressure Sales Pitches for Home Alarm Systems
The City of
False alarms are very costly to taxpayers because they tie
up police and other emergency resources needed for actual crimes. For this reason, the City requires homeowners
to cover some of the costs associated with false alarms.
If an alarm salesperson comes to your home, the Department
of Regulatory Services advises you to do the following:
Make sure the business is licensed – All door-to-door
salespeople operating in
Document your conversation – Take good notes on the
offers. Get the salesperson’s name, the
company name and phone number. Also, get
a written statement – not an estimate – that lists all costs, including
installation and monthly or annual monitoring fees.
Ask about the company’s policy – If the false alarm is due
to faulty equipment, will you be reimbursed?
Will service calls for the alarm be charged to you? Any contract should have this in writing.
Do not sign up right away or feel pressured to do so – Many
sales pitches try to prompt you to act on the spot with one-time offers or
other special deals. Remember, there are
many alarm companies to choose from.
For more information on questions you should ask before
buying a home burglar alarm, visit http://www.ci.minneapolis.mn.us/police/crime-prevention/docs/Burgalrm.pdf
. For additional information on burglar alarm systems and helpful consumer
information, visit the False Alarm Reduction Association’s Web site at www.faraonline.org
and click on “consumer tips.”
To see
Vandalism Survey
Due to the frequent activity of vandalism in
SECIA will post a copy of the Vandalism survey (http://secomo.org/documents/Vandalism%20Survey%20for%20SE%20Como.doc)
on their website-feel free to fill it out and send it to the Liaisons at neighbor@umn.edu or drop it off at SECIA. Call Elora Turner at 651-353-8672 if you have
any questions.
Coffee Hours for Student Neighborhood Liaisons Sunday at