LCC Equitable Development Committee Meeting

Tonight was a regular meeting of the Longfellow Community Council (LCC) - Equitable Development Committee, and the topic of the Cooper Playground was likely the most dominant point of discussion. There were 3 or 4 supporters of the playground in addition to a few committee members and staff in attendance.

The general sentiment could be summed as “pro playground”, but mostly as a point of support at this time. Lisa Priest gave a thorough summary of events as they’ve transpired so far, and gained the commitment of several attendees to also attend tomorrow night’s MPS town hall at Howe Elementary (6pm Nov. 2nd).

A few notes of interest:

• The executive director of Redesign (a community-oriented development organization), Andy Hestness, noted that MPS has actually sold 3 properties recently, something that hadn’t typically been done in the past. One of those was the Tuttle School in NE Mpls, where a playground was recently torn down. Cooper Elementary hasn’t been put on the market, despite lots of interest, possibly because it is currently used as storage. The logical next thought is, “what happens when they start to utilize an actual warehouse for central storage?”
• We heard from another resident that participated in the community build of the current playground at Cooper, but also at Hiawatha and Howe.

Overall it was a good, casual meeting– and I encourage anyone else interested in local development or governance to attend future LCC meetings, as they are approachable and insightful (and with Zoom, easy to attend).