City Briefs - July 2023

Construction work on Lake Street from Minnehaha Ave. to the river started in June and will move from east to west along Lake Street. This includes station construction at Lake and 44th, Lake and 36th, Lake and 31st and Lake and Minnehaha. Two-way traffic with lane restrictions will be maintained as new station platforms, street sections, sidewalks, traffic signals, and pedestrian ramps are installed. Improvements will also be done at intersections without stations, and a mill and overlay with new lane striping will occur later in the summer.  Metro Transit staff will be available to talk in person about construction from 12:30-2 p.m on Thursdays throughout the summer at Dogwood Coffee (4021 E. Lake St). For more information, contact at 651-356-6995 or to the project email at BLine@metrotransit.org.

 

 The city council has voted to oppose the proposed merger of Sanford Health and M Health Fairview. They noted, among several reasons for doing so, that “all residents of Minneapolis benefit from access to high quality medical institutions, protection from the risk of monopolies or lessening of competition in healthcare, safe and fair workplaces for healthcare workers, and leading medical education and research institutions.” 

 

In June, the city council approved appointments of Council Member Emily Koski and Loren Olson, city intergovernmental relation staff and southside resident, as representative and alternate to the Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport (MSP) Noise Oversight Committee (NOC) for a two-year term, beginning June 26, 2023, and ending June 25, 2025.

 

In June, the Metropolitan Airports Commission announced that flights over south Minneapolis will be increasing as they resume using ‘north flow pattern,’ and runways 30L and 30R for more flights.  This will likely result in more airport noise for people living in south Minneapolis, Richfield, and St. Louis Park. Since May 20, due to higher wind from the south and east, more flights had been using other runways and a south flow pattern. 

 

On June 13, the Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Education approved a budget that would rely on more than $90 million in one-time federal funding for its $976 million budget next year. Because those funds will not be available in 2024-25, school board members and activists have expressed concerns that the funding gap will result in staff lay-offs and school closings in 2024.  

 

A pilot project designed to prevent litter from entering Lake Hiawatha was installed on June 3. Called a “trash boom system,” it is intended to capture litter at the end of a storm sewer pipe before the stormwater from more than 900 acres flows into the lake. Over the summer, the city will study the effectiveness of the system. If it proves to reduce litter in Lake Hiawatha it may be used in other city lakes.

 

Lupe Development Partners and Wall Companies announced they are moving forward with the Snelling Yards development, an inter-generational campus of senior and affordable family rental housing. The project is supported by $900,000 in funding through Hennepin County’s Affordable Housing Incentive Fund recently approved by the county board. Snelling Yards will include 90 units of family affordable housing with an emphasis on three- and four-bedroom units. 

~ Briefs compiled by Cam Gordon