City of Minneapolis

Also in this issue:

35W Remembrance Garden approved

Nice Ride hits 100,000 and is expanding

Comment on the Diversity Study

Revitalizing Riverside Plaza

Emergency Operations Center opens

Interview Peavey Plaza architects

Filling in the Mill District

Another best for Minneapolis

Fall sweeping on your street

Get instant snow-emergency updates

Also on the web:
MayorRybak.us

TheMayorBlog.com

Minneapolis, sustainable city

Last month, I was excited to represent Minneapolis at the first-ever European Green Capital conference in Stockholm, Sweden, as a part of a National League of Cities delegation with officials of 10 other U.S. cities. I learned a lot about the challenges European cities are facing and how they’re responding, and I was able to share how we’re meeting similar challenges in Minneapolis by building sustainability into everything we do. Sustainability is a key component of the City of Minneapolis’ five-year goals, and we are getting results, including:

• Launching ThincGreenMSP, a partnership with Saint Paul to grow green jobs and green-business capacity, including by implementing an aggressive green-procurement policy.
• Installing 600KW of solar power on the Minneapolis Convention Center, making it the largest solar array in the Upper Midwest.
• Opening the largest bike-share program in the country and nearly doubling the miles of on-street bike lanes, which earned us the ranking of #1 bicycling city in the U.S..
• Through the Homegrown Minneapolis initiative, opening up city-owned land to more community gardens, connecting emerging local food entrepreneurs to business financing and markets, and closing food deserts by establishing more mini-farmers markets.
• Establishing “Energy Savings Made Easy” to provide financing tools for energy-efficiency upgrades, with the goal of making 50% of buildings in the region energy-efficient in the next 10 years.
• Implementing Access Minneapolis, a comprehensive transportation plan that puts pedestrians, bikes and transit on equal footing with automobiles.
• Awarding grants to neighborhoods and organizations that are innovatively fighting climate change at the local level.
• Being awarded by Vice President Joe Biden a pilot program that will expand our home-energy audits to include an innovative scoring tool that will allow homeowners to see how much they’re saving.

Its great that an independent survey ranked Minneapolis the sixth-best eco city in the world, and I’m proud of that ranking — but I’m much more proud of the planning and hard work that has led up to it. To get great results, you need a great plan, and we have that: The Minneapolis Plan for Sustainable Growth sets the framework for our efforts and guides all our decisions around planning, investment and regulation, and the Minneapolis Sustainability Initiative sets out 25 specific sustainability indicators that help us benchmark our progress. I encourage you to take a look.

Mayor R.T. Rybak

35W Remembrance Garden site approved

On November 3, the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board approved a site on West River Parkway as the site for the 35W Remembrance Garden, which will commemorate those who were lost, those who survived and those who acted with heroism when the I-35W collapsed on August 1, 2007. Since that date, Mayor Rybak has worked closely with survivors and the families of those who died to envision and plan for a memorial, and together with them, Mayor Rybak unveiled a revised memorial design on September 9 directly across from Gold Medal Park, where the memorial was originally proposed to be sited. The revised memorial retains many of the features of the original design. Mayor Rybak is committed to completing the Remembrance Garden in time for a formal dedication on August 1, 2011. 

Nice Ride hits 100,000 rides, and you can help it expand

Only five months ago, we launched Nice Ride Minnesota, America’s largest bike-share program, right here in Minneapolis — and as the first season ended last weekend, we surpassed 100,000 rides! (It’s no wonder Minneapolis has been named the #1 Bike City in America.) Three factors made this success possible: generous funding from Blue Cross Blue Shield and Transit for Livable Communities, as well as help from other sponsors, including the City of Minneapolis; dedicated staff and volunteers; and residents and visitors who checked out the electric-green bikes and kept coming back for more. Now, thanks in part to another pledge of support from Blue Cross, Nice Ride is expanding into more Minneapolis neighborhoods, along the University Avenue Central Corridor and into downtown Saint Paul. Attend an upcoming planning workshop to let us know how you think Nice Ride should grow, either on November 11 in Minneapolis (Freewheel Midtown Bike Center, 2834 10th Ave. S. on the Greenway) or on November 16 in Saint Paul (Laura Jeffrey Academy, 1550 Summit Ave.), from 6:30-8:00 p.m

Comment on the City’s Diversity Study

A long-awaited Diversity Study, designed to help the City of Minneapolis understand how successful women- and minority-owned businesses have been in competing for City contracts, is now complete. The City commissioned the study, the first since 1995, in order to examine whether evidence supported the continuation of Minneapolis’ Small and Underutilized Business Program (SUBP) that sets participation goals for minority- and women-owned businesses in City contracts. The study confirms both that the SUBP is needed and that it has had a positive impact: it shows that in recent years, the number of eligible businesses winning City contracts has grown, but also that the City has fallen short on its goals. The City is accepting written comments on the study and recommendations through December 3; you may email yours to Cynthia Govan of the Minneapolis Civil Rights Department at cynthia.govan@minneapolismn.gov.

Revitalizing Riverside Plaza

The City of Minneapolis has approved financing and assistance for the revitalization of Riverside Plaza on the West Bank. This help will allow the project to go forward, which will: preserve 1,300 units of affordable housing in the heart of the city that were designed by Minnesota modernist architect Ralph Rapson; create 250 construction jobs, of which 90 will be reserved for Riverside Plaza residents; make significant improvements to public safety; reduce energy consumption; and improve pedestrian and bicycle environments. Riverside Plaza revitalization is a critical piece in the transformation of the Cedar Riverside neighborhood, which is home to residents of all incomes and backgrounds, in preparation for the Central Corridor light-rail line.

City opens state-of-the-art Emergency Operations Facility

The City of Minneapolis has made a significant investment in public safety by opening a new Emergency Operations Training Facility that will help first responders and other staff to better prepare for and respond to emergencies. This LEED Silver facility is a multi-purpose building that includes a strategic information center that will help police analyze data and map long-term trends, and an operations center that will be used during significant emergencies or disasters. One of the lessons of the 35W bridge collapse in 2007 was that the City’s old Emergency Operations Center in the basement of City Hall was too small for coping with large-scale emergencies. With more than 2,800 feet of floor space, this new center fixes that problem and provides first responders with state-of-the-art tools for keeping Minneapolis’ residents and visitors safe.