Saturday Community Planning Forum

It was a COLD dark spring day in Minneapolis--which probably helped with turnout--no one wanted to spend time outside--so we had about 60 people attend. Many came early to review the results of the Walks on the Avenue from the week before (check out http://www.flickr.com/photos/FranklinAvenue to see the pictures the groups took on the walk).

We kicked off the morning with a short talk by Jay Walljasper, the author of The Great Neighborhood Book. Jay gave a great short talk stressing that it is the neighborhood residents who know best what is needed in the neighborhood. He provided some great grass-roots action ideas from the book (warning that some are probably illegal in Minneapolis). One idea was using furniture to make the street a maze so cars have to slow down.

We broke into four groups to sort through all the information from the walks. We took a break for some great food from the Clicquot Club, the groups agreed to create four task forces:

• Visual Identity/Landscaping
• Movement
• community Involvement/Crime and Safety
• Local Business Vitality/Gateways.

More on how to participate in the task forces in the next post.