NewsNight Minnesota; 4186; NewsNight Minnesota Episode from 07/22/1997; SD-Base

NEWSNIGHT Minnesota is a production of Katy CA where the stations of Minnesota Public Television. Tonight on NEWSNIGHT the art of urban planning beginning with one discipline that needs more study. The road in the sewer construction then why critics are panning the idea of a Neiman museum and why our viewers are panning the critics. Plus art galleries in St. Paul that are up and working without all the fuss and city plans that work and some that don't. It's NEWSNIGHT for Tuesday July 22nd. Tonight's broadcast of NEWSNIGHT Minnesota is presented in part by Cargill supporting Minnesota's tradition of community service and by General Mills a manufacturer of healthy foods and snacks. Good evening I'm Kathy words there and welcome to NEWSNIGHT. We begin with the news headlines and sitting in tonight for Ken Stone. Well Kathy you know I know what the drought is over another two to six inches drenched the metro area this morning. Even a flash flood watch was out until noon today. This was the

scene out in Brooklyn Park a collapsed wall at a home here on Brunswick Street. Similar problems were reported throughout the metro. And this was the scene right outside our studio. A broken water main flooding part of lower town St. Paul in all rainfall for the metro is now eight inches above normal. Just three weeks ago it was five inches below normal. Drought was the concern home and business owners in five metro counties are eligible for low interest disaster loans because of the summer storms. The Small Business Administration is offering up to $200000 to people in an OCHA Dakota Hennepin Ramsey and Washington counties. And in Minneapolis a hotline for people suffering flood damage call six seven three thirty nine hundred if you need information on how to deal with the damage or want to know what type of financial help might be out there that number six seven three thirty nine hundred. If you're a Minneapolis resident Kathy will be talking with someone from the Department of Transportation about roads and rain right after the headlines. All of this talk about Metro flooding brings to mind the flood this spring in the Red River Valley. A couple notes on the recovery today. Grand

Forks Mayor Pat Owens says that diverting the river itself instead of moving all the homes and businesses is not out of the question. A few things East Grand Forks on the Minnesota side of the river rejected the idea too quickly. The Army Corps of Engineers estimates that to divert the river around East Grand Forks would cost about three hundred fifty million dollars to divert it on a more western route around Grand Forks would cost about three hundred and sixty seven million dollars. In the St. Croix River it's these critters that are the problem. Zebra mussels the National Park Service has been trying to keep the tiny foreign invaders out of the Upper St. Croix by putting in place tight boat restrictions. Now they've been found two miles north of Taylors falls in the Upper St. Croix. Biologists are concerned that the zebra mussels will kill native species of clams and mussels. Northwest Airlines is in the news for a number of reasons today. Second quarter earnings are out down almost a third from the same quarter a year ago. The Minnesota based airlines blamed weekend low demand for its Pacific routes and the federal ticket tax for the poor showing. Even so earnings were

still better than expected. But relations with their pilots are getting worse. Northwest plan to buy 24 more small jets announced yesterday is seen by the pilots union as a threat to job security because nonunion pilots can use those planes to fly Northwest routes Northwest is in the midst of contract negotiations with all five of its unions. And for the final headline is it going to be principal Prince maybe the Minnesota music maker says he wants to open a school in Minneapolis and he's already bought the land money for it will come from his love for one another charity. Why go into the education business. Because the artist says he had a bad time of it when he was in school and he wanted better for the kids coming after him. We called the Minneapolis schools to see if they knew anything more about the proposal. It was the first they'd heard of it I don't know. He didn't look like my English teacher but I have changed I guess. Thank you Mike I appreciate it. Well let's take a look at it again. The guys are on I 35-W that close that highway down this weekend and for the second

time in three weeks for 94 it was closed to morning commuters causing massive headaches. More like migraines for people trying to get to work on time all of which prompted us to ask why aren't important roadside 35-W in 494 built to withstand two or three inches of rain. Scott Sanus is a maintenance engineer with the Department of Transportation Scott welcome to NEWSNIGHT. If you look at some of the big metros 494 35-W they don't appear to be holding up well Scott during these recent rain falls. What's going on here. Well you're right they we've had a lot of trouble on the metro system. Most of it started life first in the last three weeks we've had a number of incidents that have closed different interchanges and parts of the road. And what's been happening obviously is just plain too much rain the ground is saturated the drainage systems that the Lakes or the streams that we rely on to drain the roads are full of water every time we get hit with more water it just keeps backing up more and more we're seeing. We're hoping it quits fairly soon. We all are. What about though is there a possibility that some of this is not designed very well.

No we design our old systems for what we read a 50 year storm just like you to compare to the Red River Valley Flood was a 500 year flood. We rate we design our systems generally for a 50 year storm in the last three weeks we've had four storms that have been in the 500 year 200 year 300 year range so that they're just simply overwhelming the systems that we've got. If you look at them the water hits them real fast. They flood and in most cases the water goes away fairly quickly so they're there they're fairly efficient at getting rid of the water. Yeah I've seen some mudslides and some of the slopes this side of 35-W the roadsides there in some roads have buckled what why is does that happen a number of things happen you know the slopes are just plain There's too much water in them places where we had construction last summer we're seeing where the grass didn't establish were seeing washouts in those locations of the other lower lower areas are washing out. The systems just. And soon the systems just aren't set up to handle the water that we're looking at it what about the roads that sometimes buckle

what causes that. You know we haven't seen too much of that but what will happen is a few what'll happen is if there's a culvert underneath the role of the water will wash through a crack in the conversation thing and slowly undermine the road in the little cave in. We haven't seen too much of that on the highway system so we're very happy about that. I'm sure you are but boy that geyser of 35-W was really something to see what caused that for goodness sakes. There's a storm tunnels underneath 35-W that drain a substantial portion of the city Minneapolis as well as 35-W and there's two storm shafts that are set up to vent that. That tunnel as it were in that tunnel designer or generally runs like a river. And in the process of taking on as much water as it does that starts to run like a garden hose. And in the process of converting from a river to a garden hose a whole lot of years got to get out of there and it backs up and causes the explosion that you see. I know you're a road engineer but do you know how have the rains kind of tended to push back construction on roadways. It's been telling some of our construction projects one of the things I know from Maine and standpoint is we're generally on

repairing roads and taking care of a lot of things on the keep the roads smooth. And we've been doing flood control and taking care of cleaning converts and converts and pipes and things like that so it's really keeping us from getting the roads back where we want them to be. Pretty bad situation for you isn't it. Yeah. I mean I'd seen the other day that by mid-July we've got the third wettest July in history and we've still got another week to go. We do. Scott thank you so much. Appreciate your time. Thanks. Well we've got a theme running in Tonight Show city building in planning in just a few moments we'll have a debate with a passel of urban planners. But first viewer reaction to another sort of urban planning story we aired the proposal for a museum in downtown St. Paul dedicated to Leroy's demon. Last Monday I interviewed a professor and art critic who described his opinion of Neiman's work. Here's a sample of the professor's point of view and then a sample of the angry calls we get afterwards. Well his stuff is terrible. I wouldn't use the word stink but I would say it's very very very bad. Splashes on all these colors that have

no sense of order. They are just colorful without having any meaning without being about anything. But this isn't that part of his personal expression as an artist that's pretty bad isn't it. Nothing but a chance for some professor to go off on a working artist. The family that I see walking between the science museum in the children's museum downtown St. Paul wouldn't really give a damn about how awful humans understanding of Impressionism is even if they are crudely built. These people might like to see the bright work some of which depict significant moment in our country's history. Giving the pompous blowhard a chance to spout opinions on your show really lessens your credibility and they really offered no new insight into the subject. Well he is an artist. He does create art. I am an artist. I understand where he's coming from. He has captured the market place and that is because he is popular and because his art. Does matter to people

and people need to see it in art and that's why you should have a place and think wow. Usually when someone mentions the phrase urban planning people don't get too fired up usually. But when you bring it home though as in the Neiman museum case people begin to understand the direct effect planners have on city livability. It is the viewer call show get fired up about it then. Well hopefully tonight we can bring that home for you once more. From the St. Paul river front to the Phillips neighborhood in Minneapolis which some want declared a federal disaster area. We're to look at the shape of things to come. RIP Rapson is a senior fellow at the University of Minnesota's Design Center for the American urban landscape. Lyle Rae is executive director of the Citizens League and Mathias Smith is on the

neighborhood council the governing board of the neighborhood group. People of Philip's lemme start with you first. Sable had its big design framework they unveiled. Minneapolis has this new urban plan. But you know something we've heard a lot of this before. Why are these two plans any different from the things that we have been presented to the public over the years. I guess a very good question. The issue for us I think is two things one a bigger picture into which city plans fit the two core cities are about a quarter of metro now. So we need to ask a question how do these big plans fit. Secondly the devil in the details how do you get there from here. Frankly many of us are skeptical of good good intentions the question is how do you make things move so those of some of the kinds of questions we'd ask right off the top will rip the purpose when you start talking about a design framework just to plant more trees and make it look nice. Or you know really to try to make some concrete changes in city livability. Well I clearly the latter I think when you think about a framework you've got to think about something

that has some vision to it that inspires a population to get excited about pieces of it. It's got a guide investment it's going to tell you where you're going to put your money and marshal your resources. It's gotta provide some idea of what policy changes are necessary to get there. And finally there's got to be a public education piece there's got to be a piece that tells the community where it is how things are changing what you want people to do in response to that change. So it can be a very powerful document if it's done properly and I think Lyle raises the question properly whether it's been done properly and I or these cases. Well Miss Smith when you when you read that many of us urban plan that came out were you inspired to go fired up about it. You know what. I guess they have to know. Yeah I did. It's a very aggressive plan but you say who's going to be committed to it how long is it going to work. And the other piece is I think rep named it you need to educate those that really are responsible for implementing this plan which is basically the residence. You know you've got to have public policy but if you don't get it down to the grassroots nothing is going to happen which is evidenced

by what hasn't been happening in our community. PHILLIPS We don't have a grocery store. It's the largest community in the city of Minneapolis and we do not have a grocery store. You know we don't have a high school. It's a little small things you know that people kind of like in their neighborhood and in that urban plan it talks about just those things to have a healthy community. You have to have the things there for the folks. So kind of tell us what's wrong with Phillips. You know I took one of my degrees in college was urban planning and I want to know from our two experts over here. Do you need big government programs. Do you need a high paid urban planners to say we need to do X Y and Z or should you have it come from the bottom up. Well let me jump in because I probably have a different perspective. I think the trick we face in the metro region is linking three different things together. What neighborhood residents want what the region as a whole needs and what municipal governments want and it's meshing those things because frankly residents can be unrealistic in terms of saying we want this we want that. And the marketplace can say we're not

interested. So we need to mesh the public investments the perceptions of grassroots citizens and what cities are doing all together. And the other piece I'd say and this is a point that Matthew just made you need to stick with it for a long time. This is a very slow long pole and you need very strong support to pull it all together my way you get political whims in politics change leaders change what how about that's only this thing is going to work this time. And I think that one of the things the beauties of NRP if you actually use it in our neighborhood I'm sorry. And their neighborhood revitalization program that they that you can actually get citizen participation and you actually get out there and say you know we want a commitment. We don't want this to change with the whims of whoever you get elected into government. It hasta be the long haul over the long haul we've had a deterioration in Philips over the long haul we have to see something change and residents. Have a commitment. I I would not do all this volunteer work for any other nonprofit unless it was in effect at the place that I live. I live

here and you know I take serious exception to the fact that folks don't think it's very important or very profitable to have a grocery store in my neighborhood. So yeah it's a long haul. That raises an interesting point which I think you are trying to get at is it is this sort of the traditional way of just having a municipal government stand in and say this is the way it's going to be. And here are the four things we're going to do. And let's get on with it I think you've got a much more complicated set of issues going on in both St. Paul in Minneapolis and St. Paul you go to. Fieri carefully constructed process to try to identify why the river works for the city how does it work downtown How is it working the neighborhoods how do you get the citizens involved I think it's actually in many ways a model of how how to do this on a fairly strategic basis. And in Minneapolis you have this very complicated underlay of all of these neighborhoods doing plans and strategies and programs. And I think Liles right the trick is not just for the government to stand in and say this is what we think we're going to do it's to mesh sort of one of the neighborhoods saying one of the regional economies saying how does it all fit in terms of a proper city role it's a very different kind of

comprehensive plan than what has traditionally characterized municipal government. When you talk about land use planning and urban planning where the differences when you talk about this they want the same in a way. Well I'll let you do the definitional part what I'm what I'm talking about as is how we relate to the natural amenities that we have in the built environment and make a best human use of those things and I think it's really three things at once. I mean the human capital side of making neighborhoods better more skills so people can bring home more income that's a piece. The other piece is the natural amenities that are either enhanced or preserved. Lakes river fronts and so on. And the other piece is how we build our buildings whether they're a nice scale to walk around whether pedestrians feel that they're safe and they're not going to get run over by a car. Those are the kind of three basic elements of the. There's a lot of different language you can use around those thing but the people the natural amenities in the built environment need to work together and that's that's the trick I think and the point that Rick was just making is that needs to be mesh with what neighborhoods want what the region as a whole would want I would say plus with what municipal planning

is doing. And that's a very tricky piece of business that has not been what public officials have traditionally done. I mean it's it's a much more complicated process of listening to the ground level work and trying to figure out how that does in fact bear out in city wide responsibilities and as a result I think some of the traditional planning concepts aren't nearly as compelling as they might have been 20 years ago when we last did accomplish and I think issues of land use are important but they're probably not as important as the kinds of things that we've been talking about already. Well what happens to us as far as on the grassroots neighborhood level as we end up having the worst of all political process because we have to deal with everything that's above us. We have to deal with the planet we have to deal with city council we have to deal with. Did minister read of the rules the legislation. All of it is on us. You know what I did lobbying for battered women. I had to deal with just one piece of government. Now I'm dealing with all these things like that.

Pay me for saying that if I could just add one thing you know one of the things about urban strategy is is that every level of government got a piece of the action. There's a federal agenda there's a state agenda there's a local agenda there's a regional agenda there's a neighborhood agenda. And it's very daunting for you know regular citizens to sort of look up and say how do we impact this. But one of the pieces that we think in terms of citizens like work that's important as we think regional strategy is saying let's infill existing development let's strengthen existing Corps see the Corps cities developed areas not just the two core cities but all the developed parts reuse and recycle our cities rather than slash and burn and move on. Point to that law. Absolutely one of the critical aspects of course that throwing a dog a bone is that one of the problems of our cities is some of us might put industrial uses on prime riverfront property to capture a good tax base and that may not make any sense at all from a regional perspective but from a city coffers point of view it probably makes good sense. So there's some tension here about what the property tax system tells us but I was going

mention one quick point is that we don't have a state level urban strategy that says let's have compact cities and let's reuse what we have. That's not on the on the. Well that was brought up in the legislature at least a little bit about this is past session so with about 30 seconds left. Do you feel that this this issue is going to bubble up again in the 97 98 sessions or has to go down or peacocking this they're talking about extending it that 10 years it's going to come up and I also think that that met Council's attempt to create a regional growth plan at least opens the door to that conversation we all have a different view of how effective that plan is but at least gets people talking about what is that kind of development that needs to go on in the first string in the course of these right. Yeah I wish I had another 10 15 minutes to talk. Appreciate it thank you so much. Thank you. Well we have a little more food for thought along the lines of this discussion. The transformation of a particular street corner in St. Paul Grand Avenue gets Kyoto's from many experts for being a so-called livable community a mixture of income groups and a nice combination of

residential and commercial uses. But longtime residents along Grand have seen their community change as more and more people from the outside are attracted to its amenities. That change is reflected along one street corner where our galleries are popping up like dandelions. NEWSNIGHT arts producer Patti Hagman visited the area to sample the art and find out how it's blending in with the rest of the neighborhood. Up until about 10 years ago I would say that 90 percent of the people were born and raised in this area but recently we've gotten a lot of people from the East Coast and from other parts of the country that have moved into the area. The Crocus Hill area happens to be one of the most expensive piece of real estate. The average sale price on a home is $300000. But on the other hand half the people rent. So we have an area where we have a diverse group of people and they tend to help people out. They tend to know who people are. So it's almost like a small town if you wanted to be a small town.

Would you. Like to go out to dinner and I were having lots of fun in here. Well this is from Mexico. Drive down Ellingham pick everything up myself. And these are some of the things that we're going to have in the shop here and what is your store going to be it's going to be open July thirty first going to be swindled me somebody or can I. Yeah right. I'll sure go shopping. All right one of my favorite things are these each one of pots. I went to the factory where they make these and so I hardly need them and how the color of them and paint them and I just think they're kind of fun. Have you been a fan of Mexico. Always have always my whole life. I've always liked it so now I can actually make a living at it I think in this case. Before you know I think this is the drugstore. The brandy old drugstore was right on the corner. Thank you. Thirty nine or thereabouts.

It was vital for the area I thought and everybody used the grand deal drugstore. Went out there and well there's to be a cleaners over there there used to be. Well there was a red carpet so we all know about that right. There had carpets and it was over there for many many years I have another service writer service through the back door. So basically what you had going on here were businesses that serve the people who lived here. Yes. And now we have our. Grand Avenue we felt was very good business district. We didn't feel that it was you know over occupied by galleries like you know the warehouse district in Minneapolis and. You know there's people in St. Paul that enjoy art too so figured it'd be a good area

and a nice place to open a business. Then they come regularly and they come back and they keep looking in the windows and you can tell they've seen it change and been really supportive I mean they've been here. You know as we planted the flowers and put up the lights and walked in and said Can we look when people are just out for the evening walks you know Sunday evening or whatever you know. You know you come back and then one day and and you know you get wiped the fingerprints off windows you know. You know I've had people that have come in that have been from Haiti that have just drove by and you know slam their brakes on because they'd never expect to see it here you know. So many people think of Haitian arts as being the little market scenes that people bring back from Haiti that they've picked up for five or ten dollars you know and and now it's much wider range of fire there. And it's one of the areas that the misfires folk art goes true folk art.. It's one of the few areas in the world that is completely unaffected by technical training.

I'm kind of a mixed mind about going to be sitting in a gallery where there used to be a pharmacy indicates a real change about the use of of the avenue it becomes more of a destination for outsiders than it sort of facility for local people. I think the Haitian shows are really wonderful and I've been you know I mean to have to have this kind of concentration. It's like being able to travel at home you know to go and see art from around the world in this gallery too. A naive painter is someone who is untrained.

They have not had the formal education. Basically these pieces are by naive artists or untrained artists but. They are considered. Among the most prominent artists and Haiti. What you typically see that really takes you and makes people really become fans of Haitian art is the fact that they are so vivid they're so vibrant they're colors that you wouldn't necessarily see put together in Western art. No it really contributes to the sense of community but overall the kind of change in grand suggested a move away from the pedestrian and towards the automobile. And away from everyday concerns to a kind of leisure or recreation orientation. This is still like a neighborhood still. Yeah there's plenty of there's plenty of small businesses plenty of you know old time residents who continue to hold out and and do their business on the avenue. It's

just getting a little harder. The showings of Haitian art run through this weekend and the Mexico and Grand Gallery opens on July 30 first. Well now we're running out of time. So right on to tomorrow's weather forecast see if the sewers in the roadways will be put to the test again. Not likely though the National Weather Service says partly cloudy. No storms highs just up to the lower 70s in the Northeast down into the mid 80s out west. And that is NEWSNIGHT for tonight. As we go a little more of the artwork from the gallery on Grand Avenue with a little music to set the mood. Thanks for watching and good night. It's not like Minnesota is made possible by the contributors to the power of two campaigns program

phone with major grants from the Blunden Foundation and the McKnight foundation. Tonight's broadcast of NEWSNIGHT in Minnesota is presented in part by Cargill supporting Minnesota's tradition of community service and by General Mills a manufacturer of healthy foods and snacks.