Joe Soucheray is a bumbling shill for DeLaSalle
In his third Pioneer Press column on Nicollet Island/DeLaSalle this year ( Jan. 1 and 15, plus today), Joe Soucheray again puts his research skills on display. Here are four examples:
- ACTUALLY, THE TEN MOST ENDANGERED LIST HAS INCLUDED STREETS
- ACTUALLY, GROVE STREET HAS BEEN ON THE LIST BEFORE
- ACTUALLY, RESIDENTS HAVE BEEN ON ISLAND LONGER THAN DELASALLE
- ACTUALLY, AT DELASALLE, BEHIND-THE-SCENES POLITICAL CLOUT 'R' US
- Roger Scherer, who represents District 1 and chairs the Met Council's management committee, is a DeLaSalle graduate and was named to the DeLaSalle Hall of Fame in 2004.
- Michael Rainville represents Minneapolis on the Metropolitan Council's Metropolitan Parks and Open Spaces Commission. He is also a member of DeLaSalle's board of trustees.
- City Council President Barbara Johnson is on DeLaSalle's board of trustees, serving on the executive committee as treasurer. She has not abstained from voting on DeLaSalle matters.
- City Council Member Cam Gordon has abstained from voting on DeLaSalle matters, saying that his son will attend the school next year.
- City Attorney Jay Heffern is a DeLaSalle graduate and has served on the DeLaSalle board of trustees.
- Interim Police Chief Tim Dolan is a DeLaSalle graduate.
- Park board President Jon Olson's son was finishing his senior year at DeLaSalle when the school began lobbying the park board to provide land for its stadium.
- Park commissioner Walter Dziedzic taught at DeLaSalle High School.
- Park board attorney and lobbyist Brian Rice is a DeLaSalle High School graduate.
- Thomas Johnson, who the park board appointed to its DeLaSalle stadium Citizen Advisory Committee to represent "youth sports," has been chairperson of the DeLaSalle board of trustees and has worked for DeLaSalle as Vice President of Development.
Soucheray writes, about the Preservation Alliance of Minnesota: "I looked at its Web site, and I can't for the life of me find that they ever cited a couple of hundred feet of street, especially one such as Grove, which doesn't even feature any original cobblestones. It was repaved a few years ago!"
Minnesota's 10 Most Endangered Historic Properties of 2000
The Ten Most Endangered List for 2000 follows (in no specific order of importance): Granitoid Concrete Streets (SAVED!), Duluth, St. Louis Co.; 1909-10.
http://www.mnpreservation.org/portfolio.ten00.php
About six blocks of street total: Sixth and Seventh Streets between Irving Place and Wallace Avenue, Irving Place and Clover Street between Irving Place and Seventh Street.
http://www.ci.duluth.mn.us/city/council/resord00/00-026-o.html
Soucheray writes: "And no, Grove Street has never previously appeared on the list."
10 Most Endangered 2005:
Saint Anthony Falls Historic District
Minneapolis, Hennepin County
Many consider the Saint Anthony Falls to be the "birthplace of Minnesota." The once great cataract fueled the flour milling and other industrial activity that made Minneapolis the main economic engine of the upper Midwest, and put Minnesota on the map. The long, slow decline of riverside industry has since provided extraordinary opportunities for city leaders to remake the historically designated district into a successful mix of recreational amenities, rehabilitated housing, offices and cultural places-all created with respect for the area's heritage. But the district's successful mix of modern and historic is delicate and faces constant threats. The first comes in the form of an athletic complex proposed by an educational institution. A planned retaining wall and tall lights for the athletic field are out of scale with the nearby Nicollet Island neighborhood, and may degrade the island's unique but fragile historic character.
Soucheray writes: "The island's residents have tried desperately to hide their true intentions behind environmental and parkland claims, conveniently ignoring the fact that DeLaSalle has been on the island approximately 85 years longer than any of them." In other words, because no current Nicollet Island resident is 107 years old, the city should give DeLaSalle a street and parkland that taxpayers paid $1 million for? DeLaSalle started in a house in 1900. DeLaSalle's campus sits on top of residential land where people lived in townhouses and mansions decades before the school existed. And in at least a dozen cases, DeLaSalle has not been on the island 85 years longer than current Nicollet Island residents, some of whom have lived there since the early 1970s.
Soucheray writes: "It is telling of behind-the-scenes political clout that there has been little support for the [DeLaSalle athletic] field in the mayor's office and in the council chambers in Minneapolis." News apparently travels slow to St. Paul. On Jan. 4, 2006, while Soucheray was presumably catching his breath between his Jan. 1 and Jan. 15 columns promoting a stadium for a private high school stadium in Minneapolis and castigating its neighbors, his former colleague Pat Reusse quoted Mayor R.T. Rybak in the Star Tribune, saying "I do support the DeLaSalle stadium openly." (http://www.startribune.com/508/story/161493.html)
And Soucherary apparently hasn't heard that Barb Johnson, a sitting member of DeLaSalle's Board of Trustees, is president of the Minneapolis City Council, which in Minneapolis is the most powerful city office. For the record, here are some of the elected and appointed officials with ties to DeLaSalle who will or already have made decisions on behalf of the public about whether DeLaSalle, a private school, may build a stadium and parking lot over a public street and public parkland.
At the Metropolitan Council (which is being asked by DeLaSalle to break its restrictive covenant banning athletic fields to protect public open space for passive public enjoyment, and to swap land elsewhere in the regional park system to make up for the loss of regional parkland in the inner city should the stadium be built):
At the City of Minneapolis (which is being asked by DeLaSalle for a gift of almost half of acre of public right-of-way by vacating Grove Street; permission to harm the St. Anthony Falls Historic District by closing the street and constructing a stadium; a permit to build a stadium where city zoning does not allow it; permission to build a surface parking lot on the riverbank; as well as permission to impede emergency access by closing a street):
At the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board (with which DeLaSalle cut a deal to turn over public parkland for the stadium project, in violation of the park board's own plans and policies for Nicollet Island):
Soucheray's lying propoganda bullshit column at the Pioneer Press's website.
