Hello Commissioners, City staff and Minneapolis residents,

My name is Amanda Winterer and I represent the Bottineau Neighborhood Association. I am the group’s treasurer.  Thank you for this opportunity to make this statement. Bottineau Neighborhood Association requests that the funding structure and levels of funding remain the same for all neighborhood groups for the foreseeable future. The Citizen Participation Program has worked well for the past 8 years.

For example, Bottineau has established Neighborhood Priority Plans. One such NPP is the Homework Helper at Bottineau Park.  After a few Somali parents asked for this help, at a community meeting, our neighborhood group got busy and set up the coordination of volunteer tutors to help all children get STEM help at our park. Another NPP implemented is Crime Solutions that works with the police to track crime trends and react with organized volunteers when shots are fired in the community or other crimes are committed.  We have many examples of this type of outreach conducted at community request.

BNA also requests that the Community Innovation Funds, CIF, be expanded and used more. BNA was a recipient of one such CIF grant and put it to use studying air pollution around the Lowry Bridge that leveraged an additional 500,000 dollars in MPCA air monitoring that is currently being conducted on the Mississippi Water Management Organization roof top near Lowry Bridge.

As a matter of neighborhood tradition, a pumpkin carving is held at the Park every fall and a Bottineau Neighborhood and Mississippi River clean-up is held every April in honor of Earth Day. This year, as part of the Green Zones in Minneapolis, we will be able to offer 25 free trees to the community to help remediate air pollution and improve the tree canopy in Bottineau.

Thanks again for listening to our request. Copies of this testimony are at the sign in table.

Good news, Bottineau: Some unused NRP funds designated by the City for Bottineau Neighborhood have unexpectedly turned up and we, as a community, need to vote on how we are going to use that money. And you will have that opportunity at our first community meeting of the new year at East Side Neighborhood Services (1700 2nd St. NE) on Thursday, January 28 at 7:00 p.m.

At our December meeting, the BNA board discussed funding priorities in the Neighborhood and voted to recommend that we reassign this money—$46,340.85 from an old commercial loan program—to the current housing grant program that benefits Bottineau property owners and helps keep our neighborhood’s housing stock in good shape. If that sounds familiar it’s because you’ve read about it in the Gazette before—it’s the Bottineau Matching Grant program that provides up to $2000 for home improvement projects.

To reassign this money from an old NRP strategy to a current neighborhood priority, we need the community—a.k.a. you—to ratify the board’s recommendation.

But that’s not the only NRP money available to be reassigned: another $9000 in uncontracted funds from an NRP I bike path strategy has also turned up and the Board has voted to recommend using these funds to engage neighborhood residents in other meaningful ways. One thing the Board wants to do is again fund the family reading program we piloted in 2014. A popular and effective program, it worked with immigrant families to better prepare their children’s reading skills and, thus, their ability to succeed in school. Volunteers read books to children and every week each child was given a book to take home.

Other potential uses for these funds include translation services at meetings; youth arts programming via Juxtaposition Art, or via workshops organized in conjunction with resident artists at the California Building; and Movies in the Park—something we can all enjoy.

But, again, this is something for our community to vote on, and other ideas—for how to use this money to engage neighborhood residents—are certainly welcome. To propose an idea, though, you need to show up. In fact, the world is run by people who show up.

Join us and help make Bottineau beautiful.

Contest Details:

The Minneapolis Commission on Civil Rights, the Minneapolis Department of Civil Rights, Minneapolis City Council, and the Minneapolis Mayor are pleased to present the 2016 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Essay Contest. This contest is open to all Minneapolis students in the 9th, 10th, and 11th grades.

The topic for this year’s contest is: Dr. King’s vision is alive and well through the work of current civil rights activists. What kind of impacts are these activists making on the current political and social landscape, and how do you see their work influencing the future?

Provide and properly cite all direct quotes from at least two current leaders/activists in your essay, and give their contact information for verification purposes. You can use information gathering techniques such as interviews, reaching out to organizations/houses of worship doing civil rights work, attending community meetings, and much more. Essays may be from one to three pages in length and address the selected topic. Completed entry forms with parent’s signature must be attached to the back of the essay. All submissions are due by November 16th, 2015.

Teachers can request a member of the Minneapolis Commission on Civil Rights to visit their classroom and to assist students with the essay topic. To request a visit, please contact the commissioner listed at the bottom of this letter.

Additional packets can be found on the Minneapolis Commission on Civil Rights website, here.

All contest winners will be notified in January, 2016. There will be three winners chosen from each grade level.

The contest winners will receive a gift card to be awarded at a ceremony before the Minneapolis City Council in January 2016, in the following amounts:

First Place $ 300.00
Second Place $ 200.00
Third Place $ 100.00

There will be a reception after the award ceremony to honor the winners. Teachers, parents, educators and others are invited to attend. Students will have the opportunity to meet and take pictures with the Minneapolis Commission on Civil Rights members, Minneapolis City Council members and Mayor Hodges. Interviews may be requested by the media. The first place winners will have an opportunity to read a portion of their essay at the awards ceremony

Completed Essays should be returned no later than Monday November 16th, 2015 to:

Minneapolis Department of Civil Rights
Attention: Christian Taylor, MCCR Liaison
350 South 5th Street, Room 239
Minneapolis, MN 55415
[email protected]

The Minneapolis Commission on Civil Rights, the Minneapolis Department of Civil Rights, the Minneapolis City Council, and the Minneapolis Mayor are pleased to present the 2014 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Essay Contest. This contest is open to all Minneapolis students in the 9th, 10th, and 11th grades.

Students are asked to write or type an original essay in English addressing this year’s topic. The essay should contain proper spelling and grammar.

The topic for this year’s contest is:

Jokes or comments are commonly made, both accidentally and intentionally, at the expense of certain groups of people. Some individuals and organized groups actively work to stop hurtful speech. What could you do to stop these stereotypical/hurtful comments?

Provide at least 2 specific examples of how language results in the violation of or protection of human rights. Be sure to identify the message, who it is from, who it affects and how it affects them. Reference the United States’ Constitution, the United Nations’ Declaration of Human Rights or the United States Bill of Rights in your answer. Essays may be from one to three pages in length and address the selected topic. Completed entry forms with parent’s signature must be attached to the back of the essay. All submissions are due by January 19th, 2015.

Teachers can request a member of the Minneapolis Commission on Civil Rights to visit their classroom and to assist students with the essay topic. To request a visit, please contact the commissioner listed at the bottom of this letter.

Additional packets can be found on the Minneapolis Commission on Civil Rights website http://www.minneapolismn.gov/civilrights/commission/civil-rights_commission_announcements

You can also click here for the 2015 Parent Consent Form.

All contest winners will be notified by February, 2015. There will be three winners chosen from each grade level.

The contest winners will receive a gift card to be awarded at a ceremony before the Minneapolis City Council in the spring of 2015.

First Place: $300.00

Second Place: $200.00

Third Place: $100.00

There will be a reception after the award ceremony to honor the winners. Teachers, parents, educators and others are invited to attend. Students will have the opportunity to meet and take pictures with the Minneapolis Commission on Civil Rights members, Minneapolis City Council members and Mayor Hodges. Interviews may be requested by the media. The first place winners will have an opportunity to read a portion of their essay at the awards ceremony

Completed Essays should be returned no later than Monday January 19th, 2015 to:

Minneapolis Department of Civil Rights
Attention: Lee Zutz, MCCR Liaison
350 South 5th Street, Room 239
Minneapolis, MN 55415
[email protected]

On Wednesday, BNA was contacted by Thadra Sheridan from Button Poetry about establishing Teen Poetry Workshops in different communities around Minneapolis, including Bottineau Neighborhood. Here is part of what she wrote:

I am working with Button Poetry, a local literary organization to create a Slam Poetry program in Twin Cities neighborhoods this fall.  What we are looking to do is start with 8-12 neighborhoods with the goal of expanding in the future.  In each neighborhood, we would use a teen center, community center, library, possibly a school to conduct a weekly workshop on writing and performance with neighborhood teens.  The workshops would be run by local adult professional performance poets overseen by Button Poetry and myself.  We are working with the Office of Student Equity to ensure that we reach out to marginalized community youth for this program, as they are often the ones most in need of this resource and form of expression.  The Office of Student Equity will also be working with our teachers on sensitivity training to ensure they are respectful and appropriate while providing an open creative outlet.

Slam Poetry is an extremely popular and accessible art form for youth.  It provides a vehicle for them to address their identities, the world around them, and their emotions.  It also enables students to enjoy a tolerant, supportive, and open-minded environment where they can learn from each other’s perspectives and experiences.  Button Poetry has worked hard for the past three years to showcase slam poetry on the internet and have become the largest internet provider of spoken word content in the world, connecting dozens of poets to Upworthy and other major media outlets.  We plan to use their resources and artists to contribute to the next generation and provide a platform for their expression and a community amongst their peers.

When the program gets under way, the workshops would last for six months, include Slam Poetry competitions between the different neighborhood groups, and culminate in a final citywide competition. More than anything, this project is “designed to give teens a way to express themselves, to have their voices heard, and to meet and learn from their peers across the city while working with established artists from their community.”

This sounds like a good opportunity for Bottineau youth, but what Button Poetry is asking for from us now is … are we interested in pursuing this opportunity? Do we know of community centers in the neighborhood that would host the weekly workshops? Can we help support them financially to cover administrative fees and pay teachers?

In short, should Bottineau Neighborhood Association help facillitate this project in our own neighborhood? Do we see this as an opportunity for our neighborhood youth and do we want to support it?

If you live in the community and have an opinion about this opportunity, please contact the BNA office via email ([email protected]) or by phone (612-367-7262).