Thank you to everyone who participated in Bottineau Neighborhood Association’s annual Plant Giveaway Saturday, June 6th.  This yearly event was pushed out a month, in an effort to adhere to the state’s Stay at Home orders.

Plants were ordered, volunteering was organized and plans were made to present the neighborhood with herbs, vegetables and flowers of all sorts with no clear information on whether or not it would be lawful to do this type of event early in June. It turned out to be a beautiful, sunny day with a constant sound of birds chirping in the background where the neighborhood was eager to come out and support each other.  Residents were presented with seven different vegetables or herbs, twelve different flowers and two different perennials and were told they could choose any plants to take home.

BNA offered up gloves, garbage bags and other cleaning materials for the community to use during their self guided clean ups of the neighborhood and river front, since we could not continue our yearly community clean up in April this year as originally planned.  MaskMvmt.org donated masks to the residents who needed masks, so we could all practice social distancing. There were 74 households that came to show support and obtain plants, one of the largest turnouts the  Beautify Bottineau event has ever recorded! We hope everyone enjoyed the new life and found solace in the time spent cleaning up this year on your own, we look forward to seeing the fruits of your labor as we walk around this summer.

Don’t Recreate Policing With Our Community Watch

Quick tips for non-Black neighbors

The best way to protect your neighborhood is to invest in community building directly with neighbors.  Community watches often recreate the violent police state we are attempting to uproot, especially if we don’t organize thoughtfully. Here are a few tips to build community and an effective community watch. 

• Doorknock your block and introduce yourself. 

Go to every house. The goal is to be known to all of your neighbors, not just those who were invited to organize.

• Provide your contact info and your house number.

Make sure your block is well connected. If giving out your contact info to known neighbors makes you nervous, please question why you want to do community watch. If neighbors of color don’t share back, don’t be suspicious. You haven’t earned their trust. Ask if they have folks nearby to connect with and trust their answer. 

• Be present and visible as a neighbor. 

If you have a porch, a stoop, or a big street-facing window, try to be visible several times per hour. Keep your lights on. Bad actors are less likely to come into a neighborhood that is present and active. Keep eyes on houses that are unable to do this themselves.

• Disarm folks by engaging them. 

If you see someone you don’t recognize, say something simple like “Hey – you good?” Engage rather than attempting to scare, threaten, or make assumptions by reporting them. They might just be trying to get home. 

• Document what you observe, but only report when something actually happens. 

The goal of community watch is to promote safety, not to recreate police surveillance and targeting. That first step is visibility and presence. The second is sharing information. 

Only report when and what has actually happened that poses a credible threat. Try to only share information that you’ve witnessed, or name the source if it’s second-hand. Try not to create panic by making judgments of what “seems suspicious.”

• Send direct, plain language updates in one message. 

Provide only the factual information in a useful way: “Red Chevy truck, plates XXX-123, slowly headed south on Nicollet from 24th Street, 3 white men inside flashing automatic rifles. 12:31AM” That’s it. That’s the update. 

If there were no automatic rifles in that update, is it still a threat? Interrogate why or why not. 

You can access a digital version of this document and further resources at bit.ly/MplsNeighbors

Further Resources and Reading

• What to Do Instead of Calling the Police
• Don’t call the police, call your neighbors
• Strong Communities Make Police Obsolete
• Strategies for Resistance: Community Protection
• Stop, Drop, and Roll (A method to interrogate and disrupt your role in causing further harm)
• Beyond the Hashtag: How to Take Anti-Racist Action in Your Life
• For Our White Friends Desiring to Be Allies
• Beyond Separation Resource List
• Anti Racism Resources
• 75 Things White People Can Do for Racial Justice
• White people, here’s how to be a better ally and proactively anti-racist

Image designed by Micah Bazant with the Ella Baker Center in July 2013, for Night Out for Safety & Democracy, their community alternative to the police-sponsored event National Night Out.

You can access a digital version of this document and further resources at bit.ly/MplsNeighbors

Bottineau Neighborhood Association Board Meeting

Tuesday June 9th, 7pm   via Zoom

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86292404308

BNA Board Meeting

May 12th, 2020 7pm

Zoom Meeting Link

Or dial in:

1-646-558-8656

Meeting ID: 894 9451 4515

Bottineau Neighborhood  Association Board Meeting

 Tuesday April 14th · 7pm  

Guests:
East Side Neighborhood Services
Northeast Farmer’s Market
Friends of the Lock and Dam

Join us on Zoom!

               https://us04web.zoom.us/j/6454874937

Coronavirus/COVID-19 Resources

The Minnesota Department of Health is leading the state and city preparedness and information dissemination. If you have health questions about COVID-19, the Minnesota Department of Health offers a specific COVID-19 hotline: 651-201-3920 (7 a.m. to 7 p.m. CT).

Follow the CDC’s updates on cdc.gov or their social channels (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube).

• MPRB recreation centers and program buildings will be closed from Tuesday, March 17 through Sunday, April 5. Details here.
• Minneapolis Public School Student Meal Pickup Information
• COVID-19 Freelance Artist Resources
• Minnesota worker protections related to COVID-19 (sick leave, FMLA, discrimination, reporting health concerns at work, unemployment insurance, workers’ compensation)
• The state’s Employee Assistance Program provides free, confidential consultation on matters involved in your personal or professional life

• Electricity: Xcel Energy, the electricity provider for Minneapolis residents and business owners, announced over the weekend that it will indefinitely suspend service disconnections. The company also said it would work with customers who face difficulty paying their electricity bill to arrange payment plans to meet those circumstances. If you have questions about your electricity bill or service, call Xcel’s customer service line at 1-800-895-4999.
• Gas: CenterPoint Energy, the gas provider in Minneapolis, also announced it will suspend service disconnections and work with customers who need payment assistance, extensions, or other help. If you have questions about your gas bill or service, contact CenterPoint Energy’s customer service line at 1-800-245-2377.
• Internet: Comcast announced yesterday that it will open Xfinity WiFi network nationally for free, will be offering free unlimited data, and will not disconnect a customer’s internet service or assess late fees if they contact the company and let them know that they can’t pay their bills during this period. More information on what Comcast is doing to help make sure everyone has internet access, especially low-income families, can be found here.

Looking for information on coronavirus disease 19 in more languages? 
The Minnesota Department of Health has translated some of its coronavirus disease 19 (COVID-19) information and materials into several languages. Please share these links with your neighbors, colleagues and connections and help protect our communities:

• Coronavirus disease 19 information in Spanish.
• Coronavirus disease 19 information in Somali.
• Coronavirus disease 19 information in Hmong.
• This page offers information and materials in nine languages – including how to access health insurance and low-cost clinics – and has a coronavirus public service announcement video in American Sign Language.

• Minnesota Department of Health: www.health.state.mn.us/diseases/coronavirus/index.html
• City of Minneapolis Office of Emergency Management:  www.minneapolismn.gov/emergency/coronavirus
• Hennepin County: www.hennepin.us/residents/emergencies/covid-19

The Northern Metals Consent Decree Advisory Committee is being established to provide recommendations on how the funds from the Northern Metals Consent Decree will be spent in Minneapolis. The City of Minneapolis is asking for community input on how to identify and outreach residents with asthma or a potential for lead poisoning and how to utilize $200,000 a year for three years within the impacted neighborhoods of Sheridan, Bottineau, McKinley and Hawthorn with the four items allowed in the consent decree.

(1) Identify and educate at-risk residents on asthma triggers.

(2) Enroll families with children suffering from poorly controlled asthma in a new asthma trigger mitigation program.

(3) Implement community and block-by-block blood lead level screening events in cooperation with local clinics which will offer follow-up venous blood screening as needed.

(4) Identify and connect affected individuals with resources to help reduce environmental exposure to lead.

Vacancies

• Seat 1: Council appointees must live or work in the Bottineau neighborhood.
• Seat 2: Council appointees must live or work in the Bottineau neighborhood.
• Seat 3: Council appointees must live or work in the Bottineau neighborhood.
• Seat 4: Council appointees must live or work in the Sheridan neighborhood.
• Seat 6: Council appointees must live or work in the Sheridan neighborhood.
• Seat 16: Member at large; representative will be selected by the Health Commissioner.
• Seat 17: Member at large; representative will be selected by the Health Commissioner.
• Seat 18: Member at large; representative will be selected by the Health Commissioner.

Deadline: March 31, 2020.

Application Instructions

Complete the Application Form (pdf) and the Voluntary Demographic Questionnaire (pdf).

Send completed forms to [email protected], or by fax: 612-673-3812, or:

City Clerk Appointments
Room 304, 350 South Fifth Street
Minneapolis, MN 55415-1382

You can apply on your own behalf, nominate others for consideration, or inform the City Clerk’s Office of someone to whom you’d like application materials to be sent.

Contact

Committee Contact: Lisa Smestad, 612-673-3733, [email protected]

City Clerk’s Office, 612-673-2216, or email [email protected]

Selection Process

The City Council shall approve the appointment of all committee members.  

Additional Information

The Committee will be comprised of 18 members. 12 of the member positions will be recommended for appointment by council members from the 4 neighborhoods effected. Meeting dates, time and locations will be determined by Committee.

$25 gift card may be provided to each member attending each meeting if practicable and if grant funds are available.

Should you require a reasonable accommodation in order to fully participate, or information in an alternative format, please contact the Office of City Clerk at 612-673-2216 or [email protected]. People who are deaf or hard of hearing can use a relay service to call 311 at 612-673-3000. TTY users call 612-673-2157.

The City of Minneapolis is helping residents save money and increase comfort in their homes. While funds last, the City is offering 0% financing on recommended energy-saving upgrades to all households (no income limit) and free Home Energy Squad visits to households with a family income less than $100,000.

All residents living in a Minneapolis Green Zone are eligible for the free energy visit regardless of income: Bottineau, Cedar-Riverside, East Phillips, Hawthorne, Marshall Terrace, McKinley, Midtown Phillips, Near North, Phillips West, Sheridan and Ventura Village.

TO SCHEDULE YOUR HOME ENERGY
SQUAD VISIT CALL 651-328-6220
OR VISIT MNCEE.ORG/HES-MPLS