City continues work on St. Louis River Natural Area management plan

How did Breidenbach know the rusty blackbirds were happy? How does a happy rusty blackbird look, for that matter? Arbitrary analyses are so confusing.

They were smiling.

It’s so good and convenient that the DNAP is now underway along the estuary. Just after the City Administration pushes a park and launch through that many private citizens are NOT in favor of and that includes the neighborhood it is in. The new
Spirit Landing Park (a.k.a. Tallas Bay; Kayak Bay; Lower Spirit Water Access) was developed by our City’s economic arm over about 15 years, in concert with a developer and their investors, including the paddling businesses in the area.

Question: Why would you enact the DNAP after all the developments have been moved forward? Wouldn’t it have made better sense, if you were interested in protecting the world’s largest freshwater estuary, to do the DNAP first? The Minnesota Land Trust had this contract for quite some time before the Spirit Landing Park was moved out of the Western Waterfront Trail Extension plan and pushed through the council after the Parks Commission made their historic NO vote on the plan.

This, I hope, is the only Parks development created to help wealthy developers and local recreation businesses get a park and a launch. Remember, we have Riverside’s Spring Street near the water and the Munger launch is a stone’s throw away. Why are we creating another park that we can not maintain? Better yet, the DNAP should ignore that there is a park planned here and see if the process would support such a park plan.