Last night we kicked off the month long public review of the draft Parks and Trails Legacy Plan (which will be open for discussion through Friday, Jan 7, 2011).  My name is Emmett Mullin, and I work as a planner with the DNR. Currently, I'm working with Laurie Young to support the parks and trails Legacy planning effort.

We'll... Back to Mankato. I felt we had a great meeting last night - a very positive and engaged group of about 30 folks attended. 

A number of themes emerged from our discussions. Perhaps the top one is that trail connections should be a...

1,223 Participants!

As the final summary of all the Parks and Trails Legacy Workshops is being compiled, I thought it would be interesting to reflect upon the public participation aspect of the workshops. In total we had 1,223 citizens participate in the public input process. Approximately 995 citizens attended the 17 public and 3 targeted workshops and 228 signed up for the Parks and Trails Legacy project on CitiZing! The workshop with the highest attendance was held in Rochester, with 91 participants. The St. Cloud and Marshall workshops came in a close second with approximately 80 participants respectively. Furthermore, almost 30...

I am Brendan, and I have been working on logging all of the responses from the in-person regional workshops throughout the state.  From these I learned more about Minnesota parks and trails, and the vision that Minnesotans have for them. I wanted to share with you some of the things that I have found interesting along the way. 

Underrepresented Groups

One of the main themes was to get minorities and youth involved, as these people were underrepresented at the meetings. Creating a future generation of stewards was also a highly desired outcome, as they are key to building a legacy.  The...

It is no secret that land acquisition has been a hot topic of debate at the Parks and Trails Legacy Workshops. At some workshops participants have said, "Acquire the land now before it is too late." At other workshops we have heard participants say, "Why would we acquire more land when we cannot maintain the land we already have." And yet both sides of the argument can to some degree understand the other point of view, which is what makes this such a complex issue.

During the workshop in Willmar, a participant brought the following Star Tribune article to the attention...

We’re “officially” launching CitiZing today to the public.  While we’ve been up and running internally for many months and have undergone a “soft launch” with the Parks and Trails Legacy project, today marks CitiZing’s official public debut. 

CitiZing combines social networking, Web 2.0 tools and the Citizens League’s citizen-driven solution building process into a single online platform designed to facilitate collaboration and solution-building on public problems.  We see CitiZing as a distinct contribution to building our civic infrastructure, and envision it as the go-to place online for collaboration and solution-building on public issues.  You can read more...

I'm a member of the Steering Committee and have attended the Summit and two of the input sessions.  One of the questions that has come up is how to define quality in parks and trails. What are quality values or criteria that the Legacy Plan should address for parks and trails?

     Wow!  We had a great workshop.  That probably sounds like an oxymoron to people that live their lives at meetings.  Planners say about 100 people attended.  The youngest was about 14.  She wouldn't let her dad leave after some of the fun discussion got going.  The room was full and staff were putting up extra chairs and tables and just about ran out of handouts (a bureaucrat's dream.)  Along with the citizens from the St. Cloud Metro Area there were participants from Todd County, Wright County, Sherburne County, Benton, Stearns County and McLeod County, and many more I couldn't...

Hi everyone, I am Stacy Becker, the project leader for the Citizens League on this exciting partnership with the DNR.  I wrote the following post for my personal blog after our first public meeting on April 14, and I want to share it here with you.

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I had an epiphany yesterday on account of the green. No, not money or Saint Patty's Day. Nature.

I had the honor of moderating, for the Citizens League and Minnesota’s Department of Natural Resources, the first of many meetings to discuss how money from the “Legacy Amendment” should...