Minneapolis park board’s back room session on DeLaSalle deal

NEVER SHOWN ON TV! For an hour before its regular Feb. 1, 2006 meeting, the Minneapolis park board met in a small back room on a proposed deal to let private DeLaSalle High School build a football stadium across a city street and over public parkland that’s dedicated to open space. In this long sample clip the board discusses the closure of Grove Street, whether the park board will have access to the stadium during the fall, and whether the park board is putting the cart before the horse by entering a contract with a private developer for land that by state mandate taxpayers bought for public open space, not private school football stadiums. Because the meeting is held in a small back room instead of the large meeting room that was built for board meetings, few members of the public could witness this discussion of the people’s business by their elected representatives. Likewise, because this back room is not set up for video recording as the normal meeting room is, this meeting was never shown on public access cable TV, as are all other park board meetings. Here is a guide to the speakers: Scott Vreeland, then a newly-elected commissioner, is first to speak. Next to him is Tracy Nordstrom, also a newly-elected commissioner at the time. Next to her and speaking last in this clip is Jon Olson, park board president and father of a recent DelaSalle student. At the other end of the table is Brian Rice, park board attorney, who also is a DeLaSalle graduate.