Michael LaPlante's blog

What:
The Eastside Pioneers Neighborhood Association (ESPNA) is sponsoring a community-wide discussion on the root causes of youth violence and gangs. Our keynote speakers will seek to shed some light on this subject as well as provide us with solutions to help youth whose destructive belief system results in negative behavior.
Who:
Wendell Amstutz MA, author of A Handbook on Youth Violence and Gangs and Youth Violence: The Belief-Behavior Connection. Wendell spent 23 years as a youth worker on staff with Campus Life. Besides being a national conference/seminar speaker, he is the founder and Executive Director of the National Counseling Resource Center (NCRC). He was co-founder and first chairman of the Community Youth Violence Intervention Council (CYVIC) in Rochester, Minnesota, a city-sponsored task force, created in the 1990’s, geared toward combating street gangs.

Since the Canadian Pacific announced, last fall, that they had reached an agreement with the Dakota, Minnesota, and Eastern railroad to buy them out for $1.48 billion, there has been a great deal of speculation about its impact across Wyoming, South Dakota and Minnesota.

The Eastside Pioneers Neighborhood Association (ESPNA) is bisected by the Dakota, Minnesota and Eastern (DME) railroad corridor. We have been closely monitoring developments regarding the DME railroad over the years and continue to do so today, especially in light of the Canadian Pacific railroad’s (CPR) proposed acquisition of the DME. We are especially concerned, given the recent behavior of the DME, about the seeming air of inevitability and subsequent atmosphere of concession and mitigation regarding the CPR-DME railroad and the Powder River Basin project.

With all the news coverage about the housing crisis have you wondered about the impact of foreclosed homes in our community? Several other questions also come to mind when considering home foreclosures such as: Are the number of foreclosed homes in our community still continuing to rise? What impact is this having on our tax roles? Will this impact the property taxes of those that own homes and property? What proportion of foreclosed homes are in SE Rochester? How many of these foreclosed homes continue to sit empty in our neighborhoods? Do you think they present any kind of security risk to neighborhoods? Have you noticed there's alot of homes for sale and have been for sale for quite some time in our neighborhood?

Do you like to talk about gardening, planting trees, planting shrubs, yard care, landscaping ideas, harvesting the produce from your garden and more?

The Eastside Pioneers Neighborhood Association (ESPNA) would like to hear from you, just send your thoughts, ideas and suggestions to mlaplante@aol.com We will publish whatever you give us in this regard in our newsletter, on the RNeighbors blog at www.Rneighbors.org. It would make a great discussion topic at neighborhood meetings. We could also trade thoughts and ideas via e-mail. It would be great to see what kinds of ideas we could come up with to enhance neighborhood gardens.

Is it too late to save Lourdes High School? No it is not and we can start now by signing a petition to save Lourdes High School. Just go to this website: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/LHS-Preserving-Our-Heritage, read the petition information and follow the instructions provided on the website. But first before you go to the website let me state why I think it is possible to change the minds of those that made the decision to relocate Lourdes High School.

· Lourdes is not "landlocked" it is surrounded by opportunity and potential partners in education, including Saint Marys Hospital, the Mayo campus, Mayo Medical School and the University of Minnesota. There are many possibilities for continuing and expanding creative partnerships and collaborative efforts between these educational institutions and Lourdes High School. Consider this excerpt taken from the Rochester Area Economic Development website: Rochester, Minnesota, is about to begin the design of the Minnesota BioBusiness Center. This facility will be located downtown in close proximity to Mayo Clinic and the Minnesota Partnership for Biotechnology and Medical Genomics. The facility is being designed to provide more than 150,000 square feet of office/lab space for companies who could benefit by being near Rochester’s bioscience assets. We are leaving no stone unturned as we create what we believe will be one of the leading BioBusiness Centers in America.

Initiating a google search on gangs or gang activity or gang violence renders all kinds of interesting articles and websites on the subject. A few of the more recent articles, those dated 2007, indicate either a resurgence or an increase in gang activity. One article entitled, “ Officials See a Spread in Gang Activity” seems particularly alarming. This article discusses the growth of street gangs with ties to El Salvador and other Central American nations that have been growing in size and violence, with two gangs based in Los Angeles counting thousands of members there and in El Salvador. Why should we be concerned about gangs, thousands of miles away in Los Angeles, California? Because law enforcement officials, meeting earlier this year for the International Chiefs of Police Summit on Transnational Gangs, said that gangs with roots or ties to Los Angeles had spread to 40 states and seven countries.

I was shocked by the article in the Monday, November 19 issue of the Post Bulletin that Lourdes High School would be relocating to Rochester’s outer fringes. As a Lourdes alumnus and a parent of a child attending Lourdes High School, I have been paying particularly close attention to future plans for Lourdes High School. I was under the impression that the issue of whether to renovate at the present site versus rebuilding at a new location was still being studied. To my knowledge the new site development was not a favored option. I was also under the impression that once a report was prepared that it would be presented to the board and eventually brought before the Catholic community for input, discussion and eventual approval. I was not prepared for a slam-dunk approval of an off site development and a picture of the Bishop on the front page of the Rochester Post Bulletin sealing the deal with a blessing from the Diocese of Winona.

The Eastside Pioneers Neighborhood Association (ESPNA) will be discussing youth gang activity and violence in Rochester at our next two neighborhood meetings on Thursday, November 8, and Thursday, December 13 7:00 PM at the Boys and Girls Club. We will have officers present at our November 8th meeting and hopefully Steve Thompson from the Southeast Minnesota Narcotics and Gang Task Force, at our December 13 meeting. We will be focusing particular attention on the impact of gang violence on Rochester's neighborhoods.

In light of the gang-related shootings and muggings, over the past year, the ESPNA is concerned about the safety and security of our neighborhood association. Everyone has seen the news articles in the Post Bulletin, “15 shootings in a year” or “Similarities to Gang Crimes in the early 1990’s” . These articles illustrate an alarming and frightening increase in the intensity and prevalence of gang violence in Rochester. It also brings to mind that once the violence starts it is hard to break the chain of retaliation. The sources of the violence may include battles over turf, slights between gangs or conflicts over drugs and/or money.

According to the latest (October 26) Track the Truth on-line information, the Mayo Clinic has asked the Surface Transportation Board (STB) to revise its proposed ‘fast-track’ timetable for reviewing the Canadian Pacific Railroad’s (CPR) recent acquisition of the Dakota, Minnesota & Eastern Railroad (DM&E).
The Mayo Clinic is calling for thorough review of Canadian Pacific's acquisition of the Dakota, Minnesota & Eastern Railroad . According to Chris Gade, a spokesperson for the Mayo Clinic, “Mayo is simply asking for a complete and thoughtful review of a transaction that may have a tremendous impact on our community and for the opportunity to have a constructive dialogue with the railroad's new owners before the purchase is approved."

The Eastside Pioneers Neighborhood Association (ESPNA) has been monitoring gang activity in both our neighborhood and our community. As you may know gang activity doesn’t occur in isolated pockets, it spreads rapidly and will eventually have an impact on all of us.

We think it is imperative that our community respond with the utmost urgency to the recent rash of gang-related shootings. Listed below are a few of our suggestions:

1. Hire the required number of police officers for a city of our size to handle the situation;
2. Police should re-establish close ties with neighborhoods;
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