Open Streets Returns to Hennepin Avenue Oct. 11
On Sunday, Oct. 11, Hennepin Avenue will be closed to traffic from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. between 26th and 36th streets so that people can enjoy local businesses, music, art, street food and each other while strolling or rolling on the car- and bus-free street.
Open Streets is a city program to build community, support local businesses and encourage people to get out of their cars to walk and roll more often. The Uptown Association is the sponsor of the Hennepin Avenue event.
No ticket is required and there is no starting point. Grab a friend or come solo and join the festivities anywhere along the way.
Susan Lenfestey
Lowry Hill
Remembering Robert Skafte, 1957-2023
Sept. 10 was a hard day. It meant reliving the trauma of Robert Skafte’s death and remembering the bright life our communities lost nearly three years ago.
I am deeply thankful for everyone who has stayed together and stood strong for Robert throughout the long legal process. Someone was present at every hearing involving the man charged with Robert’s murder, through mental health court, grand jury proceedings, competency hearings, psychological evaluations and, finally, the court’s decision on Sept. 10.
The process was long and often difficult to understand. The defendant had previously been found to be a danger to himself and others and was ordered committed to the Minnesota Security Hospital in St. Peter. Because a bed was not available, he remained in the Hennepin County jail for more than a year.
A grand jury subsequently heard the prosecution’s case, and three independent psychological evaluations were conducted. Ultimately, the court found that the defendant had committed both premeditated and intentional murder but found him not guilty by reason of mental illness or cognitive impairment under Minnesota law.
For those of us in the courtroom, Sept. 10 brought a lot of tears, emotion, grief and memories of that awful day in December 2023.
We are grateful to the Hennepin County prosecution team and to Judge Burns for allowing victim impact statements to be heard even though there would be no criminal sentencing. Robert’s death affected far more than those closest to him. The communities of Loring Park and Stevens Square were deeply affected, as were Robert’s family, his dear friends and generations of neighborhood store owners who knew and loved him.
We appreciated Judge Burns’ care and the words he shared with those of us in the courtroom after the victim impact statements.
We mourn Robert each and every day: his smile, the twinkle in his eyes and, most of all, his kindness. He was the best of us.
Jana L. Metge
Executive Director, Citizens for a Loring Park Community
A Clarification From Tin Fish
I commend you on your recent article and appreciate the due diligence that went into it. I would, however, like to offer an important clarification about why Tin Fish ultimately left the Bde Maka Ska pavilion.
We did decline a proposed 15-year lease, but that lease came with a significant condition: Tin Fish would have been expected to invest approximately $3.5 million to rebuild the pavilion, a building we would never own.
When the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board issued a request for proposals in 2017, it similarly anticipated that the new tenant would bear the cost of rebuilding the pavilion. After the building burned, another request was issued requiring an approximately $3.5 million investment from a prospective vendor. There were no applicants.
The eventual cost of rebuilding the pavilion exceeded $6 million and was ultimately borne by the Park Board, including through funds that had been allocated for other infrastructure needs.
None of this explains the challenges Pimento has faced at the pavilion. But it is important context for understanding what precipitated Tin Fish’s decision to leave and the financial realities involved in operating at that location.
Athena N. Priest
Co-owner, Tin Fish
The Person Behind the Views
I appreciate receiving and reading the Hill & Lake Press. I was less glad to finish Susan Lenfestey’s column about her encounter on Mackinac Island.
Near the end of the exchange she recounts, Lenfestey is encouraged to sit down with young members of the Democratic Socialists of America. She replies that she gets their point of view: housing out of reach, an obscene wealth gap, a despot in charge, a burning planet. Then: “But they aren’t eager to hear the point of view of a boomer whom they blame for getting us here.”
As a Gen Z leftist, this sentiment is all too familiar to me. It amounts to: You’re right about the problems, but I still won’t sit at the table with you. She later adds that she’s not eager to meet with young DSA members who have shouted her down. I don’t doubt some have, and, like boomers, my generation is known for our activism. But this is a two-way street, and we are the ones who will have to live longest with the consequences she lists.
Lenfestey also writes that “it’s important to see the person behind the views.” I’d ask her to extend that line of thinking to those young people she’s not eager to sit down with. Every movement has loud, unpleasant members. Judging the whole by them is exactly what she’d object to if it were done to her.
What struck me most is that her column ends where I’m left: We do need to put our differences aside and pull together, not just this fall but every fall from here on out. We agree on the destination and see the same roadblocks. We can’t let our pride stand in the way of building a better world for ourselves and the generations to come.
Sam Snelson
East Bde Maka Ska
An Invitation to a First Art Show
I am writing to invite the neighborhood to a small and personal milestone: my first art show, running Oct. 1 to Dec. 31 at Isles Bun & Coffee on West 28th Street. I will be showing small landscape studies I did during several trips over the past year, as well as a few more finished works from my studio.
Some of you may remember me from my years living in the neighborhood. I helped spearhead the Kenwood Elementary School new fence and rain garden improvement project back in 2009, when our kids were students there. Though we no longer live in the neighborhood, I still feel the pull of community, the friends, neighbors and businesses that make for a special place. Our time living around Lake of the Isles left a lasting mark on my heart, and I am grateful to Catherine Veigle for offering to show my work at Isles Bun.
I am not a formally trained artist and have spent the past year experimenting with paints, surfaces, brushes and easels, all the while educating myself through a combination of online study, in-person workshops, museum and gallery visits and art books. Throughout my travels, I found myself recording and interpreting the same things: a variety of shapes and lines and the interplay of light and shadow. Above all, I wanted to capture a feeling of being in that place at that time. The quality of the atmosphere and air, the colors of the water and sky, the shape of rolling hills or distant mountains, and the movement of a stream running by or waves crashing on a shore: those are the details that captivated me.
I hope you’ll stop by, have a coffee and a treat, and take a look. I’d love to hear what you see in them.
Sanja de Garmo
Orono
A New Psychology Practice From Cedar Lake Neighbors
My husband and I live near Cedar Lake, and we recently opened Ready Psych Go, a psychology practice in Minnetonka serving children, teens and adults.
We created the practice with the hope of offering something that feels both highly professional and approachable for local families. We provide psychological and psychoeducational assessments for ADHD, autism, learning differences, giftedness, anxiety and other concerns, along with therapy.
One offering that feels especially meaningful to us is Walk & Talk therapy around Cedar Lake. Rather than meeting in a traditional office, clients can choose to have their session while walking outdoors. For some people, the combination of movement, fresh air and a less formal setting can make conversation feel more natural and comfortable.
More broadly, we want Ready Psych Go to be a true local resource for the community. That may mean answering a parent’s questions, helping someone understand whether an assessment might make sense, speaking to a school or community group, or simply making the process of seeking psychological support feel less intimidating.
We know how difficult it can be to know where to turn when something does not feel quite right. Our goal is to help people better understand what is going on, feel supported through the process and leave with clear, practical next steps.
Above all, we are grateful to be part of this community and hope our neighbors know that we are here as a resource whenever questions or concerns arise.
Aliza Stein
Cedar-Isles-Dean
New to Cedar Lake Park
The Cedar Lake Park Association is proud to relaunch cedarlakepark.org, an inviting new gateway to one of Minneapolis’s most remarkable natural places.
More than a redesigned website, it presents Cedar Lake Park as one connected landscape surrounding the entire lake. For the first time, 11 distinct places have been formally named and described, giving visitors a shared vocabulary for discovering its prairies, woodlands, shorelines, trails and beaches.
The website offers three ways to explore: by place; by activity (from walking and swimming to birding and skiing) and through “Things to Notice,” a field guide to the natural features, history and small details that make each visit memorable.
This orientation will become increasingly important as nearby light rail stations bring new visitors to the park.
The site also tells the extraordinary story behind the landscape. Community members (originally calling their group Save Cedar Lake Park) organized to protect former railroad land from private development and secure it as public parkland.
The association has always connected people with nature while bringing residents and public institutions together around a shared responsibility for precious places. Its pioneering approach placed public participation at the center of planning and helped shape what became the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board’s Community Advisory Committee process.
Today, volunteers carry that legacy forward by restoring habitat, managing invasive plants, caring for trails and protecting the park’s ecological health.
“Nurture Nature” remains the heart and soul of Cedar Lake Park: an enduring invitation to explore this special landscape, cherish what others worked to save and help care for what comes next.
Steve Kotvis
Bryn Mawr
Fire in the Prairie
If you see smoke or smell ash while traveling through the Cedar Lake Park Prairie, don’t be alarmed. It’s all good.
Prairies need periodic burning for several reasons. Fire restores nutrients to the soil, holds back harmful invasive species and stops the encroachment of trees. People have been using fire to suppress forests and open game land (and for defense) since coming to this continent.
In 1995, the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board, with the support of the Cedar Lake Park Association and others, transformed an old railroad yard on the northern edge of Cedar Lake into a budding prairie. Since then, volunteers have planted more than 30,000 native grasses and forbs, and the prairie has flourished as one of the foremost open spaces in the city.
Several years ago, the Park Board completed a plan to manage the health of the prairie. It divided the 48-acre area into three zones and instituted a three-year burning cycle, burning one zone each year and then beginning the rotation again.
Three years ago, the Park Board burned the first zone, from the easternmost end of the park to about what is known as the Mound.
Unfortunately, two years ago the second zone, from the Mound to the Brownie Bridge, could not be burned for technical reasons: Prescribed burns must account for wind, moisture content and a flurry of permits. Early this year, the western end, from the Brownie Bridge to Highway 100, burned.
This fall, the Park Board plans to burn both the neglected second zone and the first zone. This will allow it to keep on schedule.
Thank you, Park Board, for tending to this treasure!
Neil Trembley
Cedar Lake Park Association
October
Because Old Man Winter comes in December, it is good to say October is woman. A well-balanced woman she is. Beautiful and radiant with ample color.
The kind of woman who walks into a room with a cape on and tosses it, commanding attention. The crisp air and the winds keep her busy; she is a very busy woman. She is a strong woman indeed.
She has lots of spirit guides. Familiars at her side, they enhance her strength and enable her to perform her duties.
She lets the weather and the day dictate her duties and does as she pleases. She decorates a lot, both inside and outside. She works busily about the cottage and land, and she is aided by fall energy. She is one with the season.
Fall energy is different, fall spirits are different, and fall fairies are different from those of the spring. They are much faster in helping us. They are swift and whimsical, and October appreciates their direction.
She holds many tools and prepares for things to come. She has a passion for art and uses bright colors to express herself. She reads fire and dances with it. She speaks to the reflections in the water.
The birds of prey accompany her as she walks through fields and dances in the cornhusks and catches a scarecrow’s eye. She shape-shifts with the plants blowing in the wind and shape-shifts with the crows in the sky.
October fears very little, for she is a survivor. Every year she knows her cycle and knows her friend spring will come. She gets ready for hibernation with ease.
She enjoys loud sounds and likes to see things scurry about. She loves the tricksters of the fall, fooling her eyesight and making her laugh out loud. Her laugh can be heard from distant places, a contagious laugh it is.
She loves the night and the fun, scary, outdoor moments when the wind whips things around, where there are unfamiliar sounds that are caused by things crashing and breaking. The wind is October’s friend.
The harvest moon is her divine connection to the universe and all its beauty. She waits for it to come and greets it as she rises across the bay, bowing down to worship, and the loons and fish on the lake by her home chime into the magnetic trance movement of true and utter praise.
The water is like glass; its silence hushes her. October loves this night; she is the night. She collects branches and breaks them with her knees and tosses them into a massive fire that stretches to the stars in the sky.
She has to sleep under the stars and the moon on this night. A fox and skunk slide by, both attracted to the moon and October’s full-moon ritual.
The next morning comes and she wakes up and talks to the trees. The trees talk to October. She heads for the barn and the cats and dogs follow her. She mounts her horse and heads for the woods — to disappear in the forest and never be seen again until the next year.
Just as the season ends, October goes away with it to rest and replenish her strength to shine on the next year.
Next year, a new October will emerge. We will all look forward to meeting her then. Always remember, October is just around the corner for all of us.
Megan Bacigalupo
Lowry Hill
