Tom Nordyke, Jon Gurban

Every couple of years, the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board makes headlines for violating citizens’ right to free speech. The latest example? The board’s president, Tom Nordyke, and superintendent, Jon Gurban, are banning the Minneapolis Charter Commission from holding public meetings at park buildings because the commission’s topic is a proposed charter amendment that would eliminate the Park Board.

Last week, according to the Star Tribune’s Steve Brandt, Nordyke told Charter Commission Chairman Jim Bernstein that the Park Board’s objection was to the content of the speech that would take place at the commission’s public meetings:

I cannot support holding the meetings in our buildings and wasting more taxpayer dollars and staff time on this initiative.

Bernstein ran unsuccessfully for park board in 2005. That same year, the suprintendent sicced police on another park board candidate who was attempting to distribute flyers for his reform campaign at a city park. Gurban told park board candidate Jason Stone to stop handing out campaign literature on park property and eventually called park police. The American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota (ACLU-MN) intervened on Stone’s behalf.

Reporter Scott Russell quoted Gurban in the Southwest Journal:

Jason would say: “How are you this evening?” My response would be, “Jason, you can’t do this. And you know better. You were at that meeting last Wednesday night. Stop doing this.” … Am I happy three squad cars showed up? No, I am not. I know those squad cars have better things to do than to deal with an issue like this. If I was Jason Stone, I would be a little bit embarrassed about that. All Jason had to do was to stop handing out his literature.

Stone lost his 2005 race and is running for a place on the park board again this year.

Two years ago, Nordyke’s predecessor as board president, Jon Olson, wouldn’t let a citizen criticize Gurban during “open time” at board meetings. As the Star Tribune’s Pam Louwagie reported, the ACLU-MN again intervened after Olson cut off Minneapolis resident Arlene Fried, a co-founder of the citizen watchdog group Minneapolis Parkwatch, in the midst of a statement critical of Gurban:

FRIED: … Four: Failing to comply with the Minnesota Government Data Practices Act by not honoring all requests for public information. Five: Withholding of information from commissioners and the public, for example –
OLSON: Um, Ma’am … 
FRIED: These are governmental issues. 
OLSON: Okay, do you have documentation that we have failed to comply with the open Data Practices Act?
FRIED: I’m aware of it.
OLSON: You know, this is not — I’m going to cut you off right there. I’m going to cut you off.
FRIED: Excuse me. Excuse me. You can do that –
OLSON: Thank you very much and you have a good night. Thank you. And we’ll move on to our next speaker –
FRIED: Freedom of speech. You’re denying me freedom of speech.
OLSON: I don’t think so. I’m not going to allow you to get up there and make accusations like that, that we violated the law.

May 2, 2007:

After the ACLU-MN intervened, Fried tried again at the May 16, 2007 meeting. In this second clip, Nordyke (who was not the board’s president at the time) persuades Olson to let Fried finish her statement.

Disclosure: I know Fried and have worked with her on several park-related issues, including posting these two clips from the official park board meeting videos to YouTube. I also wrote a January 2008 commentary for the Daily Mole expressing hope that newly elected President Nordyke would raise the park board’s standard of transparency, accountability and professionalism.

After confessing to having had nightmares about advertising banners hanging from trees in parks, Commissioner Tracy Nordstrom said she was relieved that’s not how the Lowe’s banners will be displayed. The banner ads (pictured, click for larger view) at Loring Park and Parade Ice Garden will be reduced from an original size of 8-by-2 feet to 6-by-2 feet, staff said, and would hang from buildings in positions judged to be least conspicuous: over the main entrance to the ice rink and on a side of a new Lowe’s-supplied shed at Loring facing away from neighbors and park users.

Continued: Click “Read more”

Commissioner Jon Olson had earlier expressed regret that Lowe’s (via its marketing consultant, GMR) had targeted donations for parks only in particular ZIP codes, with nothing going to parks in the north, northeast or southeast sections of the city. But on Wednesday, Olson said he was satisfied that Lowe’s would target other ZIP codes next year. Olson also emphasized that the ads will be on view for a “short amount of time.”

The indoor signs will hang in kitchen areas near donated appliances for one year and will not include proposed language directing park visitors to look for similar merchandise at the Lowe’s Web site. The outdoor banners will go up as early as July and remain through December, unless they become damaged, in which case they won’t be replaced.

But the original wording on the banner ads — “This area brought to you in part by Lowe’s” — may not change, despite drawing sharp criticism from commissioners at their May 21 meeting.  Vice President (and former superintendent) Mary Merrill Anderson asked staff to repeat what she thought she’d heard: that the banner slogan “would remain the same or” would change. Still, Merrill Anderson voted in favor of the ad plan, despite her stated fear that accepting ads in parks “can be a slippery slope until we set some guidelines.” Commissioner Annie Young, saying “It’s still a big banner,” cast the only vote against.

The park commissioners don’t have a policy on ads in parks but say they plan to craft one. Besides taxpayer support, the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board has long received donations of goods and services from corporations and individuals without swapping for ad space or similar sponsorship benefits. A recent deal with Toyota (which came via St. Paul’s parks department) broke with that tradition, and another deal with Traveler’s could happen by year’s end.