Jim Hart did the Inspirational Minute inspired by his brother’s 71 birthday today. It was all about the importance of our siblings! We have known them the longest and they have known us the longest! Sherry introduced the guests, Visiting Rotarians and happy dollars. Beth Naughton introduced a new Rotarian for our club. Bob Sherman. Welcome Bob! Bob’s passion is International Service. So he will be a good addition to our club. He comes from Duluth and has 5 children and 3 grandchildren. His career was mainly in Energy Law for 44 years. He was a Dean at St. Scholastica. He has just come back from the Ukraine where he worked on getting medical supplies and equipment to the soldiers of the Ukraine.
Joe Spencer spoke to us today. He explained that he had worked for Mayor Coleman as the Director of Art and Culture for 12 years. Then he took over the newly created position of the Downtown Alliance. They started with St. Paul’s becoming a Clean and Safe City Program. The long term goal is to have 20,000 people living in Downtown. Now we have 10,000. Lower Town is less well developed but the area between Cedar and Jackson Street and around Rice Park are doing well and thriving. This is a strong and stable area for us. We have so much going on in downtown now! There are events scheduled in the downtown parks all summer. Especially after Covid restrictions were lifted. There was a question about the Mpls and St. Paul Chambers merging: St. Paul’s Chamber is very strong. It is a possibility. But both work together quite well. Another question arose that the City and the Government used to work very closely together: will they still? In the 70’s under Mayor Lattimer Business and government worked well together. His hope is that it will return to this partnership. Another question centered around the smell of Marijuana in the City! He hopes to work on that as well. The city is adding more rental units to St. Paul in hopes of attracting a younger cliental. Joe Sensor also mentioned the boarded up buildings in St. Paul. We have less that Minneapolis and in most cities. There was a beautification project that planted flowers, bushes etc in front of the boarded up building and it looked very nice from the pictures. He hopes to do more of that.
St Paul is the Capital City of Minnesota, the County Seat of Ramsey County and it is the location of the State Capital: so it has a lot going for it.
Laurie Murphy, Scribe