CCN Article - Letters to the Editor - Letters to the Editor

By: Kevin Holler 07/01/2010

We are all encouraged to reduce-reuse-recycle. In a throw away society, useful ideas and useful structures are too often thrown into the "landfill." Hennepin County encourages residents to reuse items and reduce the volume of waste produced, a virtuous endeavor. Recasting and reusing old buildings in new green roles is the ultimate in recycling. The adaptive reuse of old buildings results in significant energy savings. Energy that is spent manufacturing and transporting materials can be saved. Raw materials that would be drawn from the earth can be saved. And reuse of old buildings eliminates the need to toss the existing structure into a landfill.

July 2010 Lets recycle buildings

By: Buzzy Bohn 07/01/2010

People who live on Fremont Ave. from 33rd to Webber Parkway are in danger of losing half of their on-street parking if the City of Minneapolis has its way. The parking on the west side of Fremont would be eliminated to put in bike lanes. A meeting was held on May 27 at North Regional Library to "to discuss potential parking changes on Fremont Avenue N." I attended that meeting and it didn't really feel like we were discussing anything. It felt like the rep from the City was telling us why the City plans to do this and why we should go along with it. As best as I could tell, none of the people who spoke and actually live on Fremont want this to happen.

July 2010 No bike lanes on Fremont

By: Nick Haig 07/01/2010

Seeing as neither Hennepin County Commissioners Opat nor Stenglein found the letters I wrote to them (see below) interesting enough to merit a response, I thought Camden News readers might be interested in a couple examples of ignored community support to move forward with the new Webber Park Library project. I would also like to comment on Commissioner Opat's statement from the June Camden Community News article, "A murky future for Webber Library," where it quotes him saying, "The people of North Minneapolis don't ask for much and they don't get it either." We do ask, at the very least, for a response to our letters, and at the most, for their content to be considered and acted upon by our elected leaders. At least he was half correct - we sure don't get much here in North Minneapolis.

Nick Haig

Webber-Camden

July 2010 No response on Webber Library

By: Dan Lynch 07/01/2010

The opportunity for finger pointing will abound for years regarding the British Petroleum (BP) oil well blow-out on April 20. Oil company BP used a cheaper, quicker and potentially less dependable method to complete the drilling of the Deepwater Horizon well. The 13,293 foot-long length of permanent pipe that constitutes the well line was locked in place by a single injection of cement. The safer approach for drilling wells in the hazardous geology of the gulf is to install a "liner,"  then, locking both the liner and the length of the casing in place with one or often two cement jobs. Industry experts consider the liner method safer by a factor of 10. BP estimated itself to be 25 days behind schedule at that point. It would have taken a week longer to use the safer method. Personnel and equipment costs to BP for this operation were estimated to be $1 million dollars per day.

July 2010 Oil spill debacle in the Gulf

By: Anne Peiffer 07/01/2010

I was at a public meeting about Webber Park Library some months ago. At that time, I learned that the people who owned the property on that corner did not wish to sell it. Yes, they had it on the market at another time, but they changed their minds. In my time, I have decided that a course I was taking was not what I really wanted and I was better off with what I had. I think that kind of choice is wise.

July 2010 Settling for less