The effort to use a racial equity filter to help decide on the distribution of $25 million a year in funding for parks and trails was set in place last week.

The Metropolitan Council agreed to apply an equity "tool kit" to help ensure that underserved populations are welcome in the metro parks.

When they ask for funds, local parks officials will need to address questions such as, "Which historically underserved populations will the project serve? How does this project better serve the population groups identified?"

The populations meant by this go beyond race and ethnicity — including, for instance, the disabled. But the root finding that triggered these efforts nearly a decade ago is that only 10 percent of the metro area's 47 million annual parks users are minorities, who make up nearly a quarter of the population.

David Peterson

Stillwater

Father appeals dismissal of Lily Lake death lawsuit

A grieving father's long legal journey over 9-year-old Jack Ariola's death from a rare parasite has hit the road again.

Attorneys for Jim Ariola of Wyoming, Minn., filed an appeal last week that seeks to revive a lawsuit against the city of Stillwater on grounds that a city beach at Lily Lake should have been closed to swimmers because the parasite, Naegleria fowleri, was in the water.

A Washington County judge, citing a lack of evidence, dismissed the suit in April.

The filing at the Minnesota Court of Appeals argued that Jack Ariola wasn't the first child to die from an amoeba traced to warm water in the lake. He died in August 2012, two years after Annie Bahneman, 7, of Stillwater died of the same Naegleria fowleri brain infection after swimming in Lily Lake.

The appeal, dated July 11, seeks a reversal of the District Court dismissal by Judge Susan Miles.

Kevin Giles

Bloomington

New member appointed to City Council

The Bloomington City Council appointed Kim Vlaisavljevich to fill an at-large council seat left vacant by last month's resignation of Cynthia Bemis Abrams. At a meeting Thursday, the council voted 6-0 to select Vlaisavljevich from a field of five finalists out of more than 30 who submitted applications to fill the seat.

Vlaisavljevich, 36, is a strategy executive with Datacard, a company that provides secure identification and financial products. She's lived in Bloomington for five years.

John Reinan

Robbinsdale

Residents boycott Hy-Vee over plans for theater

Robbinsdale residents trying to save the city's Terrace Theatre are now encouraging people to boycott all Hy-Vee grocery stores.

The preservation group, Save the Historic Terrace Theatre, has launched a petition that has gathered more than 400 signatures from residents vowing not to shop at Hy-Vee stores in response to preliminary plans to demolish the theater and replace it with a grocery store.

At a community open house last week, St. Louis Park-based Inland Development Partners revealed that Hy-Vee would be the tenant of the new 91,500-square-foot store, along with a convenience store, coffee shop, gas pumps and drive-through on a 10-acre site off 36th Avenue and W. Broadway.

That redevelopment would replace the 1950s-era theater, which closed in 1999, and the north side of the divided Terrace Mall.

If approved and built this year, the store would be the seventh Hy-Vee in the Twin Cities for the growing Des Moines-based chain and the first grocery store in Robbinsdale since a Rainbow Foods closed in 2013. The proposal goes next to the city's Planning Commission, which will hold a public hearing July 21.

Kelly Smith