S. Doré Mead, former Minneapolis City Council member, dies at 73

Being the designated namesake of a 2-acre stormwater retention pond might not seem like the most glamorous tribute.

But it's a fitting salute to former Minneapolis City Council Member S. Doré Mead, said state Sen. Scott Dibble, a testament to Mead's steadfast fight to help the people in her community.

The pond was Mead's solution to rescue residents whose basements kept flooding, sometimes filling up to the ceilings with water and sewage. Mead persuaded government officials to buy out residents' homes and replace them with a stormwater management system that cleans runoff before it reaches lakes and the Mississippi River.

"She led the charge," Dibble said.

Mead died Jan. 18 of lung cancer in a hospice in Edina. She was 73.

Lakes can't be named after living people. Dibble has begun the process of getting the pond officially designated Lake Mead.

That project was classic Mead, one of many times she took a stand on behalf of others, finding a way to reach a win-win, said Dibble, who worked as an aide for Mead when she was on the council. Similarly, Mead brokered peace when people who lived near Washburn High School were angry over parking and other issues.

Her most memorable accomplishment may have been organizing a coalition called the Neighborhood Transportation Network to get the Minnesota Department of Transportation to dramatically scale back a $1 billion proposal to expand Interstate 35W, a plan that would have required demolishing thousands of affordable housing units, said Mead's friend Peggy Jondahl of St. Louis Park.

Her approach, Jondahl said, was: "Don't tell me no, tell me how!"

She was born Susan Doré in Melrose Park, Ill., and grew up in New Jersey. She returned to Chicago after high school and found a job in promotions at a newspaper, but left when she discovered the paper deliberately paid men more than women.

She met Ronald Mead and they married in 1972. After taking his last name, she started using Doré as her first, Jondahl said. She worked as a paralegal, as a mortgage banker, a contractor and an independent consultant specializing in affordable housing.

The couple moved to Minneapolis in 1978 and "she was known almost instantly as a mover and a shaker," Jondahl said, adding that she's heard many stories "of Doré taking on the establishment and creating change, for the good of Minneapolitans."

"She was an original disrupter," said Lisa Goodman, council member for the Seventh Ward. The two met on the council and became lifetime friends. "She was someone who did not accept the status quo as acceptable. And that was a very original thing at the time that she served."

In 2002, after Mead left the council, she and Ron enjoyed riding a tandem bike and traveling around the world. Her health began to fail and she suffered two strokes, one of which left her with aphasia and two aneurysms. Just as she was starting to regain speech, she was diagnosed with cancer last fall.

"She never lost her drive, her spark, her dignity, her beauty and her grace," Jondahl said.