There are winners and losers every time the Legislature starts spending money.The biggest winner in this year's bonding bills might just be a Minneapolis community pool.
The Phillips neighborhood pool, the last indoor public pool in the urban center, was on the verge of being filled in with concrete by a parks department that lacked the funds to repair it.
Enter Hannah Lieder and Minneapolis Swims, a community group dedicated to preserving one of the last places where neighborhood children can learn to swim – no small concern in a state with tragically high drowning rates, particularly among minorities.
"The kids in that neighborhood have told me that building saved their lives," said Lieder, who armed herself with statistics on drowning deaths in Minnesota and a small army of her neighbors and their children; then headed to the Capitol to do some lobbying.
"We asked all these representatives to sit down and talk with us -- and they did!" she said. "It's just a miracle."
In a year when projects were being slashed left and right, the Phillips pool made it into all three bonding bills. Gov. Mark Dayton and the House set aside $2.1 million to repair the pool. The Senate asked for $1.7 million.
How? Lieder just convinced the chairmen of both the House and Senate capital improvement committees that the project was worth the state's investment.
"I will go to bat for Hannah Lieder any day," said Senate Majority Leader and Capital Improvement Committee Chairman Dave Senjem, impressed by the lobbying effort undertaken by a group with – as Lieder said -- $300 to our name. The project made it into the Senate's $500 million borrowing bill.
