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.
