MnGCA

[tesser]

I am updating the park hours as I will be discussing this at the Commission meeting TOMORROW. If anyone wants to come to the meeting and speak in favor of longer hours for Maplewood - PLEASE COME! We meet at 7 pm in council chambers.

Mahtomedi has extended its hours!

10.02 HOURS OF OPERATION.
1. Parks will be open for public use from 5 a.m. until 10 p.m., unless posted otherwise.

Oh, and warning to GILBY: White Bear Township lists tree-climbing as an illegal activity!

[pfalstad]

[bflentje]

[WestSideDaddy]

City of Crystal parks are open from 6:00am to 10:00pm.

[tesser]

Reading through park ordinances is kinda funny sometimes. In one you couldn't drop a fruit or vegetable peel that might make someone slip. No banana peels folks! I found another that banned tree-climbing, and more that do not allow any throwing of stones.

Many also have ordinances that could be used, as Anoka County once did, to ban geocaching. Those prohibit leaving any personal property on park land.

I cannot stress how important it is to not cache in a manner that upsets park and city officials. They have bigger fish to fry than us, I know, but we don't need to call negative attention to ourselves.

[tesser]

[Jam3s]

Stearns County Parks are open 6am to 11pm. Perfect for night caching in any season!
_________________
~~ I was told all I needed was a GPS. I wanted everything else. ~~

[WestSideDaddy]

[tesser]

Well, I presented the facts about the metro communities and their park hours with a map. There really was no argument that we should extend hours. The only major question was what hours do we pick? Someone made a motion for 5 am to 10 pm. I was thinking 6 am to 10 pm when I arrived, so this was even longer! It was seconded and approved unanimously! It now goes to City Council, which, unfortunately, only meets once more in 2010 and that agenda is already set. We'll see if they can sneak this in, otherwise it will be 2011 before a change.

Who's next?

edited to correct to 10 pm!

[Pear Head]

[tesser]

[Grey Wolf and Wild Rice]

While the PD certainly will want enforceable hours so they can remove people causing trouble in parks late at night, I often see park hours as not reflecting typical usage by the people who pay for the parks.

For example:
- Opening times often are not early enough for people to walk, run, or walk their dogs in the morning before work if a 7 am or sunrise based time is set.

-Closing times based on a sunset time do not take the earlier sunset times of winter into account. In winter parks might be heavily used for winter activities such as skating, skiing, or sliding well after sunset.

- I have seen a few parks with lighted walking trails and signs stating the park is closed at sunset. Sounds like whoever got funding for the lights forgot about park hours?

Here's an odd one: Blaine Parks have signage stating the park closes at a certain time (I forgot the exact time), but say nothing about when they open.

I think you are going to find that the main purpose of park hours is a tool for the PD to remove vandals and late night partys.

[Pear Head]

[tesser]

One thing I was going to say at the meeting, if there was debate, was that criminals are probably already in the park at night despite the law. The law is only kicking out the good people. By allowing all people in, the partiers, etc. are more likely to go elsewhere.

I didn't want to use the modified gun debate slogan "if you outlaw people in parks at night only outlaws will have parks at night."

[tesser]