Monday, July 27, 2009

Even During Northside Art FLOW, No Letting Up On The 311...

Photo By John Hoff

During Northside Art FLOW, I was in front of 2101 West Broadway, a building which has some history with "Holding Forth The Word" Ministries, which is reportedly one of two North Minneapolis churches hit especially hard by the foreclosure crisis, click here for an article on the Jordan Livability Blog about THAT.

So there I was in front of that building casually snapping a picture of Jules Inda, the wife of Northside marketing guru Pat Carney, when I noticed, hey, that grass behind Jules is long. Long enough for me to call 311.

But, of course, you can't call 311 on a Saturday though, really, I think you SHOULD be able to call 311 on Saturday, Sunday, and possibly even three eleven in the morning just to, you know, talk about what's bothering you. I've even suggested hooking 311 up to Twitter and text messaging. But we're not there YET.

So I waited until today, Monday, and then I sent an email to 311 about the long grass, with a picture attached. Over there at 311 FOB (Forward Operations Base) they're going to be all, like, WOULD YOU LOOK AT THAT GRASS?!

The way I see it, crime is down 40 percent in North Minneapolis despite gang member idiots shooting at each other in a recent isolated incident, and so we should all JUST KEEP DOING WHATEVER WE'RE DOING AND NOT LET UP BECAUSE IT'S WORKING. In fact, maybe we should DO WHATEVER WE'RE DOING TWICE AS HARD.

And what I do...is make scores of 311 reports and, from time to time, some 911 calls.

So I'll keep doing THAT, and (of course) blogging.

(Do not click "Read More")

2 comments:

Johnny Northside said...

Here's a recent email exchange about this particular address, most recent email at the top:

The property faces West Broadway and a door bears the number 2101 on it. See attached photo. If it's not 2101 West Broadway....what is it?

In fact, I've Googled "2101 West Broadway" and "Holding Forth the Word" (which is known to have an interest in the building) and the building is mentioned in a document.

See this link.Look at the last part of the document and do not confuse with "2010 West Broadway" mentioned in the document, as well.

http://www.hftwol.net/ministries.html

John
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On Jul 27 2009, 311 wrote:

Dear John,

We appreciate your email.

I would be happy to submit this complaint. However, 2101 W. Broadway is not a valid address. There is a 2101 Broadway St. NE. Is this it? If not,
could you please provide more specific location information, such as at the intersection of... or next door to the west of... Thanks!

If there is anything else we can help you with please contact us. Thank you for emailing the City of Minneapolis.

Dawn

Minneapolis 311
Office 612-673-3000
Email minneapolis311@ci.minneapolis.mn.us
www.ci.minneapolis.mn.us

JNS Reader said...

Hey Johnny. I'd like to email 311 about a house on our block that's had an armoire on their front lawn for months. On the Minneapolis 311 website, it's not really clear what "category" this would fall under. As a seasoned 311 veteran, I thought you might be able to offer some advice. Would it be better to just call?