Photo and blog post by John HoffI received information in the form of an email from a Minneapolis public official to a citizen in North Minneapolis. Since about March of 2010, this citizen had been contacting public officials and pushing for some kind of official policy on "memorials" placed on public property, then allowed to remain for months, years.
This issue of past-their-prime memorials has been articulated many times on this blog. Nobody has a problem with memorials that go up right after a tragic event, and are part of an understandable mourning process. (Though many of us are critical of, for example, booze bottles left at memorials for minors slain in gang violence, writings left at memorials which appear to romanticize gang membership, but not the memorial ITSELF)
The problem is when the memorials remain, and remain, and remain, and become a mess of moldy teddy bears and sodden cardboard. Even if the memorials are "refreshed," still we do not want to feel like we live in a cemetery. There is a sensible period of time for memorials to remain, and that period of time is not "forever" or even "a few years."
Now word comes that a policy has finally been developed. The policy can be summarized as follows...
If constitutes an imminent hazard it will be removed immediately.
Citizens should feel free to report any location of a memorial to 311.
If not an imminent hazard they are allowed to remain for two weeks.
After two weeks items will be picked up and stored at the Street Department for one month allowing for people to retrieve any items that they may want.
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In the opinion of this blogger, this is a sensible and humane policy which weighs the various interests involved, including (finally!) the interests of people who want to live in a neighborhood, not a cemetery.
12 comments:
Amen
Why is the city storing anything at all. This is abandoned junk. I thought we were in a financially hard time cutting NRP funds etc. Now we have to store ghetto materials for 30 days?
I am glad to see (hopefuly) somthing done but I don't see any reason that
After two weeks items will be picked up and stored at the Street Department for one month allowing for people to retrieve any items that they may want. If some one wants something then DON'T leave it on the side of the street.
Does the city intend to enforce these rules as they are written?
There is also an ordinance regarding political campaign yard/window signs but, I still see Linda Higgens' signs around NoMi. For once it would be nice if the city would enforce rules and ordinances equally rather than focus on what topic is currently hot.
Now society has a limit on how long people are allowed to grieve!! If the memorial is kept up what is the problem? that people are missed and were loved. In todays society people are just thrown away. Maybe even drug users had mothers that loved them. Signed, Mother of a prodigal son.
"............Now society has a limit on how long people are allowed to grieve!! If the memorial is kept up what is the problem? that people are missed and were loved. In todays society people are just thrown away. Maybe even drug users had mothers that loved them. Signed, Mother of a prodigal son......"
I am not only a resident of NoMi but also make my living selling the homes in the area. While I agree that ALL people have the right to be mourned, it is a bit difficult to portray North in a positive light. I am trying to sell NoMi as a place that is on the rise for change and when clients and potential new residents see empty ,broken, liquor bottles and all junk sun damaged by months of abuse It makes North an even harder sell. I feel memorials should be up for 2 weeks and then the city should have the right to throw those items away. If it is left on the street, memorial or not it is considered waste and needs to be treated as such. If family and friends want to mourn in a more appropriate way I suggest leaving flowers and items at the grave site where it is an appropriate place to grieve.
Not that this is in any way related but by your signature are you stating that you are the mother of a child who wasted his inheritance, fell into deep sin and became a swine herder? If so it didn’t seem very flattering.
I think that the Linda Higgins signs should also be stored, it's personal property after all. If they are not picked up in 30 days then I supposed we could recycle them.
I think the point is that there is a process in place for grieving just like there is a process and ordinances to follow that cover almost everything else.
I don't think the goal was to limit the grieving process but merely to remind people that monuments cannot be just set up on public property without following due process. Just like you cannot sell hot dogs or build a house in minneapolis without the proper permits.
I don't think this applies to things set up on private property, so the political yard sign issue doesn't really make sense here. As for people and their grieving process -if one chooses to set up a memorial on their own private property, nobody is going to stop them, but on public property or the property of others, you don't have the right to create an eyesore just because you miss somebody. Buy a plot in a cemetery, bury your loved one, and get a headstone, that's your memorial. Street corners and sidewalks are not cemeteries. For that matter, memorializing somebody by leaving a bunch of moldy stuffed animals, balloons, and construction paper signs with sentiments scrawled on them sitting out in the elements is a pretty crappy way to honor somebody's memory, as it creates an ugly, molding, festering collection of crap that people will associate with the deceased. I can see how that might be appropriate if the deceased was a public nuisance who only ever contributed garbage to the world around them in life, as a street side memorial certainly reflects that, but I hardly think that's what the living would want to remember about somebody, much less honor about them.
This isn't a cultural thing, as some people have tried to argue before, unless being inconsiderate and trashy counts as a cultural group now.
Perhaps we should issue memorial permits as well to cover the cost of ordinance enforcement and cleanup and of course storage.
I like the policy of letting the memorial stay for two weeks. Storing any left over stuff, however, creates too much work and costs money we don't have. I suggest leaving a sign after two weeks that states that everything will be picked up and thrown away after another week.
THEN MAKE SURE THEY GO UP AND DOWN THE HYW'S AND GET ALL THOSE CROSSES OFF THE SIDE OF THE HWY THAT YOU ALL HAVE OUT THERE FOR YOUR PPL I'M TIRED OF THE HWY'S LOOKING LIKE CEMETERIES WHEN I DRIVE DOWN THE HWY SIMPLE AS THAT TAKE FROM US WE WILL TAKE FROM YOU AS WELL
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