“Although the bulk of my campaign is focused on Economic Justice, and the role that local offices such as the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board play in it, I have plenty of ideas to make our city cleaner and greener--all based on the idea of looking at the entire city as one Ecosystem.
1) Create a "pollinator's path" using our parks, parkways, and boulevards. Plantings should be focused not on what pleases the human eye so much as what feeds our transient monarchs,swallowtails, admirals and wide variety of birds.
2) Use the Transition Town Framework to lessen our city's dependence on shipping food from outstate. Create more community gardens and plant fruit-bearing trees on our streets.
3) Remove untested "upcycled" products from our playgrounds and soccer fields. We need to use the precautionary principle instead of haphazardly adding potentially toxic materials to our playgrounds.
4) Instead of asphalt and concrete in our parks and parkways, new trails should be made with permeable pavements to prevent algal blooms and mychorrhizal deterioration.
5) Replace pesticides with predatory insects, and petroleum-based fertilizers with glomeromycetes(soil-dwelling Fungi that form mutualistic relationships with plant roots) and other organic alternatives.
6) Ensure that all parks have bat houses so that all of us can enjoy evening park use without worrying about getting eaten alive by our State Bird!” -Charles Exner for Minneapolis Parks Board District 3