Community outreach meetings to boost river corridor protection

FMR is teaming up with the National Park Services Mississippi National River and Recreation Area (MNRRA) to engage local decisionmakers in a workshop about river corridor resources and tools for protection. Thanks to a grant from the Mississippi River Fund, workshops will be presented this year in four MNRRA corridor communities: Brooklyn Park, Cottage Grove, Hastings and Ramsey. The goal of the workshops is to raise awareness about the role of local government in protecting and enhancing the river corridor.

The MNRRA corridor includes 25 cities and townships, each of which has a plan in force to allow development of the river corridor in accordance with state guidelines for the Mississippi River Corridor Critical Area. Elected officials and members of citizen boards and commissions that plan for and regulate land within the Mississippi River corridor are usually part-time volunteers with an immense amount of responsibility and a large amount of material to understand for many of the issues they must address.

The workshops will be open to the public, but they are designed to educate decisionmakers, including members of the city council, planning commission, parks commission and other planning or natural resource boards and commissions. A presentation by FMR and MNRRA will provide an overview of the national and regional significance of the corridor, and then narrow the focus to the resources specific to each community. By providing a customized workshop, with a variety of local river images, we hope to energize decision makers about river protection as well as educate them about how it can be accomplished.

Following discussion of corridor resources, the workshop will provide an overview of how the federal, state and local government roles in river protection work together, and a discussion of tools and strategies available. A Model Critical Area Ordinance drafted by MNRRA staff will be presented as a template to assist communities with codifying their river protection goals.