the first cities in the nation to pass a binding referendum to preserve open space today the city has fourteen neighborhood preserves these areas are set aside by and for the citizens of maplewood reserve natural resources scenic areas and landscape offers they are protected natural areas where people can enhance or understanding enjoyment of the natural world our guest today is guinea gaynor natural resource coordinator for the city works i many natural resource issues for the city trees wetlands wildlife she manages our fourteen neighborhood preserves and handles the horticultural aspects of the city's rain guard program jenny welcome well we're not  talk about hoarding we're going to talk about fish creek our newest parcel of land that the city is trying to protect his so what is fish creek jenny well thanks jim it's a pleasure to be with you today and to talk about fish creek so we're really excited to start with our new is for today in october the conservation fund purchased this property this beautiful seventy acre parcel of property in south maplewood and so now th city has to and its partners have two years to come up with the funds to actually acquire the land ok and i think those show a picture of fish creek the map the lay on the screen there  residents can see this well i want to start with big picture so it's zoom out from the site itself and start and talk about the fish creek natural area great way but i'm going to back up a little bit and tell you about maybe woods greenways in general ok ok ok to two thousand and eight the city decided it wanted to map its remaining contiguous large natural areas and so we did that and these became our green ways and so want to show you on the map we've got four greenways in maple what we start up on the with the failing chain of lakes we've got this wonderful green way from the priory down through through beaver lake we've got the whole battle creek greenway and then we have the fish creek greenway and far southern maplewood and the whole idea with the greenways war we wanted to take a bird's eye view or an animal's view of natural areas in maplewood which means you don't stop at a property boundary ok you don't stop at the public land and the public lands so the greenways include both private and public lands it's kind of what's left that's green so the public lands of course are open to the to the public to use for recreation and hiking and the private lands however are not open for  so in two thousand and nine or ten the city council appointed a ad hoc commission to study the fish creek greenway because we knew there a lot of issues going on we knew this but things were happening or still jenny what was it about fish creek that intrigued you and she has a story where she was just going for a walk one day and she came upon it and she had no idea it was there she it was there was so much she just assumed it was public land and she absolutely fell in love with it and so now she's here working with us as a volunteer to to see that it's protected ok now fish creek in the very southern part of the city yet on the the long corridor just just north of newport right right right and fish creek adjacent to woodbury right correct and adjacent to major portion of ramsey county a parkland that i don't know how much acreage is there but it's it's a very large that amount absolutely right and that's why we're so excited about the greenway so if you look at the greenway map that we prepared as part of the task force it shows you that whole connection was logged all way across the interstate to where that carver like all the way to carve really is pretty amazing so we have we've crossed our our city boundaries on this one to really show where is that natural connection regardless of the political boundaries and we go all the way from the mississippi river and point douglas road through st paul through this one mile of maple wood that we have down there and all the way over to woodbury so one of the visions for the fish creek area that the task force came up with was to have this fish creek hiking trail that goes all along the creek the coast along the creek where we have enough public land to do so that we do some sidewalk in roadway sidewalk because the county you're absolutely right i has a lot of open space in this area it's just a natural it's their natural lands open space it's not it's it's not developed at all and so one of the visions is to have this beautiful fish creek hiking trail that goes all the way from point through natural areas so i'm guessing we'd end up with at least a mile and a half and once you get over to woodbury there's a whole series of hiking trails at at carver like it's pretty pretty wonderful system now fish creek part that we've we are purchasing from the land conservation are there yet the land conservation fund was the former coal park property right correct and i guess there's a long history on that which i'm not going to go into because we just don't have enough time but needless to say that was a fairly long drawn out court case land use case and a considerable amount of money was  spent to acquire the land and and then to try to develop it and then with the economy everything tanked and so we were able to  work with the council of asian fund and why don't you tell us you know how much this land was worth everett really appraised and how much we got it for and how we're paying for it to ok it's it's a really interesting story because the developer paid six or seven million dollars for it i don't have my got seventy seventy acres right for seventy acres and several different parcels but it all to get all told it's seventy acres and then they lost the land and it came up for sale in the timing was amazing for the city i mean years ago the landowner didn't want to sell so it's this is many years ago the leno did not want to sell so the city never pursued it but when when it came on on the market again it was in the two million dollars plus range and everyone realized this is it it's now or never if we can't pull this together now the land will never be this  again or and so so we entered into a partnership with the conservation fund and that's a nonprofit group they can they help communities preserve open space so they've got the flexibility to come in quickly make a purchase and hold it while the while the city or community is is pulling funding together and i understand that the they do that for up to two years for and for our situation the contract we have with them as we have two years to raise the funds now we have wonderful partners working with us we're seventy five percent of the way there are ok well let's let's not get too far ahead of ourselves so we got it for two million and pleasant change the two point one million closing cost two point one million and were seventy five percent there for purchase so how does that seventy five or one point six million dollars break out to who our partners are and what the amount they've contributed well first of all we ha city and ramsey county and both of us that have committed four hundred twenty five thousand dollars and as i understand our parchin is park acquisition yes through our park through our pac fees yeah yeah and then we have our ramsey washington metro watershed district and they have committed one hundred seventy five thousand and they've done projects on the creek so they're they've always been interested a really good partner to have been to partners for the city we work a lot with  partner he said you have a lot of wonderful local agency and government support we want to see a little bit more grassroots support a little bit more business support so that's what that's one of the next phases we're working on but then to to pull together the rest of that funding the city was really fortunate we received a four hundred six thousand dollars grant from the d n r the natural and scenic areas grant and so that's helping us tremendously in this and i understand there's some other things in the wor plan if all else fails there's a parcel a i believe is about twenty acres which isn't really part of the fish creek natural area that we could possibly use that for development so that as a fallback measure if we ran short of funding we you could use that to a leverage enough funds to complete the complete the project and probably provide a little bit of development on non sensitive lands yeah yeah so the way this is working out when we've written our grants we were been very careful we know there's a fifty acre core chalk and that is really we important for preservation and so we were making sure that that's our target to make sure that whole fifty acres is preserved into perpetuity and so we have got a little bit of option with the twenty acres north of the creek a lot of that is well now so that will never be developed because of our wet room ordinance indigenous wild in the area and but let's take a look and see what ron cockrell is up to the beauty of this property is that everything built up around it and the county had purchased several pieces of property around the fish creek and the old slump the property a slump a farmstead they've been here since the eight hundred fifty s and it's been in the family for all those years so it was really an opportunity for the citizens a mate would pick up and preserve a gem well the fish creek efforts to preserve this property within the greenway has been ongoing every five ten years an effort would  efforts to saving this property for conservation purposes only in the eighteen eighty one hundred thirty years ago there were citizens efforts trying to preserve this piece of property back in the sixty's ruth mcleod and some others went to the county went to the state wanting to preserve the property went through a process no funding or just the or the landowner wasn't interested in selling it and again in the seventy's there was efforts within maplewood and ramsey county to try to purchase this property and again it was either funding issues or a desire to sell the property and in the citizens the maplewood put together a five hundred five million dollar referendum to preserve property in maplewood i just want to show you here's the city of maplewood walking stick and right about here is city hall over here is rice street up here is silver lake and then we come all the way down the south lake which is mclean township and we're down here at the very southern tip of the leg of maple wood and this is the fish creek greenway so that's where we're located home a poor good for both literally decades have been wanting to preserve this and through their open space dollars and through the ramsey county open space dollars back in the late sixty's early seventy's together with the citizens the councils and the staff we were able to put together enough interest and put together a plan to purchase this property in f what we've done just the last couple years the city of maplewood put together the fish creek greenway ad hoc commission head up by jenny and others and we've put together a plan as to the priorities of this property and and ideas and how to fund it all the city has control of that with the conservation fund and they you know have a two year goal to complete the fund raising for it but i'm feeling real confident that as we continue with our tours and bring here literally generations of citizens coming forward and saying you know this is a great piece of property can we save it someway somehow and in this time and age when you know money is tight and we're not trusting our government here's a fine example of where the citizens come forward says we got i want and need and desire and our government's many forms of methods the county the watershed the state or local city council all came up and says yup it makes sense and through together we can they're still going to be a need to improve the property for trails maybe it's an overlook maybe it's a parking lot that hasn't really been decided yet that's something planned in the future but still the immediate concern is we are about three quarters of the way with the funding we still need additional funds we have a two year window in order to raise the funds to completely secure all seventy acres we would like it to be and continue to be a groundswell effort it will look forward to the  is once i start naming names i'm sure i'm going to forget somebody so let's go a shift to another area tell me jenny is a quarter cultural of the natural is what is so special about this parcel land the property is amazing because it's part of all of a pretty large area for us in the metro i mean we're so developed in the metro and we've got this opportunity to have a lot of different plant communities in right here in the property so we talk about a couple things first of all the county land adjacent to the property we're buying is absolutely amazing ecologically it's this gorgeous fish creek river gorge is that what they call the fish creek canyon and we further down the creek it's absolutely beautiful canyon where you're in one part you're in oak woodlands in another part you're in this absolutely beautiful maple basswood forest and it's so great for a fall hike in a fog basswood maple basswood forest and by this time by the by the time you get to the maple basswood course you're actually in st paul ok but you continue down and then you really see where the river starts carving into the bedrock there and it's just beautiful it's not very deep  really see it you can see it and there's been some work further up the creek the watershed district has put part of the creek underground in pipes under the ground because of the storm water because the increased storm water coming  of few years back and they did more work but they might be made sure when they did the work that they did they lighted the length of the creeks you could at least always see some running water in it so it's got a very natural feel it's beautiful in it and could you would never know that and so the ecological gem is the protected county land so what we're buying now is land that's going to buffer this but also land it's going to connect the county land because we thought when we look at the map of this it's like the different buildings on the site and the land was farmed it was grazed beautiful views amazing views and so when we when we get into the site which have a little bit of prairie left we'll show you a picture of that but it's open rolling hills with some groves of woods and then as you said the amazing the views are just stupendous there's a few places in maplewood where you get these views to the western horizon and can see the downtown skyline and this is one of them so here we are up on top of the bluff in the lands we're going to buy and we actually have a bluff top for the mississippi river and you can look across that last bluff top and see the opposite bank you can't really see the river but you can see the opposite  are absolutely amazing and that's part of the goal for the site is to to make that available to the public to actually have a hiking trail not just down along the creek but to have accessible trails up to the bluff top so people can enjoy that view  and begin to understand you know how a lot of people understand how the mississippi fit into st paul's history but when you're up there all the sudden history comes rolling and i knew you can you really start to get it but we do have some archaeological artifacts on that site and so any of the work we do out there will have to be careful we don't have a lot but when we route that trail we'll certainly be watching out for specific areas to well wait in the area has to be last natural large natural base available in all ramsey county i think i've heard that too certainly in maplewood and in possibly the whole county yeah so go through listing our partners again on this so that we make sure that we haven't missed anybody well jim i want to start with the residents again it really would not have happened without them and that's as it should be it was the residents that came to the city and said we need to preserve this and and carolyn will tell you that this actually started twenty five thirty years ago people have been trying to protect this site that long and it's been it was on the original list of open space sites the city wanted to purchase in the ninety's but without a willing seller at that point we we we can pursue it and so it's been what the white residents have been absolutely wonderful and then of course our commissions and council have been amazingly supportive of which things would just would not have gone forward without that local mankiw greg mack has been really supportive and of course are our best friends the ramsey county the county watershed really stepped up and played a part in this as well as other projects so those are our partners plus our new funding partners three and then in addition we've got some nonprofit works groups working with us we have the friends of maplewood nature center and over the past several years they've been leading hikes sponsoring hikes there so people can have actually gotten out onto the site to see what it looks like and then some new partners for us the friends of the mississippi river and great river green and in fact great river green both both the friends of the mississippi and great river greening want to be long term partners on restoration at the site with us and great river green is actually written a grant and so we're in the process of that grant proposal that the park service grant that the the that they're writing or this is actually a different one so this is one that would actually be for restoration on the site so while the conservation fund owns the land they're having the city manage it for them and they're very happy for us to start work on the site i think they know commit some funds that we're going to be fine with our funding long term for acquisition so we've got some really wonderful partners longmuir and we get weak shouldn't fail to mention the national park and the national haulover what's the shoot out intended as been terrific on this and i've been kind of preaching that you know this is a start in the you know this is the is the the jewel for the mississippi river national park right and so a lot of people don't understand how that works they only talk about park area stuff you know about and new national part of the way this works it's called the minnesota national a very very recreation area and it's a really different type of national park because it's not just one physical it's not the national park service owning and managing a site it's all along the stretch of the mississippi river and all the communities along the river participate and so for us if this with this site this is one of the one of the public sites within that park system and so they're very interested in it and been very supportive they haven't had the dollars to bring to the table but they've got other types of expertise that there will be helping us with long term and i've been you know this twenty acres say that you know the fallback plan they are if we if we don't have to develop that for housing and stuff that to me would make a steps on this journey because i know we're well i think we're about two or three minutes left guys segment ok well next year we're really going to be focusing on pulling together funding for the site and introducing people to the site so the city is just the type of city we are we can actually go out and fundraise we can write grants but we can't go out and fundraise so resident jenny angling has stepped forward and volunteered to lead a fund raising committee so we're going to be we're looking for a nonprofit group that's going to county and small businesses to to donate funds to help us purchase this and i think he's coming up with sometime in april a big fundraiser at the m c c yourself are going to change i think will change our timing on that and so we hope by the first the year to really know what the whole fundraising campaign is going to look like and we're going to run it side by side with a wonderful series of events that allow people to get out on the site and visit the site with naturalist so so i want everyone to watch  their city news in our city website early in january or february we should have the whole schedule for the year to unveil for the fish so it's really a work in progress that's why we work in progress and so the one the one thing we have set up the date that is sharp is maplewood front to make what nature are doing a snowshoe hike at the site on february eleventh that's a saturday from one to three and so will leave some information on the screen for those of you are interested in that so that's where you know these are not the best economic times and it's a lot easier to shed these things off saying well we can't afford it but if we don't do it now it's a lost opportunity so i think i think the council deserves kudos for taking the steps recommendation and moving forward on this and i think this is going to pay big results for the future not only the immediate future but the long range future of this city