In honor of our five-year anniversary member drive, here’s a look back at our first-ever article, posted on this day five years ago.
- What: It’s a recap of the May 13, 2019 West St. Paul City Council meeting. We’ve now written 249 articles about Council, the most recent earlier today (a recap of last night’s meeting).
- Change: A lot has changed in that screenshot, from an upgrade to the Council chambers (now even more dramatic with darker wood) to complete turnover in the city staff present at the meeting. Since 2019, we have a new police chief, city manager, city clerk, development director, and city attorney. Half the Council members have changed, with Dick Vitelli, Bob Pace, and Anthony Fernandez replaced by Pat Armon, Julie Eastman, and Robyn Gulley.
- Food drive: Council members were wearing South St. Paul hockey jerseys as part of a friendly wager over the Neighbors, Inc. spring food drive. In an interview earlier this year with new Neighbors, Inc. Executive Director Dawn Wambeke, she noted “The painful reality is that families are going hungry.”
- Wow: The meeting marked the first anniversary of Women of West St. Paul (WoW), which they celebrated with a carload of period products also donated to Neighbors, Inc. It’s become a regular occurrence—last year’s effort raised more than $15,000 worth of donations and products.
- Long-time issues: During citizen comments in the meeting, residents complained about a problem property that was likely 1037 Humboldt Avenue and addressed with the start of an abatement process last fall.
- West St. Paul Days: The meeting preceded West St. Paul Days, which would be the last West St. Paul Days event hosted by Celebrate West St. Paul. The COVID-19 pandemic would cancel the event one year later and the nonprofit disbanded. The city took up the cause and launched Explore West St. Paul Days in 2022.
- Hoops: The meeting included a report from the Parks and Recreation Advisory Committee recommending the return of basketball hoops to local parks. The vote to restore hoops would come at the next meeting.
- Writing: Our style and approach has changed since then. It’s easy to cringe at that opening sentence that doesn’t communicate much. We try to include more specific details in the lead (a lesson we shared with our intern just this morning).
- Photo: Notice that the photo to accompany the article is a screenshot from Town Square TV’s coverage. That’s our fallback when we neglect to take a photo of the meeting, something we learned that very first night. But it’s a good reminder of how incredible it is that Town Square televises every single City Council meeting making them accessible to the public. They’ve been doing it far longer than we’ve been writing Council recaps. It’s also a good reminder that we don’t do this alone.
Thanks for the Support
This kind of neighborhood news happens with the support of our neighbors. We launched five years ago thanks to a Kickstarter campaign and we keep it going thanks to our members on Patreon.
If you appreciate local news, join our member drive.
Thanks!
