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Attachment 7 I imagine you will receive the history of our neighborhood’s current situation. Briefly: • An informal path was in a 50-foot-wide utility ROW running from Aldine, between Ryan and Roselawn Avenues. The ROW abuts eight properties: two along the west, and six along the Mid-Oaks east (two of which are owned by the same family). • The city planned to vacate the right-of-way and was unaware that an informal path ran through it. • At the April 21 City Council meeting when they planned to vote on the vacation, neighbors came to speak. The bordering property owners whose yards abut the path, were prepared in advance and spoke as a unit. They supported the vacation, and expressed annoyance at the existence of the path and neighbors from the broader neighborhood who used it. • The bordering property owners took neighbors from the broader neighborhood by surprise. We had attended the meeting to ask the city to please find a way to keep some land open for a path. We had been unaware our presence was unwelcome. • The Council tabled the vacation vote, pending further research on the situation. • Two Herschel Street neighbors (Stef and Cindy ) and I asked neighbors in the broader neighborhood who used the path to sign a petition asking the City to “keep some kind of walkway.” We didn’t know how long we would have before the Council took up the issue again, and so gathered names (with addresses and email) over only one week. We gathered 98 signers, representing 62 neighborhood properties. • In subsequently researching the property, the city determined that the western 20-feet of the ROW had not been correctly taken when the ROW was created; that land belongs to the two property owners who border on Roselawn and Ryan. The ROW in question is now 30-feet-wide. • On June 16, the Council returned to the ROW discussion. Again many neighbors spoke, on both sides of the issue. Some wanted their children to continue to be able to walk to school along it. Some asked that the path be added to the Roseville Master Pathway Plan, so it would be recognized; some said that would be a problem as it then might have to be paved. Everyone expressed concern for mature trees in it. The Council voted three/two not to vacate, and to leave it as is (not added to the Pathway Masterplan). • The property owners abutting the ROW petitioned for vacation. The petition came up for vote by the Council on July 21. • The meeting on the 21st again had impassioned testimony. Abutting neighbors asked the city to vacate the property. Neighbors from the broader neighborhood, asked the city to keep some land for an informal woodland path that would continue to connect us to one another, without sending people out to Fairview or Snelling Avenues. Both contingents expressed a desire not to harm mature oak trees. The Council voted to table Qbhf!57!pg!29: