Urban News

(MINNEAPOLIS) -- Members of a board that oversees the Minnesota State Fair say they have no plans to look into a proposal that would bring a new stadium for the college Gophers and the NFL Vikings to the state's fairgrounds. The plan was suggested by a member of the state legislature during a recent radio interview on a station in Willmar, Minn. The statement by the fair commissioners, reported in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, was in response to the comments of state Sen. Dean Johnson, a Democrat.

The president of the fair's executive committee says that his group, when it voted unanimously against building a stadium on fairgrounds property, wanted to "send a signal" that organized professional sports should have no place within the complex -- which has received no state funding for more than 50 years.

Meanwhile, Johnson says he's determined to pursue all avenues in coming up with a new venue for the Gophers and the Vikings.

Additionally, state lawmakers have just another two weeks to meet a deadline on spending money to conduct a preliminary study in advance of building a new sports complex for the Twin Cities area.

(HOUSTON) -- The Houston school system has been told to stop in its efforts to level a tract of land in order to begin construction of a huge high school and fine arts complex. The Texas State Historical Commission issued the order after hearing reports that the area where buildings are being razed before construction can begin might be the site of many historic graves.

Opponents of the construction say that the use of bulldozers to remove massive trees could disturb any human remains nearby. At the heart of the issue is a 7-acre tract that is thought to be an early gravesite for many of Houston's original black residents.

The school board has been told it can continue with limited excavation, only if hand tools are used -- while the entire controversy is settled and archaeological checks of the area can be made.

School officials had hired an outside contractor to begin clearing the tract after it took possession of the land and tenants of the buildings moved out. Soon after, residents who lived adjacent to the condemned area began to complain that the now-vacant buildings were being used by homeless people and some had been turned into "crack houses."

One critic of the planned school and arts center told the Houston Chronicle that it's obvious that the board may have moved too quickly in not doing more thorough checks on the land before beginning the pre-construction process.

(MIAMI) -- The sudden "discovery" of some $22 million has come as an early holiday present for Miami-area schools. According to the Miami Herald, state regulators have "found" the money by researching state funds and after collecting some un-used allocations around Florida.

The major part of the "found money" is about $20 million that had been earmarked for school construction in Miami but was never used. It seems that because of an early delay in the arrival of the money, school officials had decided to "go it alone" and use other monies in the early phases of the construction. The Miami Herald says that now that that work is over, the money has finally been released at the state capital. The late-arriving cash is being seen as an unexpected windfall.

And, increasing the smiles in the Miami-Dade school system is the realization that there could be millions more dollars that have been accrued in interest during the time the funding was sitting in limbo.

(CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas) -- Many cities along the Gulf Coast share a common problem ... poor drainage. Corpus Christi, Texas, is a good example of a beautiful, lush city that becomes a soggy mess when a moderate rainstorm blows through. Now a new survey of the city's sewer and drainage system shows that it could cost as much as $85 million to bring the infrastructure up to modern-day standards.

The report, prepared for the Corpus Christi City Council, was printed in the Corpus Christi Caller-Times newspaper. Its bottom line is that not only will the cost of fixing the leaky system be $85 million, it could take more than 11 years to do the job. During that time, many of the city's major streets would become a commuter's nightmare while they are dug out, retrenched and new pipe laid and connected to household and business sewer lines and storm sewer connections.

One city councilman, Mark Scott, told the publication that no matter how the financing is found for the repairs, "it's going to hurt." A special tax levy may be necessary before any work can begin.