User:Bstar39/sandbox

Merriam Park is a historic neighborhood in Saint Paul within St. Paul's Union Park district (District 13). The Union Park district of St. Paul is composed of three distinct historical neighborhoods: Merriam Park, Snelling-Hamline (Snel-Ham), and Lexington-Hamline (Lex-Ham). Prior to 2007, each of these three neighborhoods had its own neighborhood community council that received funding from the City of St. Paul through the City's district council system. In 2007, the Merriam Park Community Council was consolidated with the Snel-Ham and Lex-Ham Community Councils to form the Union Park district council, which is now the sole citizen council for all three neighborhoods in Union Park. The current Union Park district council of St. Paul (District Council 13, Inc) was previously known as the Merriam Park Community Council.

Union Park is sometimes identified by writers or others as its own neighborhood in St. Paul. However, residents of the Union Park district are more likely to identify themselves as living in one of the three historical neighborhoods. For example, as of late 2019, only two businesses registered with the state of Minnesota have "Union Park" in their name, but there are twelve businesses that use "Merriam Park" as part of their name.

History of the Merriam Park Community Council as a part of St. Paul's District Council System
By 1971, St. Paul had established a goal of increasing citizen participation in the City's government, and the Committee on Citizen Participation was created to study the issue and make recommendations about how to encourage St. Paul residents to become more civically active. As a result of the Citizen Participation Committee's conclusions, the City resolved to create a formal city-wide citizen participation program, and in August of 1975, St. Paul's City Council authorized the creation of the neighborhood district council system.

The district council system divided the City into seventeen formally recognized neighborhood districts and gave each district its own citizen council. District 13, now known as Union Park, was in 1975 known by the name "Lex.-Hamline/Merriam Park," and City records indicate it had a population of 21,250 people. Although under the City's plan the district councils would be limited to an advisory role without any direct decision making authority within the City government proper, each district council received funds from the City through the Community Development Revenue Sharing program to use for its own neighborhood projects.

The boundaries of each district were highly debated, and St. Paul residents played a large part in determining the districts' final boundaries, with meetings on proposed boundaries drawing around several dozen people per meeting between 1971 and 1975. Additionally, numerous written comments were submitted to the City. Because the district council system grew directly out of an initiative focused on growing citizen participation in government, the final locations of the district boundaries were perhaps most significantly influenced by what local residents commonly accepted as their neighborhood boundaries. This included boundaries sanctioned by local community councils that had been created by St. Paul residents at a local, grass-roots level to help residents manage their own community and neighborhood affairs

When the City created the district council system in 1975, there were already several neighborhood-led community councils operating in St. Paul independently of the City government. Before 1975, the community councils were not officially incorporated into St. Paul's government as the district councils are today, but one of the City's express guidelines for the district council system was to use the boundaries of the preexisting neighborhood community councils as the boundaries of the new districts whenever possible. The current district council system was intentionally designed to foster participation in city government by formally incorporating these preexisting community councils within St. Paul's city government as ancillary or quasi-governmental bodies, and standardizing the operation and integration of those community councils across the City.

Having registered with the state of Minnesota on July 7, 1968 as a Minnesota nonprofit corporation, the Merriam Park Community Council in 1975 was one such preexisting community council (as was the Lexington Hamline Community Council). Even after the City created the Lex.-Hamline/Merriam Park neighborhood district in 1975 (today's Union Park district), the Merriam Park Community Council continued to operate as an independent body, except that it also began to receive funding from the City of St. Paul through the district council system. The Lex-Ham neighborhood also continued to operate its own independent community council (created in 1969) concurrently with the Merriam Park Community Council. The first budget for the Lex-Hamline/Merriam Park district was $3,898.20, or 1.46% of the $267,000 distributed among the district councils by the City in 1975. Part of this money went directly to the Merriam Park Community Council, and part of it went to the Lex-Ham Community Council, each of which used the money for their own independent neighborhood projects.

On June 6, 2007, the Merriam Park Community Council changed its name to District Council 13, Inc. as part of its merger with the Lex-Ham and Snel-Ham councils. The Lexington-Hamline Community Council, Inc. was registered as a Minnesota nonprofit corporation on December 2, 1969, and it continues as an ongoing organization today, though with much less activity than before the creation of Union Park District 13. The Snelling-Hamline Community Council was registered as a Minnesota nonprofit corporation on October 29, 1980, but it was dissolved by the state of Minnesota in January of 2009 due to inactivity.