SAMPLE LETTER TO LEGISLATOR

Your name & address

Date

Dear Senator ___/Representative ___/Etc,

I am a resident of ________, Minnesota.  I am employed as a ___________.  I am writing to urge your support for a project which will require legislative action in the future.

 I am a strong supporter of the “Whitewater Park” proposal to restore rapids at St. Anthony Falls on the Mississippi River.  St. Anthony Falls is an important part of Minnesota’s heritage.  We have turned our back on this area for too long.  A good portion of St. Anthony Falls is now an abandoned industrial site (where an NSP power plant fell into the river in 1987).   There is a proposal in the works to recreate rapids there in the form of a Whitewater Park.  The Feasibility Study done in 1999 (financed by the Minnesota legislature) concluded that restoration of rapids and creation of a Whitewater Park was feasible, would pay for itself once it was constructed, would put approximately 50,000 people per year into the river (most of them in inflatable rafts) and would create a park in the heart of the metropolitan area which would be visited by half a million people or more. 

 The Whitewater Park project has the support of the City of Minneapolis, the Minneapolis Parks and Recreation Board, the Marcy Holmes Neighborhood Association, the Mississippi Corridor Neighborhood Coalition, Friends of the Mississippi, the Minnesota Canoe Association, the American Canoe Association, the Rivers Council of Minnesota, and many other local and national groups.  The legislature has already designated the area a “Whitewater Trail.”

This year the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources and the Army Corps of Engineers are working with $1.6 million in federal and state funds to develop plans for the Whitewater Park.   Additionally, the federal government has authorized a potential $9 million appropriation toward construction of this park. 

I strongly urge you to support this very important project.

Yours very truly,

Your Signature Here

cc:        MWPDC