GreeningFrogtownNovDec

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018
Inside…
VOTE! TUES. NOV. 6 — REGISTRATION, POLLING INFO, P. 4
Walking Down Hope Street
The new entrepreneurs taking a chance on building a better future
Farmer In Chief
Dave Colling
named executive
director of
Frogtown Farm
— P. 3
After Tax Hike,
A Rent Jump?
The tension between
affordability and
home value gains
— P. 4
Arlette Benito inside Dulceria Esmerelda.
If you're wondering whether hope really does spring eternal,
take a stroll down University Avenue and keep an eye out for
the new businesses that sprout up every month.
One case in point: Arlette Benito is the new owner of Dulceria
Esmeralda, a Mexican-style candy shop and piñata emporium
at 429 University Ave.
What’s behind her entrepreneurial zeal? “I had to find a way
to pay for college,” she said. In addition to running her
dulceria, Benito’s also a criminal justice student at Century
College.
She started out by examining other Latino shops to figure out
where the gaps in the local candy market are. Now she’s
quizzing customers about additional sweets they want to see.
In additional to the retail operation, Benito also outfits parties
with candies and piñatas.
Mary Ferguson at Thrifty-Nifty New and Used Thrift Store.
Meanwhile, at 741 University, Mary Ferguson took time out to
describe her new shop, Thrifty-Nifty New and Used Thrift
Store, during her second day in business.
For six years she ran a parking lot garage sale in South
Minneapolis that kept growing bigger as she took in donations
from churches, family and friends.
When she decided she needed a roof over her head, her first
choice was a shop in south Minneapolis. But prices there, she
said, were "outrageous." She landed on University Ave. instead.
Now Ferguson is holding down jobs at a catering firm and
caring for an elderly client, while getting her new business up
and running.
In addition to a willingness to work hard, she's got what every
new business owner needs: hope. Leaned against a newly
sorted rack of shirts, she said, "I think this is going to turn out."
What's That?
Firecracker or
gunshot? There's
a high-tech way to
tell the difference
— P. 2

THE SAFETY FILE
Shots Fired? Who Knows?
Would Shot Spotter technology improve safety, or just add cost?
Regular students of the Frogtown
Neighbors Facebook page know that next
to lost kitties, a major concern is
whenever shots are fired in Frogtown.
There’s typically a fevered exchange
about when, where and what happened.
And the result is, well, not much.
In the year from September 24, 201 7 to
September 24, 201 8, St. Paul police
recorded 1 38 calls from Frogtowners
who reported gun shots. Reported calls
and actual shots fired are, however, an
entirely different matter. The criminology
literature estimates that 75 percent or
more of gunshots are never reported.
At a recent meeting regarding St. Paul
gun violence, public officials and social
service agency reps wrestled with the
question of what can be done. Afterward,
assistant Ramsey County Attorney
Elizabeth Lamin wondered aloud whether
it’s time to invest in Shot Spotter
technology for St. Paul.
Shot Spotter uses a network of elevated
microphones to triangulate on the sound
of gunfire. The data is beamed to a
Firecracker, slammed door, or gun shot? It's often tough to tell the difference.
Newark, CA office, analyzed to separate
gunfire from similar sounds such as
fireworks or backfires, then sent to police
squad cars in the 90-plus cities that
subscribe to the service. The data often
traverses hundreds of miles, but reaches
cops’ eyes in under a minute, and is
accurate within a few yards.
A subscription costs $65,000 to $80,000
per year per square mile — roughly the
area from Lexington to Dale St., and from
Pierce Butler to I-94.
Right now St. Paul Police spokesperson
Steve Linder says the system isn’t on the
department’s list of must-have items.
But in Minneapolis, where the system has
been in place for about five years, police
spokesperson John Elder says, “It’s been
an exceptionally useful tool for us. It can
identify and pinpoint to a much closer
degree where shots are fired. The mapping
is within three meters. We know the
number of rounds, sometimes the different
calibers of gun. It’s got the complete faith
of officers here, who truly believe in it.”
Nonetheless, Elder says there’s been no
formal evaluation he knows of that
systematically links the technology to
arrests and prosecutions in Minneapolis.
In the view of Metro State criminologist
James Densley, the upside of such databased
policing solutions is that it gives
cops tools to predict where crime happens
most often, and to focus on those areas.
So Shot Spotter could be useful for
mapping where gunfire actually occurs,
and see if or where it’s clustered. By
harnessing this data, says Densley, “we
can know how best to allocate resources.”
Is this technology likely to deter crime by
itself? Densley doesn’t think so. But he
can imagine a pilot program where police
use Shot Spotter within a small area that
has a high number of shots-fired
complaints — say, for instance, Frogtown
— and then use that data to engage with
neighbors about acceptable strategies to
put a lid on gunfire.
Asked what he made of that idea,
Frogtown-area City Councilman Dai Thao
said it's worth considering. The potential
rub is a familiar one, he says: in a world
of limited budgets, the cost is significant,
both for installation and ongoing
maintenance.
PAGE 2 NOVEMBER/DECEMBER JULY / AUGUST 2018
6

FROGTOWN NEWS
Who's That Caped Crusader? Frog‐ish
Freelance Organizer Starts Campaign
Dave Colling brings an organizing background to his position at Frogtown Farm.
At Frogtown Farm, a New Director
Frogtown Farm installed a new executive
director in late September, naming Dave
Colling to replace Eartha Borer Bell, who
stepped down to manage a growing family.
Colling comes to the job having served as
director of the Harrison Neighborhood
Association in Minneapolis. He also
managed Rep. Keith Ellison’s 2006 run
for Congress.
So what does he think comes next for the
three-year old urban farm, located in the
middle of a city park?
“The next step is to reach out and make
more community connections," he said.
"This is the community’s farm. We want
to know what they want from us. We
spent the first few years learning what
people wanted to see, what it should look
like, how the farm should grow. Then we
built it. Now it’s time to go back and say,
okay, we’re here now, we’ve done the
build. What would you like to see next?"
What about five years from now?
“The first thing is, you’d see a nice big,
energy-efficient building here. Maybe
there would be a commercial kitchen in
there, space for a business incubator, art
space, community space. That would be
the greatest thing.
“There would be a real greenhouse to
replace the hoop house we’ve got now. I’d
want to see people who live here working
in the fields. We’d keep working with
Feeding Frogtown (the food giveaway at
City School at Lafond and Western)."
"This land could produce a lot more food
that we currently do. It’s a question of
finding a balance between food
production and programming.”
For all the chatter about block-by-block
organizing in Frogtown, it’s rare that
anyone does much about it. A recent
exception is the freelance organizing
effort that
Frogtowner Abu
Nayeem is
undertaking from
his Sherburne
Ave. home.
Nayeem was born
in Bangladesh,
raised in Queens,
NY, and moved to
Frogtown about a
year ago. After
landing here, he
decided that he
wanted to start
organizing
neighbors about
issues important
to them.
Abu Nayeem gets wardrobe help.
He started with a few simple strategies.
He published a survey on Facebook
asking neighbors to list their big
concerns. He organized a series of
evening walks for neighbors to meet each
other and take in the local sites. He
showed up in a home-made frog costume
at events such as National Night Out, then
patiently suffered the children who
grabbed his headgear. He called a
meeting at the Rondo Library for people
to meet and talk about his survey results.
The library meeting revealed the rift
between what people say they want —
block-level organizing — and what will
get them to leave the house. A meeting at
the library wasn’t it. It drew a pair of
residents and a Greening Frogtown
reporter.
and party slated to be held at a local cafe,
the Tin Cup. The fundraising effort raised
$4,000. The money went toward paying
for a year’s worth of service on about 25
Xcel-installed alley
lights, 20 of which
have already been
put up.
The same could be
done here, Nayeem
says, but it will take
a group of activists
to learn whether a
significant number
of people want their
alley lit, make sure
that the light
distribution is
equitable, and then
work out the details
of raising money
and getting lights
installed. Interested? Email him at
anayeem1 @gmail.com
The goal isn’t so much to light the alleys.
“It’s to build relationships and have an
authentic conversation among people
here,” he says.
Nayeem’s latest maneuver was to
nominate himself to the Frogtown
Neighborhood Association board, where
he’ll join a slate of eight other new board
members. What does he hope to
accomplish there? “I want to make sure
that community members know what’s
going on, and that we treat people here
with respect.”
One of those residents was Johnny
Howard, the former director of the
Thomas Dale Block Club. That
organization, active in the late 90s and
early 2000s, once included about 600
members in a network of block clubs.
Howard’s advice to Nayeem: don’t get
discouraged when nobody shows up. He
recalled meeting after meeting in the
TDBC’s early days when two people
would have been a crowd.
NEW FEATURES AT HMONG MUSEUM: Above,
Hmong Cultural Center’s Txongpao Lee and
Mark Pfeifer show off a new interactive feature —
an iPad-based video collection (right) depicting aspects
of Hmong culture — at their museum located in the second
floor office at 375 University Ave.
The videos explain traditional embroidery and story cloths, depict people playing
various instruments and show their roles in weddings and funerals. Along with
panels that set out the Hmong path from Southeast Asia to St. Paul — plus a rich
display of clothing, farming and hunting tools, instruments, and household
objects — the museum is a great introduction to the quick and radical changes
that occurred in the lives of Frogtown’s Hmong residents.
Walk-in visitors are welcome from 9 am to 6 pm, Monday through Friday, with a
suggested donation of $5. Find out more at hmonghistorycenter.org, or call ahead
at 651 -91 7-9937.
The other resident at the Rondo
meeting, Lynn Kensy, said that for
her, poor street and alley lighting was
a major safety issue. Nayeem’s next
move was to conduct a street and alley
lighting survey with Kensey and
Frogtowner Norma Hakizimana. They’re
method wasn’t strictly scientific. They
prowled the streets at night and declared a
section underlit when it was so dark they
couldn't see any shadows.
Using the data they collected, Nayeem
put together a map that identified the
darkest alleys. He then connected with
Dee Walsh, a North End resident who
started an alley light campaign after a
shooting outside her house. Walsh made
contacts with North End businesses,
asking them to donate prizes for a raffle
GREENS ROYALTY: WHO WILL IT BE?
Get set for the social event of the
season — the third annual Greens
Cook-off, set for 4:30-7:30 pm,
Saturday, Dec. 1 at new, larger venue
this year, Mt. Olivet Baptist Church, 451
Central Ave. W.
Last year's champ in the celebrity
judging category was Carolyn Brown,
above, while Yeng Moua took the
people's choice title. This year
promises to be another hard fought
contest, featuring a meal, a mountain
of greens, plus music and
speechifying. It's all free. Don't miss it!
NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018 PAGE 3

FROGTOWN NEWS
Ramsey County Board Candidates:
What's Their Big Idea for Frogtown?
In these last days before the November 6
election, we asked the two Ramsey
County board candidates — incumbent
Janice Rettman and challenger Trista
MatasCastillo, to describe their biggest
ideas for Frogtown.
The county board seat comes with vast
responsibility for oversight of government
social service programs, parks, courts,
voter registration, policing, libraries,
roads and much more. We hoped that
boiling a question down to an ultra-local
level, readers might catch a revealing
glimpse of the candidates.
Rettman was first elected to the county
board in 1 997, after serving on the city
council for ten years. MatasCastillo was
in the military for 1 6 years, then worked
as a Habitat for Humanity organizer. She
is also the founder of the Women Veterans
Initiative, a nonprofit organization that
advocates for female veterans.
Until this election, Rettman has typically
faced nominal opposition, or no
challenger at all, in her races for the
District 3 seat. That changed this time
around, when MatasCastillo secured the
DFL endorsement at the March party
convention. In the August primary she
gathered 4,022 votes to Rettman’s 2,671 .
So what are Rettman and MatasCastillo’s
big ideas for Frogtown? Take a look.
MatasCastillo: "Dale Street was once the
"Main Street" of Frogtown, a vibrant,
walkable, and transit-connected corridor
that supported thriving neighborhood
businesses and social institutions. Today,
because of decisions made over the last
few generations by local leaders
(including the incumbent
Commissioner), most of that has
disappeared, replaced by a landscape of
vacant lots that feels more like a freeway
than a neighborhood.
"Roads in the county system need to be
able to move traffic efficiently, but they
shouldn't do that at the expense of the
neighborhoods they pass through,
especially in disinvested areas like
Frogtown. We need to redesign Dale
Street to be safe and pleasant for people
of all ages and abilities, and work
together to rebuild a vibrant Main Street
that can again function as the heart of
Frogtown. We need to explore enhanced
bus service on Dale (like the A Line on
Snelling), and begin a community input
and design process to explore what Dale
Street's future should be."
Rettman: "I am privileged to represent
Frogtown. Through good and bad times,
I fight for Frogtown to be recognized by
Ramsey County — because you work
hard for your family and expect this work
from me.
"I often “doorknock” Frogtown for
community issues. You said that day care,
elder care, job search, and family services
are important County services. So, I
worked for more Frogtown families
having early childhood education, and I
fought for more environmentally-clean
job sites with living-wage jobs.
"Still, more work is needed. I will
advocate using the State’s Environmental
Response Fund for more living-wage job
sites. Together, we will work because
hardworking Frogtown residents deserve
the best."
Get Ready to Vote November 6
Don't get caught ballot-less on November 6. Get registered, find your polling place
and see a sample ballot now. The easy way to get all this information? Go to
tinyurl.com/frogtownvote for a thorough rundown. You'll also find help there on
absentee and early voting if you can't get to the polls on November 6.
Good News! Local Home Values Are Up
Bad News! Local Home Value Are Up
We’re just a few weeks away from an
annual government ritual — the mid-
November date when Ramsey County
sends out its property tax statements for
the year to come. For many Frogtown
homeowners and renters, the envelope is
not likely to hold good news.
Property taxes are based in part on the
value of your home, as figured by the
county assessor’s office, and in part on
the tax rates set by city and county
government leaders to fund public
programs. For 201 9, the City Council and
Mayor Melvin Carter are looking at an
11 .5 percent tax increase, with the county
adding an additional 4.5 percent.
Meanwhile, Frogtown leads the city in the
percentage gain of home values, with the
median (half under, half over) change
from 201 8 to 201 9 at 1 6.3 percent. In
201 8 the median home value here was
$111 ,700. For 201 9, it’s $1 29,900.
The explanation for Frogtown’s big
jump? Homes in other parts of town
regained value more quickly after the
2008 financial crisis. Frogtown is making
up for lost time now. Lower house prices
here spur buyer demand, which increases
prices, which then leads to higher
assessed values. It’s another of life’s
vicious circles. Nonethless, median home
values here are lower than any other St.
Paul neighborhood except for Dayton’s
Bluff.
How does that value leap work out in
dollars and cents? That changes for each
particular house. But here’s a real-life
PAGE 4 NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018

example from an owner-occupied home
on Van Buren Ave. In 201 8, the assessed
value was $11 4,900. For 201 9, it’s
$1 40,900. The tax and assessment bill
will increase from $1 ,556 to $1 ,988. If the
referendum for increased school funding
passes in the Nov. 6 election, another
$1 09 gets tacked on, for a total of $2,097,
or a $542 gain.
For renters — about 62 percent of
Frogtown residents — the tax load on
property can be even more significant.
Owner-occupants get a special tax break
that allows them to deduct about $25,550
from the assessed value of a median
priced Frogtown home. No such luck for
renters, since rental property doesn’t get
this tax deal. Here’s another real-world
example on how this works out on a
Sherburne Ave. single-family rental home.
The 201 8 assessed value was $88,500.
For 201 9, it’s $11 5,1 00. Assuming the
school referendum passes, taxes and
assessments will increase from $1 ,532 to
$2,027, a $495 jump.
Which is to say, landlords may be looking
to recover higher costs by raising rents. If
you’re a renter who’s willing to do some
digging, you can figure out whether your
landlord is actually looking at a
significant tax hike based on assessed
value gains. Go to tinyurl.com/FrogtownTax,
enter your address, hit search, and click on
the parcel ID in the upper left corner.
Scroll down to Statements and Notices,
and compare the 201 8 to 201 7 "Value
Notice." Statements for actual taxes
payable in 201 9 should appear in the
same location by mid-November.
As usual, there are a lot of ways to
interpret tax facts. Higher taxes put a
squeeze on those renters and homeowners
who are already barely getting by. But for
Frogtowners who bought a home at the
height of the market before the 2008
recession, increasing home values mean
that someday, maybe, they won’t be
underwater on their mortgage. For lowincome
householders, the most likely path
to generational wealth is a home that they
own. That doesn’t work if values never
increase. Higher taxes hurt today, but a
house that’s worth less than when you
bought it is a long-term loss. The big
picture here: value gains are everything at
once: good, bad and complicated.
This old house: 1 6.3 percent assessed
property value gains in Frogtown are
the highest in St. Paul.
FROGTOWN NEWS
What Was This About?
Maybe you noticed the signs that
temporarily sprouted along Victoria and
Minnehaha in September, declaring “We
Will Not Be Moved,” and, on the flip
side, “Black and Brown Owned: It’s
Wilder.”
So, what’s the story? First, some
background. “It’s Wilder” refers to the
Wilder Square Town Homes, 1 63 units of
cooperatively-owned housing
concentrated near the intersection of
Minnehaha and Victoria. They were built
by the Wilder Foundation between 1 973
and 1 975, and managed by Wilder until
2009. After a restructuring, Wilder got
out of the management business. A local
firm, Real Estate Equities, was later hired
by the co-op’s resident-elected board to
manage the property.
A co-op is different than a straight rental
apartment. Residents buy a share when
they move in, and then own a piece of the
pie. To make management decisions they
elect a board, which is in charge of
balancing shareholders' monthly costs
versus the need to make timely repairs
and improvements, among other issues.
Residents’ monthly payments will likely
seem like a bargain to most Frogtown
renters. A studio apartment goes for $488
per month, a one-bedroom for as little as
$629, a two-bedroom for $787, and a
three-bedroom for $881 . Ninety-three of
those units are project-based Section 8, a
housing assistance program that is
attached to the property, while another 1 7
units are occupied by residents who
qualify for individual Section 8 vouchers,
according to Terrence Troy, chairman of
Real Estate Equities.
The path that led to that sudden
blossoming of “We Will Not Be Moved”
signage began when Troy’s firm offered
to buy out co-op members and take over
ownership. Tenants who remained would
become straight-up renters instead of
shareholding owners. Like all renters,
they’d be dealing with a landlord instead
of a board they had elected. The buy-out
offer created turmoil between residents
who saw it as a chance to put buy-out
money in their pocket, and others who
believed it meant that ultimately
they’d pay more for housing.
Beyond this, the facts get murky. The
town home board leadership didn’t want
to discuss their internal affairs. No
complaining about that — nothing says
they have to. The resident most active in
organizing against the buy out did not
return phone calls. No problem there
either. If he doesn’t want to talk, that’s
his right. Troy at Real Estate Equities
agreed to meet, and explained that in the
face of so much contention, his firm had
backed off its offer.
The Frogtown Neighborhood
Association, which helped tenants resist
a buy-out and plant those signs, declined
several times to discuss why they
intervened in the affairs of another
neighborhood resident-elected board,
and what actions they took in support of
tenants resisting a buy-out.
OPENNESS AND FNA: AN OPINION
In this issue we made an effort to do
what newspapers often do — that is,
find out what the people who
represent us are up to. With the
Frogtown Neighborhood Association,
we weren't very successful.
The FNA is one of the City of St.
Paul’s 1 7 district councils, set up in
1 975 to provide a link between city
government and neighborhoods. By
the city’s lights, the district councils
“create opportunities for residents to
learn about what is happening in their
neighborhoods and collaborate with
one another and city government to
maintain and improve the quality of
life in neighborhoods.” To pursue this
work, the city allocated the FNA
$61 ,41 8 in 201 8.
As a non-profit organization, the FNA
has no obligation under Minnesota law
to talk about what it does. Whether
that jibes with its mission is another
question.
We were unable to persuade the FNA
to discuss why they intervened in the
affairs of the Wilder Square Town
Home board and shareholders, even
though by festooning local streets
with placards declaring, "We Will Not
Be Moved," they made the dispute
very public, albeit dimly understood
by most passersby.
It's an odd approach to "creating
opportunities for residents to learn
what is happening in their
neighborhoods." But it's not the sole
example. As of this writing (Oct. 25),
the FNA does not publish its board
agenda or minutes, list its board
members or consistently update the
calendar of events on its website. For
the organization’s soon-to-be-installed
new board, here's an obvious question:
how much do neighbors deserve to
know about what their citizen
participation organization does for
them?
— Tony Schmitz
NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018
PAGE 5

PAGE 6
NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018 PAGE 7

BIG IDEAS
Greening Up Dale Street
Here's a plan to turn an abandoned lot into a center to fight climate change on a local level
PAGE 8 NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018

FROM THE COVER
He Figured It Out for You
Art elder Seitu Jones has advice for young Frogtown artists
You’re a Frogtown artist and you’re looking
for tips on how to turn your creative
impulses into a living. Everyone’s got to find
their own path in this tough racket. But that
said, Frogtown’s most prominent artist, Seitu
Jones, has time-tested advice developed over
nearly a half-century of paying the bills via
the arts.
He’s recently been declared a McKnight
Foundation Distinguished Artist, was the
first-ever resident artist for the City of
Minneapolis, created the art at the Dale and
Rice St. Greenline Stations, was the brains
behind the 2,000-guest public meal held on
Victoria St., and was among the co-founders
to Frogtown Farm, to cite just a few of his
accomplishments.
Here’s his memory of how he got on the arts
path, and the practical and high-minded
essentials for building up a lasting career.
How did you get started?
Back in the 70s, there wasn’t a real market
here for art. I was often tempted to go to
New York, but I had kids, and there was no
way I could conceptualize picking up my
kids and moving them there.
Being a child of the 60s, I kept coming up
with all these different philosophies. One
week I’d be a Marxist, and another week a
black cultural nationalist, another week I’d
be drifting toward the Black Panther party.
All those things affected me in some ways.
Even at the time in the 60s, the 70s when I
was part of the Black Arts movement and
worked at Penumbra Theater, we thought
we were doing work for the cause here. I
didn’t want to move my kids to New York
because the revolution was going to happen,
like, next week. But in the end the thing I
settled on was leaving your community
more beautiful than you found it.
That’s still what drives my work. I’ve been
fortunate to build a career around that. A lot
of what I’ve done is public art. I started out
doing murals. That led to larger public art
works. That’s really what’s paid my bills.
Can you boil that down to some dos and
don’ts for young Frogtown artists?
There are two sides you’ve got to be
thinking about. There are the logistics of
doing all this and then there’s the content,
the art part. And a big part is not the art part.
That’s what trips people up. Unfortunately,
you’ve got to pay taxes. Last year I paid
more taxes than Donald Trump paid in
the past 1 0 years. You’ve got to get legal
and decide on a business structure that’s
right for you — a sole proprietorship, or
an LLC, or an S Corporation. You’ve got
to market yourself, because it’s always a
hustle. I spend 30 to 40 percent of my time
focused on all the business aspects of
being an artist.
Get a good accountant. Make sure that you
save some money. Especially as you get to
be my age, take a look at that Social
Security account. You want to make sure
you get as much as you can.
And you’ve got to invest in yourself. I’m
so curious that I want to keep learning
new stuff, so it’s either taking that class or
buying that tool that you’ll need down the
line. You need to invest in yourself over
and over again.
You’ve also got to invest in your space.
That doesn’t necessarily mean you need to
buy a warehouse, but you need to find a
place that suits you and your work.
— Continued Page 11
NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018
PAGE 9

WHAT'S HAPPENING
Trick Question: What works better? Let neighbors know what you've got,
or figure they'll find out somehow? Correct answer: Advertise!
See GreeningFrogtown.com for ad rates. Call 651‐757‐7479
PAGE 10 NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018

SEITU JONES, CONTINUED
Then there’s persistence. You’ve got to
stay at it, over and over and over again.
Apply for everything. You don’t get
anything unless you apply for the
fellowships and the requests for proposals.
Apply over and over, until it happens.
You’re going to have to take risks. You
interview for this $500,000 commission,
or even a $500 commission, and folks are
going to ask you, Can you do this? So
what do you say? You say over and over
again, I can do that. No problem. You’ve
got to take risks and do it with
confidence. But you don’t get the
confidence unless you do it over and over
again. That’s persistence. All this stuff is
connected in some way.
What about the people part?
There’s no way I could have done this by
myself. I always had to rely on
community support. I had a whole slew
of people who helped me or encouraged
me. Sometimes that was what I needed to
keep going.
is published six times per year by Health Advocates Inc.,
843 Van Buren Ave., St. Paul, Minnesota, 551 04
and is distributed door-to-door from Lexington Parkway to 35E,
and from University Avenue to Pierce Butler Route.
Ad rates & more at GreeningFrogtown.com
Health Advocates also sponsors Frogtown Green, an initiative that promotes
green development to increase the health and wealth ofFrogtown residents.
Choosing A Friend
Ask the Animal Humane Society Outreach
How do I pick the right pet?
Getting a pet is an
exciting time. You’ll
want to consider how
much time you can give
to your new friend. A
dog with more energy
may be suitable if you take daily walks
already. Some pets require a large financial
commitment for grooming, boarding, or vet
care. A rabbit will probably cost less overall
than a dog. Pets like birds and reptiles require
special knowledge and care and may not be
suitable for younger or new pet owners.
Are you outgoing and busy? A shy dog or cat
won’t be a good fit. Do you want an active pet
that you can take places and do things with?
Or do you want a calm pet that will curl up on
the couch with you? A senior pet may be a
good choice if you want a snuggle buddy! Don’t
forget to look into licensing and permit
requirements for type and number of pets in a
household. Call or text animal trainers Katie
& Elise at 651-802-8246 for more free tips
through the Outreach program of Animal
Humane Society!
NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018
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