March Work Group Notes

For the March meeting of the Boys Totem Town Work Group, we spent about a third of the meeting with updates about the neighborhood and outlining what we know and what we do NOT know about the site... the rest of the meeting was spent planning for the upcoming Community Workshop on Saturday, March 25 from 12:30p to 2:30p. The workshop will be held at Boys Totem Town in Koehler Hall (follow the signs to the hall...) and will include an opportunity to tour a portion of the grounds and the buildings. Staff has been working with Totem Town staff to make this event a fun and informative one.

​The most recent news from the County is that they have not made - and are not ready to make - a decision about the direction they take with regard to how they will configure programming, and, from that, how they will need to site new facilities. However, they reiterate that their decision about Boys Totem Town will be based on what is best for the youth they are responsible for in the juvenile justice system. They also reiterate that they have heard from juvenile justice advocates that smaller facilities embedded in the communities from which the youth come are the ideal.

​In terms of what happens to the Boys Totem Town site itself - the future potential use of the land (which is determined by the City, not the County) - this focus by the County means that if they retain the current site, they will be unlikely to need the full parcel.

​So we proceed with our visioning and community building, thinking about what is best for all the people who live in this area. Any changes at the site including any construction would not even start for several more years. There is a lot of time and a lot of community building still to be done.

​We hope to see people at the workshop on the 25th. There will be pizza and there will also be activities for children, if families attend.