Faced with mounting infrastructure concerns, the city of Winona thought the East End Recreation Center would be the answer to its problems.
City officials earlier this year made a plan to potentially demolish the recreation center and build a large-scale community complex on the site, featuring community space, recreation space, and space for the city's police and fire department.
An outsized outcry from residents put an end to that plan after the Winona City Council recently voted 6-0 to abandon the idea.
For many people, the East End center is "one of the most important resources in town, and everybody knows that," said Katie Mueller-Freitag of the Winona chapter of Community Not Cages, a progressive collective aimed at changing public safety to focus less on jail time and punitive measures and more on human services and outreach.
The group helped spearhead a campaign against the planned complex as members were concerned the community center's space would have shrunk to make more room for police resources.
A public hearing in July drew more than 200 people and 69 speakers, almost all of whom spoke against putting police and firefighters at the center.
Speakers touted the farmers market and the youth and family programs at the center, which they didn't want affected by police or firefighter equipment and training.
"It felt so amazing that the community came together and that many people showed up to tell their representatives how much the rec center meant to them," Mueller-Freitag said.
