BY ED FELIEN
You can change the world.
Trump is not as great as he thinks he is. He needs us to bow before him. If you stand up, if your neighbors stand up and say, “No,” then he is reduced to the clown we know him to be.
Wouldn’t it be great to talk to some of your neighbors about this Brave New World we’re living in? Especially with neighbors who agree on some of the more important particulars?
“What do you think?”
“What can we do?”
The DFL precinct caucuses will convene Tuesday, April 8. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. and business starts at 7 p.m.
You can find your location at the DFL website: mobilize.us/dfl/event/743926/
“This is the first step in selecting delegates and alternates to endorse candidates for city office at your local Ward Convention and the Minneapolis DFL City Convention on July 19 and July 20.” — DFL website.
On July 19, the precinct delegates elected on April 8 to go to the City Convention will endorse a candidate for Mayor. On the July 20, the delegates will endorse Park Board candidates.
The races for City Council in South Minneapolis are quite boring. All eight Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) endorsed candidates are expected to receive little or no opposition. Our Council Members are not perfect, and many times we feel they are not listening to us. I complained to Aurin Chowdhury about the dumping of sand in Lake Hiawatha. Each winter the sand dumped on city streets in winter runs through the storm sewers in South Minneapolis — from Lake Street to 43rd Street, from Chicago Avenue to 27th Avenue — into Lake Hiawatha. The lake once had a depth of 33 feet. Today much of it is a sandbar — unfit for swimming, unhealthy for aquatic life. She said she would ask staff about it. That was six months ago. I haven’t heard back. I’ve asked Jason Chavez about trying to install public restrooms and bathing facilities at the Public Works warehouse parking lot at 27th Street and 18th Ave. for our unhoused visitors in the summer. He hasn’t gotten back to me.
The race for DFL endorsement for mayor is looking interesting. In our January edition, I said it looked like Frey would get 30 percent of the delegates, Koski could get 30 percent, Omar Fateh could get 30 percent, and Davis and Brenda Short would get the remainder.
Now, it looks like Frey is slipping. He’s fighting with the council about funding for McAfee’s Northside violence interrupters program. McAfee made a public homophobic insult to Council Member Jason Chavez and threatened violence. Frey says we should still work with McAfee, and Chief O’Hara says it makes sense to get as much help as you can from the people in the ‘hood. But that kind of accommodation without apology would be unacceptable to Progressives. Maybe there needs to be a meeting and some new understandings. But Frey gets fried at both ends of that one. It’s absolutely nuts to try to predict the outcome of the DFL City Convention, but with all the College Basketball Brackets going round, it’s irresistible. So, I think, Frey could end up with around 25 percent of the deleg
We hadn’t heard anything from Koski until her recent and stellar appearance at Ilhan Omar’s Town Hall, where Omar publicly thanked and congratulated Koski for working closely with her office to get things done for Minneapolis. That’s a pretty powerful endorsement before a big audience, and it cements her working relationship with Progressives. She has often (not always) voted with the Progressives on the City Council, and she legitimately inherits the moxie of the Northside Machine that ran Minneapolis for the last generation. But it’s hard to tell how all of that translates into delegate votes at the City Convention. Her campaign would know who their people were. They would teach them (if necessary) how to get elected a precinct delegate and then, how to get elected a city delegate. They’ll have people on the phones calling lists. The Frey campaign will, too. I think Koski will be around 25 percent.
Omar Fateh has been endorsed by DSA. They endorsed him, and then it seemed everybody went to sleep. I haven’t seen much of anything about the DFL endorsement process or even about Fateh from them. There is some concern that the players are too young and inexperienced to make it up to city delegate. As they say, “Old age and treachery will always beat youth and exuberance.” But, because they control eight out of thirteen wards, Fateh should end up with somewhere around 40 percent on the first ballot.
Rev. DeWayne Davis has been very active, but, without a track record in elective office, he’ll probably come in with around 10 percent on the first ballot.
What happens next is the really interesting part. If no one gets the necessary 60 percent on the first ballot for endorsement, the Convention will move to a second ballot where the candidate with the lowest total is eliminated from the ballot. Where will Davis’s votes go? And then, on the third ballot, who will be eliminated, Frey or Koski? Will they all agree to toss their votes to each other to block Fateh from reaching 60 percent?
If there is no endorsement, then, all candidates will probably run in the November General Election, and the winner will probably be the candidate with the most money — Frey.
The Sunday Convention to endorse candidates for Park Board will be a lot less interesting. There are few contests, and, like our city-electeds, our Park Board electeds are totally subservient to a staff that, for the most part, doesn’t even live in the city. If they lived in South Minneapolis, they’d take down the dams on Minnehaha Creek that are flooding their basements.
There is a lot to love about Minneapolis, but the thing to love most about it is the people. Get out and talk to your neighbors. Tell them what you think. Listen to new ideas.
You are the fuel that keeps the flame of liberty alive.
