Open Streets Lyndale is an autumn celebration

BY STEPHANIE FOX Open Streets Lyndale, the final Open Streets event for the season, will be held on Oct. 8 from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Lyndale Avenue will be closed to motor traffic from 42nd Street to 22nd Street, and open to pedestrians, bikes, rollerblades and skateboards. The street…

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The state of public education

BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE What does the internet say? I don’t watch TV anymore, so I never see TV news; I never did listen to the radio much and I can’t afford the Strib. How do I stay so well-informed, you ask? I have learned to maximize the internet. It’s…

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Autumn at Midtown Global Market

BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE Here’s your yearly update on how things are going at Midtown Global Market and its nearby environs. I visited the Market in mid-September, and I hate to start out on a sad note, but it was partly to say goodbye to two businesses I heard were…

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Celebrate Fall in Dinkytown

BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE Identity housing scandal This fall, as students flock to Dinkytown to inhabit the new high rises, low rises and co-ops that have been built in the last few years, a scandal is unfolding. (I’m the only one calling it that, so I had to drop the…

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The Tampa 5 – students face jail

BY DRAKE THOMAS MYERS, MN ANTI-WAR COMMITTEE “We’re not guilty. We came out to the press right away saying, we’re not f—ing apologizing for anything, not to the cops who groped a student and not to the university that wants to punish protesters for saying no to attacks on their…

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Chief O’Hara and the MPD’s new structure

BY KAY SCHROVEN Changes Ten months into his position as the 54th chief of the Minneapolis Police Department, Brian O’Hara is encouraged, especially about the recent restructuring of the department. He is also acutely aware of the challenges the MPD faces. O’Hara accepted the position knowing he would be walking…

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Murray on Assange, whistleblowers and the press

BY AMY BLUMENSHINE On the recent anniversary of 9/11, over a hundred people came to hear whistleblower and former British ambassador Craig Murray at the Hook and Ladder. A Scotsman and career diplomat for the United Kingdom, Murray had been ambassador to Uzbekistan as our “Global War on Terror” was…

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Crazy priorities at the Park Board

BY KATHRYN KELLY On a recent beautiful Sunday afternoon I took a drive around the Nokomis-Hiawatha neighborhood. Nokomis Park has numerous softball fields along Cedar Avenue, but they were empty and unused. The plentiful tennis courts in the neighborhood were also unused except for one of five courts on 43rd…

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‘Consent of the governed’— gone!

BY ED FELIEN Frey’s budget Mayor Frey is proposing a $1.8 billion budget for 2024, with a property tax increase of 6.2%. Where does all that money go? Mostly to the suburbs to pay staff to come in here and tell us what’s wrong with us. Consent of the governed?…

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MPD falls short on domestic violence response

BY CAM GORDON A new report released this spring by the Minneapolis-based nonprofit organization Global Rights for Women confirms that the city’s response to domestic violence calls continues to fall short. The report, “An Institutional Analysis of the Minneapolis Police Response to Domestic Violence,” was presented to the Community Commission on…

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Hope on Chicago Avenue and George Floyd Square

BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE Whither George Floyd Square? In May, the Minneapolis Spokesman-Recorder wrote about George Floyd Square, the headline stating that it “remains a work in progress.” That is certainly true. The opening sentence of the piece is a bit more controversial: “In the three years since the murder…

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Fall on Chicago Avenue at 48th Street

BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE I found myself visiting Kowalski’s, the one on Chicago Avenue they call the Parkview store, after a long absence. In those occasional rankings of local grocery stories, Kowalski’s comes out as a paradox. When considering prices, it is the most expensive chain of grocery stores in…

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Fall on Selby Avenue in St. Paul

BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE Cafes and coffee shops I visited a couple of places on Selby Avenue but barely scraped the surface of the classic or quirky coffee shops, patisseries and breakfast cafes that dot the length of Selby. In a single day, a friend and I had lunch at…

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