BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE The MFT 59 strike aftermath, parts 1 – 4 In March of 2022, as you probably remember, Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) teachers, represented by the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers or MFT 59, and Education Support Professionals (ESPs, represented by ESP 59) went out on a historic…
BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE Change in the air at the Market This time last year, things were different at Midtown Global Market (MGM). There were more vacant spaces, and there was an atmosphere of worry among many of the vendors. Since that time, grants have come in, plans have been…
BY ED FELIEN Why is it important to vote for Keith Ellison? Because he’s doing what’s necessary and right, and he’s being punished for it. He’s getting attacked for being soft on crime in the midst of a crime wave. But the attorney general doesn’t prosecute crimes. That’s the job…
BY TONY BOUZA Managing a police department is not nuclear science or even brain surgery. It is about managing—i.e., Why are we here? What are we supposed to do? And how best to do it, cheaply? Capitalism at its purest. So why is it so damnably difficult to get them…
BY CAM GORDON In what is likely a response to the unusually low number of officers in the Minneapolis Police Department (MPD) and the recommendation by the mayor’s Community Safety Work Group to “strengthen MPD’s recruitment and hiring process,” the mayor is recommending spending $740,000 on an internship program for…
BY LYDIA HOWELL As 29,000 students return to in-person learning, COVID-19 has exposed undeniable challenges for the nine-member Minneapolis school board. On Nov. 8, voters will elect two at-large (city-wide) seats and three district seats. The board faces a teacher shortage, budget deficits and continued concerns about less than half…
BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE Many new openings to celebrate There are so many restaurants and things opening lately. First up, a plethora of fancy places to eat lunch in downtown Minneapolis (dinner too, in some cases). Several publications have heralded “the return of downtown,” especially the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal.…
BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE Rondo – reconnect or reparations, or both? St. Paul’s Rondo neighborhood was the center of the Black community in the Minneapolis–St. Paul region for much of the 20th century. The intact Rondo neighborhood was economically active, social and self-supportive. The core of Rondo was demolished between…
BY STEPHANIE FOX The Minneapolis neighborhood celebration known as Open Streets will have its final festival for 2022 with Open Streets Minnehaha, in the Longfellow neighborhood on Oct. 1 from 11 a.m. until 4:30 p.m. The street will be closed to all motor vehicle traffic between East Lake Street and…
BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE Eat, drink, and be entertained The Parkway Theater is having some fun events both cinematic and otherwise coming up this fall. From Sept. 15 – 29 is “Mel Brooks Month.” You can buy a pass to all three special screenings for $27. On Sept. 15 it’s…
BY ED FELIEN It’s time. “It’s time,” the people of the East Phillips neighborhood are saying. It’s time the city started taking itself seriously and started believing some of the things it’s been saying about the environment and equity. In 2019, Mayor Jacob Frey said, “Minneapolis is doing nation-leading work…
BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE George Floyd Square George Floyd Square is settling into a place with an identity, at least that’s how it feels to this writer, making pilgrimages there every other month or so, not as a tourist, or a penitent, but as an investigator. I have to say,…
BY LYDIA HOWELL It’s a strange time to be a progressive with a lifetime of doing anti-racism and police accountability activism and, now, seeing my city overwhelmed by crime. Conversations about Minneapolis ping-pong between right-wing screeds, “Minneapolis is a crime-ridden hellscape! Leave NOW!” to progressives asserting, “The real problem is…
BY TONY BOUZA America has always spoken to me. Its powerful culture overwhelmed me on my arrival from Spain on Dec. 22, 1937, at nine and a half years old. I embraced the movies, songs, magazines, comic books, etc.—and unconsciously rejected everything I came from. And those voices? What follows…
BY CAM GORDON The role of public involvement has been questioned as the mayor and City Council move forward towards court agreements on racist policing practices. Last April 27, the Minnesota Department of Human Rights (MDHR) released a report that found probable cause that the city and its police department…
