BY MIKE MADDEN, VFP CHAPTER 27 Richard Taylor provides good background to the current proxy war being waged in Ukraine. I would add a few important points to his chronology: • The American role in overthrowing President Yanukovych was extensive. In addition to Sens. John McCain and Chris Murphy joining…
BY ROBERT THOMPSON In 2011, the city of Minneapolis took control of the Neighborhood Revitalization Program (NRP) in what many considered a hostile takeover. In 2019, the city declared that the NRP was an example of structural racism and continues to insist that NRP and neighborhood organizations only benefit white,…
BY TONY BOUZA “My Dinner with Andre” was one of my favorite flicks, so when I spied Andre Gregory in an abandoned Cape Cod pond parking lot, I rushed over and gushed my enthusiasm over his creation. He guessed I was a professor and I had to dampen his reaction and…
On a day sometime between the spring equinox and the summer solstice, long ago, at a time when peasants worked every day all the time, before the five-day, 40-hour workweek, peasants and workers decided there must be one day just for them. For one day they would lay down their tools. They…
BY ED FELIEN Attention dear friends in the Minneapolis legal community: I hope you have the opportunity to read the following brief asking for injunctive relief from the District Court to compel the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board and CenterPoint Energy to remove barriers that are artificially raising the level…
BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE Openings and closings Several local favorite restaurants have changed hours recently. In April, Tiny Diner reopened for all-day service, including dinner. They’re now open from 8 a.m. until 9 p.m. every day and the patio is rocking. Modern Times recently shortened their hours a bit and…
BY STEPHANIE FOX In 1891, 17 years before Richfield officially became a city, John Elsen bought a small property at 7730 Portland Ave. and soon opened a blacksmith shop. He did not imagine that in 2023, his shop would become the city’s longest continuing operating business. And during those 130…
BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE Walker Community United Methodist Church has always done things differently. For much of the last 50 years, Walker Church has incubated dozens of radical, secular projects. And some of the renter organizations were not what you would expect in a small-to-medium neighborhood church. In the Heart…
BY KAY SCHROVEN Sometimes out of tragedy something meaningful is rendered. This is how Soren Stevenson describes his brave decision to run for a seat on the City Council representing the 8th Ward. Stevenson is running against Andrea Jenkins who has represented the ward since 2018 and has been City…
BY KAY SCHROVEN One thousand and forty days after the murder of George Floyd by a former Minneapolis police officer, the city has a settlement agreement, a legally binding consent decree. A consent decree is a court order that establishes an enforceable plan for sustainable reform. Minneapolis is not the first…
BY CAM GORDON Many people were surprised when, on March 29, the city of Minneapolis announced plans to rehouse a police station at one of two locations in the Southside’s 3rd Precinct. According to the announcement, from July 2020 to December 2022 city staff had been examining potential sites for…
BY SUE KOLSTAD On April 11, the first of a series of meetings was held, ostensibly to give community members the chance to decide on the location of a new 3rd Precinct building. This was to be the first of a series of “conversations” hurriedly called to push through a new building.…
BY ELINA KOLSTAD April has finally broken through the snowpack in Minneapolis; in a similar way signs of hope are sprouting up in a political system still recovering from the regressive policies of Trump and his MAGA movement. I have been proud to see Minnesota making national news. First when…
BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE South 34th Avenue functions as a sort of Main Street for the tight-knit but diverse community around Lake Nokomis. The pandemic and economic disruption caused some closings but storefronts at the 34th Avenue and 50th Street hub and surrounding areas don’t stay vacant for long. Five…
