The fear of fewer cars & a response

Bikester Chronicles There was a proposal before the Park Board to close Minneapolis parkways to vehicular traffic on certain days every month. The Board received so much negative feedback they canceled the proposal in August. BY JOHN DAHL On June 6, Southside Pride published an opinion of Patricia Kelly, Board…

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Hennepin Avenue redesign – Letter to the Editor

I want to respond to (and ask a question of) Carin Peterson in their letter to the editor dated Aug. 8, 2022. In this letter, Peterson expressed frustration at the city’s Hennepin Avenue redevelopment plan which “turns Hennepin into nothing more than a commuter line.” Peterson insists bike lanes have…

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It’s time

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…

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Response to ‘Sometimes simple is not better’

BY KATHRYN KELLY The response by Carol Dungan and Friends of Lake Hiawatha (FOLH), “Sometimes simple is not better,” states that “in the 1950s … Hiawatha gained a following from Black golfers.” That statement is incorrect. Black golfers golfed at Hiawatha as early as the 1930s, according to articles in…

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Better ideas for affordable housing

BY ELINA KOLSTAD The Minneapolis 2040 Plan was back in the headlines recently when a judge put the plan on hold in June, siding with groups who said the city should have performed an environmental review, and then again in July when the same judge allowed the city to continue…

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Vine Arts Center reopening

BY SUE KOLSTAD This September the Vine Arts Center will be celebrating its reopening with a Member Show, dedication and thank you to our supporters. The Vine arts Center had been closed for a few months due to COVID when, on May 29, 2020, sparks from the burning Hexagon Bar…

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Fighting crime with justice

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…

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Love your neighborhood

BY DORIS OVERBY I read a sign recently that said: “You are our neighbors … no matter who you vote for, your skin color, where you are from, your faith or who you love. We will do all we can to be there for you.” The words reminded me of…

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I hear voices

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…

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MPD and consent decrees

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…

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A Minnesota tourist in Cuba

BY YOEL YOHANNES In the sweltering hours of a late summer’s evening, airplanes touch down in Havana’s José Martí International Airport and pull into gates, full of tourists and expatriates returning to see family. Past passport security and baggage claim, cigarette-smoking airport employees direct recent arrivals into the currency exchange…

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A simpler Hiawatha plan

BY ED FELIEN Ian Young, in a Star Tribune editorial published Aug. 5, said, “Those commissioners voting to advance the nine-hole master plan are the ones who have done their homework and understand the reality of the issue.” Really? Young says any proposal to save Hiawatha Golf Course would “not…

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