BY PHIL WILLKIE Don Fraser picked an outsider to be chief of police. Before Fraser was elected mayor in November of 1979, Charlie Stenvig, head of the Police Officers Federation of Minneapolis, had been elected mayor three times in the previous decade, running law-and-order campaigns. He was defeated twice, but…
BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE We only have one closing to note – Foxy Falafel in St. Anthony Park. D’s Banh Mi really is open now, if by open you mean it’s possible to get food from them in some way. See the review below for more detail on the long,…
BY JOHNNY HAZARD Early in Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s term as president, then-secretary of the environment Víctor Toledo worked on an ambitious agenda to prohibit the pesticide glyphosate (Roundup) and genetically-modified corn. This article will focus on the first of the two substances. Months earlier, López Obrador (AMLO) participated as…
BY ED FELIEN Secretary of State Blinken just got back from his visit with Xi Jinping and Chinese diplomats. He says the only issue dividing the two countries is that the U.S. wants closer military contacts to avoid a mistake that could lead to a catastrophe. That sounds so sensible,…
BY DOMINICK BOUZA On Nov. 19, 2022, I was video recording the encampment under the I-35W bridge on 31st Street while driving. Twelve tents or so lined both sidewalks. Lacking water or any amenity, the wind howling trough the underpass, this encampment was destined for disaster should a kerosene heater…
BY CAM GORDON On June 16, a quiet Friday afternoon before a three-day weekend, with little advance notice, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland and other United States Justice Department staff held a press conference with city officials to announce the results of their two-year investigation into Minneapolis police and an…
BY JOE HESLA, TC-DSA RENT CONTROL WORK GROUP COCHAIR In a sneak attack, the conservative minority on the City Council killed the scheduled public hearing on rent control scheduled for Tuesday, July 25. While three of the Muslim council members were observing a religious holiday, the conservative minority had enough…
A remembrance BY ED FELIEN I went to see him just before he died. He said, “The problem with dying is it takes too long. And it’s boring.” The first time I met Tony Bouza, he was chief of police. It was at a demonstration against Honeywell anti-personnel bombs used…
BY TONY BOUZA A TV crew traveled all the way from Paris, France, to interview me for over an hour about Malcolm X, who was killed in February 1965. Huh? How can this be relevant? I’m not sure but it is somehow contemporaneously relevant. I struggled with the question and finally…
BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE Stuffed full of culture – Minneapolis’s Cedar-Riverside (the West Bank) With numerous theaters, music venues and more, Cedar Avenue’s northern stretch from Washington Avenue to Franklin Avenue is a cultural corridor like no other. There’s Minneapolis’s oldest community theater, Theatre in the Round, at 245 Cedar…
BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE Summer is for parks and nature Summer in Richfield is a time to get out and about in your city. Richfield has a lot of options for outdoor activities. The two largest city parks, Veterans Memorial Park, at 6335 Portland Ave., and Wood Lake Nature Center,…
BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE Highland Bridge development I made a couple of reconnaissance trips to Highland Bridge, the development in Highland Park headed by Ryan Companies. There are people living there and the parks are mostly finished, but overall it still has an “under construction” feeling of raw newness. Here’s…
BY ED FELIEN To socialize: “to make someone behave in a way that is acceptable to their society.” Carol Becker was a member of the Minneapolis Board of Estimate and Taxation from 2006 until Dec. 31, 2021. She is a respected conservative voice in Minneapolis politics. She wrote a very…
BY CRAIG WOOD On May 19, author/activist and cofounder of the anti-war group Code Pink, Medea Benjamin, had her phone knocked out of her hand by an angry protester she was videotaping at a South Minneapolis event where she’d been invited to speak. When she told me, “They’ve got my…
There was a lovely retirement party on Wednesday, June 28, for Warren Hanson, president and CEO of the Greater Minnesota Housing Fund. He began the GMHF in 1996. For the last 27 years, Hanson has led GMHF and worked closely with state and local governments, philanthropic organizations, institutional investors and…
