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 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 KAY SCHROVEN The Commissioner of Public Safety is a new position created to integrate five departments in the city of Minneapolis: Fire, Police, Emergency, 911 and Neighborhood Safety (formerly known as the Office of Violence Protection). The position carries a salary greater than the mayor’s or the governor’s. The…
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 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…
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…
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…
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 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…
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…
