BY ED FELIEN What happened? There are revolutionary changes happening in Minneapolis, and I don’t remember voting on them. Robespierre had more of a mandate for his Reign of Terror than Bender and Frey do for their changes that are transforming Minneapolis. The city’s so-called “Inclusionary Zoning” has marked the…
BY ED FELIEN Last year the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) District lost 1,500 students, more than 80 percent of them students of color. Enrollment was 45,011 in 2000. Today it’s 35,717. How does the School Board react to this obvious vote of no confidence? They want to eliminate six more…
BY ED FELIEN That’s what it sounds like, “Git outta here!” The Planning Commission last month just approved zoning changes that will ultimately mean the removal of communities of color and those of us who live in the inner city in affordable housing and replace us with Young Urban Professionals…
BY ED FELIEN Please help us celebrate Mayday next spring, on Sunday, May 3, in Powderhorn Park. Like everyone else, we were shocked and saddened by Heart of the Beast’s decision to cancel their participation and organizing of Mayday for next spring. Last January HOBT started telling the press that…
BY ED FELIEN You have to wonder if there wasn’t another phone call that night. An earlier phone call from Putin, telling Trump if he withdrew American troops from Syria, Putin would personally keep the Russian Mafia bosses off Trump’s case for the casino bankruptcies. The Turkey dodge was just…
BY ED FELIEN Thousands of people showed up at the Target Center in downtown Minneapolis to tell our President, in the words of Mayor Frey, “Love Trumps Hate in Minneapolis.” The demonstrators were peaceful but determined. They stayed past midnight. There were minor confrontations and scuffles, but no one was…
BY ED FELIEN The judge said he’d take the measure under advisement. He wrote me a letter a little more than a week later saying he was denying my petition: “Petitioner cites no specific legal duty—be it statute, ordinance, rule, or regulation—that requires the Park Board to remove rocks from…
BY ED FELIEN Wendy Knox has done it again. She has moved her Frank Theatre all over the Twin Cities. This time she’s at the Gremlin Theatre in St. Paul. She uses this intimate space to show us what it means to grow old in a production of two plays…
BY ED FELIEN There is a Race War happening in America. Some very crazy white people are attacking and murdering people of color. Dylann Roof killed nine African Americans during a church service at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in 2015. White supremacist James Fields deliberately rammed his car into…
BY ED FELIEN First, I want to thank the friends and supporters who came downtown to see me try to slay the dragon. The judge asked me why I was doing this. If you don’t like the decisions they make, then there are elections. I said, these elected officials took…
BY ED FELIEN Why did Patrick Crusius kill 22 people in El Paso? Did he see himself as a hero trying to stop the Mexican invasion of Texas? There is conclusive evidence he was directly inspired by the racist rhetoric of President Trump. Did he believe he would be the…
Edwin Felien v. Brad Bourn, Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board A WRIT OF MANDAMUS TO COMPEL THE MINNEAPOLIS PARK AND RECREATION BOARD TO PERFORM THEIR DUTY TO PROTECT THE PUBLIC WELFARE Court File Number: 27-CV-19-10595 To be heard before the Honorable Patrick D. Robben on Aug. 12, 2019, at 9:45…
BY ED FELIEN Somehow, as mysteriously as it appeared, Boulder Dam has disappeared. For more than a year, Southside Pride has called for the removal of the boulders under the 30th Avenue footbridge. The Barr Engineering study of Minnehaha Creek identified this rock weir as the control point for the…
BY ED FELIEN On Friday, May 31, Superintendent Al Bangoura and Commissioner AK Hassan celebrated the opening of new swing sets and sod replanting at Peavey Park. It was a gloriously staged event with television cameras and much self-congratulation. Earlier that week I had sent Bangoura an email talking about…
BY ED FELIEN This map, produced by a team of geographers, historians and social activists at the University of Minnesota (https://www.mappingprejudice.org/), shows the areas of South Minneapolis that had restrictive covenants written into the deeds of homes for sale: “That the said land or buildings thereon shall never be sold…
Columns by Ed Felien