BY ED FELIEN We supported Alondra Cano when she ran for re-election last fall. We were proud of her participation in the demonstrations against the police killing of Jamar Clark. We were proud of her when she joined Lisa Bender in trying to suspend the rules at a City Council…
BY ED FELIEN After losing my bid for re-election, and after a respectful period of mourning and self-pity, I decided it would be a waste to lose contact with all the politically active progressives I’d met. I wanted to start a radical, Farmer-Labor Caucus, within the DFL. We’d be based…
BY ED FELIEN At its meeting July 25, the Park Board finally responded to a question from its Lake Hiawatha Community Advisory Committee. The CAC asked whether future plans for Hiawatha could include an 18-hole golf course. The Board answered: “The Board of Commissioners intends for the CAC to bring…
BY ED FELIEN The hardest choice in the August 14 Primary for people in South Minneapolis has to be the choice between State Representative Ilhan Omar and State Senator Patricia Torres Ray for Congress in the 5th Congressional District. Ilhan has national recognition as the first Somali representative in a…
BY ED FELIEN The hardest choice in the August 14 Primary for people in South Minneapolis has to be the choice between State Representative Ilhan Omar and State Senator Patricia Torres Ray for Congress in the 5th Congressional District. Ilhan has national recognition as the first Somali representative in a…
BY ED FELIEN Halfway through my two-year term as City Council member I had to start running for re-election, and I was so obtuse I didn’t realize I’d made just about everybody mad at me. Good friends of mine who had started the co-ops were now Maoists and members of…
BY ED FELIEN On Saturday afternoon, June 23, around 5 o’clock, Thurman Blevins was walking with his girlfriend. There was a baby stroller and a baby nearby. Witnesses say Blevins was drinking Amsterdam Vodka out of a bottle. Officers Justin Schmidt and Ryan Kelly pulled up in their squad car…
BY ED FELIEN The hardest choice in the August 14 Primary for people in South Minneapolis has to be the choice between State Representative Ilhan Omar and State Senator Patricia Torres Ray for Congress in the 5th Congressional District. Ilhan has national recognition as the first Somali representative in a…
BY ED FELIEN Last Monday I wrote to Park Board Superintendent Mary Merrill: “Are we to assume as a result of Board’s approval of another Barr Engineering study to evaluate three possibilities: ‘• Articulation of a set of working principles to guide explorations and for use as a tool in…
BY ED FELIEN On Saturday afternoon, June 23, around 5 o’clock, Thurman Blevins was walking with his girlfriend. There was a baby stroller and a baby nearby. Witnesses say Blevins was drinking Amsterdam Vodka out of a bottle. Officers Justin Schmidt and Ryan Kelly pulled up in their squad car…
BY ED FELIEN The Park Board can stop the flooding of basements in South Minneapolis and the flooding of the Hiawatha Golf Course, and it won’t cost taxpayers a dime. The flooding is caused by the dam/weir at 27th Avenue at the outlet of Lake Hiawatha. It backs up about…
BY ED FELIEN Snelling Yards is a vehicle storage lot for the city at 3601 E. 44th St. between Snelling Avenue and the railroad tracks. In the 1930s the city had storage facilities in every ward especially for snowplowing equipment that would be watched carefully by the two aldermen from…
BY ED FELIEN A report from the Hiawatha Golf Course Property Master Plan Citizen’s Advisory Committee (CAC) meeting at Park Board Headquarters A friend who was there told me: “I think it was an excellent meeting. Did you notice that most of the CAC questions came from women? These are…
BY ED FELIEN Snelling Yards is a vehicle storage lot for the city at 3601 E. 44th St. between Snelling Avenue and the railroad tracks. In the 1930s the city had storage facilities in every ward especially for snowplowing equipment that would be watched carefully by the two aldermen from…
BY ED FELIEN Virgil Welna died last month. He was 89. For 50 years I depended on him for advice. I walked into Welna Hardware with a problem, and he knew that problem, and he had a solution for it. It wasn’t just the wise expertise, though. When he saw…
Columns by Ed Felien