Columnists

Regular Columnists

Ed Felien  •  Elaine Klaassen  •  Polly Mann  •  Tony Bouza  •  David Tilsen  •  Debra Keefer Ramage  •  Stephanie Fox  •  Johnny Hazard 

 


City Council elections 

BY ED FELIEN City elections are coming up on Tuesday, Nov. 7.  All 13 seats are up for grabs.  Here’s who we like: Ward 1—Elliott Payne.  He votes right all the time, very progressive, without grandstanding.  Besides, he’s a Black Diaper Baby.  Children of communists and leftists are called Red Diaper Babies.  Children of Black Panthers…

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Is Avivo the answer?

BY CAM GORDON The Minneapolis City Council has taken a step toward bringing a new tiny-home shelter housing project to the Southside. On Sept. 21, they voted unanimously to provide $1 million as a match for state funds for a new Avivo Village South Project. The money would come from the city’s…

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Open Streets Lyndale is an autumn celebration

BY STEPHANIE FOX Open Streets Lyndale, the final Open Streets event for the season, will be held on Oct. 8 from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Lyndale Avenue will be closed to motor traffic from 42nd Street to 22nd Street, and open to pedestrians, bikes, rollerblades and skateboards. The street…

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The state of public education

BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE What does the internet say? I don’t watch TV anymore, so I never see TV news; I never did listen to the radio much and I can’t afford the Strib. How do I stay so well-informed, you ask? I have learned to maximize the internet. It’s…

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Autumn at Midtown Global Market

BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE Here’s your yearly update on how things are going at Midtown Global Market and its nearby environs. I visited the Market in mid-September, and I hate to start out on a sad note, but it was partly to say goodbye to two businesses I heard were…

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Celebrate Fall in Dinkytown

BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE Identity housing scandal This fall, as students flock to Dinkytown to inhabit the new high rises, low rises and co-ops that have been built in the last few years, a scandal is unfolding. (I’m the only one calling it that, so I had to drop the…

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‘Consent of the governed’— gone!

BY ED FELIEN Frey’s budget Mayor Frey is proposing a $1.8 billion budget for 2024, with a property tax increase of 6.2%. Where does all that money go? Mostly to the suburbs to pay staff to come in here and tell us what’s wrong with us. Consent of the governed?…

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MPD falls short on domestic violence response

BY CAM GORDON A new report released this spring by the Minneapolis-based nonprofit organization Global Rights for Women confirms that the city’s response to domestic violence calls continues to fall short. The report, “An Institutional Analysis of the Minneapolis Police Response to Domestic Violence,” was presented to the Community Commission on…

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Hope on Chicago Avenue and George Floyd Square

BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE Whither George Floyd Square? In May, the Minneapolis Spokesman-Recorder wrote about George Floyd Square, the headline stating that it “remains a work in progress.” That is certainly true. The opening sentence of the piece is a bit more controversial: “In the three years since the murder…

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Fall on Chicago Avenue at 48th Street

BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE I found myself visiting Kowalski’s, the one on Chicago Avenue they call the Parkview store, after a long absence. In those occasional rankings of local grocery stories, Kowalski’s comes out as a paradox. When considering prices, it is the most expensive chain of grocery stores in…

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Fall on Selby Avenue in St. Paul

BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE Cafes and coffee shops I visited a couple of places on Selby Avenue but barely scraped the surface of the classic or quirky coffee shops, patisseries and breakfast cafes that dot the length of Selby. In a single day, a friend and I had lunch at…

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Questions Jack Smith should have asked

BY ED FELIEN How to stage a coup: send wackos in to disrupt the government, then send in the military to restore order, then promise new elections. Trump got the first part right, but he couldn’t follow through. Once his loonies established chaos in Congress, Trump should have sent in…

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