Columnists

Regular Columnists

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

 


An appeal for free legal advice

BY ED FELIEN Attention dear friends in the Minneapolis legal community: I hope you have the opportunity to read the following brief asking for injunctive relief from the District Court to compel the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board and CenterPoint Energy to remove barriers that are artificially raising the level…

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The Building Formerly Known As Walker Church

BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE Walker Community United Methodist Church has always done things differently. For much of the last 50 years, Walker Church has incubated dozens of radical, secular projects. And some of the renter organizations were not what you would expect in a small-to-medium neighborhood church. In the Heart…

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Ward 8 City Council race: Jenkins vs. Stevenson

BY KAY SCHROVEN Sometimes out of tragedy something meaningful is rendered. This is how Soren Stevenson describes his brave decision to run for a seat on the City Council representing the 8th Ward. Stevenson is running against Andrea Jenkins who has represented the ward since 2018 and has been City…

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A failure to communicate?

BY CAM GORDON Many people were surprised when, on March 29, the city of Minneapolis announced plans to rehouse a police station at one of two locations in the Southside’s 3rd Precinct. According to the announcement, from July 2020 to December 2022 city staff had been examining potential sites for…

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Spring on 34th Avenue

BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE South 34th Avenue functions as a sort of Main Street for the tight-knit but diverse community around Lake Nokomis. The pandemic and economic disruption caused some closings but storefronts at the 34th Avenue and 50th Street hub and surrounding areas don’t stay vacant for long. Five…

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Spring on East 38th Street

BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE Boludo El 38 Spring has come to East 38th Street! East 38th Street stretches from Nicollet Avenue to Mississippi River Boulevard, but we’re going to start just a tiny bit west of there with Boludo, the Argentinian restaurant taking the local food scene by storm. Boludo…

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Spring on Minnehaha Avenue

BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE Spring is coming on for real now; my allergies tell me so. Despite allergies and other struggles, spring is very beautiful along Minnehaha Avenue this year. It’s culturally blooming, lush with arts, community-building, and the fusion of the two. In addition to our old favorites like…

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How we got here

BY ED FELIEN The name Ukraine probably comes from the Slavic language, meaning borderland. Greek and Roman historians write about Slavic peoples growing wheat and riding horses across the wide steppe or prairie.  The Eurasian Steppe reached from Ukraine to northern China.  It was a wide highway and open invitation for the…

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Whitewashing the riot 

BY ED FELIEN On March 7, the city of Minneapolis released an 86-page study of the riots that followed the murder of George Floyd.  The study says what most government studies say: we need more studies and we need more bureaucracy. It’s called, “Protecting What Matters,” and it seems that what…

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A setback for racial equity in City Hall

BY CAM GORDON The struggle for racial equity within our city government has suffered another setback. As of March 13, Tyeastia Green, the director of the recently elevated Department of Racial Equity, Inclusion and Belonging, no longer works for the city of Minneapolis. In a memo-style report that she sent…

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