BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE Spring thoughts A project a lot of people are undertaking this spring is to make their home as close to zero waste as possible. It makes a lot of sense. News from the ever-growing Great Pacific Garbage Patch is troubling, Minneapolis environmentalists are pressuring Hennepin County…
BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE Openings and closings • A restaurant known as Juniper in its development stage was previously announced for the former Common Roots site at Lyndale and 26th Street. At the last minute, they changed the name to Hi Flora! due to an older place in Lanesboro called…
BY DANIEL COLTEN SCHMIDT, EAST PHILLIPS RESIDENT A chain is only as strong as its weakest link, and a society is only as prosperous as its most marginalized community. East Phillips Neighborhood Institute’s (EPNI) plan for a cooperatively owned indoor urban farm, massive solar array, community space and low-income housing…
BY ULLA NILSEN, MN350 On April 19, the city of Minneapolis released a new 10-year climate action plan for public comment. Why should I care, you ask? Without a city-coordinated program, most households will be unable to access the $14,000 of federal Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) funding. This means they…
BY STEPHANIE FOX It’s another frigid Monday afternoon in mid-March and the lines of people are already beginning to form outside of New Creations Ministries, a South Minneapolis church at the corner of 51st Street and 13th Avenue. It’s an hour before the food shelf opens to the public. Senior…
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…
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…
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…
BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE The ongoing fight against fracking, pipelines and all extractive industries We lost the battle if not the war on Line 3. It’s done, it’s dusted and it’s leaking into groundwater even as you read this. (See tinyurl.com/55mjebse for reporting on the 153 cases of pollution control…
BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE Lake Street rebuilding and revival Spring is a good time to talk about Lake Street. Lake Street started rebuilding in the midst of the pandemic from the destruction wrought by the anger unleashed in the George Floyd uprising. But it was slow at first. It’s stronger…
BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE Spring 2023 dawns on a reinvigorated Chicago Avenue at 48th Street and the southward stretch. There are a couple of new incoming businesses, there are some longtime stalwarts thriving once again, there is a lively sidewalk culture, and there’s even a new transit option from Metro…
BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE Is Uptown … political? There are several different takes on what’s going on with Uptown and Hennepin Avenue south of downtown. Psychically, Hennepin seems to lie upon a political fault line in Minneapolis. Or that’s what you might think if you read Minneapolis “Left” Twitter (which,…
BY DAVID TILSEN Ray St. Louis died in hospice on March 12, 2023. He had not been living in Minneapolis for decades, and had only visited when the Minnesota Renaissance Festival was in town. In spite of that, his work and creativity has made an impact on our South Minneapolis…
BY ED FELIEN DFL ward conventions are coming up at the end of April and the last half of May. The Ward 2 convention will be on April 30. It will be a virtual convention. According to the Minneapolis DFL, “no known candidate is seeking the DFL endorsement.” Robin Wonsley is seeking re-election. She…
BY SAND BRIM This article first appeared in CounterPunch on March 10, 2023. It is reprinted here by permission of the author. The 1973 Siege at Wounded Knee is the longest “civil unrest” in the history of the U.S. Marshal Service. For 71 days, the American Indian Movement (AIM) and members of…
