BY ED FELIEN Council Member Jason Chavez wrote in his newsletter: “The Minnesota Department of Human Rights released its report on the investigation of the Minneapolis Police Department. According to the report, it included approximately 700 hours of body worn camera footage and nearly 480,000 pages of City and MPD…
BY STEPHANIE FOX To misquote the poet Tennyson, in the spring a homeowner’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of … repair and remodeling. But where to start? “Your house is the most intimate place in your life and when people go through personal changes, they call us,” said Donnie Kimbler…
BY KAY SCHROVEN A new inspector This month (May 2022) marks 28 years that Inspector Jose Gomez has been with the Minneapolis Police Department (MPD). On Feb. 1 he began his new position as Inspector for the 3rd Precinct, replacing Sean McGinty. His background includes working with juvenile offenders and…
BY DARLENE WALSER, OF THE LAKE STREET ALIGNMENT TEAM As Minneapolis and the Lake Street community navigate the continued impact of the pandemic and the pain of George Floyd’s murder and the uprising that followed, we know that how our community rebuilds is just as important as what we build.…
BY CAM GORDON On April 14, the Minneapolis City Council took a step forward towards implementing the rent stabilization charter amendment approved by voters last November. They voted to establish a work group. The idea was proposed by Council President Andrea Jenkins at the first Council meeting of this term.…
BY LYDIA HOWELL Like spring’s promise, the arts are re-emerging from COVID-19, featuring inventive styles, new narratives, and live music, from local to international. The pandemic-enforced pause made for introspection that has been integrated into theatrical innovations and led to an inclusion that has transformed whose art is included, and…
BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE Openings, reopenings, closings, reclosings Just kidding. Well, not really. It is like that sometimes. Anyway, two that have recently closed or announced imminent closing are Grand Catch on Grand Avenue in St. Paul and Dumpling on Minnehaha Avenue. One that will have just reopened by publishing…
BY TONY BOUZA The recent turmoil surrounding New York’s governor is a wonderful example of the lessons the Greek ancients tried hard to teach us. But we are slow learners. Andrew Cuomo is the smartest guy in the state. Honest. I grew up with guys like that. Not many, but…
BY KATHRYN KELLY Racism is alive and well at the Park Board, as the Hiawatha Golf Course project has revealed. The Black community has golfed there since it was built in the 1930s. Now, the Minneapolis Park Board was presented with a plan that would retain the 18-hole golf course…
BY ED FELIEN Mariupol was a thriving northern port on the Black Sea. Actually, the Ukrainians call that part of the Black Sea the Azov Sea because it’s almost closed off from the rest of the Black Sea by a peninsula reaching out from the Russian side trying to reach…
BY JOHNNY HAZARD In the wake of the passage last year of a series of anti-abortion laws in Texas, there are signs that the opposite tendency is shaping up in Mexico. The Supreme Court there has issued various decisions liberalizing abortion laws in recent years but last September came the…
BY ED FELIEN Just when you thought you were safe on dry land, the Swamp Creatures rise from the dead and take you back into the muck. Last year was a painful and exhausting struggle. After months of arguing, the Minneapolis Park Board voted 5-4 to not flood the Hiawatha…
BY CAM GORDON On March 10, supporters of the East Phillips Urban Farm project were celebrating. An 8-5 majority of the Minneapolis City Council had just approved a motion by 9th Ward Council Member Jason Chavez which rescinded the 2021 compromise that allowed the city to demolish the Roof Depot…
BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE Chances are, if you know 10 people who consider themselves environmentalists or some version thereof (ecosocialist, ecofeminist, environmental anarchist, left-wing prepper) you will notice that they all have different approaches to their activism, and often different “takes” on what informs their beliefs, what matters the most,…
BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE So many changes, so few column inches What a year this has been for Lake Street! I have to warn you right at the start, there is no way we can cover everything new and different since April 2021 along South Minneapolis’s most vital street. It’s…
