BY ELINA KOLSTAD Whether or not the number of bulldozers per capita will increase due to the Minneapolis 2040 Comprehensive Plan, it must be noted that Minneapolis is ALREADY being bulldozed. One lot at a time, one iconic restaurant at a time, sometimes a city block at a time. If…
BY NASRO ABSHIR My name is Nasro Abshir. I am the founder and owner of Family First Choice Childcare. My mom and I used to have two childcare locations—one in the Phillips neighborhood and the other in Loring Park. While commercial displacement has been talked about as a “concern” for…
BY JOHN KOLSTAD Willie Murphy, longtime leader and pinnacle of the Twin Cities blues and R&B community has died at age 75. Willie is hailed as a Legend, and it certainly is true. I heard a fan once tell him that he was a legend and he replied, “yah, everyone…
BY ED FELIEN On Thursday, Jan. 3, County Attorney Mike Freeman released this statement: “Two Minneapolis police officers will not be charged in the fatal shooting of Travis Jordan, Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman announced Thursday.” Officers Ryan Keyes and Neal Walsh fired a total of eight shots at the…
BY ARTHUR HIMMELMAN Engagement invites people to the table Shared power gets people what they want to eat A wall poster during the mass uprising in France in 1968 read, “You participate, she participates, I participate, they decide.” Malcolm X: “Just because you invite me to the table does not…
BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE There was a flurry of interesting and useful events in December, but I was not able to squeeze a resistance persistence article into the paper to tell you of them. The one that still sticks with me was put on by an organization called No More…
BY ELINA KOLSTAD The Minneapolis 2040 Plan is not just an example of government greenwashing; its supporters have also created a toxic atmosphere in our city that negatively impacts future efforts to achieve true climate justice. I don’t own a car. My husband and I sold our car three years…
BY RICHARD TAYLOR In 2017, Trump threatened North Korea with “fire and fury.” Kim Jong-un promised to “tame the mentally deranged U.S. dotard with fire.” By June 2018, they were holding hands. What happened? Events followed Trump’s default negotiating style set down long before he became president. He tells us…
AUTUMN CHMIELEWSKI, MHA, MA, SOUTHSIDE COMMUNITY HEALTH SERVICES Geraldine Cereceda has helped thousands of people gain access to healthcare services over the past 18 years. She is passionate about connecting underserved and marginalized populations because she knows what it’s like to delay care out of fear of the high costs…
BY ED FELIEN What happened? A little over three years ago, on Sept. 30, 2015, you held a big community meeting with more than a hundred people at Plaza Verde to talk about the dangers of gentrification. You told Ryan Williams-Virden from the Twin City Daily Planet, “Gentrification is a…
BY TONY BOUZA The very word conjures a freighted emotional frisson we barely dare acknowledge or express. Watching “Thurgood,” a biopic on the Supreme Court Justice and the NAACP, inspired me to think of the role of Jews in America. They arrived at the Lower East Side of Manhattan and…
BY LYNN BALFOUR Anyone who has applied for employment by a Minnesota government entity (city, county, state) has the legal right to ask the employer for personnel data on the final candidates for that job and the employer is required to respond by providing such information or citing why the…
BY ED FELIEN Brad Bourn has prepared a special welcoming gift for Al Bangoura, the new superintendent of parks due to take office on Jan. 20. Almost the first thing on his desk will be the contract to hire an intergovernmental relations administrator. Last month we noted: “Park Board President…
BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE I’m going to assume you don’t. For the past two or three years, I have been on a quixotic quest to raise awareness about the incredible prevalence of child slave labor in the production of chocolate, and the enormous “conspiracy of silence” that leaves otherwise conscientious…
Why should your child die from a gunshot wound? The doctor has found the task a most difficult and onerous one and who wouldn’t? Dr. Marianne Haughey of St. Barnabas Hospital in Jersey City, N.Y., has been assigned victims of homicide for 25 years and one of her tasks has…
