‘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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What is it about the George Floyd Square?

BY MARQUISE BOWIE It’s the George Floyd Square to the world. Known as 38th and Chicago to us locals. The most highly publicized murder scene in recent years. Ground zero of a national movement. To visitors in Minneapolis, that’s all they know about the area. To us, it’s home. A…

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Some small drops in the bucket

BY ELINA KOLSTAD There are encouraging signs on the affordable housing front. On Aug. 10, the city of Minneapolis agreed to send $5 million annually to the Minneapolis Public Housing Authority (MPHA), a fivefold increase of the current funding level, for the preservation and production of affordable housing units. This…

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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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43 students

BY JOHNNY HAZARD “The government needs to decide if it’s on the side of the army or on the side of the truth.” – Parent of one of the disappeared students Sept. 26 marks the ninth anniversary of the forced disappearance of 43 education students of the Escuela Normal Raúl…

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Dave Gutknecht chronicles 

BY ED FELIEN What follows is a discussion/debate between Dave Gutknecht and me about the Ukraine war. Dave was one of the first martyrs of the draft resistance movement in the 1970s in reaction to the war in Vietnam. He served two years in federal prison as a conscientious objector…

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Minnesota Eight reunion

BY ED FELIEN Summer is the time for reunions: for families, for high school and college graduates, and for prisoners released from prison for criminal political acts. Fifty years ago, the Minnesota Eight were released from prison for attempting to break into Selective Service offices and destroy draft card files…

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Hookers and cam girls, oh my!

BY KAY SCHROVEN Prostitution is said to be the oldest profession in the world and a “necessary evil.” It is a long-debated subject. Prostitution is legal in at least five countries including Finland, Costa Rica, New Zealand, Bangladesh and Germany, and liberalized in Canada, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Columbia and…

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