The New Normal is a series of news stories and community conversations devoted to finding solutions to new economic challenges and demographic changes in our communities. Click here to read more about the project. With funding from the Bush Foundation, the Twin Cities Daily Planet tackles a different topic related to the New Normal each month, including neighborhoods, the state budget, the future of work and jobs, health care, immigrant communities, the environment, education, and inequality.

Inequality

The view from City Hall: Melvin Carter talks about equity and race in St. Paul
Melvin Carter III was elected to a second term as Ward 1 St. Paul City Councilmember in November. The DFL member’s ward is considered to be the most racially and economically diverse in the city. In his first term, Carter was most closely identified with efforts to create a Frogtown/Summit-University Community Investment Campus, a partnership between city and county officials, the public schools, and community organizers. Under leadership of the Amherst H. Wilder Foundation, the city won a highly competitive federal Promise Neighborhoods Grant, the goal of which is “to build a continuum of academic programs and family and community supports, from the cradle through college to career, with strong schools at the center.”

Waite House director sees more people in need in South Minneapolis
Francisco Segovia, director of Waite House Neighborhood Center, fled his native El Salvador in 1990 during the civil war there. When he arrived in the United States he was undocumented and spoke little English, which limited the opportunities available to him. Segovia’s personal experiences have deepened his understanding of the needs of those seeking services at Waite House. Segovia is one of the people we interviewed as part of TC Daily Planet's coverage of the huge racial equity gap that impacts nearly every realm of life, in Minnesota as well as nationally. His work brings him in daily contact with people struggling to overcome the gap.

Language, culture reinforce inequality on East Side of St. Paul
Mai Lor Xiong grew up in a Hmong family that spoke no English, and has lived much of her life on St. Paul’s East Side. Today, Mai is Housing Resources Coordinator for the East Side Neighborhood Development Company (ESNDC). ESNDC works on housing, economic development, and community engagement initiatives.






American Indian children in Minnesota disproportionately placed in foster care
Increasingly, American Indian children in Minnesota are ending up in foster care, according to a study recently released by National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges.




Minneapolis schools respond to Latino parents' demand for improvement
The Latino parents Rosita Balch works with are frustrated. They’re worried about their kids and the time they spend at school. Every Friday, through a Hennepin County program called the Latino Youth Development Collaborative, 10 to 20 families gather at Sabathani Community Center (310 East 38th St.) to eat dinner and learn about topics like college applications, parent conferences and who’s who in the school. And they talk.

Is increasing inequality “The New Normal”?
Numerous studies show that a huge racial equity gap impacts nearly every realm of life, including: levels of education, incarceration, unemployment, income, net worth/wealth, mortality, and health. Minnesota Compass notes that people of color comprise the fastest growing segment of the state’s population so will be an increasingly large part of the workforce. Yet, it’s this segment that’s most likely to live in poverty and suffer from chronic illnesses, and least likely to graduate from high school or own a home. Indications are that inequality is only getting worse.

Education and the Achievement Gap

Intensive intervention: strategy for closing the achievement gap
Those promoting intensive intervention to close the achievement gap point out that children born into poor homes start with a disadvantage that requires early and decisive action to overcome.

Accountability and the Achievement Gap
Those promoting accountability as the best way to close the “achievement gap,” focus their sights on what they identify as educational reforms. With Republicans in control of the legislature, and Reps. Sondra Erickson (R-Princeton), Pat Garofalo (R-Farmington), and Sen. Gen Olson (R-Minnetrista) in leadership positions, several measures were front-and-center during the last session.

St. Paul teachers visit students' homes in search of common ground
Crossroads Montessori elementary teacher Ida Lee Hurvitz has made home visits. She’s brought food to sick parents or visited homes of students who died. Como High math teacher Bruce Ringaman hasn’t made house calls, but he has made phone calls, mostly to problem students’ parents. “The more parents I spoke to, the better my classroom got,” he said.

MN VOICES | Sondra Samuels and the Northside Achievement Zone
Sondra Samuels, NAZ’s Chief Executive Officer and a member of its board, thinks the controversial film, Waiting for Superman, has important messages for education reform. Like many voices in that film, Samuels is an advocate of a “whatever it takes approach” to turning schools around, and shares Waiting for Superman’s stance on teacher unions and public schools.

Admission Possible expands to two suburban high schools
Admission Possible has expanded this fall to two suburban high schools: Kennedy High School in Bloomington and Park Center High School in Brooklyn Park. The program is committed to making college admission and success possible for low-income students. A total of 40 juniors are taking part in both schools.

It takes a village: Community-based solutions to closing the achievement gap
One solution to closing the educational “achievement gap” that continues to spark interest is based on strengthening relationships between schools, parents, and surrounding communities, to ensure that all are more engaged.

Meeting Minnesota's educational challenge
At first glance it looks like good news. GOOD magazine recently published a color-coded map based on the U.S. Department of Education’s State of the States in Education report, in which Minnesota ranked among the top 10 for educational performance. As Minnesota Compass notes,  the state has “long enjoyed a reputation for its high-quality public education, placing at or near the top in many nation-wide rankings and measures,” so this may come as no surprise. What shocks many, however, is that the state maintains one of the widest gaps in performance based on race, family income, and English proficiency.

 
Environment
Jobs V. Environment: Do we have to choose?
A few weeks ago the New York Times published an article with a painting of an ethereal iceberg and the headline, “Where Did Global Warming Go?” It’s a fair question, and one that many people brought up at four in-person community conversations about the environment. The conversations were part of the Twin Cities Daily Planet's ongoing coverage on the New Normal.

A few years ago when people talked about the environment they talked about global warming. According to an annual Gallup Poll Americans’ concerns about global warming peaked in 2008 and have steadily declined since. Now, it seems as though it’s practically off the table, according to environmentalists who attended our New Normal conversations at the Wilder Foundation, the St. Paul chapter of the Audubon Society, the Capitol River District Council, and Land Stewardship Project.  

Techno-savvy agriculture offers alternative produce
"Tomato King" Jeff Skalicky farms a gravel parking lot, delivers fresh tomatoes to Twin Cities co-ops year-round, and powers his operation with a 40 kW wind turbine. Skalicky is part of a new guard of agriculturalists that uses technology to move beyond the limitations of conventional agriculture. Hydroponics is one of these new technologies that has gained traction quickly.

Retrofitting a turn-of-the-century home for sustainability: Easy as 1, 2, 3!
Green building may be all the rage, but many of the oldest homes can be made as energy efficient as the newly constructed LEED-certified building down the street. The road to a newly sustainable older home is not without its bumps, but here are some of the key places to begin.
 

From farm to distributor to table: The forgotten middleman in Twin Cities’ local food market

You may have tried Brian and Leslie Axdahl’s Stillwater-grown vegetables. If you bought sweet corn or green beans at Byerly’s or tried Crave restaurant’s creamed corn or ordered the sesame quinoa and green bean salad at Birchwood Café, there’s a good chance the Axdahls had a hand in growing your dinner.
 

Compost in the city: Six helpful tips
The benefits of composting are widely accepted, but details can be daunting. What to compost? When to stir? What to keep out? Here are six starter tips to demystify the process.


 

Why it's hard to change: The struggle for sustainability
More than seven out of ten Americans report that they “personally worry about the availability and affordability of energy” and the majority also report being “alarmed” or “concerned” about climate change. On the bright side, there’s plenty of information around to tell you the best changes you can make to live more sustainably.

The New Normal: Legacy Fund offers glimmer of hope, lots of room for debate
Like deer in headlights, applicants run toward this glimmer of light in a dark economy. • Millions of dollars can be released to begin new or ongoing environmental projects in Minnesota, now that legislators passed state finance laws and the Clean Water, Land and Legacy Fund appropriations during the July special session

Clean without chemicals: Making the switch
Powerful household cleaning products often contain strong chemicals that are harmful to health and environment. In 2000, cleaning products were responsible for nearly 10 percent of all toxic exposures reported to U.S. Poison Control Centers, accounting for 206,636 calls
 

Sustainable landscape: Making grass greener
Forests, prairies, and the land of 10,000 lakes—Minnesotans love the outdoors, even when it’s just their backyard. Making that yard greener can play a major role in adapting a more sustainable lifestyle. Water reduction and conservation, storm-water management and the implementation of native plants can play a critical part in creating a more sustainable landscape

MN VOICES | Louis Alemayehu on environment and culture 
Culture, environment, and poetry are all words that describe Louis Alemayehu, who is of African, Native American, and European ancestry. Rather than focus on the differences between people, Alemayehu emphasizes the connections between people and the earth. 

 

Troubled Waters: One year later, more trouble ahead
A three-hour drive separates the rolling hills of Minnesota’s Douglas County from the front steps of the Bell Museum of Natural History. But a year after the controversy over Troubled Waters—the Bell’s film on farmland pollution in the Mississippi River basin—brought words like “dead zone,” hypoxia” and “nitrogen fertilizer” to the attention of the general public, what’s happening in places like west-central Minnesota provides an insight into what the future holds for the health of the entire watershed all the way to the Gulf of Mexico.

Mark Schultz: "Food for people instead of corn for Cargill"
Mark Schultz had been organizing around corporate accountability on the East Coast when he moved to Minnesota in the late 1980s and saw an ad in the paper that said something like: “Are you concerned about corporate absentee landlords? 




 

The New Normal: Protecting the Environment 
Proponents of protecting the environment through implementation of stronger regulations contend that free market capitalism, left unchecked, leads to dangerous and destructive environmental practices, such as ocean dumping, clear-cutting of forests, strip mining, and fracking. According to Public Agenda, regulation advocates believe that “government had to step in precisely because the environment deteriorated under the free market system,” and point out that government has the authority to require property owners to use their land in an environmentally sound way, an authority that's been upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Transportation

Putting people first in transportation
Bikes, buses, cars and trains — transportation and budget decisions affect everybody who needs to get from Point A to Point B. Public policy on transportation affects everyone, and cuts in funding for public transportation and transportation alternatives disproportionately impact seniors, people with disabilities, low-wage workers, students, and others with modest or meager financial resources. People who turned out for Community Conversations on transportation were different at each location, but many were among the groups who rely most on public transit and on non-motorized transportation. Despite that, they talked about making the right decisions for cars as well as bikes, buses and trains.

Mix it up: Talking transportation with Hilary Reeves
Transit for Livable Communities has had a busy year lobbying at the capitol and trying to ward off budget cuts to public transportation. As their advocacy work stars winding down, their programmatic work is ramped up during the summer. TLC is busy educating Twin Citians about their BikeWalk program and training people to be better about what Hilary Reeves calls, “mixing it up.” According to Reeves, a communications manager at Transit for Livable Communities, the Twin Cities would be better off if we had better regional planning and if individuals would start adding some walking, biking, and public transportation to their car use. Here’s what Reeves had to say, in person and via email, about transportation in the Twin Cities

Light rail on the Northside: Q&A with Raymond Dehn
When the recession hit, Raymond Dehn lost his job as a full-time architect. He began freelancing and doing some consulting, but also found he had more time to work on issues on the Northside, where he’s lived for 12 years. A couple years back he attended a town hall meeting about transportation and the Bottineau Line—the proposed light rail line that would connect many western suburbs to downtown Minneapolis, as well as skirt around, or go through, North Minneapolis.

Life beyond cars, from fringe to mainstream
Depending on where you live, it may seem as if we’ve already entered a new transportation age; a world where bicycling, walking, mass transit, and bike- and car-sharing are no longer fringe activities. A recent study concludes that such developments are far from the norm. It reports that although a renaissance is underway in some three dozen cities nationally, “so far, they remain islands in a sea of car-dominance.” Minneapolis is named as one “island,” a city that has invested in infrastructure and programs needed to effectively promote bicycling and
improve safety.

New world of biking on Minneapolis’ Northside
Because of her race and gender, Debra Stone recognizes that she does not fit the dominant bicyclist demographic. A lifelong biker, she’s encouraged by a host of recent developments that may make her not so atypical. • Stone, who grew up and spent much of her life in North Minneapolis, lives in nearby Robbinsdale, and serves on the boards of Twin Cities Greenways, a grassroots effort promoting greenway-quality trails to better connect the metro area, and the Major Taylor Bicycling Club of Minnesota, where she is treasurer. Named after Marshall Walter Taylor, a cycling legend, and the first African American athlete to win a world championship in any sport, the club describes itself as “the premier African American bicycling club in the state and Upper Midwest.” 

St. Paul Frogtown bike shop reinvents itself
Jason Tanzman, Outreach and Development Coordinator at Sibley Bike Depot, a nonprofit community bike shop in St. Paul’s Frogtown neighborhood, points to Sibley’s shift in focus and location as a sign of how the bicycling world is changing and expanding. When it opened in downtown St. Paul in 2001, the bike depot was primarily a place for businessmen and bike messengers to have their bicycles repaired. Since 2007, Sibley has been reinventing itself as a community-led resource serving the needs of riders—and potential riders—largely ignored or underserved in the past. Immediately after moving to University Avenue, the facility began attracting youth, youth of color, immigrants, homeless people, and low-income residents who don’t own cars.

Seward efforts stir East African interest in biking
Farhia Asaro, a resident of Seward Towers East since 1999, has been working with Sibley Bike Depot staff to increase bicycling awareness among East African residents of the high-rise apartment complex in Minneapolis’s Seward neighborhood. • As the Towers’ interim community organizer, during Nasra Noor’s maternity leave, Asaro has been charged with explaining and introducing programs to fellow residents, while taking bicycling classes herself. She reports that interest has been higher in Seward than in any neighborhood Sibley Bike Depot has worked with to date.

Biking: Individual and collective culture change in Minneapolis
Robin Garwood, aide to Minneapolis Second Ward City Councilmember Cam Gordon, explains that a host of elements have come together to make Minneapolis a top bicycling city. Garwood points to the area’s outstanding trail network, a vastly improved on-street network that features more designated bike lanes, the growth of bike sharing, top-ranked access to bicycle parking, and the variety of bike shops, including stores like One On One Bicycle Studio & Go Coffee, the Angry Catfish Bicycle & Coffee Bar, and Birchwood Café that have bicycling as one component.

Bike Walk Twin Cities: Transportation as platform for social change
Joan Pasiuk realizes that she, as a 58-year-old woman, is an atypical bicyclist. A lifelong cyclist, it’s only been in the past several years that she’s come to see that streets don’t need to be designed the way they are, and that bicyclists must not put up with risks they’ve been accustomed to. • Pasiuk is program director for Bike Walk Twin Cities (BWTC), an effort to increase biking and walking, and decrease driving, established by St. Paul-based Transit for Livable Communities (TLC) after being selected by Congress to oversee the Non-Motorized Transportation Pilot Project for the Twin Cities. The Twin Cities is the most urban and northern of four areas chosen to participate.

Hitting the re-set button on state bike and pedestrian policies
In 2010, the Minnesota State Legislature revised and adopted statewide transportation goals, seeking to foster an increase in the percentage of trips made by transit, bicycling, or walking. That same year, Minnesota was ranked fourth most “Bicycle Friendly State” in the nation by the League of American Bicyclists, based on a commitment to promoting cycling “through legislation, policies, programs, and by creating new places to ride, educating motorists and cyclists, and encouraging people to bike for transportation and recreation."

The high cost of getting to work
Although often left on the sideline in the political discussion on how to improve the economy, public transportation has a major role in getting Minnesotans back to work.  Gov. Mark Dayton, in his May 24 veto of a spending bill, explains: “My budget spared transit funding from cuts due to the critical nature of public transportation and its connection to jobs and the economy.”



How to save on public transportation — don't cut the budget
In coming to a budget agreement, Minnesota legislators debated how to close the $5 billion budget gap. The dispute boiled down to the central schism between the two parties: DFLers want to generate new revenue by raising taxes on the wealthy and Republicans believe that cutting government services, including transportation, is the only way to balance the budget. A close examination of the costs of cutting public transit reveals that there are actually cost savings to be had by not cutting the budget.

New Normal: Transportation in Minnesota
When it comes to transportation, Minnesotans are confronting a host of challenges. Because of the economy, most people’s employment and overall financial situations are less stable than usual. With gas prices fluctuating, and longer commutes, residents spend a higher percentage of their incomes on transportation.


Immigration

Fixing a broken immigration system—Wait, which part?
How does the lagging economy and an aging population affect immigrant communities in Minnesota? How should these factors affect what immigrants we let in to the country in the future, and what should we do with immigrants who are already here? Where is the immigration system most broken and what can we do to fix it?



Following their dreams on Lake Street
Working on a book for Ingebretsen’s 90th anniversary has helped manager Julie Ingebretsen better imagine her grandfather’s life. A Norwegian immigrant, Charles arrived in New York City in 1905, learned the butcher trade in Fargo, and headed to Minneapolis, where, eventually, he opened Model Meat Market on Lake Street’s streetcar line.

NAVIGATE seeks to widen higher education path for undocumented students
A “dreamer” and a “role model": those are the phrases Carlos* most frequently uses to describe himself. “Connector” seems a worthy addition to that list.

Carlos’s work with NAVIGATE MN, an organization that helps immigrant students, regardless of immigration status, pursue their higher education goals, has him connecting with high school students, parents, teachers and counselors.

Families Divided: Immigration Attorney talks about family reunification
Ever been separated from your husband, wife or children for three years? How about five? Ten? This is something that Sheila Stuhlman sees all the time in her job as an immigration lawyer. The slow immigration system can keep families apart for years and sometimes decades.


Minnesota Chamber: Immigration for "development and growth of of state's economy"
As part of our focus on immigration this month, the Twin Cities Daily Planet spoke with Bill Blazar of the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce. Since Blazar and his colleagues began working on immigration issues, the Minnesota Chamber has been vocal about its support for federally instituted comprehensive immigration reform.

Studies find immigrants essential to filling Minnesota jobs
When it comes to workforce replenishment, immigrants are not only important: they are essential. That's the conclusion of several studies, with findings that challenge a common perception that immigrants are stealing jobs from U.S.-born citizens at a time when jobs are scarce.

Ask a researcher | 10 things you should know about immigration in Minnesota
A broad coalition working on improving immigrant access to training and employment recently requested a presentation from Minnesota Compass, and we were happy to oblige. While the information below, and more, is available in the immigration section of this site, the group found the list we compiled for them useful.

New Normal | What's next for immigration and immigrant communities?
Some say the current recession and higher unemployment mean that we need fewer immigrants and that jobs should be reserved for citizens. Others maintain that the aging U.S. workforce means that we need more immigrants to fill jobs, pay social security taxes and support retiring baby boomers in the coming decades.  There's an ongoing debate on whether immigrants drag down or build up our economy, and on what values should inform our immigration policy. The only real area of agreement is that our current system is broken, leaving the basic question: How should we fix our immigration system?

Health Care

How do you fix a broken health care system? Minnesotans weigh in
The health care system is sick. We don’t get enough bang for our buck, health care costs are out of control, Americans are paying ridiculously high deductibles, and tens of thousands of people are dying because they don’t have access to good health care. That’s just to name a few of the ills.

Senator John Marty: Advocating universal, single-payer health care in Minnesota
Senator John Marty contacted the TC Daily Planet after he read our June coverage of health care, specifically a Q&A with Senator Dave Durenberger on his support for federal health care legislation. Senator Marty let us know that he respectfully disagreed with Senator Durenberger’s view of solutions for our health care system. This is to be expected, since he’s the chief author of the MN Health Plan, the only proposal for universal, single-payer coverage in Minnesota.

Papa John Kolstad speaks out on universal, single-payer health care
Musician and activist John Kolstad got involved in the health care debate back in the 1990s when he and a group of people informally studied it in a series of study circles where they’d discuss and study art, books and politics. Then the issue of health care came up.

 
Senator Durenberger on health care reform
Former Senator David Durenberger has been involved in health care policy for decades, first as a proponent of HMOs in the 1970s, and more recently as a advocate for national health care reform. He is currently a senior health policy fellow at the National Institute of Health Policy at the University of St. Thomas, and recently spoke to the TC Daily Planet about health care reform and access to health care.

HCMC braces for shutdown: Q&A with Mike Harristhal
As the Vice President of Public Policy at Hennepin County Medical Center (HCMC) in Minneapolis, Mike Harristhal is no stranger to institutional penny pinching, fundraising and out of control health care costs. Like many others, HCMC has been preparing for what a government shut down might mean for them. “Even as we sit here today HCMC is under considerable stress,” he said said.

Slipping through the cracks in health care 

What happens when you tear a muscle and don't have health insurance? Or when you lose your insurance and you're still sick? Half a dozen Minnesotans shared their health and insurance stories, from a torn muscle in the Smoky Mountains to epilepsy in England.

 

Facts, figures, and politics of healthcare policy
 While there is considerable agreement that reform is needed, what type of reform that should be has stirred fierce debate. Former U.S. Senator Dave Durenberger, a Health Policy Fellow at the University of St. Thomas and Chair of the National Institute of Health Policy, says that, “Minnesota has been a national leader in expanding coverage to nearly all residents (although there has been a lot of slippage the eight years of the Pawlenty administration.)”

What's ahead for health care?
How can we ensure that all Minnesotans have access to affordable, dependable healthcare? Is the best option:
1)  Universal single-payer insurance?
2)  State insurance exchanges where consumers can comparison shop?
3)  Consumer-directed healthcare attached to health savings accounts?
4)  Some other approach?

Join the conversation: Expanding health care coverage in Minnesota
The Twin Cities Daily Planet's series, The New Normal: Deciding Community Priorities in a Downsized Economy, tackles a different issue each month. In June we'll be talking about health care, and will ask people in the Twin Cities: "How can we ensure that all Minnesotans have access to good, affordable, dependable health care?"  

Work and jobs

What to do about jobs: "I'm trying to reinvent myself" and "We need to organize"

With unemployment in the Twin Cities still high, it’s hard to believe that it’s workers—not jobs—that we’ll be short of in the next ten to twenty years. It’s especially hard for some one like John Kunesh, one of thirty participants at the Twin Cities Daily Planet’s community conversations on the future of work and jobs. Kunesh worked at a private law firm as a paralegal for 25 years, but lost his job when the economy slowed down. He recently lost his house and moved in with a friend, and is still looking for work.

Building infrastructure for jobs in Greater Minnesota
“The world is a lot flatter now than it used to be,” said Steve Larson, a regional adminsitrator for the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED). “If you are a small rural community, there are not only companies in the metro area, there are companies all over the world that can compete for products and services you provide."

Facing race head-on: Deep and intransigent employment disparities persist in Minnesota
Headlines reporting glaring disparities in unemployment rates, by race, have sent a jolt to many Minnesotans, but the numbers are clear. 

Tom Stinson: "Minnesota has been hugesly successful as an economy"
Tom Stinson is Minnesota's state economist, and a professor in the Department of Applied Economics at the University of Minnesota. In a January presentation to the One Minnesota legislative policy conference at the Humphrey Institute, Stinson said that workforce development is crucial to Minnesota's future, both in terms of the number of workers and the quality of workers. In that presentation he cited three keys for Minnesota's future economic success: retention, recruitment and retraining. Stinson agreed to talk to the TC Daily Planet about the future of work and jobs in Minnesota.

Bernie Hesse: Seeing hope in young workers at Jimmy Johns
Bernie Hesse is the Director of Special Projects and Political Director at UFCW Local 1189. Hesse took a break from contract negotiations for grocery workers to talk to the Twin Cities Daily Planet about the future of unions and jobs in Minnesota.  "We believe that working people should be paid a good and fair wage," he told the Daily Planet. "Nobody should have to worry about whether or not they can afford health care or put food on the table."

Jobs and work in Minnesota's future
How do we create good jobs for Minnesotans, and prepare a workforce with the skills required to fill them? • For Minnesota workers and job seekers, this has been a decade of decline, with most of the slow down occurring long before the “Great Recession” of the past few years.

The State Budget

 "Government by tantrum?" Minnesotans' concerns over the state budget
Many Minnesotans would look at you blankly if you mentioned "fourth-tier income tax brackets.’” Not those who showed up to the Twin Cities Daily Planet’s series of three community conversations on the state budget, though. They were highly informed on the state budget, knew what loopholes and shifts were and could even mention specific legislation in the pipelines.

Q&A with Nan Madden on the state budget
Nan Madden is the director of the Minnesota Budget Project at the MN Council of Nonprofits. Staff there have been busy tracking budget proposals at the legislature and figuring out just how these bills would impact Minnesota the communities the council of nonprofits serve.  Here's what she had to say about how deep budget cuts would impact Minnesota.

Mayors to state lawmakers: We don't want the Twin Cities to become Detroit
Some state and local lawmakers from suburbs that don't receive LGA still oppose eliminating funding to the core cities.

Eagan Mayor Mike Maguire is also president of Metro Cities. As a representative of Metro Cities, he testified against elimination of LGA for Minneapolis, St. Paul and Duluth.

 
DFL legislators attack proposed GOP cuts to children's programs

Are Republicans in the Minnesota Legislature targeting minority and poor children disproportionately in their proposed budget cuts? • That's what Democrats whose constituents include those groups alleged Thursday at a press conference at the Capitol. • "The proposed Republican cuts are a direct assault on Minnesota communities of color," said Sen. Patricia Torres Ray, DFL-Minneapolis. "If Minnesota adopts these policies proposed by the Republican majority, children who are poor in Minnesota today will be at greater risk of poverty when they are adults."

Looking for the money: What about local sales taxes?
One of the rationales for eliminating LGA from Minneapolis, St. Paul and Duluth is that they each have a local option sales tax.  But on closer inspection, Duluth is the only city where revenue raised by the local sales tax option can be used entirely at the city council's discretion.

What "no new taxes" means for property owners
The party line argument over "no new taxes" is all a matter of perspective.

"I think what the [House Republican] bill was able to do is balance the budget without raising taxes," said Rep. Linda Runbeck, R-Circle Pines, during the debate on the House floor. "I think as a result of this, we're able to say to people concerned about our economy, our business growth, our job growth, that we are becoming a more economically competitive state."

When it comes to taxes, who speaks for Minnesota's small businesses?
As state lawmakers head into the final week of the legislative session, few revenue options have appeared in any of the final drafts of Omnibus bills, other than a controversial racino gambling proposal. • Governor Mark Dayton’s proposal to raise taxes on Minnesota’s top tier earners has been glaringly absent from any of the bills so far. GOP lawmakers have shunned the idea, calling it a “job killing tax.”

Cut LGA? Fighting words for mayors across Minnesota
LGA—-Local Government Aid—has been called government welfare, a dependency on the state, an enabler for cities to overspend. And for Minnesota mayors, them's fighting words.

Public Employees, unions under attack in Minnesota
Is Gov. Mark Dayton the only difference between Minnesota and Wisconsin when it comes to anti-union bills becoming the law of the land?

Budget choices: Former Gov. Arne Carlson makes the case for long-term reform
Former Gov. Arne Carlson emphasizes that solving today's problems may not solve tomorrow's, although he applauds Gov. Dayton and the legislature for "facing up to their responsibilities, and not kicking the can down the road for somebody else to deal with." To think beyond today's immediate concerns, Carlson proposes governmental reform to confront structural deficits.

Making choices: Minnesota's budget
The State of Minnesota is facing a $5 billion budget deficit, lower than the $6.2 billion initially forecast. Republicans, who took control of both houses of the legislature in November, have very different ideas about how to close that gap than the newly elected Democratic governor. The Senate has proposed a budget totaling $34 billion, while Gov. Dayton's plan totals $37 billion. As the two sides continue to clash over how to eliminate the deficit, Dayton is said to have his veto pen ready. Onlookers say they will be surprised if a budget is approved by the end of the session on May 23.

Neighborhoods

The New Normal in neighborhoods: Is the sky falling or isn't it? Meeting at a McDonalds and a bank, an art gallery, and a couple neighborhood councils, we asked participants in the first round of "New Normal" community conversations where their neighborhoods should most focus their resources and energy.

The New Normal in Neighborhoods:Q&A with St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman
St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman has a lot on his plate right now. Republicans are pushing for state budget cuts in local government aid to cities, which could drastically affect St. Paul. The debate in the legislature rages as communities on the ground continue to deal with the recession, which hit some St. Paul neighborhoods hard. Coleman is gearing up for a fight to keep the city's sources of revenue. As he put it, "The intensity of our efforts and the work that we have to do is certainly as large as the pile of snow on the Sears parking lot." With all that work to do, the mayor found time to talk to the Daily Planet about how to best promote livability and economic vitality in St. Paul neighborhoods.

Discussion Guide: Neighborhoods and the New Normal
We want to hear what you and your group have to say about this question: "In a time of budget deficits and decreasing resources, how can we best promote the economic vitality and livability our neighborhoods?" Our downloadable discussion guide will help you facilitate your community conversation on the New Normal and Neighborhoods. The guide uses the article Hard times, hard choices: How should neighborhoods respond to the New Normal? to frame the two-hour conversation. If you choose to host a community conversation, you may also want to sift through our March coverage for more context.

New Normal: Minneapolis and St. Paul city budgets
As Minneapolis and St. Paul continue to confront cuts in funding to cities currently being made in state and federal budgets, taxpayers are bearing much of the brunt, both through higher property taxes and diminished services. This is confirmed in a report recently issued by State Auditor Rebecca Olson.

Hard times, hard choices: How should neighborhoods respond to the "New Normal?"
Neighborhoods face tough decisions as budget deficits and decreasing resources threaten funding for neighborhood organizations and for public services in general. Additional challenges come from an economy that has left many empty storefronts and unemployed workers, with businesses and individuals struggling to find new ways to cope. With neighborhood-based organizations experiencing growing need for their services, alongside diminished revenue from strained resources, communities throughout Minneapolis and St. Paul are feeling the impact.

The New Normal on the ground in South Minneapolis: Q&A with Silvia Pérez Såanchez
Silvia Pérez Sánchez is fond of saying that since God has given her the gift of organizing, she'd better do something with it. And that she has. Pérez Sánchez has been gaining momentum in her efforts to organize Latina women in Powderhorn Park and Corcoran neighborhoods in Minneapolis.

The New Normal on the ground in North Minneapolis: Q&A with Rowena Holmes
Longtime North Side resident Rowena Holmes has gotten to know her neighbors better than most. As a crime prevention specialist, she's been a liaison between community members and the Minneapolis Police Department's 4^th Precinct for 20 years. Holmes says her background in social services has helped her work on neighborhood livability issues in the North Side.

Pride and progress: Beautification, branding and business in three Minneapolis neighborhoods
It's a concept that makes logical sense:  Improving a street's aesthetics will also improve commerce, reduce crime, and raise the pride of the residents.  Though it's rather an abstract idea, which makes obtaining data to support the theory difficult, there certainly seems to be funding—both public and private—readily available for projects that seek to beautify neighborhoods.  Both public funding—such as Minneapolis's Great Streets program, which includes façade improvement grants, and foundation funding have helped various districts—particularly commercial districts—look better.

Business and non-profits: Neighborhood partners in St. Paul
Business owners and community organizers may look like two completely different interest groups from Washington, but in the neighborhoods of Minneapolis and St. Paul, they have forged alliances that work. Two St. Paul stories highlight successful partnerships between businesses and community organizations. 

Join the Conversation: Twin Cities Neighborhoods Grapple with the "New Normal"
"A code word for disinvestment in the public sector." That's the New Normal, according to Sheldon Mains, co-president of the Seward Neighborhood Group (SNG) [and chair of the TC Media Alliance board of directors.] Mains says that disinvestment is a blow to neighborhood organizations, which can no longer rely on the levels of city and state funding they've become accustomed to. Under the New Normal, nonprofits like SNG find themselves depending less on paid staff, more on volunteers-difficult, Mains says, because fewer people have time to offer. Neighborhood organizations are also forced to ask for donations more than they have in the past, a challenge when individuals are financially strapped and fearful, and simultaneously receiving more requests to help fund worthy causes.

Minnesota is known for its “long history of laws that protect our public health, land, water and air,” according to the Minnesota Environmental Partnership (MEP), a coalition of 80 environmental and conservation nonprofits. Environmental review, community rights, clean energy policies, and adequate transit funding are at the heart of these protections.

Mix it up: Talking transportation with Hilary Reeves at TLC

Mix it up: Talking transportation with Hilary Reeves at TLC

Mix it up: Talking transportation with Hilary Reeves at TLC