Hayden, Champion introduce legislation to address health disparities

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eputy Majority Leader Sen. Jeff Hayden (DFL-Minneapolis) and Sen. Bobby Joe Champion (DFL-Minneapolis) have introduced legislation to address alarming health disparities in the African American community. The authors have introduced three major pieces of legislation: SF1871 Partnerships for Healthy Futures a grant program to build community services and providers in order to identify, coordinate and expand opportunities for improving health outcomes for communities of color, SF1701 which will require health insurance coverage for colorectal cancer screenings for high risk populations, and SF1836 which will study and provide recommendations to decrease menthol cigarette usage by African Americans. “People of color, especially African Americans and American Indians, suffer from unique health disparities compared to the broader population,” Hayden said. “This package of bills focuses on intervention and prevention of some of the chronic challenges facing our constituents. Now is the time for action, it is time we pass legislation that gets at the entrenched causes and systemic inequity which has allowed our communities to suffer too long.””We have studied the disparities facing African American and American Indian populations again and again. I am looking forward to moving from discussion to action with these bills to address higher rates of cancer, assistance and resources for improving health outcomes, and discovering the root causes of extremely high rates of menthol cigarette smoking among African Americans,” Champion said. Continue Reading

Water’s Off volunteers provide plumbing repairs for low-income homeowners

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SAINT PAUL“This is too good to be true,” Laurene Gruett said as Gerald Keating and Brett Sergot, members of St. Paul Plumbers Local 34, repaired the basement shower and kitchen sink in her North St. Paul home March 21. “What a blessing. Keating and Sergot were among 57 volunteers from Local 34 who participated in the annual Water’s Off day of service. St. Continue Reading

Uber protests have precedent

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Uber, a ride-sharing business that has been in the Twin Cities since October 2012, is protesting a proposed bill that would require its drivers to have additional insurance coverage.  To be exact, the bill would require online ride-hailing companies to cover their business’ vehicles with $1 million insurance policies.  Current Uber policies do not cover accidents in which the other driver is uninsured, but its drivers are constantly at a high risk for traffic accidents — they’re driving in unknown areas while looking at their phones for directions.  However, Mike White, the general manager of Uber, believes the bill would be both unfair and unreasonable, saying it may cost the state jobs. There is now an online petition against it, and many Uber drivers rallied outside the Capitol last Thursday. Officials on both sides are nearing a compromise, but it’s likely this back-and-forth will continue. Despite Uber’s protests, the bill, which is now out of contention in favor of a different measure, wasn’t unprecedented or out of reach. The required insurance policy mentioned in the Minnesota Legislature is almost identical to the policies that limousine and taxi companies pay. Furthermore, Utah passed a similar bill last week, and Uber announced that the policy was acceptable. Continue Reading

J Street founder to speak in Minneapolis

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Israelis have recently gone to the polls in a contested Knesset election which will impact the country’s policy agenda and the discourse around Israeli-Palestinian relations for years to come.Please join us for a discussion between J Street President Jeremy Ben-Ami and Humphrey School Professor Brian Atwood, chair of Global Policy and former dean. They will examine issues surrounding the outcome of the election and what this means for Israel’s future, as well as the future for negotiations on Arab-Israeli peace.J Street, founded in 2008 with a stated aim of serving as the “Political Home for Pro-Peace, Pro-Israel Americans”, has played an active role in the debate surrounding Arab-Israeli peace. J Street President and Founder Jeremy Ben-Ami previously served in the administration of Bill Clinton, was Howard Dean’s national policy director in 2004, and assisted in managing a mayoral campaign in New York City in 2001. He lived and worked in Israel during the 1990s and was recently included in the Jerusalem Post’s list of the 50 most influential Jews in the World. The publication deemed him “a game-changer on the American Jewish landscape”.Please note this event is open to the general public so feel free to forward the invitation to any of our community partners or other interested parties.Jeremy Ben-Ami, president and founder of J Street, will speak on “Prospects for Arab-Israeli Peace in the Wake of the Israeli Elections” 5 p.m. Tuesday, April 14
 in the Humphrey Forum
 at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs, 
301 19th Ave. Continue Reading

Group guides flow of foundation dollars to Mpls North Side

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Tawanna Black has been the executive director of Northside Funders Group (NFG) since 2013. Although NFG has been around since 2008, she is their first executive director.Black explains NFG is “a collaborative of 19 corporate, family and community foundations, including the City of Minneapolis, Hennepin County and the State of Minnesota, who are working to align strategies and investments in North Minneapolis.” They have three focus areas: building social capitol, workforce and economic development, and building thriving learning communities (in-school and out-of-school-time resources).NFG is located in Heritage Park Senior Service Center, near Glenwood and Dupont in North Minneapolis. Their staff work with foundations to invest in nonprofits on the North Side, getting better outcomes for families and building a better community.The members currently invest about $15 million a year in Northside organizations just in these three focus areas. Black says that many will agree that “to date, we are still not producing the level of outcome we would like to see for Northsiders… [There are] a lot of people who are not employed, [have] no access to high-quality schools, and we still have families who do not have secure housing and financial security. Although $15 million sounds like a lot, it is not achieving the outcomes we wish to see.”NFG works to help funders be smarter about their investments do a better job partnering with nonprofits, Black explains, “so they can meet families where they are and provide services in a way that works for the families, organizations and funders, so we can achieve equity at a faster pace.”From a funding perspective, Black adds, “Our members pool and align funds to approach grant-making in new ways. Continue Reading

Murals Bridge Divides on Snelling Avenue, Saint Paul’s Busiest Street

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[At right: Snelling Avenue sidewalks. Photo by Bill Lindeke.]Snelling Avenue is one of the busiest streets in Minnesota, but it’s also one of the most overlooked: narrow sidewalks, aging buildings, and the steady stream of traffic filled with drivers that never seem to notice the rich diversity of the neighborhood around them.This summer, the Midway Murals project, which one a coveted Knight Arts Grant last year, will try to change that. Jonathan Oppenheimer, who wrote the grant for the murals project, is trying to bring together neighbors, business owners, and skilled public artists to bridge both the physical barrier of Snelling’s high-speed traffic and the cultural barriers around different immigrant and non-immigrant communities. The project, which just reached its goal of raising $22,000 from the community,I met Oppenheimer at the Midway Murals official launch at the Turf Club last month, and recently asked him a few questions about goals of the innovative public art project. Snelling Avenue is undergoing a big construction project this summer that will widen the sidewalks and attempt to calm traffic north of University Avenue and around Interstate 94. Continue Reading

The real cost of just ‘one more stadium’

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The question, “Should I have just one more drink?” can be the difference between actually showing up to the sloppily made brunch plans from the night before and quivering in a bed wet with balmy sweat while clutching a fistful of aspirin.This mistake gets made once or twice in your life before you learn to shy away from the tempting words of “just one more.”However, after Wednesday’s announcement of a new Major League Soccer expansion, the city of Minneapolis currently faces its own “should I have just one more” debate. But instead of Grain Belt beer, Minneapolis needs to ask itself whether it needs “just one more stadium.”The MLS awarded Bill McGuire, the former UnitedHealth Group CEO and current owner of the Minnesota United FC, the opportunity to start a new MLS franchise under the stipulation that he commit to building a new outdoor stadium — which would be the fifth large-scale professional stadium in the Twin Cities area.Of all the cities in the United States that have five major professional sports teams, Minneapolis is one of the smallest. I’m a small guy, and consuming five drinks is a lot for me. So what does that say for the Twin Cities’ fifth professional stadium?McGuire estimates that a proposed 18,500-seat stadium would cost about $150 million to build, but he kept mum when asked whether he would seek public money for its construction. That’s a bargain of a price when you glance at the new Vikings stadium ($1 billion), but let’s not forget that we’re still paying off the debt for Target Field. Continue Reading

Twin Cities Hmong community seeks help in closing achievement gap

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Advocates from Minnesota’s Hmong community want to ensure their children are not left behind as legislators continue to tackle the state’s well-publicized achievement gap.HF1930, sponsored by Rep. Rod Hamilton (R-Mountain Lake), would provide funding for the Department of Education to create outreach programs that help Southeast Asian immigrant and refugee families better access early childhood care and education resources, developmental screening and early reading assessments.The House Education Innovation Policy Committee approved the bill Thursday and sent it to the House Education Finance Committee. Its companion, SF1781, sponsored by Senate President Sandy Pappas (DFL-St. Paul), has been laid over by the Senate E-12 Budget Division for possible omnibus bill inclusion.Recent research conducted by the Twin Cities-based Hmong National Development, Inc. indicates that Hmong students in early education score two standard deviations below the national average on reading assessments. That gap follows these students when they transition to K-12 education, said Zha Blong Xiong, a professor of college education and human development at the University of Minnesota.About half of Hmong students in the Twin Cities are considered proficient in MCA reading exams, Xiong told lawmakers. Many of these students would have qualified for programs like early learning scholarships, but their parents aren’t aware of the opportunities, he said.“We believe that family engagement efforts are needed to ensure the hardest to reach populations, like Southeast Asian population, are gaining access to these wonderful early child education resources to close the achievement gap.”Sinying Lee is a working mother to three young children, two of whom attend a St. Continue Reading

We expect better from the StarTribune

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The StarTribune article on March 18, “Nonprofit paid to help with minority hiring at stadium short of goal…Workforce Is Diverse, But No Thanks to Nonprofit That Was Hired to Help”, totally missed the mark. We expect better of the StarTribune. This story was far beneath the standards we expect from a major newspaper in a growing and diverse community. It is no secret that Minnesota has the worst racial disparities on most socioeconomic indicators in the nation. The success of minority employment hiring on the Viking Stadium construction could have far-reaching implications for the economic well-being of our community as a whole. This begs the question of why the success of the Viking’s Stadium, which is exceeding all its workforce and business development goals for people of color, is not being trumpeted. Rather than applauding and understanding this unprecedented accomplishment, the StarTribune squandered this opportunity to educate its readers concerning employment disparities in our cities.  Instead, it chose to unfairly castigate a well-respected African-American led legacy institution – Summit Academy Opportunities Industrialization Center (SAOIC) and its African-American leader Louis King.King, like many others, may have underestimated the actual effectiveness of Mortenson Construction, THOR Construction, subcontractors, the MSFA equity program and the trade unions; and therefore overestimated the actual needs on the project. Continue Reading

Juxtaposition’s DeAnna Cummings in Barcelona to study public markets

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This week, stakeholders from West Broadway Business and Area Coalition (WBC) and Juxtaposition Arts, two North Minneapolis organizations committed to developing public markets on the Northside, and 9th Ward City Council Member Alondra Cano will visit one of the world’s greatest market cities for Project for Public Spaces’ (PPS) 9th International Public Markets Conference, taking place Thursday, March 26-28, 2015 in Barcelona, Spain. The WBC and Juxtaposition (JXTA) became interested in attending the conference together due to the increasing success of the WBC’s West Broadway Farmers Market, Holiday Pop Up Boutiques, and JXTA’s growing campus and placemaking work. Mutual partners connected them with Council Member Cano, whose ward includes the Midtown Farmers Market; CM Cano and is very invested in strengthening the city of Minneapolis’ funding and policy efforts to better support public market infrastructure and development.”There is currently a boom of creative placemaking activities emanating from Minnesota and markets are one of the original forms of placemaking. We’re excited for the opportunity of an immersive learning experience that we can share and build upon with our partners and colleagues locally,” said DeAnna Cummings, Executive Director of Juxtaposition.DeVon Nolen, manager of the West Broadway Farmers Market, said, “I look forward to sharing and learning some of the best practices around public markets internationally. Increasing access to public space is critical to our work in advancing toward growing a vibrant cosmopolitan city where all citizens are safe and welcomed!”The conference includes two full days of speakers and workshops, as well as an entire day touring and learning about the inner workings of Barcelona’s extraordinary markets, led by experts from the Institut Municipal de Mercats de Barcelona (IMMB), operator of the city’s remarkable market system.”Locally, we have a demand for economic development projects that value the environment and empower underserved communities,” said Ninth Ward Minneapolis City Council Member, Alondra Cano. “Globally, strong public market systems are effectively operating to meet these very demands and it’s time for the city of Minneapolis to view public markets as a serious economic development strategy. Continue Reading