Dinkytown hotel v. Historic preservation

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Developer Kelly Doran’s plan to build a six-story hotel in the heart of Dinkytown received a setback January 21 when the Minneapolis Heritage Preservation Commission rejected his three requested demolition permits, pending a review to determine whether Dinkytown should be designated a historic district.Anne Behrendt, legal counsel and spokeswoman for Doran Development at the HPC hearing, said her company will “very likely” appeal the decision to the City Council, which could reverse it to pave way for construction of a 125-room hotel in the four-block business district adjacent to the University of Minnesota.City planner Janelle Widmeier prepared the staff report to the Heritage Preservation Commission (HPC), recommending approval of permits to demolish two business buildings at 1315 and 1319 Fourth St. S.E. and a home around the corner at 410 13th Ave. S.E. The business buildings on Fourth Street Southeast house the Mesa Pizza and Camdi restaurants, a tattoo parlor, the Publika coffee shop, and the University LifeCare clinic.Council Member Jacob Frey, who represents the Third Ward including Dinkytown, said that the appeal is a quasi-legal process so he’s not allowed to comment in advance. But, he said, he wants to hear the presentations to the City Council before he decides. He suggested there might be ways to compromise between the developer and the neighborhood, which opposes tearing down existing businesses to build a hotel.This drawing from Doran Companies shows the proposed six-story hotel for the 1315 and 1319 Fourth Street Southeast. Continue Reading

COMMUNITY VOICES | Video: MN Precinct Caucuses – Be heard on Feb 4

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Minnesota’s precinct caucuses will be held on Tuesday February 4.  I’m hoping you attend and nudge your friends to attend.  I have produced the accompanying Democratic Visions video to help.And I here share with you a portion of a January 18 letter-to-the editor of The Journal, a New Ulm, Minnesota newspaper.The letter is co-signed by the Brown County Chairs of the Republican and DFL Parties.  That would never happen in Senate District 48 (Eden Prairie/Southern Minnetonka).  The political culture here in the southwest suburbs may be trending blue, but right wing activists continue to dominate the local Republican Party and, given early PAC mail attacks on moderate, frosh Representative Yvonne Selcer (DFL, HD 48A), party lefties aren’t likely to co-author with the righties any love-notes about the democratic process. But its damn comforting to know that political party folk elsewhere in Minnesota are in tandem, making a good case for caucus attendance. “As leaders within our political parties in Brown County, we would like to personally encourage you to attend your precinct caucus on Tuesday, Feb. 4.The precinct caucus is a gathering of your friends, family, and neighbors to exercise your rights in the American political process. It is your first opportunity during an election year to talk about issues, learn about the candidates running for statewide and local office, make recommendations for changes in your party’s platform, and choose delegates to represent you at upcoming county conventions and beyond.You are welcome to express your opinions on important issues, or you can come just to listen and observe. The atmosphere is similar to that of a neighborhood town hall meeting where the exchange of ideas is encouraged and all participants are treated with fairness and respect, regardless of whether you are expressing your opinion or just listening to others.The caucus system in Minnesota is a unique system in the United States, where ordinary citizens have the opportunity to participate not only in the selection of the candidates who will represent your political party but also in defining the issues and positions under which those candidates will run in elections. It is participation citizen democracy in action.Jim Hahn-Chair, Brown County, Republican CommitteeLori Sellner-Chair, Brown County DFL Committee” Democratic Visions is handcrafted by Eden Prairie, Minnetonka and Edina Democrats and has a YouTube Channel and can be seen has the following Cable Channels –Hopkins, Minnetonka, Edina, Richfield and Eden Prairie – Comcast Channel 15 – Sundays at 9 p.m., Mondays at 10:00 p.m. and Wednesdays at 5:30 p.m.Bloomington – BCAT Cable Channel 16 – Tuesdays at 2:00 p.m. & 10:00 p.m.; Fridays at 9:30 p.m.; Saturdays at 7:30 a.m. & 2:30 p.m.Minneapolis – Minneapolis – MTN Channel 16 -Sundays at 8:30 p.m.; Thursdays at 2 a..m. Continue Reading

St. Paul seventh-grader wins Public Broadcasting System Zeitgeist video contest

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Heneeya Myrick, a seventh-grade student at St. Paul City School, won Public Broadcasting System’s national Zeitgist contest with her story of the world news in 2013. She responded to the PBS call to students around the country to “submit a digital mix of their Zeitgeist using the storytelling tool Meograph to show us what their 2013 looked like.” Myrick’s video appears below. According to Nancy Dana, the executive director of St. Paul City School, Joe Nathan passed the PBS call along to the school:”We didn’t even know about it until Joe passed on the opportunity. Continue Reading

Swati Avasthi: ‘We’ve all absorbed structural racism’

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Swati Avasthi is a novelist and creative writing professor. When we asked for people to tell us about their experience with classroom discussions of structural racism, here’s what she told us:How do you define structural or institutional racism?Structural racism is a system that provides subtle but real privileges to one group of people because of their skin color. Because it is so subtle, it often invisible, but it has been demonstrated by a number of studies that show that we like to hire, promote, and/or give preference to those whose identities match closest to those we see typically in power. We’ve all absorbed structural racism and so it is hard to spot and hard to fight.A classroom discussion of structural racism led to a reprimand for Professor Shannon Gibney at MCTC. Professors and students at other colleges report that discussions are often tough, with some white students perceiving any discussion of structural racism as a personal attack. Continue Reading

OUR STORIES | Emilia Gonzalez Avalos: Fasting to affirm ‘American values of family, immigration and hard work’

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Emilia Gonzalez Avalos, the director of advocacy and community engagement for Navigate MN, recently went to Washington, DC to join in the Fast for Families outside the Capitol. We talked to Gonzalez Avalos (who was also part of the TC Daily Planet’s fall Media Skills Fellows cohort) on her return:What is the Fast for Families?It is an action outside the Capitol building that was aimed to make pressure on the House of Representatives to bring the [immigration reform] bill to a vote. It was an action supported mostly by the SEIU [and also joined in and supported by] wide variety of groups from all over the country … so that people could create awareness of family separation and of the emotional traumas on children, and of the numbers of deportations with no criminal cases, no criminal backgrounds.The Fast was really a reaffirmation of American values of family, immigration, and hard work.From Facebook: “Day 2 has come to an end. Caffeine withdrawal is throwing me a curve. Continue Reading

GLOBAL GROCERIES | Lutefisk season in Minnesota: Here’s where it starts

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It’s Christmas, the season of lutefisk. For thousands of Minnesotans of Scandinavian ancestry, eating lutefisk – at least a bite of two – is a tradition, perhaps even an obligation. But without Chris Dorff and the 104-year old Olsen Fish Company, scores of Yuletide lutefisk dinners and thousands of families might have to do without their yearly ritual.This article is first in a two-part series. Read part two, Duluth Lutherans miss out on 550 pounds of lutefisk.December is the heart of the busy season at Olsen’s, during which company President Chris Dorff and his employees produce up to 500,000 pounds of lutefisk for the holidays. “My father always said we were the largest supplier of lutefisk in the world,” said Dorff. Continue Reading

REVIEW | Viva Noel A Holiday Cirque at Mystic Lake Casino: A mixing pot of (sometimes) holiday entertainment

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Viva Noel: A Holiday Cirque opened on November 29th at Mystic Lake Casino. Conceived by Q Production and directed by Fernando Quevedo, promotional copy explains that its a celebration of the holiday spirit. Perhaps. But as a celebration, it’s all over the map and the experience is more like watching a taping for a Spanish(?), Italian(?), French(?), Las Vegas(?) reality show. There’s some amazing talent represented (and without safety nets), but the sum of the individual cool parts doesn’t add up to a holiday-tradition whole.The confusion begins in the title. Continue Reading

SOUNDING OFF ON SOUNDS | The Lost Wheels

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According their website, “The Lost Wheels fuse together old-school American blues with up-tempo Australian pub rock – combining a hint of funk and a heavy dose of slide guitar.” Hi-falutin’ as all that sounds, don’t let it throw you off. Fact is, the band, plain and simple, plays damned good, high energy rock. Some of the best blue-collar, meat and potatoes music since Foreigner. With, okay, yes, a lot of slide. Continue Reading

COMMUNITY VOICES | Journalist from the heartland

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     Laurie Hertzel is as thin and wiry as the coils of blonde hair that sprout from her head in every direction.  At 57, she has been a newspaper woman for three and half decades.  Her career started when she was twelve years old.  “I wrote about the family.  Headlines heralded the moment such as, ‘My aunt had her birthday today.’ Newspaper was ten cents.  Collection was hard! Finally, I just gave them away, and,” with a deadpan expression Hertzel adds, “46 years later, the newspaper business still doesn’t pay well.”       “My first job was at the Duluth News-Tribune.” Hertzel, now the senior book editor at the Minneapolis Star Tribune, adds, “In my early years with them, I could count the number of women who worked there on two hands—even if one hand was missing a couple of fingers.  The editors, reporters, photographers, and printers were by and large men.”  Hertzel says, “Women reporters like Sue Willoughby, Suzanne Perry, Ruth Hammond, Jacqui ‘Bananas’ Banaszynski opened the door for women.  They taught me about writing solid news stories.”     “Journalism is not for wimps,” Hertzel says.  “Our Trib guys on the crime beat go into dangerous situations.  Just a few years ago, rioters attacked our reporters believing the reporters were with the police because they had cameras and microphones.  Two were seriously hurt and had to be hospitalized.”       Hertzel waves her hand past all the shelves and says, “This area is called the book room for obvious reasons. Continue Reading

Cedar Riverside’s Brian Coyle Center celebrates gym renovations

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“I spent most of my 17 years growing up going through the programs here,” said Burhan Mohumed, a 23-year-old who now acts as a mentor at the Brian Coyle Center. “It’s like that with a lot of kids, they spend the majority of their time here. It’s really the heartbeat of the community.” The Brian Coyle Community Center recently completed renovations to its gym with the hope it will be able to better serve community youth.On November 15, Mohumed was among the friends and community members who celebrated the center’s newly completed gym with food and youth presentations. The much-needed renovations replaced the old concrete and linoleum floor with a modern wooden basketball court, and also added new basketball hoops and bleachers.The community center is a vital resource for residents of Cedar-Riverside housing complex and the Cedar-Riverside Community charter school, providing social services, as well as self sufficiency, youth and volunteer programs.The $110,000 project was made possible by funding from the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board (MPRB), Pillsbury United Communities, which runs the center, and the Neighborhood Revitalization Project.Amano Dube, the center’s director, says the renovations are part of positive trends he’s seen in the community over the last few years.”Violence used to be very tragic, around 2007 there were a lot of shootings,” said Dube. Continue Reading