Residents get on board for Penn Avenue redevelopment

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As reported by the Camden News last summer, the Penn Avenue Community Works Project has a collaborative team comprised of Hennepin County, City of Minneapolis, and Metro Transit employees. The project’s purpose is to enhance the economic, livability and mobility along Penn Avenue which will ultimately improve the quality of life for Northsiders. The team’s first project effort is to make transportation for Northside residents both affordable and accessible by implementing Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) that will extend from the Brooklyn Center Transit Center to downtown Minneapolis—which will conveniently connect passengers to the light rails. The Green Light Rail runs between the downtowns of Minneapolis and St. Paul, and the Blue Light Rail proceeds to the Mall of America in Bloomington. Continue Reading

City increases transparency with open data portal

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Last month, the City of Minneapolis launched its open data portal, a website that provides online access to municipally collected information.People who visit the site (opendate.minneapolismn.gov) can see fire and police incidents, 311 calls and crime statistics. Data also show property rental locations and open liquor licenses. Air quality, digital inclusion and neighborhood revitalization are additional areas covered on the site.Rollout of the website is the result of an August vote in which the City Council made Minneapolis the 16th city in the U.S. to pass an open data policy. The intention: Make city information easily accessible for residents to increase transparency and improve quality of life.Before the portal, residents and other people who wanted city data were required to complete a Freedom of Information Act request. Now with constant access to data, people can learn more about where they live by just going online.While an innovation for Minneapolis, the open data portal provides information on only a fraction of the City’s functions and services. Continue Reading

Fifty shades of white

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Monday’s MLK DAY protest march in Minnesota, which included a four-hour game of chicken between the 2-3,000 Black Lives Matter marchers and multiple ranks of police and troopers, including many on Continue Reading

This Week in Saint Paul: Monday, January 19 – Sunday, January 25, 2015

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Even though the Saint Paul Winter Carnival is creeping up on us, our atmosphere is making its march toward spring. How is this? The calendar still says “January.” I think it may be because the Almanac arts and culture calendar is sharing something else. It’s warming us up. All those hands clapping seems a plausible enough explanation, as opposed to the scientific explanations that get in the way of important things like…well, getting elected to office and gratuitous pollution. Continue Reading

10th Annual Curry Dinner Builds Community in Loring Park

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Every year before the holidays for the past ten years, the World Mission Prayer League, located in a mansion and office building in the Loring Park Neighborhood, puts on a Curry Dinner for the neighborhood. The dinner also raises money for Citizens for a Loring Park Community, the neighborhood organization. And it also gives neighbors a chance to talk and meet and build community. Here is a look at this year’s curry dinner. Continue Reading

New Phillips literary magazine to be unveiled January 29

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“The Phoenix of Phillips”, a new literary magazine sponsored by the Semilla Community Arts program of St. Paul’s Lutheran Church will make its debut at the Midtown Global Market on Thursday, January 29, with a program at 6 pm. The annual youth photography show of St. Paul’s “We Are Midtown Phillips” will also have its opening that evening.For the past eight years, St. Paul’s Semilla program has taught mosaics, mural arts, photography, puppetry and creative writing to over 1900 people and installed 21 murals and over 50 other artistic place holders throughout the neighborhood of Phillips. Continue Reading