World Cup Street Fair

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Raíces Media​ hosted a World Cup Street Fair on Saturday, June 27, at Kix Field in Minneapolis, just off the Greenway, in conjunction with The Sanneh Foundation ​and the Urban Stars Soccer Club.​ World Cup veteran Tony Sanneh and The Sanneh Foundation hosted a free soccer clinic for kids at the event. The Sanneh Foundation, based in St. Paul, offers many free camps and clinics in St. Paul and Minneapolis. Tony Sanneh leads a skill-building soccer clinic with a group of kids. Continue Reading

Northeast Ride combines bicycling with business

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The fourth annual Northeast Ride ran on Saturday June 13. The Ride ,organized by the Northeast Community Development Corporation, took bicyclists on a route that visited many Northeast neighborhoods on streets and off-road trails. The event was put on with the help of volunteers representing many Northeast businesses and organizations. The ride ended with an after-party at Indeed Brewing and music by the bicycle-powered band The Eclectic Ensemble. Continue Reading

Phillips neighbors oppose new Water Yard site

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People in the Phillips neighborhoods of Minneapolis are incensed about a new proposed water-maintenance site (or, a water yard) they say will add to the pollution of the area. Seeing little promise of new jobs from the new site, neighbors will be packing the Ways and Means committee meeting of the City Council on Monday to urge council members to vote no on allowing city staff to enter into negotiations over purchasing the property. “Phillips has been dumping grounds and forget-me-nots of polluters for several years now,” says Jose Luis Villasenor, the Executive Director of the local nonprofit Tamales y Bicicletas. He’s been a resident of East Phillips for 19-20 years. “We have been working with the community and local stakeholders about how to get rid of the polluters.”

The community group East Phillips Improvement Coalition (EPIC) had two realizations when it came to the site, Villasenor said. Continue Reading

City debates historic preservation of Dinkytown

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Opposition to development emerged after the Opus Development Company proposed the Venue mixed-use apartment building two years ago that opened last fall with a Starbucks, Great Clips and an upscale Goodwill store on the ground level.

Opponents say new buildings will require more rent, forcing locally owned businesses out while encouraging chain stores like Starbucks and Target Express, the anchor store in the new Marshall mixed-use building on the site of Marshall High School. Continue Reading

38th Street and plans for renewal

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The opening of the Seward food co-op on 38th and 4th Avenue is probably the biggest non-governmental development to hit 38th Street in at least 50 years. But it has brought into sharp relief the under-utilized and under-appreciated business districts along the rest of 38th Street.

Council Member Elizabeth Glidden has been tirelessly organizing community meetings to encourage neighbors to remember the old neighborhood and imagine new possibilities for the street. The first three meetings had visits by former residents who have left the ‘hood and become famous, like Judge Lajune Lange and Gary Cunningham.

Besides being married to the mayor, Gary Cunningham is the executive director of the Metropolitan Economic Development Association and a member of the Metropolitan Council. A picture of the Bryant-Central co-op hangs on his office wall. He says it is one of his sources of inspiration. Continue Reading

Martin Luther King Goes to the Mall (or WWMD?)

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“It’s important to make an example out of these organizers, so that this never happens again.” This message was sent to the managers of the Mall of America by Sandra Johnson, the City Attorney of Bloomington, Minnesota, where the Mall is located. The “organizers,” whom she also refers to as “criminals,” assailants” and “ringleaders” were involved in one way or another with a peaceful, multi-generational, multiracial rally held in the Mall’s rotunda to draw attention to racist police brutality. Such events are what “must never happen again.”

Johnson’s over-the-top push make the defendants pay for the police overreaction has raised eyebrows in legal and business circles and alarmed civil libertarians. The Mall had earlier rebuffed her proposal to punish Mall employees for showing sympathy with the rally, citing “the potential for further press.” “Further press” is what the City Attorney appears determined to deliver. Continue Reading