HEADLINES
Coffeehouse comeback: The return of Tillie’s Bean
By Lori Wolter , TC Daily Planet
Tillie’s Bean is a survival story, still hoping for a happy ending. Last summer, owners Maggie and Dave Turner looked forward to better business after two years of street construction. Then came the break-in that left the coffeehouse with a damaged glass door, cash register and computer. An acid-etched graffiti incident left Tillie’s windows ruined. But the last straw came in the fall, when the city of Minneapolis ordered Tillie’s Bean to pay more than $600 for an entertainment license. The live music had to end, and Tillie’s closed on November 5. Now they’re back!
Angela Davis speaks on presidential elections, prison abolition
by Stephani Maari Booker, Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder
Black Power icon exhorts people to think about ‘dangerous connections’
Rybak gives State of the City address
by Anna Ewart, Minnesota Daily
Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak delivered his annual State of the City Address on Wednesday at the MacPhail Center for Music downtown.
INSIDE THE DAILY PLANET
The $6 million mouth? City Pages owners lose alt-weekly predatory pricing lawsuit
by Steve Perry, Minnesota Monitor
It’s hard to imagine that anyone outside the San Francisco Bay Guardian’s legal team expected this: Yesterday, following a five-week jury trial, the SFBG prevailed in its predatory pricing lawsuit against Village Voice Media, the Phoenix-based alt-weekly chain that owns City Pages. As a consequence of the verdict, the Voice chain (formerly known as New Times before its managers took over the original VVM in 2006) is presently on the hook for $6.3 million in damages. But as the San Francisco Chronicle reported this morning, “Damages could swell to as much as $15.6 million, because San Francisco Superior Court Judge Marla Miller has the discretion to triple portions of the jury award.”
Volunteering matters
by Lisa Steinmann, Park Bugle
Ayan Usman, a sophomore at Como Park High School, is tall, wears a long olive-green skirt and has eyes that gaze steadily from beneath her silky black headscarf.
Still no contract for Walker Methodist workers nearly five years since vote
by Steve Share, Minneapolis Labor Review
Workers at Walker Methodist Health Center in Minneapolis continue to work without a contract. May 2008 will mark five years since nursing home workers there voted to join AFSCME. April 2008 will mark one year since the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) finally certified the pro-union vote, a decision rejecting years of management resistance to the union.
NEW IN VOICES
Affordable housing—something we all need
by Ann King, SENA News
In this year when foreclosures of homes have hit an all-time high, the topic of affordable housing seems especially relevant. Many of the people who lost homes to foreclosure did so because they were encouraged and helped to buy homes that they really couldn’t afford. As the housing market boomed, buyers and financers didn’t consider the meaning of “affordable.” Housing is “affordable” if it costs no more than 30% of a family’s income—which means not just the income at the time the house is bought but also the income that the family will have in a few years when the grace period is over and the monthly cost rises.
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