The cat tour started small.

John Edwards thought it would be hilarious — and somewhat ridiculous — to lead a walk through his Minneapolis neighborhood admiring the many felines that live there.

“It’s the kind of densely populated neighborhood where if you’re walking around, you’re going to see a lot of cats,” said Edwards, who lives in Lowry Hill East — often called “the Wedge” because of its wedgelike shape — where there are roughly 9,300 residents.

About a dozen people showed up for the impromptu cat tour, led by Edwards, seven years ago. Over a two-mile walk, the group stopped to see some 20 cats peeking through their windows.

Edwards — who runs a hyperlocal media publication called Wedge Live — never anticipated his cat tour concept would catch on. But people loved it and wanted more, so Edwards began organizing an annual cat tour.

It grew every year.

The labor union representing more than 200 Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board employees voted to authorize a strike this week.

LIUNA Local 363 employees cast ballots with 94% in favor, the union said in a Facebook post.

Employees have for years called for improvements to wages, health care and safety precautions, AJ Lange, Business Manager of LIUNA Local 363 said in a statement.

"Despite our endless hard work, skill, and dedication that makes Minneapolis' parks the best in the nation, management continues to treat us with contempt," Lange said.

Celebrate Juneteenth in the Twin Cities this year with more than a dozen events that include free food, a carnival, educational opportunities and face painting, among other family-friendly activities.

Juneteenth, which falls on June 19, marks the anniversary of an 1865 order in Texas that freed slaves in the state at the end of the Civil War. The order came two years after President Abraham Lincoln ended slavery nationwide in 1863 with the Emancipation Proclamation. News of the emancipation was slow to reach Texas.

Juneteenth became a federally recognized holiday in 2021, and is considered the longest-running African American holiday, when community members acknowledge and celebrate Black liberation and accomplishments.

Here are a list of Juneteenth events around the Twin Cities:

The verdicts come in the seventh week of trial, and after rare allegations of jury tampering led to the dismissal of two jurors.

Workers at four Twin Cities Half Price Books locations ratified their first contract last week after unionizing two years ago.

Employees at stores in Coon Rapids, St. Paul, St. Louis Park and Roseville say their new contracts include pay raises, increases in starting salaries, and new job protections.

"A Minneapolis police officer, a suspected shooter and a civilian are dead after a shooting in the Whittier neighborhood on Thursday, the department said. Several others are injured.

Officer Jamal Mitchell died in the shooting, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said in an evening news conference."

'He was a hero, a son, a father, a fiancé, and an officer who was so deeply committed to protecting and serving,” Frey said. “Just a year ago Officer Jamal Mitchell was recognized for a heroic act in saving a number of people, an elderly couple, and that is just the kind of person that he was.'"

--

Now, I'm usually team ACAB but this event is a tragedy, so we're taking a day off. Jamal was one of the first to this scene, and while trying to offer medical support got ambushed and killed.

My brother was a few blocks away, but managed to be either far enough away or had good enough timing to not hear gunshots.

Several events were held this weekend to remember Floyd, a now annual tradition in Minneapolis. A coalition of activist organizations held a solidarity rally on the corner of Lake Street and Chicago Avenue. They were joined by Floyd’s relatives as well as the family of Calvin Horton Jr., who was shot and killed by a pawn shop owner during the unrest that followed the death of George Floyd. Prosecutors declined to bring charges against the man.

Many activists say Minnesota hasn’t done enough.

“After the murder of George Floyd, we had the murder of Daunte Wright,” said Trahern Crews, founder of Black Lives Matter Minnesota. “After the murder of George Floyd, we had the murder of Amir Locke. We had the murder of Tekle Sundberg. And there still has not been any justice in any of those cases.”

Minneapolis has the green light to proceed with a pilot that will allow the city to use cameras to catch speeders and drivers who run red lights and mail them a ticket.

A provision in an omnibus bill passed in the final hours of the Legislative session Sunday grants authority for the state's largest city to institute a traffic enforcement camera program that can start as soon as Aug. 1, 2025 and run for four years.

"Minneapolis now has authority," said Ethan Fawley, who coordinates the city's Vision Zero plan to eliminate traffic deaths within the next three years.

Over the next 15 months, Minneapolis will have to flesh out a plan on how the program would work, conduct community engagement and determine where up to 42 cameras can be placed. The law requires cameras to be placed in "geographically distinct areas and in multiple communities with differing socioeconomic conditions." The city also will need to procure equipment and hire traffic camera enforcement agents.

The Minneapolis 2040 Plan, which sought to end single-family zoning citywide and improve housing affordability, could move forward without the threat of continued environmental lawsuits.

A couple paragraphs tucked into a 1400-page bill passed in the waning hours of the 2024 legislative session exempts comprehensive plans — which are guiding documents for cities’ zoning and land use — from environmental review. The law applies retroactively to the most recent comprehensive plans created in the seven-county metro area, including the Minneapolis 2040 Plan, which has been stymied in recent years by environmental lawsuits.

Individual projects, like new apartment buildings, would still be subject to environmental review.

New Amtrak Borealis train begins service tomorrow, May 21st, 2024

https://www.trains.com/trn/news-reviews/news-wire/amtrak-to-launch-chicago-st-paul-train-may-21/

\#Train 333 to #Milwaukee and 340 to #Chicago will become Train 1333 to #Minneapolis and 1340 to Chicago.

\#Amtrak #Midwest #Minnesota #Wisconsin #Illinois @msp @usa

U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar won the endorsement of the state DFL party in her re-election bid for Minnesota’s 5th congressional district in a first round of balloting. The backing unlocks resources from the state party ahead of the August primary race.

Rep. Omar won the endorsement over former Minneapolis city council member Don Samuels, whom she defeated by just two percentage points in 2022. During a question-and-answer portion of the convention, Omar was asked about the war in Gaza which she referred to as a “genocide.”

“There is no way for us as citizens of this country to continue to allow our tax dollars to pay for the bombs that are destroying a civilian population,” Omar said to cheers from the audience.

The Minneapolis City Council approved a plan Thursday designed to correct what many longtime city residents have called one of the worst development decisions in the city’s history.

Under the new plan, the former Kmart department store and its parking lot which has blocked Nicollet Avenue near Lake Street since the late 1970s, will include mixed-use buildings, park land and new bike and pedestrian infrastructure.

This is largely fantastic, but I definitely laughed at Ham-line.

The University of Minnesota agreed late Wednesday night to consider student protesters’ demands calling for the university to divest from Israel.

Student organizers said that in light of the development, they plan to take down their encampment on the campus’ Northrup Mall by noon Thursday. A coalition of student groups set up camp for nearly 10 days. University police arrested nine people last week after they refused to leave an earlier iteration of the encampment.

The union said that members would vote on Thursday and Friday, and they would announce the results on Saturday. The unions can call a strike at any time after members approve, but are required to give the district 10 days’ notice before walking off the job.

The publications are part of Denver-based MediaNews Group, which is owned by Alden Global Capital, a hedge fund that purchased the group of papers in 2020. The company, one of the largest newspaper publishers in the country, is known for gutting and then closing local papers. It has published the St. Paul Pioneer Press since 2012.

Article text: ___ Another downtown Minneapolis tower is on the market, this time the Wells Fargo Center as the commercial real estate sector remains under pressure in the post-pandemic economy.

More evidence hybrid work policies are affecting real estate: Capella University significantly downsized its footprint at the Sixth Street tower that bears its name, giving up 167,000 square feet of leased space. Capella when its new lease takes effect will occupy only 111,714 square feet in the building, according to the first quarter office market report from Chicago-based JLL, a commercial real estate services firm.

"Capella University moved to hybrid work model expectations in 2023 following the COVID-19 pandemic," said Lucy Wilson-Garza, spokeswoman for Capella owner Strategic Education Inc. "We routinely assess our physical, brick-and-mortar office space to accommodate the dynamic needs of our employee base. Early this year, Capella University reevaluated our lease at the Capella Tower and used this opportunity to consolidate space."

Dallas-based CBRE Group Inc., which handles leasing for Capella Tower, declined comment. Officials for San Francisco-based Shorenstein Properties, which owns the tower, could not be reached for comment.

The overall office vacancy rate for downtown Minneapolis at the end of the first quarter was 31.3%, up a percentage point from the same quarter a year ago, according to Chicago-based Cushman & Wakefield, a commercial real estate services firm. In the first quarter of 2019, the rate was 19.6%.

More than 8.9 million square feet of office space in downtown Minneapolis is now available for lease, the firm said.

The Miami-based Starwood Capital Group acquired Wells Fargo Center for $315 million in 2019. Starwood representatives could not be reached for comment. CBRE is handling the listing.

The news regarding Wells Fargo and Capella are par for the course, real estate experts said.

Two dominant themes of today's office market are that tenants are seeking less space and buildings are being sold at steep discounts compared to previous sales.

"Values have dropped significantly and it's time for a reset," said Mike Salmen, managing principal for the Minneapolis office of Houston-based Transwestern.

The Cushman & Wakefield report took note of a smaller deal earlier this year in the Warehouse District: "the Kickernick Building in the Minneapolis CBD was sold at auction for $3.8 million, or approximately 20% of its 2017 sale price of $19.15 million."

Adam Duininck, CEO of the Minneapolis Downtown Council, said the downtown recovery remains mixed.

"I think there's a little bit of good news and a little bit of challenging news," said Adam Duininck, CEO of the Minneapolis Downtown Council.

Duininck pointed to U.S. Bancorp signing a 10-year renewal for its downtown headquarters last fall as a good sign. Downtown Council statistics show hotel occupancy, transit ridership and returning office workers are all increasing.

"We know there's more activity that's happening month by month," Duininck said.

An Anoka-Hennepin school board member backed by a conservative parents rights group says he plans to force a budget showdown if the district does not scrap programs aimed at racial and gender equity.

Matt Audette wrote in an April 12 Facebook post that he would not vote for any budget that included the “spreading of divisive, one-sided views.”

But officials at the north metro school district say many of these programs are required by law, and eliminating them could imperil the district’s funding and students’ ability to graduate.

A south Minneapolis iron foundry that repeatedly violated federal law with its air pollution also failed to protect employees from exposure to hazardous chemicals, according to a federal inspection.

The Minnesota Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) found that Smith foundry improperly exposed employees to carbon monoxide and respirable crystalline silica, and didn’t provide them with the proper protective equipment or training to mitigate such exposure, according to a news release from the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA).

Smith Foundry, which is currently under an enforcement process with the Environmental Protection Agency for violating the federal Clean Air Act, also didn’t provide employees with baseline medical examinations “within 30 days of assignment.” It also failed to provide new employees with proper respiration and mitigation training, according to the MPCA.

Leaders said more than 200 drivers had signed up with Drivers Cooperative, based in New York, and Hich, which operates in Africa and Canada. Uber and Lyft say they are leaving the market by May 1.

DFL Rep. Leigh Finke of St. Paul has had a busy first year as a legislator and her second year is set to build upon the work of the last.

Finke was the author of the Trans Refuge Act, which was signed into law last spring by Gov. Tim Walz. She says it was a “rallying moment for trans people both in Minnesota and outside.”

But it won’t end there.

“The promise of security is an ongoing promise,” Finke said. “If we’re going to take care of you, we’re going to need to continue to do that.” ... Finke and others celebrated Transgender Day of Visibility at the state Capitol building on Wednesday, but the nationally recognized day is March 31.

Mark Rivard is not your typical educator. He never went to college. He was not that good a student in high school. And he calls himself "uneducated."

But he has found a way to connect with young people through art and skateboards, and he is disrupting the education system just the way he disrupted the art world.

Rivard, a Longfellow resident, began his art career drawing on skateboards with Sharpie markers in the early 2000s. That led to an international endorsement campaign with Sharpie in 2011. A year later, he launched Do Rad Things, an active lifestyle brand, educational platform, and way of life. He has been inspiring others and doing rad things ever since.

Two journalists who were cornered and attacked by the Minnesota State Patrol as they covered protests over George Floyd’s murder for the Los Angeles Times will soon settle a lawsuit with the state for $1.2 million. The pair, one current and one former L.A. Times employee, alleged the troopers violated their 1st Amendment rights.

The settlement stems from a violent May 30, 2020, incident, when staff photographer Carolyn Cole and Molly Hennessy-Fiske, then The Times’ Houston bureau chief, were in Minneapolis covering the community’s response to Floyd’s murder by former Police Officer Derek Chauvin.

Minneapolis’ 19 Bar is shuttered after a fire burned through the building on Friday.

The popular gay bar has stood at West 15th Street since the 1950s. It calls itself one of the oldest operating gay bars in the United States.

There were no injuries reported. The bar wrote in a Facebook post that it’s closed until further notice.

This Historical Capsule was first published on Feb. 15, 1935. It gleefully announced that respected scholar W. E. B. DuBois would be speaking at Phyllis Wheatley Settlement House on Feb. 20, 1935. Also, in 1935, race was front and center as nightclubs were ordered to bar race patrons.

Trump administration officials used a "seriously flawed" process when they rejected a Minneapolis grant request over City Council members' support for the "defund the police" movement, according to a newly released audit.

The Bureau of Justice Assistance denied Minneapolis' 2020 application for $900,000 to address opioid overdoses, according to the report published this month by the Department of Justice inspector general.

"BJA's justification for denying Minneapolis funding contained critical errors and omissions that we believe rendered the justification inadequate," the inspector general's office wrote.

The federal denial came as opioid overdose deaths across Minnesota were skyrocketing. The number of deadly overdoses involving opioids more than doubled from 2019 to 2021, according to Minnesota Department of Health data.

On March 7, the city of Minneapolis voted to accept $75,000 from the National Park Service to continue documenting the history and contribution of Black people to the city.

The effort, which is a part of the Minneapolis African American Historic Context Study, will culminate with the city and its contractors researching the history of 25 local places. The project is also funded in part by a $67,500 Legacy Grant from the Minnesota Historical Society. The $75,000 will be used primarily to choose three of these places to be listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

“This study will help us recognize and celebrate African Americans within the history of Minneapolis. It will also help guide historic preservation planning in Minneapolis related to the city’s African American history,” said city spokesperson Casper Hill.

Dismissing Uber and Lyft’s threats to leave the city, the Minneapolis City Council voted 10-3 to override a mayoral veto of minimum pay rates for drivers.

The vote on Thursday sets up a six-week standoff between the progressive City Council and two tech giants, with Uber saying it will end service in the entire Twin Cities metro area when the rates take effect on May 1. Lyft says it will end service in Minneapolis when it takes effect.

Driver activists in the council chambers cheered after the vote was called in celebration of a significant victory after three disappointing vetoes in the past year — one by Gov. Tim Walz and two by Mayor Jacob Frey.