Southside Pride

	Phillips/Powderhorn Nokomis Riverside
February 2008

Phillips/Powderhorn: Feb 2007

High-speed transit— coming to a Lake Street near you


The $133.3 million grant is supposed to help make our roads look more like this.

Remodeling is planned to begin late this year for a high-speed transit system on I-35W with a special high occupancy toll (HOT) lane and a bus rapid transit (BRT) lane stretching south from downtown Minneapolis. Rapid transit will go hand in hand with the city’s I-35W/Lake Street Access Project that will provide a BRT station at Lake St., a connection to the Midtown Greenway and ramp access to Lake Street.

The plan will be funded by a $133.3 million U.S. Department of Transportation grant from an Urban Partnership Agreement (UPA) that is aimed to reduce traffic congestion using approaches like tolling and teleworking (which allows tasks like traffic control to be done using modern communication tools from a centralized location).

Plans for the use of UPA funds for local transit were presented by Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) and Metro Transit officials to the City’s Transportation and Public Works Committee at a meeting held Jan. 24 at South Minneapolis’ St. Joan of Arc Church.

City, neighbors judge—
When are convenience stores inconvenient?


The City has ordered Market Express, on the corner of 32nd & Chicago, to shut its doors on March 31. (Photo by Dennis Geisinger)

The Minneapolis Licensing and Consumer Services Department has intervened in the business of two area convenience stores. It made an agreement with the owners of Market Express at 32nd and Chicago to surrender their business license as of March 31 in order to avoid a revocation process. And the City office also called a recent hearing for the representatives of the SuperAmerica Store at 25th and Bloomington to “step up their management practices,” according to the City.

Powderhorn crime watch

Violent crime drops 13 percent

By now, most Minneapolis residents have heard the good news. Crime statistics published by the City show that the incidence of most types of crime, and in particular violent crime, dropped dramatically last year—a 13 percent drop overall, down by 4 percent in the 3rd Precinct.

Click here for a list of articles for February 2008

Nokomis: Feb 2007

Believe it— Almost a quarter million Minnesotans want Obama to be our next president

Above, a standing-room-only crowd at Target Center at a Barack Obama rally last Saturday. On Super Tuesday, South Minneapolis’ Senate District 61 had 79.05 percent of DFL caucusers for Obama, to Hillary Clinton’s 19.34 percent. In Senate District 62, Obama caucusers took 71.82 percent to 27.24 percent for Clinton. (Photo by Beth Brokering for Southside Pride ©2008)

City resuscitates neighborhood revitalization


NRP funds are set to pay for a facelift for the 50th Street LRT station area, among other projects. (Photo by Dennis Geisinger)

The City of Minneapolis has introduced a plan to keep alive the ailing, 18-year-old Neighborhood Revitalization Project (NRP), proposing among other things, a subsidy of at least $2 million a year to cover administrative costs for the city’s some 70 individual neighborhood associations.

The Standish-Ericsson Neighborhood Association (SENA) had to call for votes in December about moving $25,000 of unused NRP funds that had been set aside for area home improvement loans into its general operations budget. The SENA board said that it needed the money to provide operating funds for the association through February 2008.

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Pawlenty’s push for more immigration police called “political”

“We see this as a political move,” Minnesota Senate Majority Whip Patricia Torres Ray (DFL-Minneapolis) recently told Southside Pride about Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s Jan. 7 announcement of an executive order requiring some Minnesota law enforcement officers to enforce federal immigration law. “He has put the Legislature in a very difficult place because of his political ambitions and I resent it,” said Torres Ray.

Pawlenty’s order means that Department of Public Safety personnel must now make time for searches of fraudulent photos on the state’s driver’s license database and that new state employees and contractors who do business with the state must cover the cost of verifying citizenship with an internet-based system run by the federal government.

Love and chocolate— tips from an expert

excerpted from “Touched by the Extraordinary”

“Love really isn’t about hearts and flowers and grand romantic gestures,” says Susan Apollon, author of “Touched by the Extraordinary: An Intuitive Psychologist Shares Insights, Lessons, and True Stories of Spirit and Love to Transform and Heal the Soul.” “It isn’t about who got the best gift, or who has a partner and who doesn’t. Love is a way of living.

Green Party caucuses are on March 4 Check mngreens.org for more info

Click here for a list of articles for February 2008

Riverside: Feb 2007

Born to Skate

Read the touching story about a young skater who got her start in the sport at Matthews Park.

Come see skaters like Michelle Hedges perform at the Blades of March on March 1.

West Bank residents push for Cedar Avenue
LRT stop

“This was a victory for the representatives who worked so hard to get a workable transportation system for their community,” said Doris Wickstrom, chair of the Land Use Committee for the West Bank Community Coalition (WBCC). “This has been a wonderful project for the experience of getting things done,” Wickstrom said.
Wickstrom was responding to questions asked last week by Southside Pride about her organization’s experience in working with and sometimes against the interests of political powerhouses like the University of Minnesota, the City of Minneapolis and the Metropolitan Council in making sure that the needs of the Cedar-Riverside Neighborhood were fairly addressed while plans were being drawn up for the $840 million light rail transit project that will connect Minneapolis and St. Paul.

Ex-offenders organize on “Second Chance Day”


Supporters of programs for ex-offenders and homeless citizens gathered at the Capitol last week. (Photo by Dennis Geisinger)

“I am an ex-offender, but I too, am America,” Andre Corbett, an employment support consultant for Easter Seals Minnesota, told the circle of faces around him in the State Capitol rotunda on Wednesday, Feb. 13, using a phrase borrowed from the poet Langston Hughes.

Corbett was one of a dozen ex-criminal-offenders, support professionals and policymakers who spoke to approximately 200 to 300 displaced individuals who had come to the Capitol as part of a “Second Chance Day on the Hill” event organized by community coordinator Guy Gambill; re-entry services coordinator for Goodwill/Easter Seals Minnesota, Rob Hope; and director of juvenile services for local mentoring program, 180 Degrees, Inc., Sarah Walker.

“We shall overcome!” a group of children brought by the Minneapolis Urban League sang inside the Capitol doors,

Ice rink rumors: What’s the deal?

“I’ve gotten 30 or 40 phone calls and e-mails about the Matthews Park ice rink closing,” Minneapolis Park Board District 3 Commissioner Scott Vreeland (who manages Matthews, Brackett, East Phillips, Powderhorn and Longfellow Parks, among others) told Southside Pride. “No one that I know has talked about closing the Matthews’ rink. As a matter of fact, I was just out there today [last Tuesday] watching them put down water,” Vreeland said. The ice rink at Brackett Park was not opened this season because of budget constraints.

Click here for a list of articles for February 2008