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Ernie and Anna took time to stop and shake hands as they walked around Powderhorn Park on a mild December day.
Photo by Sadie McKinley
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Cops
out of
control?
BY ED FELIEN
“If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—forever.” George Orwell, “1984”
The Minneapolis City Council agreed on Friday, Dec. 9, to pay out another $1 million to victims of police brutality. On the night of Feb. 16, 2010, the MPD were executing a search warrant looking for David Conley whom they believed was selling drugs at a South Minneapolis address.
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Powderhorn Park facelift scheduled for summer
According to Park Commissioner Scott Vreeland: “$500,000 was allocated in the 2011 MPRB budget to Powderhorn Park for trail and related improvements. To prepare for the improvements, the MPRB Planning Division will engage the community in a park planning process beginning in the early months of 2012. What will result is a new park master plan that highlights park design and all park investment needs over the next decade or so. Trail construction is anticipated to begin in summer of 2012.
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61B election set for Jan. 10
BY ED FELIEN
Susan Allen easily won the DFL primary election held on Tuesday, Dec. 6, with 82% of the vote. A Native American and lawyer, she will face Nathan Blumenshine in the general election on Tuesday, Jan. 10. Blumenshine gathered enough signatures to get on the ballot as a candidate for the Respect Party.
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Hodge-podge in the park
by John Karrigan
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Dark eyed Junco |
Last month I wrote that we probably would not see any more Canada Geese or Ring-billed Gulls until spring. I was more or less right about that. The next day, after I wrote that (Dec. 1), the remaining ducks I mentioned last month, the 20 or so Mallards and one female Wood Duck, were still in the tiny area of open water around the dock. That was the last day for ducks on the lake. However, I did see a Ring-billed Gull that day, inspecting the lake from a high altitude. From a distance, I saw a group of large birds on the ice. At first, I thought I was wrong about no more geese, but all the large birds on the ice were Crows. A day after that, I saw one male Mallard and then a few minutes later, three male Mallards. All the ducks were flying over for inspections; all circled above the lake and then left. Somewhat later, on Dec. 18, about 30 Canada Geese came on an inspection trip. They came from the north-northeast, circled over the lake at a fairly high altitude and left going north-northwest. So I guess I was right, water birds might come to inspect, but that will be all for some time.
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Looking for love in very old places, Part Two
BY ED FELIEN AND CAROL HOGARD
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Carol standing next to a "Cycladic Goddess" statue
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We landed in Cagliari, the capital of Sardinia, and spent a couple of days wandering through museums, looking at sculptures and figurines, but we were anxious to see something real, something on site, in situ (as archeologists say), that had been part of the life of the pre-Nuraghic or Ozieri culture.
We went to a small town on the southeast coast, Villasimius, where there was supposed to be a good example of a domus de janas. Domus de janas was what locals called these little structures. The term means fairy houses. There is something whimsical about them. The one we found by the sea in Villasimius looked like a stone igloo, with a narrow passageway leading to a bigger room. Of course, if you’re looking for inferences to the great mother goddess culture, then the structure could also remind you of the female reproductive anatomy, with a vaginal canal leading to a large womb, and the womb would have been the final resting place for the woman to be buried. There were two large flat stones guarding the entrance that could have been placed in front to keep out small animals while the body decomposed. The structure was quite small, but four thousand years ago people were quite a bit smaller.
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Boondoggle Park
BY ED FELIEN AND SHAWNE FITZGERALD
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The Yamasaki building at Washington and Hennepin |
The downtown business interests want to declare themselves a park and have the rest of us pay for their festive decorations. They’re talking about our spending $50 to $100 to $150 million on landscaping improvements.
Their just released “Downtown 2025 Plan” is breathtaking:
“The Nicollet corridor will cover 20 blocks, starting at the Walker Art Center and Sculpture Garden, running through Loring Park to Peavey Plaza, then heading north along a newly green and fashionable Nicollet Avenue to the Mississippi Riverfront.
“Starting at the 5th Street light-rail station, a strip of intense greenery will run for six blocks to the foot of the Father Hennepin Bridge. This Gateway Park will feature a large gathering space just north of the Library and a ‘step down’ to the river on the current site of the Post Office parking ramp.”
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Unemployment rate disguises true extent of jobs crisis
Through its groundbreaking research and tireless public education, Minnesota’s JOBS NOW Coalition has challenged conventional economic wisdom for nearly 30 years. The coalition consists of more than 100 organizational members who come together around the belief that all workers should have the opportunity to attain a decent standard of living. Below, Southside Pride’s Dick Taylor interviews JOBS NOW’s education director, Kevin Ristau.
SSP: What is the main focus of JOBS NOW’s research?
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Folwell to reopen in 2013
BY ED FELIEN
When I went to Folwell in the early 1950s, it was a seventh through ninth grade junior high school. It was a feeder school to Central High School, South and Roosevelt. It was full to over-crowding, with a student population of at least 2,000. And it was at least 99% white. That school closed in 2010.
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The NRP Policy Board is dead Long live the NRP Policy Board
BY GARY ARNTSEN
Twenty-four hours after the NRP Policy Board adjourned its final meeting, after 20-plus years, neighborhood representatives Carol Pass and Jeff Strand were elected by the Neighborhood and Community Engagement Commission (NCEC) to the newly reconstituted NRP Policy Board. Their current terms ended Dec. 31, and their new terms begin in January and end in June.
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Longfellow School has become a high school for mothers
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Tatianna Carpenter, Darryanna Williams, Jocelyn Gums, Larencia Bigbear
Photo by Opal Ehalt |
The doors are once again open at the Longfellow building at 3017 E. 31st St. in South Minneapolis. Presently housed in this unique and lovely complex is a growing and wonderful program for pregnant and parenting mothers. These female high school students are earning credit while continuing to balance motherhood, study and often work.
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Preparing for the future
Dear families,
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Bernadeia H. Johnson, Ed.D.
Superintendent of Schools |
This is an exciting time of year. Teachers and students are settling back in their classrooms after winter break and have important work ahead in the last semester of the school year. Our kindergarten students are striving to meet literacy goals, MCA-II tests are right around the corner and many of our students are preparing to start a new phase of their academic careers.
Fifth-grade students are preparing to enter middle school, eighth-grade students are preparing to enter high school and our high school seniors are preparing for college and career paths. Each day, our students are gaining an urban education experience as they prepare to become global citizens.
It is also almost time for families with children in grades K – 11 to choose a school.
Please join us at the upcoming Pre-K – 8 School Information Fair, Jan. 21 from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., at the Hyatt Regency, 1300 Nicollet Mall, Minneapolis. Families with students in all grades should request a school before Feb. 29.
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The “big stick” of people power
BY JIM HIGHTOWER
Getting Congress to act on behalf of the People’s interest—especially when it requires members to take a firm stand against the moneyed interests—can’t be done by saying “pretty please.” Congress is a beast—to make it move, you have to whack it with a big stick.
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An alternative to big-box banking
BY GAIL RAJALA HAYDEN
What does the word “‘bank” represent to you? Of late, to many it has meant heartache. To customers of Woodlands National Bank, however, it has meant a port in the storm.
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January
Announcements
Southside United Neighborhood (SUN) Project
Over the past year, seven neighborhood organizations in South Minneapolis have worked together to explore strategic partnership opportunities that will improve operating efficiencies and ensure long-term sustainability of the sector while improving our capacity to engage and build grassroots leadership.
The partnership is called the Southside United Neighborhoods Project (SUN Project) and the following neighborhood organizations, representing eleven neighborhoods are participating: Bancroft Neigh-borhood Associa-tion, Bryant Neighborhood Organization, Central Area Neighborhood Development Organization, Corcoran Neighborhood Organization, Longfellow Community Council, Powderhorn Park Neighborhood Association and Standish-Ericcson Neighborhood Association.
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January 2012 
