Insight ::: 06.01.2026

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Insight News • June 1, 2026 - June 7, 2026 • Page 1

Insight News

INSIGHT NEWS WON THE MESSENGER AWARDS 2024 F OR THIRD PLACE IN WEBSITE EXCELLENCE, THIRD PLACE IN LAYOUT & DESIGN AND FIRS T PLACE F OR NEWSLETTER EXCELLENCE.

June 1, 2026 - June 7, 2026

Vol. 53 No. 22 • The Journal For Community News, Business & The Arts • insightnews.com

Credit: Uzoma Obasi

From left to right: Mary Stoick, Sunrise Banks, Ramla Bile, Bush Foundation, Lataya Allseits, US Bank, Katie Clark Sieben, Cargill Foundation, Warren McLean, Neon CEO, Kiera Fernandez, Target Foundation, Laura Oberst, Wells Fargo, Neeraj Mehta, McKnight Foundation

Credit: Uzoma Obasi

2041 West Broadway Ave., NEON Collective Kitchens opens the infrastructure of commercial food entrepreneurship to the Northside — debt-free, community-built, and designed from the floor up for multi-generational wealth

Credit: Uzoma Obasi

Former City Council President Jackie Cherryhomes and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey

NEON's $22 million shared-wealth kitchen Editor

By Al McFarlane The question came from Clara “Missie” Lewis, Director of Community Engagement of the Northside Economic Opportunity Network’s brand-new NEON Collective Kitchens, as she walked me through the facility at 2041 West Broadway Ave. on an afternoon when the corridors smelled of fresh construction and possibility in roughly equal measure. It is, in retrospect, exactly the right question for a building that was built to make people visible — people who have long had the skills, the drive, and the community relationships to run food businesses, but not the infrastructure to sustain them.

The answer is yes.

That is what this story is for.

NEON Collective Kitchens is a $22 million, multi-level commercial food hub that permanently changes

what is possible for food entrepreneurs on the Northside of Minneapolis. Eleven commercial kitchens. Shared processing zones. Retail food counters.

Cold and frozen storage. A Consumer-Packaged Goods suite designed for agricultural entrepreneurs scaling toward distribution. A 104-person community room. And a financial model that removes the most common killer of Black and Brown food businesses before they ever get started: the crushing capital requirements of traditional commercial leasing.

Built without debt — every dollar of the $22 million raised through a community-accountable capital campaign — NEON Collective Kitchens is what it looks like when a community refuses to wait for the private market to solve a problem it created.

“The goal is to make North Minneapolis a destination instead of a drive-thru.”

Clara “Missie” Lewis, Director of Community Engagement, NEON

Erasing the desert: the problem this building solves

North Minneapolis has operated under one of the most severe

concentrations of food insecurity in the United States. According to NEON project leaders, the neighborhood represents the fifth-largest food desert in the country. That designation reflects not simply a lack of grocery access but a decades-long structural disinvestment in the physical and financial infrastructure that sustains community economic life.

The specific crisis that catalyzed NEON Collective Kitchens came during the COVID-19 pandemic, when a prior shared kitchen model operating on West Broadway changed its format and closed.

The gap was immediate and visible: food entrepreneurs who had been using that space to launch and grow catering operations, food trucks, and specialty products lost their production home. NEON, whose mission is to create pathways out of poverty through business ownership, recognized the gap and committed to fill it permanently.

“Things don’t happen overnight, you know that. But let’s see if everybody can come together in a certain way — we could.”

— Warren McLean, President and CEO, NEON

What NEON built is not a stop-gap. It is a 30year infrastructure investment designed to serve at least 85 businesses per day, reach approximately 300 businesses annually through 24/7 kitchen access, and anchor a food hall that will serve hundreds of community customers every week.

Forty percent of NEON’s existing business clients work in the food industry. The facility was designed around their actual needs — which is why the building you see today looks different from the original architectural concept.

The initial design from LSE Architects proposed 24 smaller individual kitchen spaces. NEON’s client community pushed back. What they needed was larger shared cooking zones with significantly more robust storage — cold storage, frozen storage, and secure personal storage for specialized equipment. The final design reflects that feedback directly. This is a building shaped by the people who will use it.

Breaking the brick-and-mortar barrier

Lewis’s framing of the problem is as precise as it is true. Black

and Brown entrepreneurs enter food businesses at high rates — because the entry point is accessible in ways other industries are not. The knowledge is there.

The recipes are there. The customer relationships are there.

What is not there, for most, is the capital to sustain a commercial lease.

“Black and Brown people are the highest to go into food businesses because it’s the easiest to get into — we know how to cook, we know how to serve people. But getting into a brick-and-mortar is another thing.”

— Clara “Missie” Lewis, Director of Community Engagement, NEON Lewis described the specific traps hidden inside traditional commercial leases — where entrepreneurs sign agreements only to discover they are responsible for tens of thousands of dollars in infrastructure: commercial refrigerators, industrial stoves, fire suppression systems, ADA-compliant public restrooms. The lease looks like access. It functions as a debt trap.

NEON Collective Kitchens removes that trap entirely. For a flat monthly fee,

members receive fully permitted, secure access to premium commercial infrastructure — warming stations, display refrigeration, blast chillers, prep areas — available from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., with 24-hour backof-house access for qualifying kitchen tenants. The equipment is there. The permits are current.

The liability infrastructure is in place. The entrepreneur brings their talent and their food.

Business advisors are on staff — not to take a cut, and not to extract intellectual property, but to help members navigate the regulatory landscape of licensing, corporate documentation, and brand protection. Lewis put it plainly: “They’re just helping them create generational wealth.”

— Clara “Missie” Lewis, Director of Community Engagement, NEON The standard is real and it is enforced. Lewis is direct about this: the facility demands excellence, and that expectation is non-negotiable.

“You’ve got to have standards. Once you’ve got the

NEON 10

Page 2 • June 1, 2026 - June 7, 2026 • Insight News

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Masters of the craft

Celebrating the legacies of T. Mychael Rambo and Bruce A. Henry Editor

By Al McFarlane When the cultural history of the Twin Cities arts community is written with the care it deserves, two names will occupy the same essential chapter: Bruce A. Henry and T. Mychael Rambo. As vocalists, educators, stage art-

ists, and community anchors, both men have spent decades doing something that goes beyond performance — transforming the stage into a space for collective healing, historical reckoning, and communal joy.

They are, in the fullest sense, masters of the craft.

Bruce A. Henry: the voice of heritage and imagination

Known internationally as a "man of great musical imagination," Bruce A. Henry is a vocalist, historian, storyteller, composer, and educator whose three-and-a-half-octave bari-

tone range — carrying him fluidly into tenor, alto, and falsetto — has taken him to five continents. Born in West Point, Mississippi, home of Howlin' Wolf, he grew up in Chicago surrounded by his pianist father's records: Count Basie, Duke Ellington, the architecture of the swing era. He began singing publicly at age five in his family's Baptist church and was classically trained before the pull of improvisation claimed him for good.

His influences read as a map of Black American and African diasporic music:

John Coltrane, Nina Simone, Gil Scott-Heron, Leon Thomas, Al Jarreau, Marvin Gaye, Mahalia Jackson, James Cleveland. That breadth is audible in performance — Henry moves between sacred spirituals and pocket-groove R&B, between jazz composition and spoken word, without seam or apology.

He has been described by Mpls.

St.Paul Magazine as a "true master of the jazz form."

"There is no such thing as an audience — only a community participating together." — Bruce A. Henry His performance foot-

print is global. He has appeared on stages from Le Bilboquet in Paris and The Whitbread in London to the Klezmer Festival in Israel and the Malate concert in Manila. Locally, he has captivated audiences at Orchestra Hall, the Twin Cities Jazz Festival, and The Dakota. But the geography of his work has never been the point. Whether performing in North Minneapolis or northern Europe, Henry arrives with the same conviction: music is a communal act, and the artist's job is to hold space for the community to know itself.

Vision of freedom Kevin Lindsey steers Minnesota Humanities Center's Juneteenth series into deeper historical truths

West Broadway's Capri Theater gears up for a blockbuster June 6 A day of free arts celebration, Northside documentary, and soul music — all at one historic venue For nearly a century, the historic Capri Theater has stood as a beacon of artistic expression, resilience, and community pride in North Minneapolis.

Managed by Plymouth Christian Youth Center (PCYC), the Capri serves as much more than a performance destination — it is an educational and cultural epicenter that contributes mightily to the social and economic vitality of the Northside.

That rich legacy will be on full, vibrant display on Saturday, June 6, 2026, as the venue hosts an extraordinary three-part lineup: a free community arts festival, a cinematic look at the Minneapolis Sound, and a world-class evening of live soul music.

Noon – 5:00 PM: The Capri Arts Festival

The excitement begins right on the plaza with the annual Capri Arts Festival — an all-day, family-friendly event designed to bring neighbors together through the shared power of creativity. Attendees can look forward to: • Hands-on art: Interactive creative activities for all generations • Live movement and music: Pop-up performances across the outdoor plaza and throughout the venue • Community voices: A marquee 2:00 PM community singalong led by the iconic J.D. Steele • Local flavor: A diverse array of food from neighborhood vendors Admission is free.

The festival is open to the full community.

1:30 PM: Finding Our Way — a story of the Minneapolis Sound

Stepping inside the theater during the festival, audiences will have a unique opportunity to experience a special documentary screening presented by the Minneapolis Sound Museum.

Titled Finding Our Way: A Story of the Minneapolis Sound, the short film traces the roots, the risks, and the immense creative fire that fueled the city’s legendary musical evolution. The screening offers an intimate look at the specific Northside neighborhoods and visionary local artists who built a genre that changed global popular music forever.

CAPRI

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Kevin Lindsey

As the Minnesota Humanities Center (MHC) prepares to launch its 2026 Juneteenth event series, the four-program lineup stands as a direct and deliberate reflection of the organization's evolving mission under CEO Kevin Lindsey. Since joining MHC in June 2019, Lindsey has steadily steered the organization toward a model of public humanities that does not observe history from a safe distance — it walks into it, names it, and demands that its audience account for what it finds.

This year's series — running June 18

through June 28 and anchored by a brunch featuring National Book Critics Circle Award winner Clint Smith — showcases an intentional effort to examine how freedom has been defined, delayed, and still-unfinished in the United States. With events that range from high-stakes civic dialogue to culinary storytelling, choral performance, theatrical commemoration, and documentary film, Lindsey's MHC asks a question that has no easy answer: What does the delayed realization of freedom demand of us today?

That conviction animates his signature educational initiative, The Evolution of African American Music — a rigorous curriculum and performance program that traces the 400-year journey from traditional African rhythms through the full spectrum of Black American genres. It is his version of "edutainment" in the deepest sense: not music used as a teaching aid, but history made visceral through song. Henry has delivered this program

LEGACY

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"To build a more equitable society, we need to establish trust between communities and create space for meaningful conversations and empathy." — Kevin Lindsey, CEO, Minnesota Humanities Center

A career rooted in equity, law, and public service

Kevin Lindsey, J.D., brings a formidable and precisely relevant background to his role as MHC CEO — one shaped by the law, by civil rights enforcement, and by a conviction that storytelling is, at its core, the engine of justice.

From 2011 to 2019 — nearly eight years — Lindsey served as Commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Human Rights, appointed to the governor's cabinet to enforce civil rights laws, lead statewide equity initiatives, and confront institutional disparities. The results were measurable. Under his leadership, labor participation by targeted racial and Indigenous communities on state contracts increased from 11 to 27 percent. On Minnesota's largest construction projects, that figure climbed above 32 percent. These were not symbolic achievements. They were structural ones — the kind that can only be built by someone who understands both the law and the communities the law has historically failed.

Lindsey received his J.D. and B.S. in Political Science from the University of Iowa, where he also served as editor-in-chief of the Iowa Law Review. His alma mater hon-

JUNETEENTH 11

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Insight News • June 1, 2026 - June 7, 2026 • Page 3

Insight News

INSIGHT NEWS WON THE MESSENGER AWARDS 2024 F OR THIRD PLACE IN WEBSITE EXCELLENCE, THIRD PLACE IN LAYOUT & DESIGN AND FIRS T PLACE F OR NEWSLETTER EXCELLENCE.

June 1, 2026 - June 7, 2026

Vol. 53 No. 22 • The Journal For Community News, Business & The Arts • insightnews.com

How Camden became a model for police reform Through years of pressure, organizing, and local accountability, community groups, activists, and local media helped reshape policing in Camden.

By John A. Shjarback Associate Professor of Criminal Justice, Rowan University

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, Council Member Robin Wonsley, and Council Member LaTrisha Vetaw

A department under review Minneapolis grapples with police reform, surveillance, and civil rights The Minneapolis City Council is navigating a crowded and contentious public safety agenda this spring — one that stretches from the fate of a proposed $6.1 million police training compound to a discrimination lawsuit that puts MPD's conduct toward a transgender employee squarely before a Hennepin County jury. In between: a city auditor's report that lays bare how badly the department failed two residents of color in documented crisis, and a quietly advancing proposal to put camera-equipped drones in the air over North Minneapolis as first responders to 911 calls.

The four issues share a common thread. Each one forces a question the city has been unable to fully answer since the killing of George Floyd in 2020: what does meaningful reform look like, and who bears the cost when it stalls?

1. The 'Cop City' rejection: reform before real estate

The Minneapolis City Council voted earlier this spring to reject a $6.1 million proposal to purchase five acres in Ward 11 for a new police training and wellness facility — a site that critics across the city quickly labeled "Cop City," borrowing the shorthand used in Atlanta to describe a similarly contested police compound.

Mayor Jacob Frey's administration had proposed acquiring an industrial warehouse property and redirecting $6 million in bond funds — money previously allocated for traffic calming, ADA sidewalk accessibility upgrades, and animal shelter improvements — to begin assembling the site. The full projected cost of the facility is approximately $38 million, with the Frey administration

hoping to draw state matching funds for a portion of that total.

The Council voted 7-6 to refer the items back to staff rather than vote them up or down — a procedural move that removes the purchase from immediate consideration but leaves the door open for the Frey administration to reintroduce it. Six members — Council Members Robin Wonsley (Ward 2), Jason Chavez (Ward 9), Aisha Chughtai (Ward 10), Soren Stevenson (Ward 8), Aurin Chowdhury (Ward 12), and Council President Elliott Payne (Ward 1) — were prepared to vote the items down outright.

Their votes against the referral signaled that for at least six members, this was not a procedural question.

At the center of the opposition: the Minnesota Department of Human Rights settlement agreement, under

Counting us out

How Minnesota state agencies starve ethnic media while preaching equity Editor

By Al McFarlane Every year, the State of Minnesota spends millions of dollars in public funds to tell its residents — all of its residents — about health insurance en-

rollment, veterans' benefits, workforce programs, and family support services. This is not discretionary marketing. This is the state fulfilling its basic obligation to make sure the people it serves know what they are entitled to.

The question has always been: which Minnesotans get to hear the message?

The answer, documented for the first time by the inaugural disclosures filed under Minn. Stat. § 15.442 on February 1, 2026, is

a number that should embarrass every state official who has ever invoked racial equity as a governing principle: of $2.4 million spent on public interest advertising across 12 major state agencies, more than 70 percent — approximately $1.7 million — left Minnesota entirely, routed to out-of-state global technology conglomerates through programmatic ad platforms.

Less than 30 percent, roughly $700,000, reached local Minnesota media. And within that already-depleted local share, the

which Minneapolis is obligated to implement specific training reforms. The city's most recent compliance report cited executive leadership failures as the primary cause of stalled progress. Critics of the facility argued it was incoherent to spend millions acquiring new land and constructing new buildings while the department remained out of compliance with the very training requirements the settlement demands.

“The City prioritizing resources and time to purchase new land rather than focusing on the specific training requirements that MPD currently is out of compliance with is poor governance.”

— Council Member Robin Wonsley (Ward 2), Minority Leader Wonsley also noted that the administration had yet to outline a plan for implementing the Safe and Thriving Communities Plan — the community-developed public safety framework the Council has

REFORM

The transparency law and what it revealed

Minn. Stat. § 15.442 was enacted as a transparency measure, not a spending mandate. It re-

Health

They're back: wood ticks, deer ticks, and what every Twin Cities resident needs to know right now

PAGE 8

County takeover of city police department

Under-policing came to define the final years of the Camden City Police Department, or CPD. Police presence in the community was largely absent.

In contrast, the Camden County Police Department, or CCPD, began its new mandate with an aggressive, broken-windows style of policing that included targeting low

CAMDEN

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community and ethnic media organizations that serve Black, Indigenous, Latino, Somali, Hmong, and other communities of color received a fraction so small it does not even appear as a named line item in any agency's disclosure.

This is not a policy oversight. It is a policy choice — one that contradicts in measurable, documented dollars the equity rhetoric that Minnesota's executive branch has deployed for years. And it is happening at precisely the moment when the Twin Cities metro area is crossing the threshold toward a non-white majority population, when ethnic and community media are under their most severe economic pressure in decades, and when the communities most dependent on those outlets for trusted, culturally competent public information are the ones most in need of it.

More than $1.7 million in Minnesota public advertising dollars left the state — routed to Google and Meta — while ethnic media received a fraction too small to name.

MEDIA

In 2025, Camden, New Jersey – a city of about 72,000 residents that sits across the Delaware River from Philadelphia – experienced its first homicide-free summer in nearly 50 years.

The city ended the year with 12 homicides – a stark drop from 2012 when it recorded 67, a per capita rate 18 times the national average at the time.

I’m a professor of criminal justice who wrote a book on police reform efforts in Camden over the last 15 years.

The stunning turnaround in violent crime has led Camden and its newly formed Camden County Police Department, which was established in 2013 and replaced the Camden City Police Department, to be hailed as a model of reform. In 2015, then-President Obama visited the city to highlight the progress made.

Positive national and

international attention on police reform in Camden continued in 2020 following the murder of George Floyd. This attention stemmed from the Minneapolis city council’s unanimous decision to dissolve the Minneapolis Police Department and start anew – much as Camden had done seven years earlier.

Yet one topic that I believe such discussions and commentary often overlook is the role that community and activist groups, as well as local media, played in better policing by the Camden County Police Department.

9

Credit: Chad Davis - Brian O'Hara, DOJ press conference

Brian O'Hara

Brian O’Hara resigns as Mpls police chief Mayor Frey names Assistant Chief Katie Blackwell as acting chief following investigation into workplace conduct probe Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara resigned Tuesday, May 26, 2026, after Mayor Jacob Frey announced that an internal investigation substantiated findings that O’Hara interfered with a prior probe into his workplace conduct. The initial investigation stemmed from an anonymous claim that O’Hara engaged in inappropriate intimate relationships with city employees; investigators did not substantiate those underlying relationship allegations.

However, a separate probe revealed a significant pattern of interference. Frey’s written reprimand noted that O’Hara “knowingly and intentionally” deleted a contact card for a

city employee from his city-issued phone during the original investigation, which Frey said was done “in an attempt to shield that evidence” of his connection to the employee.

Furthermore, O’Hara violated explicit instructions not to discuss the ongoing probe when he informed another city employee that investigators had seized his phone.

"Everyone makes mistakes, including me, but what I can’t allow is a breach of trust," Frey stated during a Tuesday evening press conference. "When you serve as chief of the Minneapolis Police De-

CHIEF

7

Health

Ebola outbreak in the DRC: Four reasons it will be hard to contain

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Page 4 • June 1, 2026 - June 7, 2026 • Insight News

Legacy From 2 in schools, concert halls, and community centers across the country, insisting that the story of Black music is the story of Black survival, creativity, and genius — and that young people deserve to receive it whole.

He has recorded and toured with artists including Sounds of Blackness, Oleta Adams, and Steve Miller, and has been recognized by the Minnesota State Arts Board, the City of Minneapolis, and the Knight Foundation, among others. His work has been featured on NPR and in major regional publications. He holds academic credentials that would be impressive in any field and wears them lightly, the way artists who have nothing left to prove tend to do.

T. Mychael Rambo: an agent of transformation

Three-time Regional Emmy Award-winning actor, vocalist, and affiliate professor at the University of Minnesota, T. Mychael Rambo is a titan of the regional stage. With a presence that commands immediate warmth and authority, Rambo has spent his career using the-

Capri From 2 Admission is free, inside the theater.

7:00 PM: Legends @ the Capri season finale — Adam Bohanan

As night falls, the energy shifts to the grand stage for the final performance of the Capri’s 16th Legends @ the Capri season. The theater will welcome Minnesota’s own soul royalty, Adam Bohanan, for a powerhouse concert titled Because I Said Soul!

Bohanan is a Black and Jewish Twin Cities artist

ater, spoken word, and song as tools for social change — not as metaphor, but as method.

His stage resume at Minnesota's premier theatrical institutions is virtually complete: the Guthrie Theater, Penumbra Theatre, the Ordway, Mixed Blood, Ten Thousand Things Theater. He has performed principal roles at all of them, and then carried that same work to Carnegie Hall and to international stages across Africa, Europe, and South America.

His ability to inhabit characters across historical periods, emotional registers, and political contexts is the product of both extraordinary natural gift and decades of disciplined craft.

"Theater is not what happens on a stage. It's what happens between people." — T. Mychael Rambo On screen, Rambo's credits span feature films and acclaimed HBO productions, including the landmark miniseries Laurel Avenue — a rare piece of American television that took Black working-class family life seriously on its own terms. His voice has carried national anthems before President Barack Obama and President Jimmy Carter. His teaching at the University of Minnesota has shaped a generation of Minnesota artists who carry his

influence into their own work without necessarily knowing its origin.

Rambo's deepest commitment is to what might be called transformative performance — the idea that theater and song can shift something real in an audience, not just entertain it. That commitment has made him a consistent presence at the intersection of art and community work in the Twin Cities, a figure who shows up when the work is hard and the audiences are those who most need to be seen.

He has been recognized with the McKnight Fellowship, the Bush Fellowship, and multiple honors from the region's arts community. He holds a Master of Fine Arts degree and brings the full weight of that training to work that never loses its connection to the street, the church, and the kitchen table.

whose music draws from soul, jazz, funk, and R&B, with influences ranging from Stevie Wonder and Sam Cooke to D’Angelo, Donny Hathaway, and Marvin Gaye. On The Voice, he was a one-chair turn — chosen

by Reba McEntire alone — who worked his way all the way to the Top 8 semifinalist round of Season 26, earning high praise for his “dirty soul” sound: raspy, growly, and powerfully ranged.

His notable Voice performances included covers of Teddy Swims’ “Lose Control,” Black Pumas’ “Colors,” and Chris Stapleton’s “Think I’m in Love with You” — the last of which he delivered with an Al Green-inspired vibe that advanced him to the live shows.

He brings that same depth of

reference and soulful originality to the Capri stage.

Tickets for the evening concert are $27.38, available through the Capri box office at thecapri.org or by calling 612-643-2040.

“Adam’s got that dirty soul. He’s raspy, he’s growly, he’s got a terrific range. He’s my dirty soul singer.”

— Reba McEntire, The Voice Season 26

Why these two, why now

Bruce A. Henry and T. Mychael Rambo are not peers in the sense of having followed the same path. Their trajectories are distinct — one rooted in jazz and the African American musical tradition, the other in theatrical performance and spoken word. But they share something essential: a refusal to treat art

A venue worth knowing

The Capri’s June 6 program is a concentrated expression of what this institution does year-round.

Under PCYC’s ownership, the Capri has grown from a deteriorating movie house into a state-of-the-art community per-

insightnews.com as separate from community, a deep commitment to the historical and spiritual dimensions of Black cultural expression, and a career-long insistence that the people in front of them — in school auditoriums, concert halls, community centers — deserve the full weight of what they have to offer.

In an era when the Twin Cities arts community continues to grapple with questions of equity, sustainability, and whose stories get told and funded, the legacies of Henry and Rambo offer both an anchor and a challenge. They have built what they built largely on the strength of their artistry, their discipline, and their relationships with community. That is not a small thing. It is, in fact, the thing.

Insight News is proud to recognize both artists as masters of the craft — and to invite our readers to seek out their work, support their institutions, and share their stories with the next generation of Twin Cities artists.

Insight News uses AI-assisted tools in some editorial production. Read our AI Policy & Transparency Statement at www.insightnews.com/ site/ai_policy.html. formance venue — the product of years of capital campaigning, a $12.5 million renovation completed in 2021, and an unwavering institutional commitment to the Northside.

Camp Capri, the Capri After-School Theater program, Capri Glee, the Legends @ the Capri concert series, co-productions with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra — the programming reflects a theater that understands its role as an economic and cultural anchor for West Broadway.

June 6 is a single day.

But it is also a portrait of everything the Capri has been building toward for nearly a century.

Event details — Saturday, June 6, 2026 | The Capri

INSIGHT NEWS www.insightnews.com

Insight News is published weekly, every Monday by McFarlane Media Interests.

CEO/Editor-In-Chief Al McFarlane COO/Associate Publisher Trena V. Stubbs Publisher Batala-Ra McFarlane Associate Editor & Associate Publisher B.P. Ford Web Administrator Sunny Thongthi Yang Associate Editors Afrodescendientes Jesús Chucho Garcia Macdonald Anyanwu Book Review Editor W.D. Foster-Graham Sports Editor Leahjean M. Denley

Contact Us: McFarlane Media Interests, Inc. Marcus Garvey House 1815 Bryant Ave. N. Minneapolis. 55411 Ph.: (612) 695-0417 Member: Minnesota Multicultural Media Consortium (MMMC) Minnesota Newspaper Association (MNA) National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA) Postmaster: Send address changes to McFarlane Media Interests, Marcus Garvey House 1815 Bryant Avenue North, Minneapolis, MN, 55411 Insight News uses AI-assisted tools in some editorial production. Read our AI Policy & Transparency Statement at www.insightnews.com/site/ ai_policy.html.

Contributing Writer Pulane Choane Columnist Haley Taylor Schlitz Distribution Sound Construction Photographer Uchechukwu Iroegbu Roy Lewis - Washington D.C. Artist Donald Walker Digital Producer Jared McMullin Graphic Designer Syed Fahad Fayyaz Theater, 2027 West Broadway Ave, Minneapolis, MN 55411 Noon – 5:00 PM: Capri Arts Festival — Free, outdoor plaza and theater. Community singalong with J.D. Steele at 2:00 PM.

1:30 PM: Finding Our Way documentary screening — Free, inside the theater.

7:00 PM: Adam Bohanan, Because I Said Soul! — Tickets $27.38 | thecapri.org | 612-643-2040

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Insight News • June 1, 2026 - June 7, 2026 • Page 5

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Insight News

United Black Legislative Agenda Minnesota Organizing Coalition

The Journal for Community News, Business & the Arts

Page 6 • June 1, 2026 - June 7, 2026 • Insight News

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2 0 2 6 M I N N E S O TA L E G I S L AT I V E S E S S I O N

Two Minnesotas.

One Demand.

Every time a "best places to live" ranking is published, Minnesota and the Twin Cities rank at or near the top. And every time those lists are parsed by race, we fall all the way to the bottom. This is the urgency of now.

30.1%

BLACK HOMEOWNERSHIP TWIN CITIES (2ND LOWEST, 50 METROS)

3.9×

MORE LIKELY FOR BLACK MINNESOTANS TO LIVE BELOW POVERTY LINE

2nd

WORST STATE IN U.S. FOR BLACK AMERICANS (2024)

50th

BLACK ON-TIME GRADUATION RATE, NATION

THREE STEPS — THE URGENCY OF NOW

1 2 3

That Governor Tim Walz meet with representatives of Minnesota's Black communities to affirm the state's commitment to prioritize disparities elimination across all aspects of Minnesota governance and administration.

That the Governor hold his appointed State Commissioners and the departments they lead accountable for measurable and reportable strategies to eliminate disparities embedded in state policy and procedure.

That the Minnesota Legislature prioritize intentional solution-making by engaging Minnesota's Black community at the table of decision — in committee rooms, not just at press conferences.

U N I T E D B L A C K L E G I S L AT I V E A G E N D A — 7 - P O I N T P L A N PRIORITY 1 Invest Now!

PRIORITY 2 Invest Now!

The median Black household's wealth ($9,000) is one-fifteenth that of white households ($134,520). Structural barriers in lending, housing, and employment cripple Black

Black Minnesotans face unemployment rates nearly triple their white counterparts.

Criminal justice contact removes Black applicants before they enter the queue. Break

business formation. We demand capital access, not just conversation.

institutional barriers. Create pathways to well-paying careers.

PRIORITY 3 Invest Now!

PRIORITY 4 Invest Now!

Safety encompasses physical, economic, and emotional well-being. Playgrounds, streets, and malls remain unsafe in North Minneapolis and East St. Paul. Real public safety

Twin Cities Black homeownership stands at 30.1% — among the lowest in the nation.

The gap is the fourth-largest in the country per the Federal Reserve Bank of

requires community investment — not just policing.

Minneapolis. Investor acquisition of single-family homes is accelerating the crisis.

PRIORITY 5 Invest Now!

PRIORITY 6 Invest Now!

Black student reading and math scores are 20+ points below state average. Minnesota

Heart disease, stroke, homicide, substance abuse, cancer, and infant mortality strike the

ranks 50th for Black on-time graduation. Only 25% of Black students are college-ready.

Our children deserve more than remediation as a starting point.

Black community at disproportionate rates. The Legislature must act with urgency proportional to the crisis.

Business & Economic Development

Employment

Public Safety

Housing

Education

Health & Wellness

PRIORITY 7 Demand Now!

Policy — Coherence of Interest and Capacity Conflicting interests and diffuse capacity have produced policies that systematically disenfranchise the Black community. We demand policy coherence — legislation that reflects the documented needs, expressed will, and political power of Black Minnesota. Every legislator, regardless of party, bears this responsibility.

T H E T W O M I N N E S O TA S — B Y T H E N U M B E R S Minnesota ranks 2nd worst in the nation for Black Americans to live — a recognition that,

T W I N C I T I E S R A C I A L D I S PA R I T I E S

alongside the May 2020 murder of George Floyd, placed this state at the center of the national racial reckoning.

Homeownership rate

30.1%

76%+ White

The racial wealth gap is structural. It is the accumulated result of intersecting policies — in

Poverty rate

28.6%

7.3%

lending, housing, employment, and education — that built intergenerational wealth for white

Median household income

Black

Black

$36,127 Black

White

$82,118 White

9.2%

Unemployment rate

3.2%

Black

62%+

Liquid-asset poverty

Black HH

White

31.7%

White HH

families while systematically denying it to Black families. The losses from unpaid wages and denied inheritances are estimated at $20 trillion.

In the Twin Cities, the homeownership gap is among the nation's widest — and it has grown over two decades, accelerated by investor acquisition of hundreds of single-family homes now operated as rentals.

Minnesota's record budget surpluses of recent years offered a historic opportunity to address these disparities in a meaningful way. That opportunity cannot be squandered. The United Black Legislative Agenda — convened by faith leaders, organized by the Minnesota

"There are two Minnesotas — one white, one Black — separate and unequal."

Organizing Coalition — brings the voice of community to the table of decision.

The session ends. Our demand does not.

— NAACP Twin Cities, 2019 Economic Inclusion Plan

C O N V E N E D B Y FA I T H — E N D O R S E D B Y C O M M U N I T Y Bishop Richard Howell, Jr. · Bishop David Jones · Bishop Horace Smith · Bishop Reuben Armstrong · Pastor Harvey Russell · Rev. Carl Crawford (outstate organizing) — and the Minnesota Organizing Coalition, representing communities statewide.

U B L A L E G I S L AT I V E C H A M P I O N S — 2 0 2 6 S E S S I O N Sen. Sandra Pappas

Rep. Samantha Vang

Sen. Erin Maye Quade

Senate District 67

House District 67A

Senate District 57

Sen. Omar Fateh

Rep. Hodan Hassan

Rep. Esther Agbaje

Senate District 62

House District 62B

House District 59B

The session ends.

Our demand does not.

U N I T E D B L A C K L E G I S L AT I V E A G E N D A M I N N E S O TA O R G A N I Z I N G C O A L I T I O N INSIGHTNEWS.COM

Published as a pro-bono public awareness message by Insight News — Black-owned Twin Cities community newspaper, founded in 1974 as Insight Magazine, continuously publishing as Insight News, The Journal for Community News, Business & the Arts, since 1976.

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Co-Published: Insight News × UBLA/MOC May 2026

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Insight News • June 1, 2026 - June 7, 2026 • Page 7

Reform From 3 championed as an alternative to the traditional MPD-centric model. Hundreds of residents contacted the Council in opposition to the project before the vote.

The facility's supporters, including Council Member LaTrisha Vetaw (Ward 4), framed it as an essential longterm investment in officer wellness and professional development infrastructure — the kind of facility other major city police departments take for granted. The Frey administration has confirmed its intent to reintroduce the proposal.

The city's most recent compliance report cited executive leadership failures as the primary cause of stalled progress on the MDHR settlement.

2. Davis Moturi: what 38 calls to 911 could not prevent

On April 22, 2026, the Minneapolis City Auditor published an after-action review of the city's response in two high-profile cases: Davis Moturi, a Black Ward 8 resident who was shot in the neck by his white neighbor after making 38 calls to 911 over the preceding year, and Allison Lussier, a 47-yearold Indigenous woman who made at least nine 911 calls for domestic violence protection before she was found dead in her North Loop apartment in February 2024.

Moturi's case has become one of the most galvanizing stories of MPD's ongoing reform crisis. Between October 2023 and October 2024, Moturi and his household called 911 nearly 40 times to report racial slurs, threats, vandalism, and property damage from his next-door neighbor, John Herbert Sawchak. Nine days after Moturi reported that Sawchak had leaned from a window and aimed a firearm directly at him, Sawchak shot Moturi in the neck while he was pruning a tree in his own yard. Officers did not take Sawchak into custody until five days after the shooting, following a standoff.

The auditor's report documented what went wrong in granular detail. Officers confused the legal distinction between a Harassment Restraining Order and an Order

for Protection. Incidents were not escalated to the Hennepin County Attorney's Office when they should have been. Officers responding to calls did not review available information about the pattern of documented threats before arriving. Four officers the auditors had hoped to interview were never reached — three were on extended leave and one had left the department entirely.

“It feels good to finally make some progress after all this time, after begging for help from anyone and anybody that I could.”

— Davis Moturi, at City Hall, after the Council voted to release the MPD internal review In the Lussier case, the auditor found that MPD never requested the medical examiner's report — a basic investigative step — and that officers told Lussier during her final 911 call that they could not act because a "72-hour arrest rule" had expired by 30 minutes. No charges had been filed in the Lussier case as of April 2026.

Chief Brian O'Hara publicly apologized to the Lussier family on April 15, 2026 — a step the auditor called "a promising sign of improvement."

Following the auditor's presentation to the joint City Council and Audit Committee meeting on April 22, Council Members Jason Chavez (Ward 9), Robin Wonsley (Ward 2), and Soren Stevenson (Ward 8) co-authored a legislative directive requiring quarterly progress updates on structural safety reforms and auditor recommendations. Council President Payne referred the full report to the City Council for further discussion.

“My life's changed in ways that's just unimaginable.

Still not well enough to work.

I'm still dealing with the aftermath, the trauma.”

— Davis Moturi, KARE 11 interview, 2025 Michelle Gross, president of Communities United Against Police Brutality, was direct in her assessment after the shooting: "The leadership of both the mayor and police chief are not acceptable of reforming Minneapolis police the way they must be reformed."

Her organization called for an independent third-party investigation, city payment of Moturi's medical bills, and the firing of Chief O'Hara.

3. Drones as first responders: 'Big Brother' or breakthrough?

The Minneapolis Police Department presented an exploratory proposal to the Public Health, Safety and Equity Committee in May 2026 to launch a "Drones as First Responders" (DFR) pilot program — deploying camera-equipped Skydio drones to arrive ahead of officers at 911 calls, relaying real-time aerial video to dispatchers and units en route.

The proposed pilot would operate out of Fire Station 14 in the Fourth Precinct on Minneapolis's north side — the heart of the city's most intensely policed and historically surveilled community. Two drones, both marked as police vehicles and equipped with red and blue police lights, would be dispatched to respond to calls before human officers arrive.

The program was developed following the visible success of similar programs in Brooklyn Park, Minnetonka, St. Paul, and Duluth.

MPD Special Operations Commander Thomas Campbell told the committee that the department's 22 existing drones and 12 certified pilots had logged 584 missions since the program launched in fall 2022 — with zero citizen complaints to date. He framed the DFR expansion as an efficiency measure, not a surveillance expansion.

“We'd have the ability to clear low-level 911 calls for service so that we wouldn't have to have an actual police response to those calls. This inevitably will increase our officers' safety, but with that, real-time information coming in — it will overall protect community safety even more.”

— MPD Special Operations Commander Thomas Campbell, May 2026 Council Member LaTrisha Vetaw (Ward 4), who introduced the legislative directive requesting the study, praised the program's potential to cut response times and said the multi-department structure — fire, regulatory services, and traffic control would all have access — could help spread the cost burden. Minnetonka's comparable program costs approximately $265,000 per year to operate.

But the reception in committee was not uniformly

Chief From 3 partment, trust is not secondary to the job, it is the job. When trust is broken, it becomes extremely difficult to continue leading effectively."

In his written reprimand to the outgoing chief, Frey added: "Although the investigators have concluded that the underlying allegations from the original investigation remain not substantiated, your interference with the investigation risked the integrity of the investigation and constitutes a significant breach of trust."

Frey indicated that

Katie Blackwell O’Hara faced immediate disciplinary actions up to and including discharge before choosing

Credit: AP

to step down.

The abrupt departure came less than three weeks af-

enthusiastic. Council Member Soren Stevenson (Ward 8), whose ward encompasses some of the neighborhoods where the pilot would operate, described a visceral personal ambivalence — one that reflects the tension in his constituents between genuine need and the history of surveillance in North Minneapolis.

“I personally found myself oscillating between 'wow, this could be extremely useful' and 'oh my God, this is Big Brother coming to ruin our lives.' But that's not to say that I don't see many, many, many ways in which this would be valuable.”

— Council Member Soren Stevenson, Ward 8, May 2026 Under Minnesota law, agencies must report all drone flights to the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. BCA data shows drone deployments climbing sharply statewide in recent years, fueling demands for public reporting and stricter controls. The Office of Community Safety spokesperson Brian Feintech confirmed that the DFR program had been previously evaluated and set aside over cost and staffing concerns, but that the rapid advancement of the technology and demonstrated results in peer cities made a fresh look appropriate.

“We looked at the Drones as First Responders program previously and set it aside due to cost and staffing considerations, but given the success we're seeing in other communities and the rapid advancement of the technology, we believe it's time to take another serious look.”

— Brian Feintech, spokesperson, Minneapolis Office of Community Safety City staff now have a directive to compile program options, cost projections, and recommended privacy safeguards before bringing a full proposal back to council committees. The city has also opened a public comment channel. No council vote on the DFR program has been scheduled.

The pilot would be based at Fire Station 14 in the Fourth Precinct — the heart of North Minneapolis, the city's most historically surveilled community.

The lawsuit seeks a jury trial and damages against both the City of Minneapolis and MPD. Doe argues the department is liable for Calhoun's conduct because he was in uniform, exercising what the complaint characterizes as peace officer authority at the time.

Council Member Robin Wonsley (Ward 2) reported that community members have rallied at City Hall in solidarity with Doe — a response that reflects both the specific stakes of the lawsuit and the broader context of Minneapolis's ongoing obligations under its civil rights consent frameworks. The case arrives at a moment when the department is already under scrutiny for its conduct toward communities of color, its handling of documented domestic violence, and its compliance with the MDHR settlement.

The city has declined to go beyond its written court responses. The Minneapolis Department of Civil Rights had not released its full investigative report as of publication.

A lawsuit filed in Hennepin

County District Court in May 2026 by Cathrine Doe — a transgender woman working as a behavior detection officer at the Minneapolis Convention Center — alleges that off-duty MPD Officer Ryan Calhoun subjected her to what the complaint describes as "a vicious, anti-transgender tirade" during the Precision Arts Challenge dance competition on February 24, 2024.

Doe's role required her to conduct routine survey patrols, including monitoring dressing rooms for the safety of event attendees. According to the complaint, after Doe completed a standard check of the girls' dressing room, Calhoun — who was off-duty but in full MPD uniform — allegedly began yelling at her, threatened to place her in handcuffs, and told event staff: "If they come back here, if they even look in this direction, I will arrest them."

Witnesses described Calhoun as speaking loudly, his face red during the exchange. Doe says she was so shaken she abandoned her shift.

The complaint points to an internal contradiction in Calhoun's conduct: while Calhoun objected to Doe — a woman — checking on the girls' dressing rooms because he believed she was a man, Calhoun himself — a man — was checking on those same dressing rooms with no apparent concern. Doe's attorneys, Anna Mitchell and J. Ashwin Madia, argue that Minneapolis Police Department policy explicitly states that officers shall address transgender individuals by correct pronouns and may not use derogatory language regarding gender identity — policies Calhoun allegedly violated.

“If they come back here, if they even look in this direction, I will arrest them.”

— MPD Officer Ryan Calhoun (off-duty), as quoted in Cathrine Doe v. City of Minneapolis, February 24, 2024 Doe filed a discrimination charge with the Minneapolis Department of Civil Rights in April 2024. After a year-long investigation, the department found that Doe had successfully established a prima facie case of gender identity discrimination. The city's court filings acknowledge some of the complaint's allegations — including that Calhoun threatened Doe with arrest — while disputing other portions.

ter Frey strongly re-nominated O’Hara on May 7 for a second four-year term, calling him "the right leader for this moment."

That nomination faced immediate and sharp skepticism from the City Council. Council President Elliott Payne had openly criticized the mayor's push for reappointment while active investigations remained pending, stating that the council could not support the nomination given "active investigations into serious allegations."

O’Hara’s tenure had already faced compounding pressure from within the community. In April, reports re-

vealed he was the subject of 30 misconduct complaints, many stemming from community and advocacy backlash over human rights concerns during Operation Metro Surge. O’Hara previously defended his record, arguing that many of the complaints were politically motivated or tied to internal department friction over immigration enforcement.

Compounding the scrutiny, an April 2026 independent after-action review fiercely criticized the department's handling of two high-profile 2024 cases: the shooting of Davis Moturi and the death of Alli-

son Lussier. The audit detailed delayed response times due to severe staffing shortages alongside widespread operational failures and inconsistent applications of law and policy.

Assistant Police Chief Katie Blackwell will assume leadership as the acting police chief effective immediately.

Blackwell takes over during another period of deep leadership uncertainty for a department still navigating a court-monitored state framework alongside city-pledged reform commitments following the dismissal of the federal.

4. Cathrine Doe v. City of Minneapolis: a civil rights case the council cannot ignore

The pattern behind the four stories

Taken together, these four debates are not separate issues.

They are four expressions of the same structural problem: a police department operating under consent decree obligations it has not fully met, in a city with documented failures to protect residents of color, now weighing new surveillance tools and new construction while community trust remains fractured.

The Moturi case and the Cathrine Doe lawsuit are not policy debates — they are documented instances of harm.

The drone proposal and the training facility are policy debates — but ones that cannot be conducted honestly without acknowledging that harm as the backdrop.

Minneapolis voters chose reform in 2020. The reform has been slow, contested, and incomplete. The spring 2026 council agenda reflects a city still negotiating what that commitment means in practice — and who pays when the negotiation stalls.

Insight News uses AI-assisted tools in some editorial production. Read our AI Policy & Transparency Statement at www.insightnews.com/ site/ai_policy.html.

UPCOMING BROADCASTS

West Broadway Business and Area Coalition - 1pm Tuesday May 26 Al McFarlane in discussion with Kristel Porter, Executive Director of the West Broadway Business and Area Coalition with a welcome Message fom Greg Cunningham, Senior Executive Vice President at U.S. Bank.

UPCOMING BROADCASTS

Kristel Porter was recognized for her leadership in community resilience and advocating for businesses along the West Broadway.

Wealth Build - 1pm Tuesday 2 West Broadway Business andJun Area Coalition 1pm Tuesday May 26 President Al McFarlane in- discussion with Sondra Samuels,

B L A N CO & R E P OSA D O 75 0 M L 8 8 P R O O F | 4 4 % A BV 1 0 0 % P U R O D E AG AV E D O U B L E D I ST I L L E D 5 0 % S M O K E D A N D 5 0 % ST E A M E D

and CEO of Northside Achievement Zone, with welcome Al McFarlane discussion with Kristel Executive remarks from in Greg Cunningham, SeniorPorter, Executive Vice Director ofand theChief WestCommunity Broadway Business andInclusion Area President Impact and Coalition withBank. a welcome Message fom Greg Officer at U.S. Cunningham, Senior Executive Vice President at U.S. Bank.

The town hall conversation at the Capri Theater focused on NAZ’s Wealth Builds initiative, including the program’s Kristel Porterinwas recognized for her leadership in early rollout North Minneapolis, its model for combining community andwhat advocating services andresilience capital, and the workforisbusinesses intended to along the Broadway. change forWest children and families over time.

D I S C OV E R M O R E AT F O R YO U M A S E S P I R I T U !

R E V E L S P I R I T S .C O M

Wealth Build - 1pm Tuesday Jun 2 Al McFarlane in discussion with Sondra Samuels, President

Page 8 • June 1, 2026 - June 7, 2026 • Insight News

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Insight 2 Health They're back: wood ticks, deer ticks, and what every Twin Cities resident needs to know right now A warmer-than-average spring has accelerated the 2026 tick season — and this year, public health officials say the risk is higher than baseline If you have been spending time outside this spring — in your yard, in a park, along a trail, even in an alley with overgrown edges — and you have not yet found a tick, count yourself fortunate. The 2026 tick season arrived early and is running strong. The Metropolitan Mosquito Control District (MMCD) is tracking elevated tick activity across the Twin Cities metro, with blacklegged tick populations showing signs of higher-than-average infection rates.

The timing could not be more important.

"Take precautions, especially in May and June when they are most active." — Metropolitan Mosquito Control District, 2026

The science of "questing"

The sudden appearance of ticks in residential yards is not random. It is the result of a highly efficient biological survival strategy called questing.

Ticks cannot jump, fly, or drop from trees. Instead, they climb to the tops of tall grasses, weeds, or low brush.

Once in position, they extend their front legs wide, holding them open to the world.

Specialized sensory receptors called Haller's organs, located on their front legs, detect carbon dioxide, body heat, and physical vibrations from approaching hosts. The moment a human leg or a pet's fur makes contact, the tick latches on and begins searching for exposed skin.

It takes only seconds.

A brief walk through uncut grass or along a wooded edge is enough.

•

saving brush-cutting for August, when all stages of deer ticks are at their lowest numbers.

Protect pets consistently.

A brief trip into the yard is all a questing tick needs.

Dogs and cats should be maintained on veterinarian-approved topical or oral tick preventatives throughout the season — not just when hiking in the woods.

Personal protection: what to do every time you go outside

Know the difference: two ticks, two levels of risk

Twin Cities residents primarily encounter two tick species.

Understanding which is which matters — they carry different risks and require different levels of concern.

The American dog tick — commonly called the wood tick — is the large, distinctively brown arachnid with whitish-gray markings behind the head. It is the species most commonly reported in residential yards this spring. Wood ticks are easier to spot because of their size. They are less likely than deer ticks to transmit disease in Minnesota — but the word "less likely" is not the same as "harmless." The Minnesota Department of Health confirms that the American dog tick is the local vector for Rocky Mountain spotted fever (RMSF), a serious bacterial illness caused by Rickettsia rickettsii. RMSF cases in Minnesota are rare, but they do occur in residents with no travel history outside the state. Any embedded

tick warrants prompt removal and monitoring for symptoms.

The blacklegged tick — the deer tick — is the more urgent public health concern this season. Significantly smaller than the wood tick and reddish-brown with a dark shield, deer ticks prefer the shaded, leaf-littered margins where lawns meet wooded areas. They are harder to see, especially in the nymph stage, when they are roughly the size of a poppy seed. The Minnesota Department of Health reports that on average about one in three adult blacklegged ticks and one in five nymphs carry the bacteria that causes Lyme disease.

In 2026, MMCD tick specialist Janet Jarnefeld has flagged that nymph prevalence may run higher than that baseline. Deer ticks also carry the pathogens responsible for anaplasmosis, babesiosis, and Powassan virus disease — the latter of which can be transmitted in as little as 15 minutes after a tick attaches, unlike Lyme disease, which typically requires one to two days of attachment before transmis-

sion.

Deer tick nymphs are roughly the size of a poppy seed. They are active right now — and this year, more of them may be infected.

Protecting your yard A few targeted changes to your yard can significantly reduce the tick habitat on your property.

• Establish a barrier border.

Ticks thrive in high-moisture, shaded environments and avoid dry, sunny terrain. A three-foot-wide perimeter of wood chips, gravel, or crushed rock between your lawn and any wooded or brushy areas creates a physical barrier that restricts tick movement into active play spaces.

• Keep grass cut short. Regular mowing and aggressive clearing of tall weeds, brush, and accumulated leaf litter removes the moisture zones ticks need to survive the midday sun.

The MMCD recommends

Landscaping reduces risk. Personal habits are the last line of defense. The following practices, drawn from guidance by the MMCD and the Minnesota Department of Health, should become routine from now through Labor Day. • Shower within two hours of coming inside. Running water dislodges unattached ticks before they can embed. This is one of the most effective and easiest protective steps available.

• Wear light-colored clothing. Ticks are visible against light fabrics. For yard work or time near wooded areas, treat clothing with permethrin — it neutralizes ticks on contact and remains effective through multiple washes.

• Do a full body check after every outing. Pay particular attention to the hairline, behind the ears, around the waistband, behind the knees, and the groin area. Check children and pets carefully. Deer tick nymphs are small enough to hide in a crease without being noticed.

• Check daily. The Minnesota Department of Health recommends checking for ticks at least once a day during tick season — not

just after obvious outdoor activity.

If you find an embedded tick

Remove it immediately. Do not wait. Use fine-tipped tweezers, grasp the tick as close to the skin's surface as possible, and pull upward with steady, even pressure. Do not twist or jerk — this can cause mouthparts to break off in the skin. Do not squeeze the body of the tick. After removal, clean the bite area with rubbing alcohol or soap and water.

For deer ticks: note the date of removal and monitor for symptoms for 30 days. Early symptoms of Lyme disease include a bull's-eye rash at the bite site, fever, chills, fatigue, muscle aches, and joint pain. Seek medical attention promptly if any symptoms develop — early treatment with antibiotics is highly effective.

If you remove a tick and are unsure of the species, the MMCD offers a free tick identification service. Submit a photo and details at mmcd. org, or call (651) 645-9149. The agency does not test ticks for disease, but can confirm species — and knowing whether you found a wood tick or a deer tick matters for your risk assessment.

Free resources from MMCD

The Metropolitan Mosquito Control District is offering free Mosquito and Tick Safety Kits for 2026, stocked with tick ID cards, tick remover keys, repellent wipes, and protection tips.

Request a kit at mmcd.org or call (651) 645-9149.

The MMCD also debuted new "Tick Magnets" for 2026, available at public events or by request through the same contact.

Ebola outbreak in the DRC Four reasons it will be hard to contain

By the second week of the latest Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo it was already clear that containing the spread of the haemorrhagic disease was proving to be difficult.

On 17 May 2026, the World Health Organization declared the outbreak a public health emergency of international concern. This is its highest level of global health alert.

It is mostly reserved for an extraordinary disease outbreak or event that is a public health risk to many countries through international spread and hence requires global coordinated efforts.

According to the WHO, as of 19 May 2026 the DRC had recorded more than 500 cases and 130 deaths, while its neighbour (Uganda) had recorded two cases and one death.

These statistics are huge considering that the current outbreak was only declared on 15 May. The largest Ebola outbreak was in west Africa from December 2013 to March 2016. It caused 28,652 infections resulting in 11,325 deaths in 10 countries; 99% of the fatalities were in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia.

Infectious disease outbreaks are nothing new for the DRC, a central African country. Last year, while other parts of the world were shaking off the global mpox outbreak, the DRC was still struggling with it.

But the current Ebola outbreak in the DRC has potential to become huge and of long duration.

I am an infectious disease epidemiologist with experience of dealing with the Ebola outbreak in 2013-2016 in Sierra Leone.

In my view there are four reasons while this outbreak will be hard to contain:

• • • •

late detection and insecurity misdiagnosis cultural factors shortage of global health funds.

Late detection

One of the challenges is the time between a person being infected and being diagnosed (identifying the disease in a laboratory).

This detection lag is a major problem because to control the spread of the disease, infected individuals need to be isolated.

Ebola is highly contagious.

Late detection was responsible for the early deaths and increased number of Ebola cases in Sierra Leone during the 2013-2016 outbreak. Early cases went unnoticed there because Ebola was new in the country.

Clinicians and laboratory scientists were totally unfamiliar with it.

The DRC is familiar with Ebola outbreaks and has witnessed more than any other country.

But in the DRC, late detection is fuelling the rapid spread of the disease and is primarily due to insecurity in the region.

The time it takes to identify an infectious pathogen in the laboratory depends on how long it takes for the pathogen to replicate to detectable level, the type of laboratory tests used, and (for some diseases) the development of antibodies. Ideally, for Ebola virus it varies between one and 32 days.

The first confirmed case was a resident of Goma, a town which lies on the border with Rwanda and is highly unstable. Fighting between DRC government forces and rebels (believed to be backed

by Rwanda) has been going on around Goma for a long time.

The instability and

volatility of the epicentre of the outbreak is having a major impact. Under those conditions, an infectious disease thrives and outbreaks mostly go unnoticed.

The number of Ebola cases and deaths that have been registered in the current Ebola outbreak in the DRC is difficult to place within the susceptible-infected-recovered (SIR) model, a tool used in epidemiology. Ebola’s R0 (basic reproduction number, a measure of disease transmission) ranges between 1.5 and 2.5, which means within a susceptible Goma population, a single infected person can spread the virus to an average of 1.5-2.5 Goma residents.

However, the current Ebola incidence and deaths in the DRC exceed the expected number of secondary infections based on Ebola’s basic reproduction number. As of 21 May there were over 136 suspected deaths, 35 confirmed cases, and more than 600 suspected cases caused by the Bundibugyo strain in the ongoing outbreak in the DRC.

Misdiagnosis

The delay in diagnosis may also have been due to subtle early Ebola symptoms that can be misdiagnosed. Both malaria and typhoid have identical fever symptoms.

During the early days of the Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone, many nurses working at the Kenema Government Hospital and the Lassa Fever Hospital lost their lives because they misdiagnosed the disease as Lassa fever. Ebola and Lassa fever belong to the same class of viral haemorrhagic fever diseases since patients present with similar symptoms and pathophysiologies (what the disease does to the body).

The other challenge with diagnosis in this outbreak

is that it is a different virus to the one treated in the most recent Ebola outbreaks. Bundibugyo virus was first identified in Uganda in 2007. Unlike Zaire Ebola virus disease, which was discovered decades ago, the relative newness of Bundibugyo Ebola virus disease means it’s less researched, especially in terms of vaccine and medicine development.

Cultural factors

Other factors affecting the spread are cultural practices such as ritual burials. Ritual burials are common in many African countries, like Sierra Leone and the DRC. These are ceremonies born out of the belief that death is a sacred passage to another world or ancestral realm. Mostly it starts with communal grieving and wake keeping, followed by the ceremonial preparation of the body.

In Sierra Leone a ritual burial of a high priest who died of Ebola in the southern town of Moyamba during the 2013-2016 Ebola outbreaks led to the death of scores of people who took part in ceremonial preparation of his body. It is not surprising to learn of relatives setting Ebola hospital tents on fire simply because they were prevented from handling the corpse of their loved one.

Shortage of global health funds

The cuts in global health funds and the ending of many projects through the dissolution of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is greatly affecting the operations and effectiveness of public health activities around the world.

Most global health security projects aimed to prepare for and mitigate any future disease outbreak.

Sierra Leone and other countries affected by the 2014-2016 Ebola outbreaks benefited immensely from international donor (including USAID) support during that outbreak.

Unfortunately, the DRC will have less international support to help fight this outbreak. The country has long experience in tackling disease outbreaks (especially Ebola) but the lack of experts and logistics on site implies an extended delay in managing this situation.

The DRC has the people and the necessary labs and facilities.

The major challenge with the current outbreak is that it started in an insecure environment where access to testing facilities are scarce, hence the late detection.

Additionally, the country is about the size of western Europe (including France,

Germany, Spain, the UK and Italy). This vast size, coupled with insecurity, will make it difficult to channel logistics across the affected regions.

What’s needed

Tackling the current Ebola outbreak in the DRC requires a rapid, multi-tiered response. It should focus on rapid case detection, multinational support, swift collaborative surveillance and community engagement.

Over the past years the DRC has served as a scientific base for major international research institutions that work on infectious diseases and medical microbiology.

In the absence of a vaccine or medication, the health authorities should embark on community engagement to raise awareness and sensitisation. They must also enforce public health laws, especially those targeting cultures that promote unsafe burials and elevate the risk of Ebola infection. This is to prevent human transmission as many people might still be out there undetected.

Disclosure statement Jia B. Kangbai does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

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Media From 3 quires state agencies to publicly disclose, by February 1 of each year, their total advertising expenditures for the prior fiscal year and the percentage directed to local news organizations — defined in the statute as publications or broadcast outlets that primarily serve the needs of the state of Minnesota or a regional, local, or ethnic community within Minnesota, employ at least one Minnesota-based journalist, and maintain a known instate office.

The law was a significant step. Transparency is a precondition for accountability.

Minnesota joined Illinois and California in requiring this kind of disclosure, with both states expected to publish their first comparable reports in fall 2026.

But what the first round of Minnesota disclosures revealed was not a system in need of minor adjustment. It was a system in structural failure.

The aggregate picture across 12 agencies is this: • Total advertising spend: $2.4 million • Share to local Minnesota media (all formats combined): less than 30%, approximately $700,000 • Share to out-of-state platforms (Google, Meta, programmatic ad networks): more than 70%, approximately $1.7 million • Share to local community or ethnic media specifically: not reported as a separate category by any agency — meaning it is either zero or so small as to be statistically negligible The variation across agencies reveals that the problem is not technical — it is a matter of institutional priority. The Department of Natural Resources, whose work connects to rural landowners and conservation communities through well-established local print and radio relationships, directed nearly 90 percent of its $643,439 advertising budget to local media. The system knows how to do this when it chooses to.

The Department of Employment and Economic Development — the agency whose mission most directly touches the working families, job seekers, immigrant entrepreneurs, and displaced workers who depend on community media — spent nearly $1.7 million on instate advertising and routed less than 5 percent, approximately $26,000, to community newspapers and local radio. DEED is the agency responsible for workforce development, small business recovery, and economic opportunity programs.

Its primary constituencies are overwhelmingly served by ethnic and community media. Its advertising choices suggest those constituencies are an afterthought.

“Community media provide essential information to communities that are often underserved by mainstream media. They are a critical public good. And while public funding should never be the sole source of revenue for community me-

Camden From 3 levels of disorder and quality-of-life offenses, like loitering.

Residents were concerned about this new aggressive stance. The American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey, researchers and local media used New Jersey’s Open Public Records Act to collect measures of the CCPD’s activity.

This data pointed to a troubling rise in officer-initiated vehicle and pedestrian stops, tickets for low-level violations, use of force, and citizen complaints of excessive force through 2014 and 2015.

CCPD officers in 2014 made 60,352 total stops, including 16,742 of people on foot. The per capita rate of pedestrian stops exceeded the rates in both New York City and Philadelphia during those cities’ peak stop-and-frisk years in 2011 and 2009, respective-

Insight News • June 1, 2026 - June 7, 2026 • Page 9 dia, it ought to be a key pillar of support.”

— Graciela Mochkofsky, Dean, Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism, CUNY, 2025

Equity on paper, extraction in practice

Minnesota state agencies operate under a Targeted Group/ Economically Disadvantaged/ Veteran-Owned (TG/ED/VO) procurement program that explicitly prioritizes contracting with businesses owned by people of color, women, people with disabilities, and veterans.

The state's equity-in-procurement framework is real, documented, and enforced. It is, in theory, one of the most comprehensive such systems in the country.

Advertising is procurement. When the state pays Google or Meta $1.7 million to run programmatic ads targeting Minnesota residents, that is a vendor contract. When it pays a local newspaper or community radio station to carry a public health message, that is also a vendor contract. The TG/ED/ VO framework applies — or should apply — to both. The disclosures show it is not being applied to advertising in any meaningful way.

The demographic reality makes this contradiction impossible to defend on equity grounds. Black, Indigenous, and People of Color make up approximately 26 percent of Minnesota's statewide population and between 35 and 40 percent of the Twin Cities metropolitan area. The state's own projections show the metro crossing a nonwhite majority threshold within this decade. These communities are not a niche constituency.

They are the growth engine of Minnesota's population, workforce, and civic life.

And they are served by a media ecosystem that the state's advertising dollars systematically bypass. Insight News. Mshale. La Prensa. El Periodic. Hmong Times. Twin Cities Daily Planet. KALY Radio. These are not legacy institutions in decline — they are active, trusted, irreplaceable information infrastructure for communities that have every reason to be skeptical of government messaging delivered through impersonal algorithmic platforms.

When the state chooses Meta over Mshale to carry a message about MNsure enrollment, it is not making a neutral market decision. It is making a statement about whose attention it values, whose trust it is willing to earn, and which media ecosystems it considers worth sustaining. That statement, repeated across 12 agencies and $2.4 million in annual spending, adds up to a policy.

When the state chooses Meta over Mshale to carry a message about MNsure enrollment, it is making a statement about whose attention it values — and whose media ecosystems are worth sustaining.

What proportional equity actually looks like

The proportionality math is not complicated, and it is not radical. It is the same logic the state applies when it evaluates ly, before stop-and-frisk tactics spurred court-ordered reforms.

Beyond the stops, CCPD officers issued more than 6,000 citations from May 1, 2013, when the new department launched, through the end of the year. They issued over 19,000 citations in 2014. During its first year or so, the CCPD’s total number of cases in municipal court increased by nearly 30% relative to the year prior.

Similarly, the number of tickets issued for minor infractions – such as riding a bicycle without a bell or a light, and disorderly conduct – rose steeply. For example, the number of citations for having tinted car windows more than tripled, while citations for not having proper car lights or reflectors more than quadrupled.

Backlash to broken-windows policing

Citizen complaints against CCPD alleging excessive use of force increased from 35 in 2013 to 65 in 2014.

Organizations like

whether BIPOC businesses are receiving a fair share of state contracting dollars. Apply that same logic to advertising, and the numbers are stark: None of these scenarios require new state spending. They require redirecting existing advertising dollars away from out-of-state corporate platforms and toward the in-state community media that the transparency law itself was designed to support. The money is already there. The question is who gets it.

What works: the national proof points

Minnesota does not need to invent this model. It has been pioneered, tested, and documented in cities and states that moved earlier and further.

New York City's experience is the most instructive.

In 2019, then-Mayor Bill de Blasio issued Executive Order 47, requiring city agencies to direct at least 50 percent of their digital and print advertising budgets to community and ethnic media outlets. The New York City Council codified and expanded that mandate in Local Law 83 in 2021, creating the Mayor's Office of Ethnic and Community Media. In the five years following, the policy directed more than $72 million to community media publishers and broadcasters — funding that allowed neighborhood publications to hire staff, expand coverage, invest in digital infrastructure, and survive a period when community journalism nationally was collapsing. The Haitian Times, to cite one well-documented example, used the infusion of reliable city advertising revenue to hire reporters and deepen its public health coverage during the COVID-19 pandemic — serving a community that desperately needed trusted, culturally competent information at exactly that moment.

“For those of us publishing in this space, this isn't an abstract compliance issue.”

— S. Mitra Kalita, publisher, Epicenter NYC, and CEO, URL Media — a network of three dozen outlets serving communities of color The New York experience also carries a warning. Under the Adams administration, compliance with the 50 percent mandate eroded. Overall advertising spend fell sharply; by fiscal year 2024, city agencies spent just $7.2 million on ethnic and community media — down from $16.9 million just two years earlier. City Comptroller Brad Lander's office issued a formal rebuke. The lesson: a mandate without enforcement and independent oversight is a promise that can be quietly broken. The mechanism matters as much as the mandate.

Maryland became the first state in the nation to pass a statewide advertising set-aside law in April 2026, requiring state agencies to direct a defined share of advertising budgets to local and community news organizations. Illinois and California have passed transparency requirements similar to Minnesota's, with disclosures expected in fall 2026. San Francisco and Chicago have adopted city-level versions of the NYC model. The national momentum the Camden County chapter of the NAACP and the ACLU-NJ drummed up attention to these figures by issuing announcements and press briefings. On the same day in May 2015 that President Obama heralded the CCPD, the ACLU-NJ issued a scathing rebuke to the President’s message. It read, in part: “Before we hold Camden up as a model of community policing, we must address the troubling indicators that point to Camden’s use of practices that appear to take a page from a broken windows approach to policing.”

Mobilized residents and groups, including clergy members, made it clear that they did not appreciate this level and type of aggressive policing. The Philadelphia Inquirer and the Star-Ledger/NJ Advance Media amplified the coverage of Camden’s heavy-handed tactics.

What followed was a complete change in behavior among the CCPD from an activity, training and policy perspective. The numbers and rates of police stops declined. CCPD of-

is clear. Minnesota is not leading it — it is at risk of being left behind by it.

Rebuilding Local News, the national coalition championing this model, has documented the impact and framed the argument in terms that should resonate across the partisan aisle: a government advertising set-aside does not require additional appropriations, does not expand government, and does not compromise advertising effectiveness. It redirects existing spending toward outlets that reach the communities the advertising is designed to serve. It is, in the coalition's framing, the most efficient public information investment a state can make.

The legislative moment: SF2600 and what it must become

Minnesota Senate File 2600, authored by Senator Maye Quade and co-authored by Senator Rasmusson with bipartisan support, would require that at least 50 percent of each state agency's advertising expenditures be made through local news organizations, with an emphasis on local newspapers where practicable. The companion House file is HF2609. As introduced and referred to the Senate State and Local Government Committee, the bill uses the same definition of "local news organization" already codified in Minn. Stat. § 15.442 — explicitly including outlets that primarily serve ethnic and regional communities within Minnesota.

SF2600 is a necessary bill. It is not yet a sufficient one. As written, it creates a 50 percent floor for all local media combined, with no explicit ethnic media set-aside within that floor. Without a dedicated ethnic media sub-requirement, the 50 percent mandate could be satisfied entirely by routing dollars to the Minnesota Star Tribune and WCCO — mainstream outlets that serve large general audiences but are not the primary or trusted information sources for communities of color.

The legislators and advocates working on SF2600 and its House companion rallied at the Capitol in April 2026 alongside publishers from across the state. Their coalition includes mainstream publishers, rural newspapers, and community broadcasters. It has genuine bipartisan support. Republican Representative Wayne Johnson of Cottage Grove, whose local paper has disappeared since he joined the Legislature in 2015, has spoken publicly about the cost of that loss to civic life. That coalition is real and valuable. But ethnic media advocates must be at the table to ensure the final bill includes specific language protecting their share of whatever floor the Legislature creates.

“The worst thing we can do is let our newspapers fade away and not have anybody — digital, whatever — connecting with the community.”

— Rep. Wayne Johnson, R-Cottage Grove, April 2026 Capitol rally

What equity requires: six

ficers began issuing more warnings compared to tickets, to the point that “warnings over summonses” became an unofficial slogan of the department.

The top brass at CCPD sought out and implemented two types of de-escalation training, starting in the spring of 2015, for all officers.

The CCPD also started to explore a complete overhaul of the agency’s use of force policy. It eventually adopted a more restrictive policy that emphasized de-escalation and the sanctity of life, while prohibiting tactics like chokeholds and shooting at moving vehicles. The CCPD’s innovative policy even inspired the New Jersey Attorney General to revamp its statewide policy years later.

As a result, complaints of use of force, in general, and of excessive force dropped from 43 in 2015 to 28 in 2016, and declined to 16 in 2017 and just three in 2018.

Such complaints have usually been in the single digits each year since.

The CCPD deserves

recommendations

Transparency has revealed the problem. The next step is structural remedy. Insight News offers the following recommendations to the Legislature, the Governor's Office, and state agency leadership: 1. Amend SF2600 to include an explicit ethnic media sub-requirement. The 50 percent buy-local floor must include a dedicated minimum — we recommend no less than 15 percent of total agency advertising spend — directed to outlets that primarily serve communities of color, Indigenous communities, or communities with limited English proficiency as defined under Minn. Stat. § 15.442. Without this, the buy-local mandate will be captured by large mainstream outlets.

2. Create a Minnesota Office of Ethnic and Community Media. Modeled on New York City's MOECM, this office should coordinate agency advertising relationships with ethnic and community outlets, maintain a certified vendor registry, provide technical assistance to smaller outlets navigating state procurement processes, and produce an annual equity audit of advertising distribution.

It should be structurally independent of any single agency to prevent conflicts of interest.

3. Direct DEED to lead by example, immediately.

The Department of Employment and Economic Development — the agency whose mission most directly aligns with the communities ethnic media serves — spent less than 5 percent of its advertising budget on local community outlets. The Governor's Office should direct DEED to adopt an internal 50 percent local media standard for the current fiscal year, with quarterly reporting, without waiting for legislative action. This is within executive authority and can be done now.

4. Require agency-level ethnic media disclosure within the § 15.442 framework.

The current transparency law requires disclosure of spending on local media broadly. The Legislature should amend it to require agencies to separately disclose spending on outlets whose primary service community is defined by race, ethnicity, national origin, or language — creating the data infrastructure needed to monitor compliance and enforce equity requirements.

5. Establish a direct partnership registry and streamlined vendor onboarding for ethnic media. One documented barrier to ethnic and community media receiving state advertising is the complexity of state procurement processes.

Agencies should be directed to maintain a curated, continuously updated regcredit for course-correcting.

But I believe it’s important to remember where that impetus came from: community and activist groups, as well as local media attention.

Many fewer murders, but persistent challenges

Camden has undoubtedly made progress. The city’s homicide rate in 2025 was four times the national average – a marked change from 18 times the national average in 2012. Homicides across the country have also declined in recent years.

Yet, problems persist.

Camden is still a perennial contender for the most violent city in New Jersey. Despite a $1.6 billion economic package from the state to the city during the 2010s, which overwhelmingly took the form of tax subsidies to encourage businesses to either stay in or relocate to Camden, almost every census tract is among the most socially and economically disadvantaged in the state. Most companies that receive tax breaks do not em-

6.

istry of qualifying ethnic and community media outlets and to offer streamlined onboarding that does not require ethnic media publishers to compete on equal administrative footing with large media conglomerates.

Pass the local news talent pipeline bill (SF4183/ HF4072). The $500,000 grant program for a local news talent pipeline, moving concurrently with SF2600, would invest in the next generation of community journalists.

Ethnic media organizations should be explicitly eligible as host partners for this program. A journalism ecosystem that does not invest in its talent pipeline is an ecosystem in managed decline.

This is a test of whether equity is a policy or a press release

Minnesota has made equity a governing value — in its hiring practices, its vendor contracting, its school funding formulas, its public health infrastructure.

The language of racial equity is embedded in executive orders, agency mission statements, and legislative preambles across state government.

The advertising disclosures filed on February 1, 2026, provide the clearest test of whether that commitment is operational or rhetorical.

They show a state that sends $1.7 million of public money to Google and Meta each year while the community media serving a quarter of its population subsist on fractions too small to name. They show an agency like DEED — whose entire mission is economic opportunity for working Minnesotans — investing $26,000 in the community newspapers and radio stations that are often the only trusted information source for the immigrant workers, BIPOC entrepreneurs, and low-income families the agency exists to serve.

This is not a resource problem. The money exists. It is being spent. The question is whether Minnesota will spend it in a way that reflects its stated values — or whether equity will remain, as it has been in advertising procurement, a principle observed in the press release and abandoned in the purchase order.

New York City showed that policy can move money. Maryland showed that states can lead. The Legislature has the vehicle in SF2600. The Governor has the authority to act now through DEED. The ethnic and community media of Minnesota have the audience, the trust, and the reach that the state's public information campaigns require.

What they do not have is the money they are owed. That is a choice. And it is one Minnesota can still reverse.

Insight News uses AI-assisted tools in some editorial production. Read our AI Policy & Transparency Statement at www.insightnews.com/ site/ai_policy.html.

ploy a meaningful number of Camden residents.

The city is racially segregated from the rest of Camden County and the broader South Jersey region.

In my opinion, Camden, like most other cities, relies too much on the police, giving them a monopoly on public safety. I believe both the city and the CCPD should take a cue from places like Newark, New Jersey, and St. Louis, Missouri, to find innovative ways to collaborate and engage more with community groups, business associations and other non-police entities. Together they can co-produce public safety and take a more holistic approach to reducing crime, violence and disorder.

Disclosure statement John A. Shjarback does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Page 10 • June 1, 2026 - June 7, 2026 • Insight News

insightnews.com

Credit: Uzoma Obasi

Warren McLean, President, NEON, Dr. Myriam Roby, NEON Board of Directors, Minnesota State Senate President Bobby Joe Champion, Patty Pannkuk, NEON Board of Directors

Credit: Uzoma Obasi

Hennepin County Commissioner Iene Fernando

Clara Lewis showing new facility

Neon From Cover standards, the standards have to be maintained. You can’t eliminate from it… Create the expectation.”

— Clara “Missie” Lewis, Director of Community Engagement, NEON

Inside the building: a guided tour

The facility at 2041 West Broadway Ave. is two stories, with each level designed for a distinct tier of food business operations. The orientation of the building — and its vertical stacking — were themselves community decisions. The original concept was a single-story horizontal layout facing West Broadway. NEON chose to rotate and stack the structure to preserve valuable land on the remainder of the property lot for future affordable housing development. The building envelope was also set back nearly two feet to accommodate future light rail impacts. Even the footprint is a community negotiation.

The ground floor houses the public-facing and retail operations. The back of the house is the 24-hour shared kitchen where catering and food truck clients can securely store their tools, prep for sameday service, and book cooking blocks through a shared digital scheduling dashboard. The up-

per level’s Catering and Shared Kitchen — with eight working stations and capacity to serve up to 90 businesses per month — adds another production tier.

The Consumer-Packaged Goods (CPG) Kitchen is the facility’s most specialized space: a hermetically sealed production environment with stainless steel surfaces, a blast chiller, a high-capacity rotating oven capable of evenly baking 300 pounds of meat, a 10-minute automated bread proofer, and dedicated ingredient and ship-ready storage that maintains clean separation between raw inputs and distributor-ready packaged product — in full compliance with food safety regulations. This is infrastructure for entrepreneurs scaling from farmers markets to retail shelves.

Cold and frozen storage are available for rent by the shelf or by the pallet. A 104-capacity community room with projector, microphones, and configurable tables is available for rent by kitchen tenants and community members alike. A loading dock with grease and gray water dumps serves food truck needs.

On the retail side, the building houses five sit-down food counters. One — Sadie Mae’s — is already operating.

A second is scheduled to open in early June. Pair of Dice Pizza will operate through a specialized walk-up service window, serving both dine-in customers and the surrounding West

Credit: Uzoma Obasi

Erika L. Binger, Coach, Founding Director at V3 Sports and Jasmine Clopton, Community Engagement & Partnerships Manager - V3 Sports

Credit: Uzoma Obasi

Credit: Uzoma Obasi

Troy Blizzard, VP and General Manager Mortenson, Jamilla Karon and Calvin Littlejohn, Tri Construction Broadway corridor.

“We wanted to create a space where you can bring your family, you can bring your coworkers, and you can come sit down and eat in a nice welcoming atmosphere.”

— Clara “Missie” Lewis, Director of Community Engagement, NEON

Built by the community: equity engineered into the construction

The equity model behind NEON Collective Kitchens was not confined to the programs running inside the building. It was engineered into the design and construction process itself.

LSE Architects helmed the design. Mortenson served as master builder. But NEON ensured that minority firms were not simply invited to bid — they were embedded in the supply chain in ways that built their capacity for future large-scale projects. TRI Construction worked directly alongside Mortenson, gaining largescale commercial project experience that will follow that firm into its next engagement. Randy’s Booths of Crystal, Minnesota, and Ideal Workplace Solutions were intentionally selected to source interior furniture from Black- and Brown-owned enterprises. The procurement choices are the policy.

The capital campaign that made NEON Collective Kitchens possible drew from a broad, community-validated coalition of funders. The main

capital campaign included: • Bush Foundation • Cargill Foundation • McKnight Foundation • Otto Bremer Trust • Pohlad Family Foundation • Target Corporation • Julie and Doug Baker, Jr. Foundation • Huntington Foundation • Opus Foundation • WEM Foundation • The Minneapolis Foundation • Hubbard Broadcasting Foundation • Wells Fargo Foundation • UnitedHealthcare • U.S. Bank Impact Finance • Sunrise Banks • Hennepin County • State of Minnesota The Grow & Thrive Capital Campaign drew additional support from Ameriprise, the Carlson Family Foundation, General Mills Foundation, Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC), the Mortenson Family Foundation, Northside Funders Group, and Thrivent Financial, among others.

The full $22 million was raised before ground was broken. No debt. No landlord.

No outside investor with a claim on the mission. This building belongs to the Northside.

The people running it: Lewis and McLean

Warren McLean has led NEON as President and CEO through the full arc of this project — from the initial community conversation about the shared kitchen gap to the capital campaign

to the opening of the building.

His institutional knowledge of the Northside economy and his relationships with the funders, contractors, and community partners who made this project possible are embedded in every decision the facility reflects. His framing of the project is characteristically direct: this happened because people came together, and that is both the explanation and the ongoing requirement.

Clara “Missie” Lewis brings something the building specifically needed: a Director whose professional journey bridges deep corporate operational discipline with authentic community rootedness. Her corporate background — tenures at Honeywell, Ecolab, and the Donaldson Company — gives her the systems thinking and operational precision required to help engage the community in supporting a multi-kitchen facility serving dozens of businesses simultaneously. Her prior leadership as Director of Development at Hospitality House Youth Development gives her the community trust and relationships that make NEON’s client model work.

Why this matters: shared ownership, shared wealth

North Minneapolis has carried the weight of disinvestment for generations. It has also generated the creativity, community bonds, and entrepreneurial energy that economic development requires — and has done so consistently, without credit and without infrastructure sup-

port commensurate with what it has produced.

NEON Collective Kitchens is a structural answer to a structural problem. It does not ask Black and Brown food entrepreneurs to compete in a system designed against them.

It changes the system — at least at 2041 West Broadway Ave., at least for the 300 businesses it will serve each year, at least for the families those businesses will sustain.

The NEON Collective Kitchens Fact Sheet states the mission in plain language: “The end goal for our client work is to provide a pathway out of poverty that creates careers and future wealth.” That is not aspirational language. It is a program description. And it is backed by $22 million in community-raised capital, two floors of commercial kitchen infrastructure, and a management team that knows what it takes to build something that lasts.

“More than a kitchen, this is a place where ideas can grow into viable businesses; where ownership becomes more accessible; and where local entrepreneurs can build lasting economic opportunity for themselves and their communities.”

NEON Collective Kitchens invitation

The lights are on at 2041 West Broadway Ave. The food is coming. The question Missie Lewis asked — “Can you make my voice come across in print?”

— has an answer. It sounds like this.

insightnews.com

Juneteenth From 2 ored him with the 2017 Iowa Law Review Distinguished Alumni Award. He has also been recognized with the University of Minnesota College of Liberal Arts Civitas Award and was named an AARP Minnesota/Pollen 2018 "50 Over 50" honoree. Beyond MHC, he currently serves as a Commissioner of the St. Paul Public Housing Authority and on the board of directors of Growth and Justice, an organization dedicated to inclusive employment and business practices across Minnesota.

When Lindsey transitioned to leading MHC in 2019, he carried that legislative and civil rights framework directly into the cultural sector. Recognizing that stories shape policy — and that the stories communities are allowed to tell about themselves determine whether they thrive or wither — he has transformed MHC into a dynamic platform for civic dialogue. Under his leadership, MHC has hosted its annual Juneteenth commemoration series since 2022, each year deepening the programming's historical scope and community reach.

"I like to think that judicial decisions are nothing more than stories," Lindsey told the National Endowment for the Humanities. "You set out a rule and tell a story, laying out facts to help people understand why they should follow the law in a certain way. And due process — that's really about being able to tell the story of your case and say why you should receive the relief you want." For Lindsey, the humanities and the law share the same architecture. Both are sustained by whose stories get heard — and whose do not.

Event one: Minneapolis Juneteenth Brunch — June 18

Clint Smith in conversation

Insight News • June 1, 2026 - June 7, 2026 • Page 11 with Kevin Lindsey The anchor of this year's series is the annual Juneteenth Brunch on Thursday, June 18 at Quincy Hall, 1325 Quincy St NE, Minneapolis.

The event runs from 8:45 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. CDT and features National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction winner Clint Smith in live conversation with CEO Kevin Lindsey.

Smith is the author of How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning With the History of Slavery Across America — a #1 New York Times bestseller that won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction, the Hillman Prize for Book Journalism, the Stowe Prize, the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, and was named one of the New York Times 10 Best Books of 2021.

Smith is a staff writer at The Atlantic and is widely regarded as among the most important voices of his generation on the subject of slavery's enduring legacy in American life.

The brunch conversation is designed not as a retrospective exercise but as a live accountability session. Rather than treating the Emancipation Proclamation and the Juneteenth moment as settled history, Smith and Lindsey will examine how the legacy of slavery continues to shape American infrastructure — housing policy, wealth accumulation, institutional design, civic access. Each attendee will receive a copy of How the Word Is Passed.

Tickets are $75 during Early Bird pricing (through May 26) and $100 standard (beginning May 27). Tables and half-tables are available for organizations and groups. For registration, contact registrations@ mnhum.org.

Event two: Feeding our souls — June 23

The essence of Juneteenth joy On Tuesday, June 23, from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. CDT, MHC presents Feeding Our Souls: The Essence of Juneteenth Joy at St. Paul College, 235 Marshall Ave,

St. Paul. Tickets are $25.

This evening event commemorates the immediate aftermath of the news of emancipation — the moment when those who had been held in bondage received word that they were free and responded with worship, dance, communal song, and the shared table. The gathering features spirituals performed by VocalEssence, one of the Twin Cities' preeminent choral ensembles, under the direction of Associate Artistic Director G. Phillip Shoultz III. Interspersed with the music is storytelling that traces the deep historical intersection of food, music, and liberation in the African American experience.

Attendees will also have the opportunity to experience curated dishes from prominent local Black chefs — a recognition of Black culinary arts not as garnish but as a living thread of cultural preservation, community identity, and historical memory.

G. Phillip Shoultz III is one of the Twin Cities' most versatile and respected arts voices. As VocalEssence Associate Artistic Director and founding conductor of the VocalEssence Singers of This Age — a dynamic choral apprenticeship for Twin Cities teens — Shoultz has built a career around expanding access to the choral arts and using music as a vehicle for community healing.

He also serves as the principal host for Young People's Concerts with the Minnesota Orchestra, as Artistic Director of Sing Democracy 250, and as a faculty member in the Graduate Choral Conducting program at the University of St. Thomas.

Event three: Kumbayah The Juneteenth Story, 30th anniversary — June 26

Written by Rose McGee — The O'Shaughnessy at St. Catherine University On Friday, June 26, from 2:00 to 4:30 p.m. CDT, MHC presents the milestone 30th anniversary performance

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of Rose McGee's Kumbayah The Juneteenth Story at The O'Shaughnessy at St. Catherine University, 2004 Randolph Ave, St. Paul. Admission is free; registration is required through The O'Shaughnessy (oshaughnessy@stkate.edu).

Rose McGee first wrote Kumbayah The Juneteenth Story in 1996 — when Juneteenth was still little-known outside of Texas and the communities that had kept it alive.

Published in 1998, the play has since traveled to communities across Minnesota and multiple states, growing in depth and relevance with each production.

McGee is the founder and president of Sweet Potato Comfort Pie, MHC's long-standing production partner on the play.

The 90-minute, twoact production addresses a specific and devastating historical fact: that the news of emancipation — that enslaved Black people were no longer legally held in bondage — was deliberately withheld by those who stood to lose from freedom. The Emancipation Proclamation took effect in January 1863. General Gordon Granger did not arrive in Galveston, Texas to deliver and enforce the order until June 19, 1865 — two and a half years later. That willful delay is the wound at the center of Kumbayah.

Weaving music, storytelling, and theatrical drama, the play spans centuries and continents, moving from early 1800s West Africa to the Turner Plantation in Texas in 1863 to present-day North Minneapolis. Although tragedy is depicted with unflinching honesty, the work is — as MHC has consistently described it — tremendously uplifting. It is a testament to survival, not just sorrow.

The 2026 production marks the play's full 30th anniversary performance, building on the 2025 Special Edition, which served as a bridge into this milestone year. Past productions have drawn nearly 900 attendees at the University of Minnesota's Northrop Auditorium, with additional performances for 500 young scholars in the Freedom School program.

The 2026 anniversary production at The O'Shaughnessy will include special appearances by past cast members.

Event four: The Making of America film premiere — June 28

Minneapolis Institute of Art — FREE The 2026 Juneteenth series closes on Sunday, June 28 with a significant cultural and intellectual event: the world premiere of The Making of America, a humanities documentary produced by OMG Studios and the Minnesota Humanities Center, held at the Minneapolis Institute of Art (Mia), 2400 3rd Ave S, Minneapolis. The event runs noon to 4:00 p.m. CDT and is free to attend. Registration opens May 14.

The Making of America examines how Enlightenment-era systems of knowledge — art, science, architecture, and cartography — produced the enduring frameworks for racial slavery, territorial extraction, and Indigenous dispossession that became foundational to the United States. The premiere includes a film screening followed by a post-screening panel discussion, and an art exhibition — Reconstruction 2.0: Allegories of a Better World — juried and curated by artists responding to what kind of nation we choose to build from here.

The exhibition, also at Mia, is a call to artists across disciplines to submit original works reflecting the world they want to see — a direct artistic counterpoint to the documentary's unflinching historical reckoning.

Why this series matters: freedom as an unfinished obligation

Taken together, the 2026 MHC Juneteenth series is not a celebration of completion. It is a rigorous examination of continuity — the continuous story of freedom declared, freedom delayed, freedom still being negotiated in the streets, courtrooms, school boards, and legislative chambers of America.

MHC has hosted its Juneteenth series annually since 2022 — the year after June-

teenth became a federal holiday (2021) and one year before it was designated a Minnesota state holiday (2023). That timeline is itself instructive. The formal recognition of Juneteenth is recent. The history it commemorates is not.

Lindsey has been clear about what he sees as the humanist's obligation in this moment. Speaking in the context of federal funding pressures that have forced some humanities councils to furlough staff, he told the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder: "If you were to travel an hour to the east in Wisconsin, you might have to knock on a door hard, because they had to furlough everybody.

They are not alone. Many humanities councils rely heavily on federal funds." MHC, which receives support from Minnesota's Legacy Amendment — a voter-approved initiative allocating sales tax revenue to arts, culture, and history — has so far maintained its programming capacity.

"I think what I'd like to see is this balancing of education and the joy of living."

— Kevin Lindsey, on MHC's Juneteenth mission Lindsey's vision for MHC is a dual one: it honors the trauma with unflinching clarity, and it insists equally on the joy.

"I think what I'd like to see is this balancing of education and the joy of living," he has said of the series' evolving design. It is a framework that runs through every event in the 2026 lineup — from Clint Smith's reckoning with slavery's unbroken legacy, to the communal table of Feeding Our Souls, to the survival anthem of Kumbayah, to the artistic vision of a better America at the Institute of Art. The Minnesota Humanities Center continues to prove that the humanities are not a luxury. They are the infrastructure through which communities understand themselves — and through which they build the capacity to change.

Insight News uses AI-assisted tools in some editorial production. Read our AI Policy & Transparency Statement at www.insightnews.com/ site/ai_policy.html.

Insight News Page 12 • June 1, 2026 - June 7, 2026 • Insight News The Journal for Community News, Business & the Arts

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Summit Academy

Village Social Services

818 Dunwoody Blvd

Park Plaza Apts

Crystal Beauty Salon

10th & Marquette

525 Humboldt Ave

1100 W Broadway

Glenwood Market

YMCA

Penn-Wood Market

W Broadway & Fermont Ave

501 Irving Ave

935 Olson Memorial Hwy

1821 Glenwood Ave 2125 Glenwood Ave

Fleetwood Gross & Deli 2007 Glenwood Ave

Milda's Café 1720 Glenwood Ave

So Low Food

3111 Emerson Ave N

E & L Food

1122 Lowry Ave

Metro Check Cashing 2211 Lowry Ave

Lowry & Penn Market 2211 Lowry Ave

True Vine - New Bethel 2639 Thomas

Great Is Thy Faithfullnes 2901 Emerson Ave

The Purpose

3001 Russell Ave

New Salem Missionary Baptist 2507 Bryant

Proverbs Christian 2114 Lowry

Penn Gas Stop 2606 Penn Ave

All Washed Up Laundromat 3008 Penn Ave

Wally's 1840 Penn Ave

GV Apartments (two bldgs)

Golden Avalley Rd & Penn Ave

Thor Building 3 racks Plymouth & Penn

Minneapolis Urban League 2200 Plymouth Avenue

Comcast Don’t drop 801 Plymouth Ave

NCDC

1000 Plymouth Ave

Micky's Liqour

1104 Plymouth Ave

Karate School/Energy Company 1200 Plymouth Ave

UROC 2001 Plymouth Ave

NRRC

1303 Golden Valley

North Community M B 3951 5th Ave S.

Turning Point

1500 Golden Valley Rd

North Commons 2801 James Ave

North Star School 2410 Girard Ave

Wayman AME Church 1221 7th Ave

Zion Baptist

621 Elwood Ave

Shiloh Temple 1201 Broadway Ave

New Rewsurrection MB 1301 N. 10th St.

United Faith 1156 Aldrich

Spirit of The Lord 1001 Penn Ave

High Praise 1200 N. 7th At

Hospitality House 1220 Logan Ave

Greater Mt. Nebo 1530 Russell

North Community M B 1832 Penn Ave

DTLR 509 W Broadway Ave

Boost Mobile

523 W Broadway Ave

7 Mile Discount

611 W Broadway Ave

Winner Gas

626 W Broadway Ave

Cub Food 701 W Broadway Ave

Elizabeth Hall Elen School 1101 Aldrich Ave

Afrocetric Educational 1501 Aldrich Ave

Merwin Liquor

700 Broadway Ave

US Bank 1030 Broadway Ave

50+

COVERAGE AREAS

1604 W Broadway 1007 W Broadway

1711 W Broadway

Olympic Café

2117 W Broadway

Broadway Liquor Outlet 2201 W Broadway

Sanctuary Covenant 2018 Aldrich

Minneapolis Central 1922 4 th Ave

Greater Mt. Vernon 1800 Dupont

The Movement 1801 James

Griot Ministry 1601 Penn

MINNEAPOLIS — DOWNTOWN & UPTOWN

Dunwoody College

Outdoor Stand 7th & Nicollet 7th & Nicollet

Outdoor Stand 1st St & 2nd Ave S 1st St & 2nd Ave S

Outdoor Stand N. 1st St & 4th Ave N. 1st St & 4th Ave

Harbor Lights HCMC

Elliott Towers

1138 Glenwood

United Christian Church 4300 Queen Ave

North United

4350 Fremont Ave

Watchmen Outreach 4150 Dupont

New Oil Christian 4050 Upton

New Mount Calvary 3859 Fremont

Liberty Community 3700 Bryant

Christian Restoration 4350 Fremont Ave

North Market

44th Ave & Humboldt Ave

Fremont Market 3558 Fremont Ave

Camden Market

42nd Ave & Fremont Ave

Super - USA

3807 Fremont Ave

Pump & Munch

45th Ave & Lyndale Ave

Clark Gas 41th Ave & Lyndale Ave

Fremont Clinic

3300 Fremont Ave

Northside Food Market 3559 N Lyndale Ave

Lowry Food Market 628 Lowry Ave

Star Food Market 818 Lowry Ave

Felowship Missionary Church 3355 4th St

Good News 3400 4th St

Northside Oriental Grocery 3201 Penn Ave

Quick Stop 3601 Penn Ave

Union Liquor 3219 Penn Ave

Spirit of Truth 3254 Penn Ave

New Covenant MB

1115 30th Avenue North

Holland Highrise

3440 University Ave

McDonald Liquors

2389 University Av

5010 S. 34th St

2199 University Ave

Believer Church

1761 University Ave

Amoco Gas

S. 34th St

3900 10th Ave S

Holiday YMCA

3729 Chicago Ave

3501 Chicago Ave

Auto Shop Chicago Ave

Laundratmat Chicago Ave

Wield Shop Chicago Ave

1415 University

Cub Food

1440 University Ave

LA Fitness

1370 University Ave

Project For Pride In Living

Walgreens Lunds & Berlys Henepin Liquor Speedway Gas

2200 Lyndale Ave

Earth's Beauty Supply 608 University

7 Mile

Speedway

9300 Zane Ave

Camphor Memorial United Methodist

Hy Vee Gas

9401 Zane Ave

585 Fuller Ave

Outdoor News Rack

Book of Acts Church International COGIC

Welcome Ave & Brooklyn Blvd

Outdoor News Rack

981 Marshall Ave

71st & Brooklyn Blvd

Marshall Liquor

Family Dentistry

2027 Marshall Ave

7710 Brooklyn Ste 100

Amoco Gas

Ebenezer Church

2057 Marshall Ave

9200 West Broadway

EAST SIDE

Ebenezer Church

Hook Fish-chicken

Gentlemen's Cuts

Boost Mobil

Tin Cup liquors

Unidale Mall

Cooper's Food

913B Payne

6930 Brooklyn Blvd

KFAL Radio

Wolter Bros Liquor

Speedway

Speedway

1445 W 7th St

6930 Brooklyn Blvd

Outdoor News Box

Speedway

Walgreens

1734 W 7th St

6390 Brooklyn Blvd

SELBY AVENUE

Holiday

B P Gas

Winner Gas

3333 Cedar Ave S

Subway

2501 Hennepin Ave S

3541 Cedar Ave S

Uptown Ballons

Nomadic Oasis Barber

2455 Hennepin Ave S

2525 E. Franklyn Ave

Holiday Gas

LONGFELLOW

Long Fellow Market

LAKE STREET

3815 E. Lake St

Chicago Liquors

East Lake Liquor 3916 E. Lake St

University & Rice

Street Box Selby & Western

Mississippi Market 622 Selby Ave

E & J Cleaners 642 Selby Ave

Selby Wine & Spirits 778 Selby Ave

Scoops Ice Cream 920 Selby

Carolyn Flowers 921 Selby

Golden Thyme Coffee Café 934 Selby Av

Speedway Gas

GRAND AVENUE

920 E. Lake St

4320 E. Lake St

Bryant & Lake Bowl

Recovery Center

1261 Grand Ave

810 W. Lake St

3400 S. 34th Ave

Speedway Gas

HD Coin Laundry

Kowalski's Market Walgreens

734 Grand Ave

Perrier Liquor

801 E. Lake St

3225 E. Lake St

Speedway Gas

Hennep Library

666 Grand Ave

Maytag Laundry

236 Grand Ave

2727 E. Lake St

5747 E. 34th Ave S HIAWATHA

Walgreens

Mobil Gas

RICE STREET

Merwin Liquors 1700 Rice St. 1700 Rice St.

The Hillock Apt

696 Rice Street

3301 Hiawatha

5801 Brooklyn Blvd

Payne Ave Wine & Spirits

Cub Food

980 Payne Ave

3245 County 10 Rd.

CVS

Outdoor News Rack

810 Maryland Ave

Xerxes & Bass Lake Rd

Walgreens

African A to Z Mart

M & H Gas

Brooklyn Center Liquor

721 Arcade St

1350A Shingle Creek Crossing

Liquor Ware House

Holiday

854 E 7th St.

5710 Xerxes Avenue N

Speedway

RICHFIELD

846 Johnson Pkwy

Cub Food East Side Liquor

1361 Maryland Ave

Sana's Market

1541 Maryland Ave

Jimmy's Food

532 White Bear Ave

Holiday 1770 White Bear Ave 1750 White Bear Ave

Speedway

Cub Food

Check Cash

1625 Rice St.

Speedway Gas

Minnoco Gas

SAINT PAUL

Wells Fargo Bank

Franklin Ave

City Gyro

8421 Lyndale Ave S

2001 Central Ave NE

Tobacco Shop

8401 Lyndale Ave S

Prime Market & Deli

2409 E. Franklyn Ave

2329 Central Ave NE

Liferack Resources

2951 Central Ave NE

Unity Temple 4801 63rd Ave

Fast N Fresh Deli

Cub Foods

Franklin Ave

Merwns Liquor

8348 Lyndale Ave S

Zipps Liquor

Holiday Gas

2622 Franklyn Ave

86th Lyndale Ave S

Holiday Gas

Mahiripiri Gallery

2124 E. Franklyn Ave

Emmanuel Church

9001 Penn Ave S & W. 90th St

6030 Xerxes Ave

AM Food & Tobacco

8936 Lyndale Ave S

Speedway

1814 Nicollet Ave

6321 Zane Ave

Brookdale Christian Center

1901 57th Ave N

Pilgrim Rest Church 5100 James Ave

One Touch Beauty Salon 7710 Brooklyn Ste 202

Twin Cities Rise

1011 Broadway Ave

2501 E. 22nd St

1812 Nicollet Ave

Axis Medical Center 1801 Nicollet Ave

Outdoor News Box

Holiday

D & L Foods

Capitol liquor

Liquor Barrel

531 Rice

Cedar & 6th Cedar & 5th

Merwin Liquors

161 Victoria

Big Bottle Liquors

1149 Larpenteur Ave

Grand Ave & Snelling Ave

Noble Laundromat

Grand Ave & Hamline Ave

Beauty Paradise

100 Larpenteur

7848 Portland Ave S

Otto's Liquors 7850 Portland Ave S

6601 Penn Ave S

CVS 6540 Penn Ave S EDINA

50th France Ave

Edina Liquors Walgreen's

1201 Larpenteur Ave

9056 Lyndale Ave S

Super Casa

6755 York Ave

BP Gas

MGM Liquor

7846 Portland Ave S

Outdoor Box

CVS

Cub Food

Upper Guts Barber Shop

France Ave

301 Mississippi St.

El Gordo

7836 Portland Ave S

Speedway Gas

626 Larpentuer

LARPENTEUR AVENUE

TBS Mart Foods

BP Gas

Snap Market

629 Rice St.

6000 Portland

7940 Penn Ave S

urban Lights

Big Discount Liquors

957 Rice St.

Speedway Gas

Walgreen's

Outdoor News Box

945 Rice St.

6444 Lyndale Ave S

7845 Portland Ave S

2197 Old Hudson

1559 Larpenteur Ave

9001 Lyndale Ave S

Metro by T-Mobile

1196 Rice St.

7700 Lyndale Ave S

Walgreens

275 White Bear

BLOOMINGTON AVE

Richfield Liquor Richfield Liquor

1177 Clarence St

4440 Snelling Ave S

Holiday Gas

6930 Brooklyn Blvd.

1180 Arcade St.

2000 S. 4th Ave & Franklyn

W. 78th St Nicollet Ave

6044 Brooklyn Blvd

CVS

MGM Liquor

Moto Market

6930 Brooklyn Blvd

296 E 7th St

Nanny's Jamaican Kitchen

Clinton Laundry Mat

African Deli

Speedway

Walgreens

46th St Hiawatha Ave

Dragon Star Super Market BROOKLYN CENTER

500 E 7th St

Speedway

1908 4th Ave S

Health Center

Brooklyn Blvd & Starlite Ctr 8020 Brooklyn Blvd

633 W 7th St

Walgreens

1815 Central Ave NE

Cub Food

B.C. Liquor

438 University Ave

137 Maryland Ave

9200 West Broadway

1125 W 7th St

The Uptown Diner

Franklin Ave

8517 Zane Ave

451 W Central Ave

Ele. Fetus

Senior High-Rise

Super - USA

Mount Olivet Baptist Church

1717 Washington Ave NE 2610 Central Ave NE

5200 85th Ave

440 University Ave

317 E. 38th St

1902 Clinton Ave

678 Aurora Ave

Brooklyn Park City Hall

SEWARD

2404 Hennepin Ave S

Grace Temple Church

St Albans Church of God in Christ

7700 Brooklyn Blvd

Speedway

Seward Co-op

1905 3rd Ave S

983 Central Ave. W

Walgreens

Sunrise Grocery

Spy House

Third Ave Food Market

New Birth Missionary Baptist

665 W 7th St

3620 E. 26th St

WHITTIER

732 West Central Ave

5716 Brookdale Dr

446 University Ave

2327 Hennepin Ave S

801 E. Lake St

Pilgrim Baptist Church

The Gold Key Liquor Store

Outdoor Box

Imaai Church

Global Market

5700 Brookdale Dr

Liquor Barrel

Fit 1st Run

825 E. Lake St

QUICK AFRICAN MARKET

Glamour Cuts

2600 E. 26th St

2448 Hennepin Ave S

7636 Brooklyn Blvd

University & Dale

2105 Lyndale Ave

Speedway Gas

Merwin Liquors

Shop

Cedar Food and Grill

2547 Hennepin Ave S

839 University

7638 Brooklyn Blvd

605 University

1808 Riverside Ave

Wedge Co-op

Dale & Univrsity

St. Peter Church

W. 38th St Nicollet Ave

1200 W. Lake St

Brownstone

600 University Ave

Chicago Ave

1450 W. Lake St

970 University Ave

Park Ave Church

401 E. 41st

3240 W. Lake St

Speedway

University & Dale

3400 Park Ave S

2252 Lyndale Ave S

Hair & Wigs

Terriost Shop Chicago Ave

Subway

Outdoor News Box

1475 University Ave

1182 University

3008 Lyndale Ave S

Family Dollar

7525 Brooklyn Blvd

Family Dental Clinic

Pillsbury House

Gaffrey Deli & Sub

DALE / WESTERN

Speedy Market

UPTOWN

30 Lyndale Ave S

Speedway

6930 Brooklyn Blvd 7330 Brooklyn Blvd #100

756 Snelling Ave

Metro T Moble

3740 Chicago Ave

Saigon Uptown Restaurant

7410 Brooklyn Blvd

Speedway

604 Western Ave

1515 Park S

1200 W. Lake St

Nice Family African

717 Snelling Ave

1685 University Ave

1305 University Ave

Hennepin Liquor

Speedway

W & T Market

Coffeehouse

3240 W. Lake St

Bubble Fresh Laundromat

600 Snelling Ave

CENTRAL / WEST SIDE

Cup Foods

Walgreens

Holiday

Tobacco Shop

Elliott Park Grocery

1450 W. Lake St

Nails & Tanning

510 Snelling Ave N.

1539 University Av

3733 Chicago Ave

Lunds & Berly's

Fasika Restaurant

Milburn Clothing

Black Heart Bar

SUBURBS & NEARBY BROOKLYN PARK

Chrysali Center

ELLIOT PARK

Park Elder Center

SAINT PAUL — EAST & WEST SNELLING AVENUE

589 Dale Ave

Smoke in the Pit

825 Summit Ave S

Speedway

Laundrat Mat

5101 S. 34th St

3731 Chicago Ave

The Kenwood

Sharret"s Liquor

3357 University Ave SE

Just Turkey Restaurant

KENWOOD

First Independence Bank

Speedway Gas

4454 Chicago Ave

1225 8th St

Redeemer Lutheran Glendale Seventh

Sabathani Center

4432 Chicago Ave

730 S. 8th St

1600 Chicago Ave

1800 Glenwood

UNIVERSITY AVENUE

310 38th St

ALWAYS & FOREVER

SAINT PAUL — UNIVERSITY & SELBY

Greater Church

3800 Bloomington Ave

53 Glenwood

NuWay MB 1530 Russell

MINNEAPOLIS — SOUTH POWDERHORN

2600 E. 38th St

Outdoor Stand 10th & Marquette

Free

YEARS IN PRINT

Holiday

1345 Hamline Ave

CVS

6975 York Ave

CVS

6905 York Ave

30 Fairview Ave

Cub Foods

6775 York Ave CRYSTAL

Holiday

African Market

9066 Lyndale Ave S

Bottine Blvd & Wilshire Blvd

Walgreen's

9800 Lyndale Ave S

Crystal City Hall

Next Supermarkes

Holiday Gas

Crystal Liquor Warehouse

Walgreen's

HennCty Library - Rockford Rd

Speedway Gas

Liquor Barrel

1280 W. 98th St S

5628 W Broadway

WINDOM

ROBBINSDALE

Holiday Gas

Hy Vee

Cub Foods

Arco Food Mart

Walgreen

COLUMBIA HEIGHTS

1823 Nicollet Ave 1845 Nicollet Ave

4141 Douglas Dr N

50 W. 98th St S

Family Tree Clinic 1919 Nicollet Ave

Flowers by Miss Bertha 2100 Nicollet Ave

A Slice of New York 2407 Nicollet Ave

Park Avenue Center

56 Ave & Elmhurst

9800 Lyndale Ave S

6401 N 42nd Ave

5444 Nicollet Ave

2430 Nicollet Ave

Glam Doll Donuts

3505 Bottineau Blvd

5937 Nicollet Ave

2607 Nicollet Ave

Shawns Hor Supermarket 2712 Nicollet Ave

Caravelle Photo

Bottineau & 42nd Ave

Speedway

W. 66th St Nicollet Ave

Subway

5000 Central Ave NE

Laundermat

4950 Central Ave NE

Top Value Liquor

W. 66th St Nicollet Ave

2529 Nicollet Ave

Pancho

W. 66th St Nicollet Ave

2539 Nicollet Ave

BP Gas

Speedway Gas

W. 35th St Nicollet Ave

PPL Career Center

5400 Lyndale Ave S

CBD Health & Wellness 5315 Lyndale Ave S

1021 E. Franklyn Ave

Outdoor Box

50th Grant Ave S

Super USA

5965 Penn Ave S

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