Southwest Journal September 3-16

Mitigating airplane noise PAGE B1 • Pollinator-friendly gardens PAGE B3 • Revamping your patio PAGE B10

Vol. 31, No. 18 September 3–16, 2020 southwestjournal.com

Coalition hopes city rebuilds ‘stronger’ from damage

Watching the mail

By Andrew Hazzard

‘Every piece, every day’ mantra challenged by pandemic, fire, federal directives

A postal carrier delivers mail on Aug. 31 in Windom.

Photo by Isaiah Rustad

On Aug. 20, Tiwanna Jackson cut a red ribbon and officially reopened her beauty parlor Tweak the Glam at Lake & Lyndale, celebrating a long road of recovery.

Getting back in business wasn’t easy. Jackson’s studio, like many other businesses on and around the Lake Street corridor, was damaged and looted during civil unrest after the Memorial Day police killing of George Floyd. She had to replace shattered windows and stolen equipment to make her eyebrow and microblading boutique ready to serve customers and mentor young entrepreneurs again.

Jackson’s reopening was about more than Tweak the Glam. She invited other Lake Street businesses like 1 Life CBD and had a mini street fair of sorts in the heart of LynLake with a resounding message: Lake Street is open for business and it needs help to recover.

“Lake Street is not going to die; it’s going to come back stronger than ever,” Jackson said.

The effort to rebuild Lake Street and other corridors hard hit by civil unrest will need to be as massive as the destruction visited upon the city in late May — a damage toll that some estimate as high as $1 billion — and will require new ways of thinking about ownership and investment.

In early June, various organizations stepped up to begin the process of rebuilding what was lost. The Community Now Coalition sought to bring those groups together and join forces around creating a new Minneapolis.

The group has worked to set goals around business retention and prioritizing merchants who are Black, Indigenous and people of color (BIPOC).

The Lake Street Council has doled out $5.5 million in grant funding so far to help 300 businesses, including Tweak the Glam, to clean up, reopen and rebuild. The organization wants that rebuilding to focus on BIPOC businesses.

By Michelle Bruch

For mail carriers in Minneapolis, neither snow, nor rain, nor pandemic, nor politics, nor burned stations can stay the couriers from swift completion of their appointed rounds. But they say it’s been a stressful year.

“As long as they see us every day, they can feel like some normalcy is going on. … If we’re not panicking, they don’t have to,” said one Southwest mail carrier who declined to share his name without authorization.

It was a “kick in the gut” to see the Lake Street station burning on television, according to another mail carrier who spoke confidentially for the same reason and is now working out of the Loring station. Federal directives added stress this summer, he said.

“The mantra is ‘every piece, every day,’” he said. “To get a different direction — people SEE POST OFFICE / PAGE A14 were like, ‘What’s going on?’”

SEE BUSINESSES / PAGE A15

At private schools, it’s back to class Each of Southwest’s five private schools has its own approach to safety

By Nate Gotlieb

Southwest Minneapolis’ private schools are incorporating both in-person and online instruction to start the year, spacing out desks, cleaning regularly and mandating masks, hand washing and social distancing.

But in other respects, decisions about how best to balance students’ educations with their safety during the pandemic vary greatly by school.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz has said that public and charter schools can choose whether to reopen, provided schools can

meet strict health and safety protocols and that COVID-19 spread has slowed in their communities.

Private schools were never covered by the governor’s recommendation, but most waited until after the governor’s decision was made public to announce their plans.

All five Southwest private schools said they are following Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) guidelines to determine who needs to quarantine in the event of an exposure. Those guidelines state that 1) Students

and staff who are within 6 feet of an infected person for at least 15 minutes starting from 48 hours before illness onset should be isolated for 14 days, and 2) Symptomatic students and staff should be tested immediately, and asymptomatic close contacts should be tested no sooner than five days after exposure.

MDH says schools are not required to test students or teachers — or ask them to quarantine — just because a student in their classroom tests positive for the virus.

SEE PRIVATE SCHOOLS / PAGE A15

Tiwanna Jackson speaks at the grand reopening of her beauty boutique Tweak the Glam in LynLake. Her business received aid from the Lake Street Council after being damaged in the civil unrest. Photo by Andrew Hazzard

The bronze dog of Linden Hills

Facing financial uncertainty

Voices from the pandemic

A bulletriddled photograph

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By Andrew Hazzard / ahazzard@swjournal.com

LINDEN HILLS

Faribault Woolen Mill comes to Southwest A longstanding Minnesota brand has opened up shop in Linden Hills.

Faribault Woolen Mill now has a retail shop in Southwest Minneapolis, in the former CircleRock space at 44th & Beard.

Faribault Woolen Mill has been weaving a range of quality wool products in the same southern Minnesota factory since 1865. The Southwest Minneapolis location opened in July and has seen a steady stream of business in the neighborhood even under the pandemic conditions, according to store manager Judy Briggs.

CircleRock, a Minnesota men’s retailer that opened shop in the home-turned-store on 44th Street last summer, merged with Faribault

Faribault Woolen Mill has merged with CircleRock and taken over its space in Linden Hills. Photo by Andrew Hazzard

Woolen Mill in February, and the brand was eager to maintain a retail store in Linden Hills.

The store specializes in wool bedding and throw blankets. The shop also carries a line of woolen accessories like coffee sleeves, coasters and wine bags.

The blankets and throws are sought-after gifts for graduations and holidays, Briggs said.

The designs feature state and national flags, maps of the Minneapolis-St. Paul streetcar system and Lake Minnetonka.

The Linden Hills location takes advantage of its retail setting in an old single-family home by showcasing bedding options in the upstairs bedrooms.

If cared for properly, Briggs said, the items should last forever and are the kind of item that can end up being memorable tokens in family history.

“With everything we’re selling, there’s a story,” Briggs said.

The store plans to have an official grand opening Sept. 24-26 with special items and gift drawings, spread out over a few days to prevent overcrowding.

Faribault Woolen Mill Where: 3413 W. 44th St. Info: faribaultmill.com

STEVENS SQUARE

Old School back in session Old School, Steeple People’s nonprofit thrift shop in Stevens Square, is back in business, adjusting to new conditions during the coronavirus pandemic while trying to serve a stable of customers in need of clothing and goods at low prices.

The longtime Minneapolis thrift and consignment shop was closed from mid-March to July 9 due to the coronavirus pandemic and has reopened with some new protocols, but with the same quality deals and friendly faces as before. The reopening began with slow days but has since seen a steady rise in business, according to store manager Joe Partyka.

“It’s been really nice and energizing to see people coming in,” assistant manager Molly Johnson said.

Old School sells a bit of everything. You can find china dish sets and cameras, toys and coffee mugs, doorknobs and cooking pots, and, if you get there soon, a coffee table photo book called “Cats in Love.” Their clothing section is large and popular with people looking for good deals on outfits or vintage looks.

Old School will try to sell anything clean and usable, Partyka said, but prefers clothing donations to be seasonal. The store is always in need of men’s clothing and cookware, which usually go fast, he said.

Goods move quickly, and if an item doesn’t sell in six to eight weeks, Old School will donate it to shelter organizations like Mary’s Place in Downtown. The goal is to constantly keep goods moving, and the staff will mark items down to half price if they linger on the shelf.

Donations typically flow in constantly, but during the pandemic, the shop is only collecting goods on Wednesday afternoons and has had to ask people to limit some donations, so staff has time to go through everything.

“We’ve had to be more selective about what we bring in,” Johnson said.

The shop has traditionally relied on volunteer workers. But many of those volunteers are senior citizens at a higher risk with COVID-19

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Molly Johnson and Joe Partyka are glad to be back and serving the neighborhood at Old School, the nonprofit thrift shop operated by Steeple People in Stevens Square. Photo by Andrew Hazzard

Creating new beginnings.

Judy Shields:

and have opted to donate goods instead of time.

For retired Star Tribune press operator Bruce Johnson, the decision to return to volunteering was difficult. But he said the store has done a good job creating a safe environment, and after talking to a relative in health care, he felt more confident in going back for his typical Thursday shift at the register. He enjoys it.

“I like the folks I work with, and I like the clientele very much,” he said.

Right now, the shop is open from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Thursday through Sunday. As the shop is debuting many new donations each week, customers know to come Thursday mornings.

On Aug. 26 a group of customers came in right away. Many have told the staff how glad they are that the business is back.

“We are one of the major walkable stores in the area,” Partyka said.

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Daniel and Sitania Kerkinni, pictured with their 2-year-old daughter, Leona, plan to open a new City Paws location in West Maka Ska this fall. Photo by Andrew Hazzard

A Downtown dog daycare, training and boarding center is expanding to Southwest Minneapolis this fall.

City Paws Pet Club plans to open its second location off Excelsior Boulevard in West Maka Ska this October, taking over the space formerly occupied by multiple shops, including Moss Envy and Indulge & Bloom.

Daniel and Sitania Kerkinni, the husband and wife team behind City Paws, opened their first location Downtown in 2018. The club offers daycare, grooming, boarding and training services.

Inside their new 8,000-square-foot center they will have play areas for small, medium and large dogs, 35 boarding rooms and a grooming center. The buildout involved knocking down walls and installing new plumbing, which was a bit of a pain due to its location on the site of an old city dump from the early 1900s, Daniel said.

Daniel has a background in finance and Sitania is a former teacher and preschool director. They formed City Paws to turn their love of pets into a business and grew their first location Downtown via word of mouth. Using Sitania’s background in education, they have created a new model for dog daycare that they call preschool. The idea is to give dogs staying there more structured, stimulating and purposefully directed activi-

ties than standard playtime. Play sessions are designed by experienced dog trainers and the animals are given more rests and alone time to properly socialize, she said.

People boarding their pets can schedule FaceTime appointments or opt for a larger lodging space with a built-in puppy cam.

The cameras are very popular with clients, the Kerkinnis said.

“It’s a big deal — where you leave your little ones,” Sitania said.

COVID-19 has brought some shifts in which services customers want. More people are staying at home and not putting their dogs in daycare, but the puppy adoption boom that came along with the pandemic has been good for business.

“Our training service has really taken off with that,” Daniel said.

They said they were attracted to the Bde Maka Ska area because there are many petowning professionals who live in condominium and apartment spaces and want to give their dogs a chance to spread their legs.

“We really like to be in residential neighborhoods,” Sitania said.

City Paws Where: 3054 Excelsior Boulevard Info: citypawspetclub.com

People boarding their pets at City Paws can schedule FaceTime appointments or opt for a larger lodging space with a built-in puppy cam.

Submitted photo

southwestjournal.com / September 3–16, 2020 A5

LINDEN HILLS

Settergren’s shop dog is now cast in bronze People and pets gathered on the streets of downtown Linden Hills to remember the longtime Settergren’s Ace Hardware shop dog who left a lasting impression on neighbors and customers alike.

“Jager was a special part of our community,” said Ingrid Soderberg, a Fulton resident and longtime shopper at Settergren’s who started a fundraising campaign to memorialize the dog after his death last August.

Now, Jager will be in the community forever.

A bronze statue of his likeness, completed

by local artist Michelle Recke, was unveiled to a crowd the afternoon of Aug. 27. Longtime shoppers and neighbors were in attendance, many bringing their own dogs to the ceremony. A number of those dogs are direct descendants of Jager, a large Munsterlander who was highly sought in the breeding community and whose popularity led to many neighbors buying pups from litters he sired.

The current shop dog, Jurgen, is his grandson.

“He just had a really special way of putting smiles on people,” Mark Settergren said.

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A statue of Jager, the longtime shop dog at Settergren’s Ace Hardware, was unveiled Aug. 27 outside the shop. Many of Jager’s offspring and descendants live in the area and attended the unveiling. Photos by Isaiah Rustad

A6 September 3–16, 2020 / southwestjournal.com

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Civil unrest reignited in Downtown Minneapolis after the suicide of a homicide suspect on Nicollet Mall, sparking rioting and looting that spilled into parts of Southwest and prompted a municipal curfew.

Crowds began to gather in Downtown on Aug. 26 after a man police were seeking in connection to an earlier homicide used a gun to take his own life at about 6 p.m. Rumors had spread that Minneapolis Police Department (MPD) officers had killed the man, leading to groups of angry demonstrators and the looting of several businesses in the area.

Much of the damage in Southwest centered along Nicollet Avenue in the Eat Street area.

The unrest came just three months after the Memorial Day police killing of George Floyd in South Minneapolis and days after police in Kenosha, Wisconsin, shot another Black man, Jacob Blake, in the back. Two-thirds of Minneapolis residents surveyed in a recent poll said they view the city’s police department unfavorably. The unrest also came amid a pandemic in which almost a third of Minnesotans — and more than half of Black Minnesotans — have lost work.

Council Member Jeremiah Ellison said people’s assumption that the MPD killed the man is “rooted in a steep distrust.”

The damage is frustrating, Ellison said, especially when the rage is sparked by disinformation, but he noted that the police have historically been a source of misinformation themselves.

“We forfeited our goodwill, and this is the ugly cost,” Ellison wrote on Twitter.

Minneapolis officials quickly published and shared a surveillance video of the apparent suicide on social media but removed it the following day after receiving feedback critical of the decision to disseminate the graphic image of a Black man’s death.

Mayor Jacob Frey said video was released to “quell widespread unrest and/or rumor,” though the city sustained a significant amount of damage after the footage was released. The mayor issued an emergency curfew order and requested aid from the National Guard and outside law enforcement. The curfew was also in effect on Aug. 27, a night that was mostly uneventful, and then lifted.

While most of the damage was done along Nicollet Mall Downtown, rioters and looters struck several businesses along Nicollet

Avenue in Stevens Square and Whittier.

Flavor Bee’s restaurant at 18th & Nicollet had its door smashed. Glass was shattered at the Franklin-Nicollet Liquor Store.

At 24th & Nicollet, the Wedge Table had its door shattered and the neighboring building that hosts Metro PCS, Sew Simple and Zetta’s Flatbreads was also damaged.

Doug Peterson, a store director with Twin Cities Co-op Partners, which runs Wedge Table and the Wedge and Linden Hills co-ops, said the damage was limited to the broken door.

“It’s scary. It seemed to come so suddenly,” Peterson said.

Consignment shop b. Resale at 26th & Nicollet had windows damaged and some inventory items taken, according to employee Cej B.F., who preferred to give the initials of his last name. Workers at the store were cleaning up and getting the shop ready for business on Aug. 27, and he said the staff knows by now how to handle such looting.

He said the local government was doing a poor job spreading information and that the unrest stems from years of neglect.

“This isn’t because of the community; it’s because of the system,” he said.

There were 132 people were arrested in connection to the unrest Aug. 26, according to Hennepin County Sheriff Dave Hutchinson.

Four fires were reported citywide, including one at the Tires Plus at Lake & Dupont in Southwest. Minneapolis Fire Chief John Fruetel said all the buildings remain standing and that firefighters “did an excellent job.”

At a press conference Aug. 27, city officials attempted to distance the unrest from the May protests, with Mayor Jacob Frey, Police Chief Medaria Arradondo and Council Member Lisa Goodman (Ward 7) all promising to fight “lawlessness.”

“These individuals were not peacefully protesting or assembling,” Arradondo said.

“They were looting, creating vandalism, burglarizing, trying to set buildings ablaze. I will not tolerate that.”

Arradondo said the presence of the National Guard and State Patrol was necessary to prevent residents and businesses from experiencing “compounded trauma.”

— Andrew Hazzard

southwestjournal.com / September 3–16, 2020 A7

Public Safety Update Carjacker shoots 2 near Bde Maka Ska A man and woman in their early 20s were shot during a botched carjacking on Aug. 15 as they sat in a parking lot overlooking Bde Maka Ska. They have been released from the hospital and are expected to recover from their injuries.

Around 9:40 p.m., a man approached their vehicle, which was parked on the south side of the lake, near William Berry Parkway, the road connecting Bde Maka Ska to Lake Harriet.

Police said the man shot the two victims — ages 22 and 24 — and left the scene without taking their car. The police report says an “automatic handgun” was used. The victims were taken to Hennepin County Medical Center.

There have been 338 gunshot victims this year citywide as of Aug. 18, an increase of 85% over the four-year average from 2016-2019.

Park Board spokesperson Robin Smothers said her agency doesn’t keep data on shootings in parks but that they are the location of less than 2% of the city’s violent crimes.

“This type of aggravated assault is very rare,” she said.

Southwest saw a wave of robberies and car thefts in late July, with 26 robberies recorded during the week ending July 27 — more than twice as many robberies as had been reported in the 5th Precinct in any other week on record between January 2016 and June 2020.

Police said they have arrested several teens and young adults tied to the robberies, and robbery totals in the 5th Precinct have dropped to more normal levels in August.

The victims of the Aug. 15 shooting described their assailant as a tall, slim, bald, bearded Black man in his 30s or 40s and wearing a dark brown T-shirt. Officials ask anyone with information to call the Park Police at 612-230-6550.

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A group of people was seen adding incendiaries to the fire at the Nicollet Avenue Wells Fargo on May 28.

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Two Minnesotans living outside the city have been charged with setting the blaze that damaged the Nicollet Avenue Wells Fargo near the 5th Precinct on May 28.

Marc Bell Gonzales, 29, of Wayzata, and Alexander Steven Heil, 24, of Monticello, have been charged with conspiracy to commit arson in federal court for their alleged role in the fire that heavily damaged the bank branch at 31st & Nicollet, according to a United States Attorney’s Office news release.

The fire was set the night of May 28, when the demonstrations following the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer reached their peak in Southwest. As crowds of protesters converged on the 5th Precinct, sporadic looting of nearby businesses began and fires engulfed buildings.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) and the FBI say Gonzales and Heil worked with others to accelerate a fire at the bank. Gonzales is specifically accused

of pouring gasoline around the building.

There have now been 15 arrests on arsonrelated charges connected to the civil unrest in the Twin Cities following the death of George Floyd on May 25, according to the ATF. More than 150 fires were set in the metro area in late May, many concentrated along the Lake Street corridor. The Minnesota State Fire Marshal, Minneapolis Fire Department, Minneapolis Police Department and Hennepin County Sheriff ’s Office have assisted in the arson investigations.

The ATF has offered rewards to tips leading to the arrests of those suspected in arsons related to the unrest. The agency continues to ask those with knowledge about fires set to local businesses to call 1-888-ATF-TIPS or visit reportit.com.

The Wells Fargo branch remains closed.

A protester stands in front of the burning bank branch.

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A8 September 3–16, 2020 / southwestjournal.com

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‘Where the sadness comes from’ Local residents facing loss of unemployment, eviction worries and financial uncertainty

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By Becca Most

When Andi Lennartson was laid off from her dream job in the beauty industry on July 31, her anxiety was over the top. As someone who always had a job and felt financially secure, Lennartson never anticipated being let go, especially so suddenly and during a pandemic.

Due to her severance package, Lennartson hasn’t qualified for unemployment until this month. The aid she received won’t be enough to pay her rent and utilities. By the end of October, she’ll be forced to leave her apartment in Lowry Hill East and stay with her sister in White Bear Lake to make ends meet while she applies for other jobs.

Losing the independence of living alone on top of the friendships she cultivated during her last eight years at her old job is tough and navigating the resources available has added an additional challenge.

“I’ve sat on the phone for hours waiting for assistance with unemployment,” she said. “I don’t even know what to do or where to look. I’m on these sites but I have no clue about all these programs available.”

The loss of a job or reduction in hours has pushed many people in Southwest into financial uncertainty, forcing some to move, rely on community aid or simply hope that they won’t get sick. In many cases it’s a tale of two economies, with some residents returning to work and making financial recoveries and others struggling to put food on the table.

One undocumented Whittier woman, let go from her job at a Downtown sports stadium, said she feels like she has no rights as an immigrant and has lost sleep over her fears of getting sick and what it would mean for her young children.

Another Whittier family stopped spending on non-essentials, including swimming lessons for their 11-year-old daughter, when her father’s hours were cut at work.

About 54% of the state’s Black workers, 43% of Indigenous workers, 34% of Latino workers and 24% of white workers have filed for unemployment benefits during the pandemic, according to state data, and when the $600 federal unemployment supplement expired on July 31, many people were left without a lifeline.

Because of work or legal status, others never qualified for unemployment in the first place.

Changing regulations

Since mid-March over 900,000 Minnesotans have applied for unemployment benefits and, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, about half of Minnesotans have lost some level of income.

A federal aid program will give an extra $300 a week to most Minnesotans out of work, but state officials estimate those payments could only last through September.

A recent statewide survey by HousingLink found that while 91% of respondents kept up with their rent before the pandemic, only 72% are staying current today. Metro data from the Minnesota Multi Housing Association is less dire but still shows that in Class C apartments,

María Cecilia Laden, a Spanish teacher at Whittier International Elementary, has spent time this summer listening to the stories of families that have experienced job losses or are undocumented.

A GoFundMe, set up in May by parents in the community, raised about $45,000 and has distributed the money to almost 60 families in need. Photo by Isaiah Rustad

the metro’s most common building class, late and non-payments increased from 6% to 12% between August 2019 and August 2020. That figure is down from 15% in April.

An eviction moratorium has been in place since March, though as of Aug. 4 landlords can terminate leases if they need to move themselves or family members into the property. The Trump administration announced on Sept. 1 that the evictions would be suspended for most renters through the end of the year.

Eric Hauge, the executive director of HOME Line, said his nonprofit has been receiving a similar number of calls from renters seeking advice as in previous years. But some key differences, he said, are the length of time people are on the phone and the complicated batch of questions they ask as they try to navigate rapidly changing legal regulations. Because state regulations are changing on an almost a day-to-day basis, he said, many people are anxious and uncertain about where they stand.

As of Aug. 24, the state’s housing department is accepting applications for its COVID-19 Housing Assistance Program, a $100 million program funded through the federal CARES Act. Hauge said it’s still unclear if people will be able to get funds from the program before evictions are filed or if the amount of rental assistance being offered is enough to address the need.

“The economic fallout from the pandemic is now entering a seventh month,” he said. “It’s possible some people have been unable to pay all of their rent for a substantial amount of this period.”

Community support

Several neighborhood organizations and schools in Southwest have stepped up to provide aid for those impacted by the pandemic, offering one-

time grants or donations as short-term relief.

“Any little bit helps,” said Tori, an artist who received a $250 grant from the Lowry Hill East Neighborhood Association in early August. (She asked her last name not be printed.)

In March, with the cancelation of many gigs and conventions she relied on to sell her art, Tori estimates she lost around $4,000, which equates to four months of living expenses.

Because she is self-employed and relies on gigs or commissions for her income, she doesn’t qualify for the same unemployment benefits as those who work salaried jobs.

Although she feels privileged to have health insurance and access to COVID testing, Tori has had to shift her business model to make ends meet, taking on more commission work.

“If I were to get sick with COVID, I don’t have paid leave,” she said. “Now I feel pretty financially settled. Six months later [however], I might be in a different boat.”

María Cecilia Laden, a Spanish teacher at Whittier International Elementary, said many families in Whittier are struggling right now, especially those who experienced job losses or are undocumented. Some teachers like her have donated their time and money to help families pay for rent, food and supplies.

A GoFundMe (tinyurl.com/whittier-families), set up in May by parents in the community, has raised about $45,000 and has distributed the money to almost 60 families in need.

A Whittier resident with two young daughters — one a 4th-grader at the Whittier school — received $1,200 from the GoFundMe. Because he is undocumented, he requested he be referred to as “el Oaxaco”; he is originally from the Mexican state of Oaxaca.

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southwestjournal.com / September 3–16, 2020 A9

Voices

A mutually advantageous deal I read with great interest the story on page A1 of the Aug. 20 issue about Randolph Street Realty Capital and its shenanigans in Lowry Hill East. The developer and Michael Feddersen seem to have worked out a mutually advantageous deal — never mind the families who were tossed out of their homes with just three days’ notice.

Alyssa Ford

Numb to Black death It’s been months since George Floyd was killed. While many are still wrangling for systemic change, I am reflecting on what has changed in me. My community’s response to this tragedy revealed how I had grown numb to Black death.

When Eric Garner, Sandra Bland, Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown were killed, I recognized each death was tragically unjust.

Each death was a painful reminder of how my own complexion could leave me vulnerable. In each case, people marched, but I had too little faith in those methods to get involved. I sympathized with their goals, but I did not believe marchers could mount the strength to change the power structures they were up against.

Social media has shown so many Black people die after routine police stops — I think I distanced myself from the emotion of it in order to cope. I stopped myself from

declaring my right to live because I didn’t think people in power cared to listen. I never had hope in these deaths prompting societal change.

The thing that surprised me about this most recent tragedy is how the world responded to it. Even white people, even corporations, even politicians who had previously advanced their careers on racist ideals veiled as policy now insisted that they cared about Black life. Many dismissed these public displays of concern as naive, trite, convenient or shallow.

Regardless of the reasons behind these tokens of compassion, their volume took me by surprise. Now, when I leave my house in Southwest Minneapolis, I quickly lose count of the Black Lives Matter signs.

I realize this can’t end with signs, so I support systemic change however I can, but I have to admit that it’s heartening to see how many people care about my safety, about everyone’s safety. And it exposed to me how my past responses to these killings, my cynicism, my defense mechanisms were all somewhat dehumanizing. After watching so many versions of myself die, how could this not affect me? I guess this is one way white supremacy works.

I think being forced to absorb so much death over the years had a dehumanizing effect on me. Thanks to all those who were compassionate enough to still get angry.

Eddie Glenn East Harriet

Nice white parents I just finished listening to the “Nice White Parents” podcast from the New York Times.

The podcast’s tagline is, “If you want to understand what’s wrong with our public

education system, you have to look at what is arguably the most powerful force in our schools: white parents.” Listening to the five episodes that focus on one school in Brooklyn caused me to reflect on how much it mirrored my experience as a white parent in Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS).

The first episode was particularly painful. It details how a school that had been ignored by white parents for years received a sudden influx, many of whom implemented ideas for curriculum and fundraisers without talking to the Black, Indigenous and people of color (BIPOC) families already attending. I thought back to 2010, when my daughter started kindergarten at Lyndale Community School.

It was the first year of the new school boundaries and a group of white families were attending a school that had been 90% BIPOC the year before. Did I sound like the parents in that podcast? How much of the principal’s time did I demand with my ideas for how things could be “better” for my child? Too much.

Over the years I heard many MPS neighbors talk about “winning the magnet school lottery” so they wouldn’t have to send their kids to our community school. They said they wanted small class sizes and arts programming and I would reply that we had all of that at Lyndale, but those neighbors still didn’t choose it. I gave tours and would watch them count the number of white students in the class and tense up if the number was too small for their comfort level. In the podcast, they call this “the bliss point” — the percentage of white students at a school so that white parents are comfortable with integration. National research had found it was at least 26% white students in a school. Based on the schools that consistently get put first on choice cards, I think our local bliss point

is much higher. The Minneapolis chapter of Integrated Schools used state data to analyze segregation in Hennepin County schools, accounting for school districts’ differing racial demographics. If Southwest Minneapolis were its own district, we would have the most racially segregated elementary schools in the county.

Spoiler alert: Nice White Parents ends on a somewhat optimistic note. For the first time in decades, Brooklyn had passed a plan that was going to intentionally integrate the middle schools. I kept comparing that to the just completed MPS Comprehensive District Design (CDD) process and reflecting on how much more contentious the CDD was. Many white parents were upset that their schools may have a smaller percentage of BIPOC students under the plan. But in MPS, as in the podcast, what white parents say and what they actually do with their school choice often differs.

If white parents care about integration, then the burden should be on us to make school choices consistent with those values.

MPS has failed BIPOC students in both segregated and desegregated schools for too many years. The focus of MPS needs to be on improving the educational experience for BIPOC students regardless of the demographics of the school. It’s time for us white parents to admit that advocating for what’s “best” for our children can be an act of oppression against BIPOC students and families, as we hoard resources, opportunities and power within a system that has always put our children’s needs in front of those of others.

Bridget Gernander East Harriet Bridget Gernander is founder of the Minneapolis chapter of the organization Integrated Schools.

A10 September 3–16, 2020 / southwestjournal.com

Routes and Roads Light Rail

By Andrew Hazzard / ahazzard@swjournal.com

Southwest Light Rail Transit project clears funding hurdle

The Southwest Light Rail Transit project has received a full-funding agreement from the federal government, a significant and longexpected move that will cover roughly half the price of the $2 billion Green Line extension.

After multiple letters of no prejudice — essentially notes from the federal government assuring the Metropolitan Council the money would be coming — the Trump Administration announced the advancement of the full funding agreement on Aug. 5. The Federal Transportation Administration will contribute $929 million for the project, just under half the total bill.

Buses

A column on transportation in Southwest Minneapolis

“This is incredible news for the Twin Cities and state of Minnesota,” Gov. Tim Walz said in a press release. “The Southwest Light Rail Project will be transformative for so many communities when complete and encapsulates the idea of a One Minnesota.”

The 14.5-mile Green Line extension connecting Downtown Minneapolis to Eden Prairie has now been under construction for 16 months.

In Southwest Minneapolis, construction activities continue to intensify. In August, crews began the excavation process for the new tunnel being built in the Kenilworth Corridor. The

BRT funding fate tied to bonding bill

Funds to construct two new bus rapid transit (BRT) lines in Minneapolis are hanging in the balance of a bonding bill with an uncertain outcome in September’s pending special session of the state Legislature.

The roughly $55 million needed to fully fund the B and D lines was in place in a $1.8 billion public works bonding bill that fell apart during a July special session after failing to reach a 60% majority of votes in the House of Representatives.

House Republicans have stated they will not vote for a bonding bill unless Gov. Tim Walz ends his peacetime emergency powers enacted in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

Southwest Rep. Frank Hornstein (DFL61A), who chairs the House Transportation Committee, said he is glad to be “on the cusp” of funding the lines and called the GOP objection to the emergency declaration “absurd,”

citing the 49 other states with such declarations during the pandemic.

The B Line would largely replace Route 21, running from the future West Lake light rail station to Downtown St. Paul via Lake Street in Minneapolis and Marshall and Selby avenues in St. Paul. The D Line would enhance the current Route 5 service connecting Brooklyn Center to the Mall of America primarily using Fremont and Emerson avenues on the North Side and Chicago Avenue in South Minneapolis.

BRT service, planners say, increases speed and comfort of bus service with more developed stations farther apart than standard stops, payment before boarding (at either the front or middle of the bus) and the ability for buses to communicate with traffic signals to get elongated or faster green lights at key intersections.

SEE BUS RAPID TRANSIT / PAGE A13

half-mile tunnel being built in Cedar-IslesDean is one of the most technically complex and controversial parts of the project.

Work this summer has consisted mostly of installing metal sheeting used to form the tunnel, but crews began the early stages of excavation in August, according to the Met Council. Initial excavation steps are starting near Park Siding Park off West 28th Street, where temporary tunnel cells are being constructed. More trucks and workers will be in the area in the coming weeks to remove and bring in materials for the excavation.

Roads

The northbound lane of Burnham Road will be closed until the third week of September for utility work on the east side of the road.

The new freight bridge over the Kenilworth Channel is complete and a demolition of the old bridge will occur in early September, according to the Met Council. Construction of the new light-rail bridge is expected to start after Labor Day. The large dirt surcharges at the future sites of the 21st Street and Bryn Mawr stations have achieved necessary compaction and will be excavated in the coming weeks. Work on the 21st Street Station is expected to start this fall.

Fremont Ave. bridge nears finish line

Hennepin County is nearly done with its reconstruction of the Fremont Avenue bridge over the Midtown Greenway.

Work on the bridge deck is now complete and it may open to users in September, public works officials say. Crews are finishing work on wider, 10-foot sidewalks, approaches, curbs and gutters in the coming days.

The project to replace the more than 100-year-old bridge over the Greenway took longer than expected due to the unexpected need to install a more robust shoring system to support excavation activities.

Extensive closures of the trail were required during construction.

Most of the 26 century-old bridges on the Greenway are in need of replacing, and the county and other local agencies have been working to rebuild them while preserving

facets of the original designs.

The Fremont Avenue bridge was deemed in the worst condition of all Greenway bridges in a 2007 study and has been closed to vehicle traffic since 2016.

The Fremont Avenue bridge over the Midtown Greenway is largely complete and is expected to reopen to users in September. Photo by Andrew Hazzard

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southwestjournal.com / September 3–16, 2020 A11

Cracked affordable apartment demolished Randolph Street Realty Capital has demolished a Lowry Hill East apartment building that it was sued for damaging. The building, razed on Sept. 1, held 25 affordable units until 2018 — when it was badly cracked in a botched construction job and residents were forced to vacate, some ending up in homeless shelters.

Chicago-based Randolph Street acquired the building, at 2003 Aldrich Ave., in March after settling the lawsuit. The firm, which never publicly disclosed the cost of repairing the building, now has plans to construct a 47-unit market-rate apartment on the site.

The demolition is a disappointment for neighbors and affordable housing activists who had been mobilizing to save the building.

A crowd of about 100 protesters marched from Mueller Park to the four-story brick building on the corner of Franklin & Lyndale on Aug. 20, holding big yellow signs reading, “Welcome to Lowry Hill East

Neighborhood! Home of Naturally Occurring Profitable Housing!”

Alicia Gibson, board president of the Lowry Hill East Neighborhood Association, asked the crowd to demand a change in Randolph Street’s plans and to demand that the city devise an alternate strategy for preserving affordable housing at 2003 Aldrich.

“They keep telling us these shenanigans are legal,” she said. “They need to fix that loophole now. If people can come in and damage affordable housing, buy it from their own malfeasance, tear it down and put in market-rate and higher housing, then that should terrify anyone in this city who cares about housing justice.”

Council President Lisa Bender, who represents the area, has said the situation is “unbelievably frustrating” but that the city cannot deny a wrecking permit on subjective grounds.

Activist Toussaint Morrison, a co-organizer of the rally, said the city was allowing gentrification.

“We could have bought this right here, cleaned it up and made it for the people. This could have housed people!” he said. “You are turning away brown, Black, poor neglected people willingly.”

Wedge resident Nick Sanford said he lives in a similar century-old brick building to 2003 Aldrich.

“I think they should be preserved,” he said.

The march, led by the groups On Site Public Media and Communities United Against Police Brutality, also stopped outside Bender’s home in Lowry Hill East, with protesters criticizing Bender for not being responsive to constituents and not doing enough to reign in the Minneapolis Police Department before George Floyd was killed.

The Lowry Hill East Neighborhood Association has vowed to oppose any development project on the 2003 Aldrich site that doesn’t include at least 25 apartment units affordable to people making less than 50% of the area median income. In addition, the organization is requesting a review by the city attorney to “ensure proper changes are made to prevent this from ever happening again.”

— Zac Farber

The affordable apartment at 2003 Aldrich Ave. was demolished Sept. 1 by a developer that acquired the building after being sued for damaging it. Randolph Street Realty Capital plans to build a 47-unit market-rate apartment on the site. Submitted photo

District hiring replacements for cops despite objections

By Nate Gotlieb / ngotlieb@swjournal.com

School district leaders have continued building a new school safety team over protests from staff and activists who are bothered by the decision to seek candidates with law-enforcement backgrounds.

In July, Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) solicited applications for the position of “public

safety support specialist” to replace the cadre of Minneapolis Police Department (MPD) officers who previously worked in the district.

The move was in response to the School Board’s unanimous vote to cut ties with the department because of the killing of George Floyd. The board’s decision was celebrated by

scores of students and families.

The district is in the final stages of hiring 11 specialists — including one for each of its seven neighborhood high schools — at a salary range of $65,695-$85,790. The specialists will be responsible for developing school security plans, deescalating violent situations,

mediating student conflicts and training staff on best practices for conflict resolution.

The initial job description said that specialists should have a degree in law enforcement or a related field and at least three years of experience in security/violence prevention. (It allowed SEE SCHOOL SECURITY / PAGE A14

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A12 September 3–16, 2020 / southwestjournal.com

By Nate Gotlieb / ngotlieb@swjournal.com

Fossil fuel divestment campaign joined by city

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are other investors willing to buy them. They also say that there are better ways to drive down fossil fuel consumption, such as carbon dioxide regulations and taxes and investments in clean energy sources.

“People who have committed themselves to divestment campaigns can make major contributions through channeling their commitments into fighting on behalf of such a policy framework,” University of Massachusetts Amherst researchers wrote in an April 2018 working paper.

In Minnesota, a coalition of businesses, nonprofits and environmental and political groups have been calling on the SBI to divest fossil fuel-related holdings from its $102.4 billion pension fund. (The exact amount invested in fossil fuels is unknown, according to the nonprofit MN350, though one volunteer estimated that the total is at least $1.6 billion.)

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While the board has made no promises on the issue, activists have said they were pleased with its decision in May to divest from coal-related holdings.

The Minneapolis City Council pledged in 2015 to no longer invest in fossil fuel-related industries, though it had no such holdings at the time. Garwood said the Aug. 14 resolution was offered in solidarity with activists who planned to speak in favor of divestment at the SBI’s Aug. 26 meeting.

The resolution came two months after Attorney General Keith Ellison filed lawsuits against ExxonMobil Corp., among other fossil fuel companies, alleging it misled the public on climate change. The company has denied the allegations.

The St. Paul City Council has also passed a divestment resolution.

by SW Journal Readers

we are

A September 2019 climate rally in St. Paul. Environmental activists are urging state leaders to divest from fossil fuels. File photo

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They also have argued that divestment could slow fossil fuel burning by making it more difficult for companies to access the funds they need to extract oil, gas and coal.

“For the good of everybody on earth, those firms have to get less profitable,” said Robin Garwood, a policy aide to Council Member Cam Gordon (Ward 2), who co-authored the resolution.

Fossil fuel divestment campaigns have been a key tactic of environmental activists in recent years, particularly at liberal arts colleges and universities, where endowments have been at the center of debate.

Supporters argue that divestment is financially prudent because humans will be forced to use less oil, gas and coal in coming years to avoid the most catastrophic impacts of climate change.

They also have argued that divestment campaigns have raised awareness about climate change and that the negative attention fossil fuel 1934 Hennepin Avenue S, Mpls companies receive could lead 1934 H E N N We E PI NareAVE .S SAN DW ICH EStue-fri 10-5 them to invest more in alteroffering curbside takeout sat 9-4 M P L S, on M Nall55 4 0 3 shop and pantry items butcher native energy. as well as our full sandwich menu closed sun-mon Opponents say that ridding DE LICAT ESSE N portfolios of fossil fuel stocks Please visit LOWRYHILLMEATS.COM for current won’t put financial pressure on offerings and text us your order at 612.999.4200 the companies, because there Five years after pledging not to invest city funds in fossil fuel industries, the Minneapolis City Council has joined a campaign to rid state pension funds of holdings related to the largescale production of greenhouse gases.

On Aug. 14, the council approved a resolution urging the State Board of Investment (SBI) — an entity comprised of the governor, attorney general, state auditor and secretary of state — to begin divestment this year.

Council members and aides say divestment is in the best financial interest of current and former city workers and other public employees, noting research indicating that fossil fuel stocks have underperformed compared with the market in recent years.

2/3/17 2:39 PM

8/26/19 5:03 PM

southwestjournal.com / September 3–16, 2020 A13

By Andrew Hazzard / ahazzard@swjournal.com

Kenilworth Channel project will stabilize shoreline in contact with those property owners and expects all private fencing will be removed from public land by the project’s completion.

The MPRB recently began a new master planning process for the regional parkland around Cedar Lake and Lake of the Isles, and an early goal has been to complete a walking path around Cedar Lake. The channel restoration project shouldn’t interfere with any potential trails in the future, Elias said.

The project is being funded via the state Park Legacy and Trails fund and has a budget of roughly $1 million. Construction is expected to occur in the fall of 2021.

A new project will replace the cracking walls along the Kenilworth Channel with native plants intended to stabilize the shoreline.

The Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board (MPRB) is planning to repair the channel between Cedar Lake and Lake of the Isles in 2021, with work focusing on the section west of the Burnham Road bridge.

The Kenilworth Channel was dug between

1911 and 1913, and the original intent was to have vegetated, natural channel banks, but that’s not what happened. Walls were first constructed in 1915 and reconstructed twice, most recently in 1961.

In 2002, the MPRB assessed the walls and determined the structures were failing to keep soil out of the channel, according to project manager Daniel Elias.

“It’s been on our radar for a while,” Elias said.

The primary goal of the project is to stabilize the channel and improve safety conditions.

Erosion is building behind the walls, he said, and some open water has emerged behind the barriers. Left unchecked, it could wash out and lead to tree loss.

In addition to shoring up safety, the project is seen as a way to provide a more natural habitat resource in the area. Construction will include a rock-and-soil bottom intended to help vegetation and prevent boat damage.

To promote the growth of new vegetation, crews will use a fabric-encapsulated soil lift, which wraps the soil in a biodegradable fabric to help vegetation take root.

An additional goal is to improve the ice composition around the channel in the winter. The channel is a popular spot for cross country skiers but has had problems maintaining solid ice. The MPRB is working with the city of Minneapolis to address the issue by adding more cover to a sanitary sewer pipe in the channel and redirecting roadway discharge from the Burnham Road bridge.

Many residents at a virtual open house asked about removing homeowners’ fencing that exists on public parkland surrounding the channel. Elias said the MPRB has been

FROM FINANCIAL STRAIN / PAGE A8

a cardiologist every two weeks. Because of his undocumented status, he also cannot apply for unemployment or federal aid and now cannot send money to support his sister back in Mexico.

El Oaxaco said since he has been unable to work, the weight of providing for his family financially has put strain on his wife, who

now works 40 hours a week at a restaurant in St. Paul and often comes home exhausted.

Although he said he’d like to go back to work, he worries about his wife getting sick and not being able to work as many hours.

Although he knows if his family were evicted, they would be able to find a small place somewhere to live, el Oaxaco said it’s

heartbreaking to think about the impact on his two daughters, aged 14 and 8.

“For my daughters to experience an eviction, for my daughters to see that we are not able to pay rent — that is where the sadness comes from,” he said.

to be part of that rebuilding,” Hornstein said.

The Metropolitan Council expressed confidence that the funding will come through the Legislature and does not have plans to secure needed dollars from other entities should it fail.

“The council remains optimistic that there will be an agreement on a bonding

bill that includes funding for both the D and B lines when the Legislature reconvenes in September for a special session,” Met Council spokesperson Bonnie Kollodge told the Southwest Journal. “Both projects will be fully funded if we secure the bonds from the state.”

Route 5 and Route 21 are the first- and

second-most used bus lines in the Twin Cities, according to Metro Transit, and advocates say bringing faster, more reliable service to those lines is key for climate and equity goals in the region.

“It always was a strong case for equity with these two lines, and now the case is even stronger,” Hornstein said.

The Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board plans to stabilize and naturalize the Kenilworth Channel between Cedar Lake and Lake of the Isles in 2021, replacing the existing walls with native plants. Image courtesy of the Park Board

As someone with asthma and other health issues, el Oaxaco hasn’t felt comfortable going back to work since he stopped working in March, when he was hospitalized with COVID-19. Even if he did go back, he said, no job will let him take time off to visit

FROM BUS RAPID TRANSIT / PAGE A10

With Lake Street experiencing some of the most extensive damage in the civil unrest following the killing of George Floyd, officials say construction of the B Line is more important than ever.

“Lake Street will be rebuilt and we want BRT

NOTED: The Park Board has closed all three

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Lake Harriet’s north beach, the three Cedar Lake beaches and the beach at Theodore Wirth Lake will be open through Labor Day, at which point swimming docks and buoys will be removed. The area’s wading pools also will close after Labor Day. — Nate Gotlieb

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A14 September 3–16, 2020 / southwestjournal.com

A view inside the post office at 31st & 1st, which was destroyed during the unrest in late May. Photo by Lorie Shaull FROM POST OFFICE / PAGE A1

Now his station is getting all mail out the door, he said, speaking after the public outcry in late August. But damage has been done, and he’s hearing the Postmaster General call for more changes after the election.

“Who would have thought the postal service would be the flashpoint of the 2020 election?” he said.

Doing the job

Sorting machines run all night, breaking down mail by destination at the main post office Downtown at 100 S. 1st St., according to Peggy Whitney, business agent of the American Postal Workers Union Minneapolis Area Local 125.

Early each morning, trucks pick up the mail at the dock and distribute it to local postal offices.

In the past, Whitney said, trucks might deviate from the schedule based on day-to-day circumstances and come back for mail left behind. But a July directive from Postmaster General Louis DeJoy meant trucks weren’t coming back and on occasion left without any mail at all.

“Does it happen a lot? No. But if it’s your medicine and it happens once, it’s a big deal,” Whitney said.

The departure deadlines have loosened by a few minutes in recent days, she said.

Mail carriers also face stricter deadlines to leave the station and start their routes, even if some mail isn’t ready to go, said a woman within the carrier craft who said she was not authorized to speak publicly.

“There still is mail that’s not going out like it used to,” she said. “There is still the concern that once the election is over, it’s going to crack down again, and it’s harmful to the American public and to our institution.”

Postal service operations became a national controversy following the appointment of DeJoy in mid-June. President Donald Trump has said “nothing loses money like the Post Office,” and he’s expressed confidence that DeJoy will make the postal service self-sustaining. Democrats in Congress have expressed alarm about a sharp uptick in delays and pointed to thousands of complaints since DeJoy arrived.

At the Minneapolis main post office, two sorting machines are gone and two machines are unplugged and covered in a tarp, according to Whitney. At least two more machines were slated to be disassembled and reused as parts in other equipment, but DeJoy suspended

FROM SCHOOL SECURITY / PAGE A11

for the human resources department to exercise discretion in determining qualifications.)

Those requirements frustrated some activists and school staff, who said that the new security officers would continue the problematic aspects of the school resource officer (SRO) program, such as criminalizing minor behavior infractions. Some noted that the district is paying the specialists significantly more than education support staff whose roles already include mediating student conflicts.

“The immediate need to fill these positions feels rushed since we will be providing

further changes until after the election.

“We can still process the same amount of mail. If we have a million letters today, we can still do a million letters. It just takes a little longer,” Whitney said. “But unfortunately we don’t get more time.”

Early in her career, Whitney sorted mail without barcodes, typing in zip codes at a rate of one letter per second.

“I’ve been in the post office 34 years. They are always replacing and removing and reconfiguring and updating,” she said.

What’s different now, she said, is the amount of sorting equipment proposed for removal — 671 pieces nationwide — and the lack of analysis that typically goes into decommissioning equipment that costs from $50,000 to nearly $1 million. Machines selected for removal could process letters, flat mail and packages, she said.

Extensive study typically goes into collection box removal as well, according to Whitney, as staff first measure the usage of each box over time and file a report before removal.

“None of that occurred this time. They just started taking them out,” she said.

It’s hard to parse exactly why 12 mailboxes in Minneapolis were removed. The postal service removed collection boxes during the civil unrest to prevent burning or even terrorist acts. Mailboxes can be targets for explosives triggered when the lever is pulled down, and Whitney said they received word they were a potential target. As of Aug. 25, all but five mailboxes appeared to be back, she said.

Attorney General Keith Ellison joined a coalition of 14 states in a federal lawsuit challenging the operational changes. The suit said the Twin Cities’ sorting capacity was reportedly reduced by about 100,000-200,000 pieces of mail per hour.

A local USPS spokesperson said Minnesota “mail is moving as it should and our operations are running normally.”

The states’ complaint said DeJoy donated more than $2 million to the Trump campaign and Republican causes since 2016 and he reportedly holds stock options in Amazon and equity in his former employer XPO Logistics, a transportation and logistics company that does business with USPS. The USPS inspector general is investigating DeJoy’s policy changes as well as potential conflicts of interest, according to the office of Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who requested the investigation. DeJoy told Congress he sold all of his Amazon stock.

In congressional testimony on Aug. 21 and 24, DeJoy said mailbox and machine removal plans were in motion before he arrived, and though he’s since stopped it, he does not plan to reinstall machines. He said removal provides more room to process packages, a growing part of the postal service.

DeJoy said he aimed to save at least $1 billion by running trucks on schedule, but mail processing didn’t meet that schedule and caused delays. He said that goal still stands.

“FedEx, UPS, everybody runs their trucks on time,” he said.

USPS receives no direct taxpayer funds, according to the nonpartisan Brookings Institution, and stamps and other service fees generate enough revenue to cover operating costs. Pension and retiree healthcare liabilities push the bottom line into the red. Unlike other employers, according to Brookings, Congress requires USPS to prefund retiree health costs out of current income, a requirement that was possible during strong performance in the early 2000s, but led to missing payments shortly after the requirement passed in 2006 due to digital competition and the recession.

DeJoy said he supports $25 billion in federal funding to offset costs of the pandemic (the House passed a bill, the Senate hasn’t taken it up and the president signaled he would veto it), but said that’s not a long-term fix. He’s still looking at “dramatic” changes to the postal service after the election, such as changes in pricing and service to Alaska.

education through a distance-learning model,” the teachers and educational-support-professionals unions said in a statement. “We urge the district to rethink its timeline and engage more people in this process.”

Karen DeVet, who oversees the district’s security and emergency management department, said it’s important for MPS to have staff who are well-trained to handle emergencies.

She said the specialists will not be similar to SROs, noting that they won’t carry guns or handcuffs and will focus more on building relationships with students.

Washburn High School principal Emily Palmer, who is president of the district’s principals union, said while principals appreciated

the individual SROs, the MPD lost the trust of students with Floyd’s killing.

She said she’s excited that the specialists will be trained in restorative justice practices — strategies for resolving conflicts between students — and that the specialists will be more involved with emergency planning than were the SROs. District leaders say the specialist position is part of a broader effort to make schools more welcoming to kids and families of color, who have left MPS by the thousands in recent years.

Task forces in recent months have been envisioning what a welcoming environment for all students would look like. They plan on

Election mail

In Minnesota’s Aug. 11 primary, roughly 60% voted absentee, more than tripling the mail-in ballots returned in the 2018 primary, according to the Secretary of State’s office.

Out of 554,906 mail-in ballots, less than 1% were rejected because they were received late by mail. Simon said he didn’t notice unusual delays in the mail at that time.

“That doesn’t mean there weren’t delays. It means that voters seemed to be very smart about calculating those delays into their decisions about when to mail,” Simon said.

And now Minnesota voters will have a builtin seven-day cushion. All Minnesota ballots postmarked through Election Day will still be counted, so long as they arrive within seven days of the election, based on a standing court order. And absentee ballots won’t require a witness signature, which Simon said is the

most common issue in rejecting a ballot.

Trump has expressed disdain for universal mail-in voting (while still supporting absentee voting), tweeting without evidence on May 28 that mail-in voting would lead to “massive fraud.” His administration has opposed a post office “bailout,” and he told Fox Business in mid-August that Democrats can’t have universal mail-in voting without that funding.

There is no evidence to suggest systemic bias toward either party due to mail-in ballots, nor evidence of widespread fraud in mail-in ballots, the Brookings Institution wrote in June.

In congressional testimony, DeJoy recommended that voters request ballots at least 15 days before the election and return ballots at least 7 days before Election Day. “We deliver 433 million pieces of mail a day.

So 150 million ballots, 160 million ballots over the course of a week is a very small amount,” he said in testimony to the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs, adding that more resources would be on standby. “Plus, mail volume is down 13%-14% this year. … If everyone complies with the mail process that we’ve been identifying, there will be absolutely no issue.”

Simon said DeJoy’s testimony concerns him, but it doesn’t change his guidance for voters to seriously consider voting from home.

“Please order that ballot now. Don’t wait until October,” he said. “As soon as you’re comfortable with your choices, get that ballot in.”

Voters who order an absentee ballot can still change their minds and vote in person at the polls. Or if they’re skittish about the mail, they can hand-deliver an absentee ballot to the election office that sent their ballot. Early voting starts Sept. 18.

Temporary post office

Minneapolis post offices at 110 E. 31st St. and 3033 27th Ave. S. burned during the unrest, rendering both structures unusable. USPS plans to rebuild at both locations in the next 12-24 months, according to the city, but in the meantime, Minneapolis has agreed to lease about half of the Kmart building and loading dock at Lake & Nicollet to USPS. Instead of demolishing the Kmart in late 2020 as planned, the City Council approved a lease in effect Aug. 1 allowing USPS to rent the western half of the building for about $30,400 per month for up to two years.

SEE POST OFFICE / PAGE A15

making recommendations to improve school cultures and hope to implement them districtwide in the 2023-24 school year.

Education activist Kenneth Eban, who helped students organize against SROs and has urged the district to restart the hiring process for the specialists, said he’ll be closely following those recommendations.

“It’s not just a problem of these 11 new positions,” he said. “They really need to look at all of their culture and their job descriptions … and really say, ‘What are [we] doing to perpetuate this culture of policing and surveillance of Black and brown students?’”

The district plans to officially hire the security specialists sometime this September, DeVet said.

southwestjournal.com / September 3–16, 2020 A15 FROM BUSINESSES / PAGE A1

“I think it’s an opportunity for Lake Street to address: How do we do a better job of creating opportunities for Black entrepreneurs to have space?” said Allison Sharkey, executive director of the Lake Street Council and co-chair of the newly formed Minneapolis Forward Coalition.

Hennepin County Commissioner Angela Conley (District 4) spoke at Tweak the Glam’s reopening about the importance of young Black women like Jackson having their own businesses and enabling others to do the same as the city rebuilds.

“It really is about embracing the generations behind us with the tools that they need,” she said.

The Community Now Coalition also aims to help merchants who rent buy their buildings. The group has formed a list of buildings damaged in the unrest and identified the property owners. If a building goes up for sale, the group plans to approach the owner and propose a sale to a land-bank or cooperative ownership model.

“What do we want these corridors to be?

I think we want more community ownership,” said Jonathan Weinhagen, CEO of the Minneapolis Regional Chamber and co-chair of the Community Now Coalition.

Six months ago, he said, it would have been hard to imagine philanthropic donors supporting community ownership, but now many deep-pocketed organizations are open to helping fund that vision.

The scope of long-term needs is overwhelming, but what many businesses hit by compounding blows of COVID-19 and civil unrest need now is customers, the Community Now Coalition believes.

Lake Street customers are confused about what’s open and what isn’t, Sharkey said.

Trying to get the word out that shops are open is an important step to getting cash back in the hands of hurting businesses.

Fear of future damage

While many are focused on rebuilding, the Minneapolis Police Department’s failure to earn the community’s trust means renewed civil unrest is likely. This was made clear on Aug. 26 when a man suspected in a Downtown homicide took his life when police located him on Nicollet Mall. Misinformation spread quickly that police had shot the man, and the area was hit hard by a group of looters who smashed windows and set fires to shops in Downtown and sporadically across the city. (See page A6.)

With pending legal cases for the former Minneapolis police officers involved in

FROM POST OFFICE / PAGE A14

USPS declined to comment, saying the terms of the lease are not finalized.

A mobile post office is no longer onsite at Lake & Nicollet, and USPS is referring Lake Street station customers and P.O. box users to the Loring station at 18 N. 12th St. Whitney said the unrest has a lingering impact on letter carriers who are now working at more congested stations, and she believes 23 letter carrier vehicles were destroyed during the unrest. Staff tried to move some of the expensive vehicles but didn’t get them all.

“One of them got stolen and was seen

George Floyd’s death, a pandemic that’s taken a huge social and financial toll — more than half of the state’s Black residents have lost work — and the possibility of violent conflict in the aftermath of a contested election, those involved in rebuilding know there could be more destruction to come.

This summer has also seen a substantial rise in burglaries in Minneapolis, many targeting businesses already hit

by COVID-19 and civil unrest. In July, burglaries in Southwest’s 5th Precinct were up 65% over a five-year average, according to MPD data.

“A lot of our businesses and property owners are afraid they might be hit again,” Sharkey said.

The city and state learned lessons from late May, she said, pointing to the faster response from the National Guard and law enforcement to deploy in late August. Businesses hope the government is better prepared and can stave off massive losses if angry crowds take to the streets again.

FROM PRIVATE SCHOOLS / PAGE A1

Cost of rebuilding

Annunciation, which began the school year Aug. 31, is having students in grades K-5 remain with one cohort throughout the day.

Middle schoolers will travel between three classrooms for homeroom, math and science.

If a student tests positive for COVID-19, the entire school building will be cleaned. Otherwise, common areas will be wiped down at least twice a day and electrostatic sprayers will be used to clean classrooms and other areas.

The school has purchased several air purifiers to help with air quality and is requiring students to wear masks at all times they are indoors, except for when they’re eating.

Students are entering the school at different locations by grade, lunch is being eaten within classrooms or outside, and students are being directed via one-way arrows through the hallways.

The school is not requiring temperature checks before entering the building, though it has encouraged families to take students’ temperatures at home.

The school says it is working to develop online-learning plans for families with some medical conditions, though it declined to provide specifics. One parent said she pulled her son with autism out of Annunciation, in part, because she was bothered that the school dedicated just a single sentence to distance learning in its reopening booklet.

The school declined to answer questions about how many students and staff are starting the year remotely and whether Annunciation has required families to sign liability waivers.

The total cost of damage in the city remains uncertain, but the number is large, likely hovering near $1 billion, Weinhagen said, and help will be needed from many levels. The Community Now Coalition has set a goal of raising $50 million via the Minneapolis Foundation.

In June, the Minnesota House approved a $300 million relief package for areas hit during civil unrest, but the bill did not make it through the Republican-controlled Senate. The coalition believes that as November nears, conservative lawmakers will be under greater pressure not to offer aid to a liberal city whose leaders have pledged to defund the police.

“The closer we get to the election, the harder it’s going to be for the city of Minneapolis to move a package through the Legislature,” Weinhagen said.

For many merchants, the gap between what insurance is paying out and the total estimated rebuilding costs is tremendous, Sharkey said. There are policies that might max out at $25,000 for demolishing a ruined building, but that won’t cover a full demolition cost, which can sometimes be more than 10 times higher. Those are areas the coalition hopes its funding can help.

The scope of the need is great, but many are optimistic the process can lead to a stronger, more resilient and more inclusive Minneapolis.

“We’re going to be able to reshape and reform the city that we love,” Weinhagen said.

on video joyriding around,” she said. “I think it’s just another factor in the overall delay of mail.”

A Southwest mail carrier said he’s anxious to get back into the neighborhood when a temporary post office opens. He’s appreciated all the support from residents and shopkeepers along his route who have supplied him with homemade masks, candy and water refills.

“I’m still proud to be a letter carrier,” another postal worker said. “Actually, we’re kind of the darlings of America right now.

People are really looking out for us — don’t mess with the mailman.”

The City Council approved a lease with the United States Postal Service to create a temporary post office in the former Kmart at 10 W. Lake St. USPS declined to comment until an agreement is finalized. Photo

by Isaiah Rustad

And none of the private schools in Southwest have said they plan to take those steps in the event of a positive test; the Lake Country Montessori program in Kingfield says it would shift classes online for two weeks.

Lake Country is the only Southwest private school to confirm that it plans to notify the family of every student in a classroom where someone tests positive.

Here’s a brief look at each school’s plan:

room and a parent will be required to pick them up within 30 minutes of notification.

Students who are immunocompromised or who are unable to attend classes in person will be able to livestream lectures and activities.

They will be able to speak to their teachers using built-in microphones on their laptops, but their ability to fully engage might be limited.

About 15% of Blake’s 1,360 students opted for the remote-only learning option, a school spokesperson wrote in an email.

Families were asked to sign a form waiving some of Blake’s liability before the start of the year.

Annunciation Windom (grades pre-K-8)

Carondelet Linden Hills and Fulton (grades pre-K-8)

At Carondelet, students in grades pre-K-5 will have in-person classes every day while students in grades 6-8 will be on campus twice a week.

When on campus, students will stay in a single classroom for most of the day, with some classes held outdoors. Middle school students who are not on campus will follow the in-person classes via livestream.

Daily temperature checks will be required before entering the building, class sizes will be smaller than normal, and students sitting at desks less than 5 feet apart will have plexiglass shields between them.

Families will be required to transport their children to and from school.

The school declined to answer questions about liability waivers, notification procedures and how many students and staff have requested to work remotely.

Lake Country Kingfield (grades preschool-8)

Lake Country is having students on campus two days a week.

About 10% of its 300 students and 60 staff are working entirely from home to start the year.

In the event of a positive test, the school plans to shift classrooms to online learning for two weeks and inform all families in the school.

Families have been required to sign informed consent forms to return.

Blake Kenwood (grades 9-12)

Blake, which has campuses in Wayzata, Hopkins and Kenwood, has a 14-person team of temporary employees who will screen students and staff each morning and clean hightouch surfaces throughout the day.

Students at the high school in Kenwood will attend in-person classes every other school day, working on independent assignments during days when they are at home.

Electrostatic cleaning machines will be used to clean large spaces, and bus drivers will take students’ temperatures with non-contact thermometers before they are allowed on buses.

Visitors will not be allowed on campus until at least Thanksgiving break.

Blake has designed a COVID-19 response matrix — which it is not sharing with families — to handle potential cases and decide when to isolate students and employees.

If a student has a new onset of any COVID-19 symptom, they will be escorted to an isolation

City of Lakes Waldorf Whittier (grades preschool-8)

City of Lakes, which began the school year Sept. 2, didn’t respond to requests for comment about its hybrid model. A parent said the school is having students in the classroom three days a week and will also have one day of outdoor learning.

Charters

The three charter schools in Southwest Minneapolis — Hennepin Elementary School, Hiawatha College Prep-Kingfield and Stonebridge World School — are starting the year with remote learning.

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Southwest Journal September 3–16, 2020

The noise beneath the planes A quieter home is quite the deal for residents living under flight paths

By Brian Martucci

E

arlier this year, Tangletown homeowner Greg Brucker installed 33 new windows and a number of exterior doors in his 80-year-old home near 50th & Lyndale, under the approach to one of the MSP Airport’s main runways.

He has no idea how much they cost. He never even saw the bill.

That’s not because Brucker is the sort of homeowner who’d finance a major home improvement project without double-checking the contractor’s math. Quite the contrary — he’s an avid DIYer with a fine grasp of practical detail.

In truth, Brucker didn’t need to know what his home’s new windows and doors cost because he didn’t pay for them. The Metropolitan Airports Commission did, courtesy of a longstanding court order that requires the entity to cover costs for qualifying noise mitigation work in tens of thousands of residential units across a wide swath of South Minneapolis and parts of neighboring cities.

Cargo planes frequently fly over John Farrell’s home near Diamond Lake. Farrell and his wife are currently upgrading the noise-dampening, efficiency enhancing improvements for their home that were paid for by the Metropolitan Airports Commission. Photos by Isaiah Rustad

SEE NOISE MITIGATION / PAGE B6

B2 September 3–16, 2020 / southwestjournal.com

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southwestjournal.com / September 3–16, 2020 B3

How to cultivate a pollinator-friendly garden

By Becca Most

L

inden Hills resident Bob Brunmeier no longer owns a lawn mower or a weed wacker. In fact, he no longer has to worry about lawn care at all.

His front yard, sidewalk boulevard and backyard sprout purple prairie asters, false indigo and creeping thyme. Laid carefully in a bed of mulch, a grouping of native joe-pye weed flourishes, and a couple of shrubs hold the soil in place. What you won’t find on Brunmeier’s property: grass.

Brunmeier is one of many Southwest residents planting pollinator gardens — replacing a traditionally cut and manicured turf lawn with native flowers, clover and other bee-friendly plants. The gardens retain water and prevent drainage of chemicals and soil into nearby lakes, while providing habitat for bees, butterflies and other insects.

And beyond those benefits, Brunmeier said, his pollinator garden also looks better than his old lawn.

“It’s such a win-win-win you kind of wonder why everyone doesn’t do it,” he said with a laugh. “People just will stop and compliment me on the project. … They never complimented me on my old weedy dandelion grass.”

Although not a Master Gardener by any means, Brunmeier said there are a lot of resources out there for people who want to

SEE POLLINATORS / PAGE B4

Linden Hills resident Bob Brunmeier converted his entire front lawn into pollinator-friendly habitat earlier this summer. Photo by Becca Most

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B4 September 3–16, 2020 / southwestjournal.com FROM POLLINATORS / PAGE B3

get started. While he just finished planting a couple of months ago, he’s found the amount of activity in his lawn rewarding.

“There are bees there all day long every day and you can kind of stare at them. It’s mesmerizing, actually,” he said. “There’s a constant buzz of activity — no pun intended. It’s just kind of fun to watch them do their thing.”

Minnesota is home to over 400 species of native bees, but colony decline is rapid because of habitat loss, pesticide use, climate change and other factors. The data on native bees is less known than that of honeybees — a 2017 study from the Center for Biological Diversity found that more than half of the native bee populations studied were in decline and a quarter were facing extinction.

The monarch butterfly, another pollinator, mirrors that trend; the species’ population has dropped nearly 80% since the 1990s, according to the 2017 Minnesota State Agency Pollinator Report.

James Wolfin, a manager for the Lawns to Legumes program, is working to prevent further declines. Approved for funding in 2019, the program helps Minnesotans create and cultivate pollinator-friendly spaces in their residential yards. This year was the first time the program gave grants to homeowners to create garden spaces on their property and reimbursed gardeners up to $350 for supplies, plants and labor.

The program’s website is full of tips and guidance for homeowners, like which plants to buy and how to design a pollinator lawn. The team also has master gardeners available on call to answer any questions and offer advice.

Although turf grass has its benefits, especially for those who want to play in their yards or host a picnic, Wolfin said he’s seen more interest from locals who are considering

SEE POLLINATORS / PAGE B5

Kingfield resident Melinda Ludwiczak stands by one of her pollinator gardens on Aug. 3. Photos by Becca Most

southwestjournal.com / September 3–16, 2020 B5 FROM POLLINATORS / PAGE B4

installing native plants as an alternative. With more neighborhood associations embracing pollinator-friendly spaces and garden centers supplying more native plants to consumers, making the change is becoming easier and more socially acceptable, he said.

Because the process of digging up lawns and planting new growth can be intimidating, Wolfin said the Lawns to Legumes program is designed to show the immense variety of options and types of gardens available. Some residents are just interested in digging a small flower bed or planting some shrubbery in a shady area of their backyard. Others are looking for a way to make their lawn into a full-fledged garden.

Pollinator gardens don’t just keep communities looking beautiful and vibrant — they play an important role in the ecosystem as well, he said. A third of all food crops in the U.S. rely on pollinators to grow. Without them, the world as we know it would look drastically different, even just on your block, Wolfin said.

“You couldn’t imagine your neighborhood without trees and flowers, and everything that keeps your neighborhood blooming, and the pollinators are really what drives those plant communities,” he said.

Nitrogen in lawn fertilizer causes algae blooms and invasive milfoil plant growth in lakes, as can phosphorus found in lawn clippings, soil and water used to irrigate turf lawns. Residents can create “rain gardens,” sunken areas of lawns surrounded by perennials, to prevent erosion, attract birds and butterflies and filter pollutants before they enter lakes and rivers.

For Melinda Ludwiczak, who lives in Kingfield, gardening has been her therapy since COVID-19. A Master Gardener volunteer for the past 20 years, Ludwiczak was looking forward to showing off her lawn for the annual Master Gardener home garden tour. Hers was the designated “pollinator station.”

They never complimented me on my old weedy dandelion grass.

— Bob Brunmeier, Linden Hills

Although the tour was canceled this year, Ludwiczak said her gardens always catch the attention of neighbors walking by. Throughout her lawn, she has a couple sections of fescue, zinnias, aster and milkweed, and her backyard is dotted with crab apple and North Star cherry trees.

Ludwiczak said that depending on the amount of time, energy and resources people want to dedicate to their pollinator gardens, there are many opportunities for gardeners to get creative. Bushes like coralberry are lowmaintenance and provide nectar for bees, as do many perennials like baptisia and hostas.

After starting a boulevard garden with native plants a year ago, Jen Vance of the Lynnhurst neighborhood signed up for one of the Lawns to Legumes grants last fall to make a pocket garden in her backyard. Because she lives close to a creek, she wanted to minimize the amount of fertilizer she was using and try to prevent runoff.

Vance said it feels good knowing her garden is connected to other ecosystems in her neighborhood and will provide habitat and food for pollinators throughout the cities. Already in the couple months since she first planted, she’s seen more monarch butterflies and bees bumbling around.

“I think so many times when we think about the major environmental issues, it can feel pretty overwhelming and I feel like these will be the concrete ways to help keep our water clean [and help pollinators],” she said. “It feels like a small actionable thing I can do to make a difference.”

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Bees and butterflies flock to an overhang of purple coneflowers and other pollinator-friendly plants outside Ludwiczak’s home. Gardens like this one help support local ecosystems and provide food for dwindling pollinator populations.

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B6 September 3–16, 2020 / southwestjournal.com FROM NOISE MITIGATION / PAGE B1

owners to take advantage. The current MAC noise mitigation program officially winds down in 2024, but Mosites advises homeowners to contact the MAC by 2023 if they wish to participate.

Homeowners not eligible for MACsubsidized work can use MAC’s approved product list to plan DIY noise mitigation projects. Because noise mitigation improvements like new windows and insulation tend to improve energy efficiency, DIYers may qualify for utility rebates or tax credits that reduce their net project costs.

Homeowners like Brucker living in the loudest “noise contours” qualify for the MAC’s full mitigation package, essentially a blank check for modifications to reduce average interior noise by five decibels. Though most homes in high-noise areas of south Minneapolis have central air conditioning at this point, full mitigation includes whole-house A/C installation at cost — easily $30,000 to $40,000 in older homes requiring electrical upgrades, said Pat Mosites, residential noise mitigation program manager for the MAC. If that sounds overly generous of the MAC, consider that homeowners without air conditioning must accept the din of the runway approach as the price of fresh air.

Homes in quieter-but-still-loud zones qualify for partial mitigation, a more limited but still generous package subsidizing insulation, new windows and other sounddampening improvements to the tune of about $20,000, Mosites said. All program participants are financially responsible for any prerequisite remediations needed before mitigation work begins, such as repairs to rotted window frames.

The vast majority of the South Minneapolis residential buildings eligible for the MAC’s noise mitigation program have already participated — at least 15,000 singleand multifamily homes, according to Loren Olson, government relations representative for the city of Minneapolis. But participation is voluntary, and homeowners leery of disruptive renovation projects, unable to afford costly prerequisite fixes or in preparations to sell are more likely to put off improvements, Mosites said. About 20 homes eligible from past years came back into the program in 2020, out of roughly 270 total homes served, he says.

Time is running out for eligible home-

‘Much quieter’

This past winter’s project was actually Brucker’s second “full mitigation” package. In 2009, Brucker was among the program participants who qualified for free air conditioning and attendant electrical upgrades, plus about $15,000 toward other improvements. The other option was a larger “pile of money” for approved, non-A/C improvements.

“We didn’t have air conditioning, so it was an easy call to make,” Brucker said. He used the discretionary funds to install modern storm windows over the home’s vintage single-pane windows. In combination, the whole-house A/C and double windows resulted in “some reduction” to interior noise in the warmer months, he said.

Temporarily, at least. By 2018, airplane noise had increased significantly in Brucker’s neighborhood due to shifting flight patterns and more frequent operations, and his home qualified for full mitigation once more. With air conditioning already in place, Brucker opted to replace his interior and storm windows with ultra-efficient double-paned Pella interior windows and heavier storm windows. He also swapped his drafty exterior doors for tighter, heavier ones.

The results were more dramatic this time.

“The sound reduction on the second project was much better than I thought it would

be,” says Brucker. His son, who lives in the area and visits frequently, “tells me it’s much quieter with the windows closed now.”

And the work went surprisingly smoothly.

Last year, Brucker met with a representative from the Center for Energy and Environment to design the project. The representative “had a good feel for what MAC would approve,” Brucker said, and after a “bit of pushing,” that’s what happened.

The installation itself, completed over four days in January, was a whirlwind.

Brucker’s apprehension at leaving his home exposed to the midwinter chill proved unfounded; the Crossroads Construction installation team’s finely tuned system minimized discomfort.

“These guys were phenomenally good and so respectful of the space,” Brucker said. The more disruptive interior window phase lasted just two days: ground floor one day, top floor the next. A neighbor’s 40-window job also took just two days. “For the amount of work we got done, two days of disruption was well worth it,” Brucker said.

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Full mitigation is clearly a sweet deal for those who qualify. The partial package isn’t half bad, either; thousands of dollars in free energy-efficient improvements is nothing to sneeze at. But the results aren’t as dramatic without replacement windows.

At least, that’s the verdict from John Farrell, who grew up in an unmitigated home at 47th & Pleasant and lived for years in a Lake Nokomis-area home that had extensive noise mitigation work done

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southwestjournal.com / September 3–16, 2020 B7

Multiple new cool-air ducts and two inches of spray insulation have been added behind Farrell’s ceiling. “It’s a little quieter, not dramatically different,” he says.

in the 1990s. Now, Farrell and his wife are wrapping up noise-dampening, efficiencyenhancing improvements to their new home near Diamond Lake, directly under a runway approach.

The improvements are confined to the upper half-story: improved insulation in the attic crawlspace and new HVAC ductwork to eliminate the need for a window air conditioner (which allowed airplane and street noise into the house) on hot days. Installing new windows “was more than we wanted to take on,” Farrell said.

With multiple new cool-air ducts and two inches of spray insulation behind the ceiling, Farrell’s upstairs is much more comfortable these days, if not much quieter.

“It’s a little quieter, not dramatically different,” he said. Street and airplane noise still filter in through the older windows.

Dense insulation

Installing top-of-the-line windows in an entire floor or home is prohibitively expensive for many homeowners not covered by the MAC noise mitigation program. To prospective DIYers just outside the 60-decibel noise contour — the eligibility threshold for partial mitigation — insulation offers the “best bang for your buck,” said Jennifer Windsor, who owned a company that insulated attics and sidewalls for MAC program participants in the late 2000s.

For noise mitigation, Windsor prefers fireretardant cellulose to fiberglass because the former is denser. Two inches of insulation provides adequate thermal protection in homes with standard 2-by-4 attic framing, Farrell said, notwithstanding the U.S. Department of Energy’s official recommendation of three inches.

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Given the low likelihood that any South Minneapolis homes will become newly eligible for MAC-subsidized noise mitigation before the current program winds up, DIY work might be the only near-term option for homeowners not currently eligible. But that could change in the future.

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shifts that increase noise levels,” Olson said. In the long term, the still-theoretical addition of next-generation supersonic airplanes to MSP’s operational mix could spur such a shift. The technology won’t be commercially viable for many years, if ever, but the FAA’s proposed relaxation of a longstanding rule governing supersonic civilian aircraft operations show that air travel regulators take the possibility seriously.

Southwest Minneapolis residents should, too.

MAC NOISE MITIGATION MAC maintains a list of all homes eligible for noise mitigation stretching back to 2017 and an interactive map (tinyurl.com/noise-mitigation) showing all-time eligibility.

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and significantly adds to project costs — around $2,000 for a project like Farrell’s.

Regardless of the type or extent of work, Windsor recommends checking with local utilities — CenterPoint and Xcel Energy — to determine if any rebates are available.

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B8 September 3–16, 2020 / southwestjournal.com

Moments in Minneapolis

By Karen Cooper

The duplex brothers who built homes across Whittier

C

ome to America, work hard, improve on the life left behind. It’s a story some of us have lived, some of us have inherited and all of us know. The Melin family lived this story; the inconspicuous monuments to their industry are found all over South Minneapolis. They built duplexes.

They were Swedish immigrants. Sarah came over first, then Andrew. They met here in America and married in Illinois, and then established a farm in Iowa. They had six sons and, finally, a daughter. Something went wrong for this family as the boys grew up. Andrew abandoned them. He took up with another Swede named Josephine and started another family. Sarah moved her seven children north to Minneapolis.

The boys came first — getting work as painters, delivering newspapers, clerking in hotels. They lived together and saved for their future. The two youngest sons were able to attend college; both ultimately became lawyers.

Sarah Melin and her children followed their path toward prosperity by getting a piece of land and building a duplex at 26th & 3rd in Whittier. It was 1904. Theirs was a small place, and the whole family crowded into it.

They got another lot at 38th & 2nd, built another duplex and then another. They kept ownership, rented their properties and used those assets to create more assets.

The sons acquired the skills in carpentry and plumbing to do the work for themselves. The homes they built had enough good woodwork and fancy features to be charming and desirable, but were not so deluxe that they wouldn’t rent at a reasonable price. What the Melin brothers built were places to call home.

As the city grew south in the early 20th century, the Melin brothers built “in-fill” homes. They were not the first to build on the 2500 block of Grand Avenue. They acquired a large parcel on that block and put up three duplexes in a row. The homes at 2529, 2931 and 2535 Grand were all built in 1908 by the Melins. The family kept ownership for at least a few years. They advertised renting units that were “new, and strictly first class, with sliding doors, pedestal openings, beautiful fixtures, tasteful decorations, concrete deadened floors, suspended ceilings, separate entrances, screened porches.” In other

Eben Luther Melin and his family built duplexes across Whittier in the early 1900s.

Photo courtesy of Hennepin County Library

words, the very definition of the south Minneapolis duplex. In 1909, one unit rented for $37.50 a month — a little over $1,050 in today’s dollars.

The Melins built their family home, too.

Theirs was of course a duplex, to which they quickly added a basement apartment and another two units in the attic. All of the Melins lived at this home, 2609 3rd Ave., at one point or another. In the early years, they all lived together, but various sons died young, or married and moved, or left the family business and worked for himself.

It was the fifth son, Eben Luther Melin, who ultimately ran the Melin Brothers Construction Company. By 1913, their most productive days were behind them, with the older brothers all gone to their own companies and building projects. E. Luther, as he called himself, kept working on projects and kept his mother and sister financially secure.

We don’t know anything about whatever intolerable condition caused Andrew Melin to abandon his family. Looking for clues is nonetheless a fascinating pastime. During the decades the Melins lived at 2609 3rd Ave., why did they keep having house fires? The building record lists three house fires while they lived there. Perhaps the renters were incautious cooks. Perhaps Oscar Melin, who had only sixand-a-half fingers, smoked in bed.

The youngest son was David, a lawyer like his brother Luther. David was murdered in 1939. What happened was a carpenter named Wilbur Farrington refused to pay for the stucco work on a house he built. David Melin represented the contractor who Farrington stiffed and won a $75 judgment against him. With court Wilbur Farrington costs and fees, the debt became $300, a sum Farrington could not pay. The judge ordered Farrington’s own home to be SEE MELIN BROTHERS / PAGE B9

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southwestjournal.com / September 3–16, 2020 B9

The Melin brothers built the duplexes at 2529 and 2531 Grand Ave. S. in 1908. Photos courtesy of Hennepin History Museum

FROM MELIN BROTHERS / PAGE B8

sold. In desperate rage, Farrington drove to David’s house, stood in the flowerbed under the bedroom window and shot him in the back three times. Then he went to the home of David’s contractor client, firing two shots and hitting the man’s wife in the ankle. Police detectives arrested Farrington that evening. He confessed and was sentenced to life in prison.

The full story here is long lost, but the Melin family had other tragedies, large

and small. E. Luther Melin always strove for more professional success and more recognition. But neither success nor recognition came to him. He ran for office no

Perhaps Oscar Melin, who had only six-and-a-half fingers, smoked in bed.

fewer than 11 times. He tried for the state Supreme Court five or six times and also ran for District Court judge. His position was that the judiciary should interpret the law in the light of the changing conditions in society and would therefore make itself into a means of facilitating progress. This familiar argument plays better today than it did in the 1920s. Melin was usually near the bottom in vote totals. He was never elected to anything.

E. Luther did the legal work for his firm, cared for his mother and spinster sister and

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never had a family of his own. His legacy is not in the judicial opinions he longed to write but in the dozens of houses, apartment buildings and duplexes that he and his brothers built. At the time of his death, he lived with his sister in a duplex that for some reason he had not built.

If your house is included in the Hennepin History Museum photo collection, you can ask Karen E. Cooper for a house history by emailing her at yf@urbancreek.com. Look for your Southwest Minneapolis house at tinyurl.com/hhm-houses.

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B10 September 3–16, 2020 / southwestjournal.com

Patios get upgrades during pandemic

By Sheila Regan

A

cross Southwest Minneapolis, residents waiting out the pandemic are getting creative with backyard projects and renovations. They are installing outdoor kitchens, getting new chairs for social distance hangouts, laying down paving and thinking generally about the outdoors as a safe place to socialize.

Jason Rexine, the general manager of Patio Town, which has outlets in three suburban locations and serves many clients in Southwest Minneapolis, said he’s seen people invest in their patios what they would have spent on a vacation and use money refunded from canceled trips on their “staycations,” which often include upgrades of their backyard living spaces.

“Instead of going out for dinner or on vacation, they are creating experiences at home, like outdoor pizza night,” he said.

Rexine said he has seen customers add fire pits, water features, grills and outdoor kitchens in order to better enjoy their own backyards.

Projects include everything from landscape spruce-ups with rock, mulch and edging to more extensive endeavors like adding a patio, or an oven to an outdoor living space.

“Anything to make their outdoor spaces more enjoyable,” he said.

Lonny Sekeres, a landscape designer from Villa Landscapes, said workers at the firm have had to pay extra attention to safety to finish the projects.

Steve and Colleen Werle invested this summer in a transition of their yard from a children’s play space into a more adult-friendly patio. Submitted photos

“We social distance and wear masks when meeting with clients — plus we are doing a lot more teleconferencing,” he said.

Demand is up this year, he said, as homeowners want to make their yards places to cook, serve food and enjoy company.

“Because people are at home so much more, this has given people the motivation

to get done the projects they have always wanted,” he said.

Steve Werle, a Villa Landscapes customer who lives in the Hale neighborhood, said now that his kids are older, he and his wife, Colleen, decided to invest in a transformation of their yard from a children’s play space into a more adult-friendly spot where

they can relax and entertain friends.

“With all the time we spent in the house this spring, it was looking at us right in the face,” he said. “We decided to bite the bullet and do it.”

The space the Werles are working with is the side and back of the house, in areas not taken up by their two garages.

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southwestjournal.com / September 3–16, 2020 B11

Taylor Carik has moved his home micro-cinema from his garage to his backyard during the pandemic.

FROM PATIOS / PAGE B10

“It’s almost a side yard,” Werle said.

Their new patio will include a walkway and a dining area that links the front and back of the house, Werle said, while still leaving enough room for the yard’s signature cedar tree. They are laying down pavers and will put in a table, which will have quite a bit of privacy because of the two-car detached garage that hides the area from view.

Werle said they wanted the project to be spacious so that guests, like his in-laws, could be socially distant. “We wanted it to be big enough,” he said.

As inspiration, they used a landscape design their friend had done for them 15 years before but which was never realized.

However, Sekeres, from Villa Landscapes, had new ideas. “Lonnie came in and had a different vision about how the sunlight would wrap things together,” Werle said.

Ariel Leaf of Lowry Hill East knew she needed water on her property this summer.

She decided to invest in a pool in the backyard of her four-unit condo building.

The pool was Leaf ’s purchase alone, but she first got her neighbors’ permission. “We work collectively and also independently,” she said.

Leaf said she didn’t feel safe going to the park and that the pool has brought joy to her 4-year-old daughter, Fiona.

“In my opinion, childhood has been canceled,” she said. “My immediate

thoughts were with her more than me.”

Leaf bought the pool online and a separate ladder in order to climb into it.

Then she hired friends of hers, Corinna Troth and Scott Gilbert, set designers who have lots of free time with theaters on hold, to build a small deck.

“I wanted to put money into people’s hands,” she said.

At any other time, Leaf said, she would have considered the pool a luxury item, but not now.

“We have been more cautious than most people because my parents live here,” she said.

Before the pandemic, Longfellow resident Taylor Carik created a micro-cinema in his garage with old chairs from the Trylon movie theater for his friends.

“We called it the TRYLON micro-microcinema,” he said.

Since he couldn’t meet with his friends in the garage during the pandemic, Carik moved the arrangement outside, with plenty of distance between seats.

“I taped the seats off at 8 feet apart,” he said.

At first, Carik wasn’t sure if his friends would adhere to social distance guidelines, but he said they have been pretty vigilant about safety.

“People really do adhere to the distancing,” he said. “I think it’s because we want to keep having each other show up.”

The gatherings are BYOB, he said, which has “been essential to our mental health.”

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B12 September 3–16, 2020 / southwestjournal.com

By Meleah Maynard

Nature’s healing power

I

n his essay titled “Why We Need Gardens,” neurologist and author Oliver Sacks wrote, “I cannot say exactly how nature exerts its calming and organizing effects on our brains, but I have seen in my patients the restorative and healing powers of nature and gardens, even for those who are deeply disabled neurologically. In many cases, gardens and nature are more powerful than any medication.”

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Sacks, who died of a rare cancer in August 2015, explained how he was introduced to the wonder of gardens as a child. And as a physician in New York City, he took his patients to visit gardens whenever he could, believing that, just like music, gardens were vital “therapy” for people living with chronic neurological diseases. “What is it about nature that is so calming and reinvigorating?” he wondered, recounting the time a friend with Tourette’s syndrome became calm and tic-free on a hike in the desert. And how is it that patients with advanced dementia or Alzheimer’s disease can’t remember how to do everyday things like tie their shoes, “but put them in front of a flower bed with some seedlings, and they will know exactly what to do[?] I have never seen such a patient plant something upside down,” Sacks recalled.

“Clearly, nature calls to something very deep in us,” he continued, explaining his belief that nature affects us deeply spiritually and emotionally, as well as physically and neurologically. Had I read that essay before his death, I might have written Dr. Sacks a letter saying that, as a longtime gardener and lover of long walks in the woods, I couldn’t agree more with what he said in that lovely bit of writing (which can be found in the posthumously published collection “Everything in Its Place: First Loves and Last Tales”). I’m not sure how I developed biophilia, an urge to connect with living things and nature, which I suppose progressed over time into hortophilia, the desire to interact with, manage and tend nature. But I’ve got both Big Time. And I know a whole lot of other gardeners who would say they do, too.

Like Sacks, I can’t precisely tell you how nature works its mojo on people, but I do remember the first time I saw it happen.

I was in college and working nights and weekends at a women’s shelter in North Minneapolis. The shelter had once been a convent, so the narrow, tile-floored room I used as an “office” had probably once been a nun’s bedroom. Our country doesn’t

care about people who are struggling with mental illness, so the underfunded shelter paid me, and several other young women, about $8 an hour to look after dozens of women of all ages who had been diagnosed with schizophrenia and/or other serious mental health issues. Tucked away in their own narrow nunnery rooms upstairs, those women were also often dealing with eating disorders, broken hearts, drug-and-alcohol addiction and abusive boyfriends who showed up to bang on the front door at all hours of the night.

My job was to listen, comfort and do my best to protect them from harm, which was usually self-inflicted. Fires were started. Wrists were cut. Toxic chemicals were swallowed.

Eyes were glued shut with superglue.

Minds can do terrible things to people. I tried to make my office feel homey, hoping to provide even a brief respite from pain.

One day, I brought in a few cuttings from my houseplants and put them on the window ledge. Within a week, those green leaves and vines poking out of thrift-store vases began catching women’s eyes. What is that? Could I have one of those?

I brought in more cuttings, filling the ledge up again and again with little vases as more women asked for plants to put in their rooms.

Soon spider plants hung from the ceiling, and ivy and ferns crowded the top of my desk and file cabinets. As my stark office began to feel like an indoor garden, the women hung around longer. We still talked about medications, goals and treatment plans. But there was more: “How often should I change the water? When should this go into a pot with dirt? Should I feed it?”

I imagine it was nice for them to not be the subject of conversation for once.

Horticulture therapists have long said that nature is essential to human health, and research increasingly appears to confirm that. Studies show that patients who have plants in their rooms often leave the hospital sooner than those who don’t. And patients who can see nature out the window while in the hospital seem to need fewer pain meds.

Here’s what I saw at the women’s shelter all those years ago: Women often left a lot of their belongings behind when they moved on. But most of them took those little plants they were caring for. I wonder what Dr. Sacks would make of that.

Meleah Maynard is a Minneapolis-based writer and editor who blogs at livinthing.com.

southwestjournal.com / September 3–16, 2020 B13

Unsung Architecture

By Emily Bissen

Bringing the outdoors in

W

hether strolling through a picturesque neighborhood, browsing the web for home improvement inspiration or paging through old issues of a favorite architectural magazine, you’ll find that “bringing the outdoors in” has been and continues to be a pervasive theme. It’s an increasingly important one as the pandemic will likely stay with us throughout the fast-approaching winter.

The universal and timeless idea of blurring the line between inside and outside can be traced to Japanese and Roman architecture, with examples including elaborate gardens, pergolas and thermal baths. Applications throughout Southwest are as vast as the concept’s history. From humble planter boxes to hefty architectural elements, examples go well beyond a mere lake view.

On the simpler end of the spectrum, window boxes add vibrant textures and colors between a home’s facade and yard. These subtle architectural elements span style and era with boxes sprinkled throughout Southwest’s historic, mid-century modern and contemporary homes. Spring and summer can find them filled with annual flowers, but they also host festive arrangements throughout autumn and winter.

A historically important example can occasionally be spotted amid neighborhood treetops. Sleeping porches first appeared in the early 1900s during the tuberculosis crisis.

The semi-outdoor spaces enabled fresh air to circulate around people as they slept. They

continued to rise in popularity, especially in hot midwestern summers, as a means of providing natural “air conditioning” and ambient noise to sleepers. The Theodore Wirth House offers an early-20th-century example set within Lyndale Farmstead Park. While the home’s front facade is locally recognizable, the sleeping porch is a lesser known feature found on the “back” side, visible from the park as well as Kings Highway and Lakewood Cemetery.

While window boxes merge nature with the walls of a home subtly, other architectural elements take more substantial approaches to connecting with the landscape. In the case of an Italianesque home located near Lake of the Isles, a bridge spans over its driveway to connect to its yard. The link leads to an outdoor room of sorts that dances with dappled light from the surrounding willow branches. Where the need for a driveway is typically a banal experience, the bridge elevates (pun intended) the journey to that of a European forecourt.

Although recent design innovations — pivoting, sliding and folding glass walls and retractable screens — allow you to connect to the outdoors without physically leaving the home, the beauty of simply executed transitional spaces can’t be overemphasized.

An elegant deck can do wonders by simply extending the floor plane to the outside. Eliminating this division allows the living room to gently cascade down to the courtyard while creating a multitude of gathering possibilities.

The bridge of the “Isles House” in Kenwood allows natural paths of water to flow below the dining room and trickle down into a sculpted rain garden near the sidewalk. Photo by Troy Thies

The “Isles House,” designed by David Wagner of SALA Architects, is an “openarmed” conceptual bridge between the physical home, the natural environment and the surrounding activity at Lake of the Isles. The home’s layout is composed of two “wings” physically bridged together by a central dining room that hovers over the landscape. The bridge allows natural paths of water to flow below the dining room and trickle down into a sculpted rain garden near the sidewalk. The elevated structure artfully creates lake views, cross ventilation and daylight from a unique vantage point on a wedge-shaped site. On a breezy summer day, windows on the bridge open and connect

those gathering for a meal inside with those picnicking on the lawn of the lakeshore.

Finding meaningful ways to connect with the outdoors (no matter how simple or complex) brings hope and inspiration to how we might be able to better connect to one another, especially as the seasons start to change. Needing to maintain distance between our loved ones and neighbors during the pandemic, we look for opportunities to give shelter and warmth while inviting in the beauty of the outdoors (along with some fresh air).

Share your favorite examples of bringing the outdoors in by emailing emily@locusarchitecture.com.

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B14 September 3–16, 2020 / southwestjournal.com

Voices from the pandemic

Stories of coronavirus in Minneapolis How do you tell the story of what it’s like to live through a pandemic?

Throughout this crisis, the Southwest Journal is keeping in touch with a selection of local residents including an infection preventionist at a senior home, a pair of small business owners, a retired couple and a nurse at HCMC. All interviews are edited for length and clarity.

Reporting for the stories in this issue is by Zac Farber and Andrew Hazzard.

Barb Joyce, infection preventionist, Jones-Harrison senior living

“I don’t want to read in the newspaper about ICUs with children and about teachers put on ventilators.”

FRIDAY, AUG. 28 Testing is keeping our numbers low. The good news is our residents aren’t sick. The

sad news is we’re in this location, Hennepin County, where the numbers are still kind of crazy. So we have to be careful.

The first area we’re focused on is our staff who are traveling for vacation. They deserve to do whatever they want to do, but going onto an airplane, or into areas with high incidence of COVID, is a concern. Depending on what they’re doing and where they’re going, I might tell them I want a phone call before they come back into the facility. If they attend a wedding, we’ll evaluate their exposure together and determine whether they need to be tested. This is taking a lot of my time.

We’re also focused on preparing for the cold-weather months and our influenza season. Part of me is concerned with how we don’t know how it’s going to evolve. And then the other part of me thinks how we’re doing such a good job with the social distancing and masking that we may see less influenza this year. We’re preparing for the worst, hoping for the best. I can’t even imagine what it would be like to be sick with both viruses.

I have health care workers who are still feeling the effect of COVID for months after.

Some still don’t have their sense of smell back after close to 12 weeks. And nobody knows 100% if you can get it twice. So our best approach is to prevent, prevent, prevent.

You see the asymptomatic carriers, and I’ve joked, “Sometimes I wish I’d test positive, because then I’d have a 10-day vacation.” But that’s a joke — it’s bad humor — because I don’t want the chance of how this virus will affect my body for the rest of my life.

We’re still finding the balance in following the regulations about visitation while we are still experiencing COVID exposures.

Last week we had two health care workers test positive; both of them are still asymp-

tomatic. Our residents have tested negative through the whole month of August.

Visits are going well. The issue is families want more, and we have to limit based on the staff supervision we have. Our activities staff is in charge of these visits and, with their time spent watching one-on-one visits, it’s making it harder for them to bring programs and joy for the people in the units. We might have two residents in the courtyard and 60 residents upstairs who aren’t getting the benefit of our music therapist. If you have to live in a nursing home, your best friends are the recreation therapists because they know you the best on your likes, your dislikes, your past.

The testing is still a big issue and a hot topic. The CDC tried to slip in a new guidance, without telling anybody, that if you’re exposed to someone who’s COVID positive, you don’t necessarily need to be tested. We have always said it’s better to be tested and to know that you’re not shedding than to potentially expose others. The CDC got a lot of heat from doctors and the director kind of backstepped a little, but the website still hasn’t been changed. It’s interesting, is all I’ve got to say. [Minnesota health officials continue to urge testing of asymptomatic people with known exposures.] My hope is we’re being fed the best information out there, because I don’t have time to go down the rabbit hole.

In the state of Minnesota, the governor’s doubling down on his testing strategy.

Yesterday, the state gave us an on-site COVID analyzer. It is a single machine on which you can do “point-of-care” antigen testing.

It will not replace the testing we’re currently doing. We’re still mandating weekly staff testing using an RT-PCR test that is more accurate than antigen testing. That takes about 14 hours to accomplish for all our staff. With no residents testing positive, we decided about three weeks ago we would reduce our testing of residents to something called target testing — essentially

contact tracing. If we don’t see positive tests, we’ll back away from testing units and just do random testing, but we’re not there yet.

Each single antigen test takes about 15 minutes to analyze. So if one person goes around and tests about 200 employees, it would take 50 hours — and who has 50 hours to focus on one little aspect of testing? So we’re still in the developmental phase figuring out how we’re going to use this antigen testing, knowing that it takes more time, is less effective [the test yields up to 15% false negatives] and there is some literature saying it works better on symptomatic residents. Right now, I would only use it if someone had a sudden onset change in condition as my first line of determining is this person testing positive.

But the RT-PCR tests are $70-$80 each and I’m sending 200 per week to the Mayo Clinic. Another lab we use for our resident testing is even more costly. So it’s costing us a lot of money. The state donated the antigen machine and 576 test kits. I’m not sure yet how much it will cost to buy more, but we may also be able to use the machine to test for influenza and strep in-house.

The Minnesota Department of Health and LeadingAge don’t have guidance on how to use them. We don’t even know how it works yet. There’s a hundred-page manual we have to comb through. It would be nice to do an on-site analysis within hours, rather than days.

But we need some time to figure it out.

I’m concerned with a teacher in our family who’s going back to in-school teaching. I think the numbers that went up this past week are probably a direct result of in-room schooling. I’m nervous for the future for the school kids and of both the social isolation and the stress the kids are living with right now, as well as the risk of long-term effects. I don’t want to read in the newspaper about ICUs with children and about teachers put on ventilators

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southwestjournal.com / September 3–16, 2020 B15

because they are being forced to go back into the school against their will.

I’m good with how our facility is running. Our nurses feel like we’re in this new normal, and nobody’s bucking the system anymore saying, “Why do we have to? Why do we have to?”

Personally, I’m more of an introvert, so I’m doing well with what I have at the house. I have two grown kids who are in our bubble, and I have a dog, Mabel, a rescue pitbull mix — our therapy dog — that reduces our stress level. She’s just a cuddler.

Jen and Marcus Wilson, co-owners, True Grit Society gym

“We’re all just staying afloat.”

MONDAY, AUG. 31 Jen: It’s been a steady pace. We’re doing the same thing. Everybody knows there are risks, and it’s a matter of what risks people are willing to take.

I was listening to a talk Dr. Michael Osterholm from the U of M did on NPR, and it was all about risk. Anytime you go anywhere you’re putting yourself at risk. I think with numbers going up and there still not being any control, people are worried.

We’ve lost people at the gym who have said, “Thank you for making this safe, and we mostly feel safe coming in, but we do see the numbers going up, and we don’t want to take that risk anymore.”

I don’t want to make it seem like it’s all bad running a business right now, but it’s

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not great. I would say most businesses right now are not making a profit. We’re all just staying afloat, making ends meet. I don’t want anyone to thank us, but this is really a labor of love right now. We’re doing this because we love what we do and care about people. People who are coming in have thanked us for being open and creating a safe environment. We’re not really getting ahead — we’re just making ends meet to run the business right now.

The content Marcus is putting together for us on social media is really important because we need people to see that we’re still trying to run our day-to-day and putting together workouts outside and making it safe. Something that’s coming up really soon is: What is going to happen to these gyms in winter when we can’t be outside anymore?

What scared me from that Osterholm interview is when he said that for herd immunity to start, it needs to be an infection rate of like 60%-70% and we’re at like 5% right now.

With so much talk about all the people that have had it, I thought it was higher. For any herd immunity, so many more people would need to get it, and that’s very scary to think about what that looks like.

People are being cautious, especially in the gym. There’s this list of “Top 10 places not to go” spreading around Facebook, and gyms are No. 2. But there’s no real infection rate data from gyms right now. I haven’t heard of people being infected at gyms yet.

We’re trying to spread people out and do our best to make a safe environment. I think people don’t know what to believe but they believe some of what they hear, and they don’t want to go anywhere on the Top 5 list.

So we have seen a slight drop.

There is no way to gauge what’s going to happen. It’s just so hard to say. Really right now we are just on our surfboard riding it

out and hoping there’s no shark in the water.

Things have gotten a little busier for us, now that we’re running the business on a limited budget. Between the two of us, one of us is teaching classes once a day and we’re doing a lot of cleaning. We try to carve out little family moments. This weekend we got up early and went on a bike ride to Lake Harriet.

Arminta and Ron Miller, residents, Waters on 50th senior living community

“If you had not been tested, you wouldn’t get any mini donuts.”

THURSDAY, AUG. 27 Arminta: It opened up a lot here.

We were riding the stationary bike, Ron was exercising, the salons were coming back. Every Thursday, we got to go outside with four other people, and they gave us special treats like watermelon, ice cream bars or popcorn and lemonade. We were keeping distance and wearing masks, but we could walk around and see people and sit outside and talk.

But then we had someone test positive on Monday, and they shut everything down.

Ron had a massage appointment, and he was very disappointed. Now we’re supposed to stay in our apartment. People can’t even come up to the gate. All the advancements we made kind of went away. We were so disappointed because everything had been going so well.

But now they say it was a false positive, and we’ll know tomorrow if we can open up again. So we’re hopeful.

Ron: Susan [Tabor], who’s in charge around here, wants to be careful. I think she’s doing an excellent job. It’s tough: She has to deal with all the senior citizens who’ve been very independent, and she just wants to keep us healthy.

Arminta: I want you to know that we got tested — we’ve been tested twice now!

Ron: But they cheated: They said they were going to have a State Fair day and they would have mini donuts. But if you had not been tested, you wouldn’t get any mini donuts. And I love mini donuts.

Arminta: He made me get tested.

Ron: Now we’ll probably get tested every two weeks going forward.

Arminta: You know it wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be. It wasn’t that big long thing that you see where they hold the top of your head down. It was a smaller swab, and they went in each nostril with the same swab. They went around five times in each nostril, and it kind of tickled.

It wasn’t painful.

It’s funny though because Susan said, “I wish I knew all it took to get Ron to mind around here is mini donuts. I’d have used that a long time ago.”

Ron: She found my weakness.

Arminta: Susan said the more people who test, the more we can open up.

Ron: We leave for doctors, dentists and Walgreens. That’s the extent of our social life.

Arminta: I talked to the gal who ran our writing group, and I’d love it if she could come back in. Unfortunately, one of the people had moved away and one passed away, and they need at least four people in the group. They’ve talked about having the book club again, but it would be too many SEE VOICES / PAGE B16

8/20/20 3:51 PM

B16 September 3–16, 2020 / southwestjournal.com FROM VOICES / PAGE B15

people; the last one before the pandemic had at least 20 people.

I was shocked with [the unrest] that happened yesterday. We just can’t get on top of things. It’s sad.

We’re planning on voting by mail [for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris]. On my Facebook, I’m surprised by friends of mine who are so opposite in our feelings, but we’re still friends.

Ron: We’re going to have to mail in our ballots early, because who knows what’s going to happen. If you mail it in, you don’t have to worry.

Arminta: We were doing really, really well, and I was feeling the best I’ve felt for a while until we got shut down again. The thought that that can happen any time is scary. I would just like to have dinner with my friends here, and there’s just no way that’s going to be able to happen for a long time, I don’t think.

[Five hours elapse. Ron calls back.]

Ron: The test came back negative, and I’m getting a massage on Monday.

Jennifer Vongroven, bedside nurse, HCMC

“I have gone blue in the face arguing with anti-maskers.”

FRIDAY, AUG. 14 The pace is starting to pick up at the hospital again. As of two days ago, we had 26 COVID patients hospitalized. The number has defi-

nitely gone up since [late June]. We knew this would happen, especially by the fall.

There was a nice break for about a month where every patient I was with wasn’t a COVID patient. It was like, “Oh my gosh, the door is open to the room and you can just walk in.” But now I’m being assigned COVID patients more often in the ICU. People don’t realize how exhausting it actually is to wear that personal protective equipment all the time — it’s hot, it’s sweaty and if you have sweat dripping off your chin or nose, you can’t do anything about it.

We’re still reusing our N95 masks until they become compromised. We never had an issue with gloves. The gowns were getting a little sparse for a while, but we’re doing OK there. We still have a lot of supplies locked up.

Right now, the demographic of COVID patients in the ICU is a little bit younger — 30-, 40-year-olds, including quite a few with no pre-existing conditions. So it’s scary.

We’ve learned watching the disease about the encephalopathy — changes in the brian’s cognition, mentation — that happens especially for someone who has a very advanced case of COVID. We’re learning about everything and don’t know about what the long term effects are going to be, even for mild cases.

One of my coworkers had a very mild case and now she suffers from headaches constantly. But nobody’s had this for longer than seven months — and in the United States even less than that — so it will be interesting to see what the outcome of the disease process actually is.

One thing that has changed is the visitor policy at the hospital. Not for our COVID patients — they still can’t have visitors — but the rest of the hospital can now have one designated visitor who can come between 10 a.m. and 8 p.m. It’s been

great to see the families again and for our patients to have that support.

Out of the hospital, I have gone blue in the face arguing with anti-maskers on Facebook and whatnot about the importance of wearing masks. Unless it’s an N95, a mask won’t provide much protection against COVID-19. However, it will protect every single person around you. It comes down to: Is your comfort more important than the life of the person standing next to you?

And that’s all it comes down to.

If I am walking my dog in my neighborhood, I’ll have my mask with me, but I won’t have it on if I’m by myself outside.

I’m trying sailing lessons on Bde Maka Ska because I needed to get out of the house and do something normal and fun. During the class, we all wear masks, unless we’re on the boat by ourselves. I’m still not going into restaurants or bars except for one with outdoor seating to meet with my dad.

During the active protests [after George Floyd’s death], things were really rough in my neighborhood in Powderhorn. It affected me a lot more than I wanted to admit. I had a hard time sleeping and focusing on the task at hand because I’m always worried about what’s happening around me.

That has subsided somewhat, but there are gunshots all the time now. Our new favorite game to play is: firework or gunshot? You hear gunshots every single day.

A couple weeks ago, I had a few days off and grabbed the dog and went up north to camp in a state forest by myself and decompress. While I was gone, there was a shootout in the backyards of three of our houses.

My neighbor saw from her kitchen window a shooter jump over the fence into her yard from our yard. They climbed up on top of the chicken coop and were shooting at someone in the alley who was shooting back. This is my backyard! The

little girl in the house north of me — a bullet went through her house and over her head. She’s 6.

I’ve put up a fence, a tall fence, and although people can get over it, it’s a deterrent. It partially makes me feel bad because I’m shutting out my neighbors and shutting out the community, but I have to think about my own safety.

[The Park Board cleared the rest of the Powderhorn encampment.] On a selfish note, it’s nice to have my park back, albeit we’ll have to be careful looking for leftover needles because they have been spotted ad nauseum. But this doesn’t solve our housing crisis just to move people from one locale to another. It’s not even a BandAid; it’s just covering up the problem a little bit. The greater issue is dealing with homelessness and its causes — economics, mental health, stability. We need to focus on housing.

I’m trying to get outside as much as I can, riding my bike, though I’m still concerned about riding home when I work late shifts. I always have in the back of my mind that I’m never quite safe, but I’m trying to live life.

ONGOING COVERAGE Keep reading local residents’ stories as the crisis evolves at tinyurl.com/ voices-from-the-pandemic.

Barb Joyce: tinyurl.com/vfp-barb-joyce Jen and Marcus Wilson: tinyurl.com/vfp-the-wilsons Arminta and Ron Miller: tinyurl.com/vfp-the-millers Jennifer Vongroven: tinyurl.com/vfp-jennifer-vongroven

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southwestjournal.com / September 3–16, 2020 B17

By Linda Koutsky

Egg-shaped fiberglass campers called Scamps have been made by the same Backus, Minnesota, family since the 1970s.

Photo by Linda Koutsky

A little Scamp you can pull with your Subaru

I

am right on top the COVID-19 vacation trend. Yes, I am a new RV owner.

My husband and I had talked about getting one last fall. I’ve always wanted to go to Vancouver and there are a few national parks and friends we’d like to visit between here and there. We thought a recreational vehicle would be the best way to cover it all.

We started casually looking and figured it would take a year to find one.

Before the virus hit, we wandered the aisles of February’s convention center RV show.

Some RVs were larger than semitrucks and had marble counters, kitchen islands with hanging chandeliers, bump-out living rooms, fireplaces and televisions in every other room and even perched on the outside of the vehicles. They cost $500,000 and up! Way too much for us.

We also climbed into an adorable Vistabule

Teardrop camper. These made-in-St.-Paul, lowto-the-ground trailers can be pulled by any car.

They’re essentially small sofa beds with pop-up kitchens on the backs. They’re a big step up from camping but not something I’d want to live in for a cross-country trip.

Years ago I remember seeing a display of Scamps at the state fair. These egg-shaped fiberglass trailers have been made in Backus, Minnesota, since the mid-1970s. They’re still in production today, the company run by the second generation of the Eveland family. Other than minor modifications, they look exactly the same as the early models. They’re built by hand and only available at the factory — there are no dealerships. If you want to see one in person, the drive to Backus is 185 miles north from Minneapolis, between Brainerd and Walker.

A used one was fine with us so I started

looking online. Facebook, Craigslist, eBay and fiberglass and vintage RV sales sites all listed Scamps for sale. They were available from Florida to Oregon and everywhere in between. Years covered the spectrum from the 1970s to 2019. Prices ranged from $2,000 for a partially renovated wreck to a nearly new camper for $14,000 — almost the price of a new one. Updates often included new cushion covers and painted cabinet doors.

Scamp owners are pretty practical compared with the glamorous campers known as “glampers” who outfit vintage trailers with polka-dot curtains and kitschy collections.

But the DIY home improvement industry has certainly made inroads into Scamp interiors.

I loved the creative modifications.

Minnesota was on lockdown and we didn’t want to look at any in person, but I kept checking the postings. They’d come on the market and be gone within days. I couldn’t believe how quickly they sold. One seller included this with his description: “Yes, this is for sale and you can come look at it. If you’re actually looking at this post during the lockdown, then apparently you’re not worried about the virus either.” Yikes! Didn’t want to buy from him.

The day before the lockdown was lifted, I saw a posting for a 1981 13-footer in Owatonna.

We made an appointment for the next day. We brought along a buyer’s checklist I found on the Scamp Travel Trailers Facebook group. We pulled onto the farm just as the seller opened the barn door. It looked tiny! My husband put on his mask and coveralls and crawled underneath it.

I went inside. The actual interior is just 6-by-10 feet. There was a bunk bed/sofa, a kitchen and a dinette that folds into a full-sized bed. The floor wasn’t rotten, it didn’t seem to have any leaks and the wall coverings were still attached. This

was the first one we’d seen together in person.

We stood in the barn and looked at each other.

We offered $500 less than the asking price. He shook a piece of paper at us and said: “Are you kidding? Here’s a list of eight people coming this afternoon.” We believed him. We hooked it to my Subaru and drove home.

Fixing it up and making modifications has been a great way to spend time during this pandemic. We painted the interior, made new cushions, changed the water system and still have to polish the fiberglass shell. The axle needs to be checked out, so we haven’t wanted to wander too far from home. Our first trip was to Baker Park Reserve on Lake Independence — a mere 30 miles from home. But it felt like we were a world away. We’re going again later this September. You can go, too — bring a hammock and a picnic and enjoy the last days of summer beside a big, beautiful lake. You don’t have to go far to get away.

Follow Linda Koutsky on Facebook for more destinations and adventures.

GET OUT OF TOWN Baker Park Reserve in Maple Plain has 200 campsites for tents and RVs as well as several log cabins. There are nearly 20 miles of hiking trails and 9 miles of mowed trails for horseback riders.

There’s a boat launch and a long beach and fishing pier on Lake Independence.

Canoes, kayaks, paddle boats, rowboats and stand-up paddleboards are available to rent on weekends.

Open 5 a.m.–10 p.m. Admission is free.

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PLEASE SUPPORT THE SOUTHWEST JOURNAL The Southwest Journal, like many news outlets, is facing unprecedented challenges.

For the past three decades, we’ve delivered the paper free of charge because we believe everyone deserves access to professional, unbiased journalism.

But with advertisers’ budgets being tightened amid the pandemic, our business model has been upended. We’re asking for your help.

Please consider supporting us with a donation in any amount you are able.

VISIT SWJOURNAL.COM/DONATE If you have already donated, thank you from all of us at the Southwest Journal. We are truly grateful.

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B18 September 3–16, 2020 / southwestjournal.com

Two obscure Southwest landmarks

By Julie Jo Severson

The following is excerpted from the recently published book “Secret Twin Cities: A Guide to the Weird, Wonderful, and Obscure.” The book, published by Reedy Press, also explores the Washburn Park Water Tower and the Prince mural at 26th & Hennepin.

The zigzag bridge

What is the significance of the zigzag bridge at the Lyndale Park Peace Garden?

Lyndale Park features some of Minneapolis’s most beautiful gardens. One of them, the Peace Garden, located across from the illustrious rose garden, has been designated as an international peace site. Most visitors probably walk over its small zigzag bridge without knowing the story behind it.

In 1985, the Minneapolis Park Board invited local architect Jerry Allan to design a garden around a gift from Nagasaki, Japan. It was a single stone balustrade from Ground Zero of the atomic bomb detonated by the United States on Aug. 6, 1945. Allan decided to build a zigzag bridge over a dry riverbed after remembering a school lecture

by Professor Heinrich Engel. Engel was a German submarine captain who moved to Japan at the end of World War II and taught architecture at the University of Minnesota in the 1960s. His lecture included the Japanese belief that evil spirits travel only in straight lines. The zigzag path prevents them from following people into the garden retreats.

After 20 years, the bridge wore out. The Park Board approached Allan, requesting a replacement. Allan invited his colleague Kinji Akagawa, a local artist originally from Japan, to embellish the new bridge. By this time, the city of Hiroshima had also sent a stone post. As Allan wrote in his journal, “Today the two posts rest in repose, at the head of each entry to the bridge, knowing they will never complete their path, while East truly meets West at the center in Peace.”

The Peace Garden also features a bronze sculpture known as the Spirit of Peace, designed by Caprice Glaser. It honors a Japanese girl who died from leukemia as a result of the bomb’s radiation. She folded more than 1,000 cranes before her death as a wish for peace. Each of the stones that surround the sculpture gives instructions for the next step in folding a paper crane.

This bridge in the Lyndale Park Peace Garden incorporates a stone post sent by the city of Hiroshima, Japan.

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This Richard Avedon photograph at the Black Forest Inn has two bullet holes. In 1986, a patron used a pistol to shoot the picture, which shows 10 women attending the 1963 Daughters of the American Revolution convention. Staff have outfitted eight of the women pictured with paper surgical masks during the pandemic. Submitted photo

A bullet-riddled photograph

Why are there two bullet holes in a photograph that hangs on the wall of a local German restaurant? And what’s in the suitcase above the bar?

Black Forest Inn, the iconic Eat Street eatery, is steeped not only in authentic German fare but also in local art.

One notable piece is a large photo created, donated and autographed by world-famous photographer Richard Avedon. It hangs on the wall in the bar area and features 10 women at the 1963 Daughters of the American Revolution convention. Look closely and you’ll see two bullet holes: one in a woman’s eye and another in a woman’s abdomen.

The “assassin” was a regular at the bar named Ellis Miller Nelson. One day in February 1986, he was feeling a little ignored.

So he stood up, pulled out his pistol, aimed toward the picture, and shot at it three times.

(One of the shots somehow missed.) Chaos erupted and customers hid under tables.

Nelson casually left the premises, walked to the nearby police station and turned himself in.

The restaurant has been owned by the Christ family since 1965. They were concerned that nobody would want to come back after that incident. The next day it was packed as usual. The picture was never repaired.

The wall behind it never needed repairing because, according to Erica Christ, the owner’s daughter, it just happened to be bulletproof.

The bullet-riddled photo isn’t the only odd

The Black Forest Inn has been owned by the Christ family since 1965.

thing on display. On the other side of the bar, up on a shelf, you’ll see a suitcase. Inside it are a few pictures, mementos and a jar of ashes belonging to another former patron.

His name was Tony. He passed away in 2016.

Throughout the last 10 years of his life, Tony, an eccentric fellow, sat on the stool below that shelf, drinking Grain Belt Premium and talking to almost everyone who walked through the door. He loved the community at the bar so much that he donated some of his remains to the place (the rest are in the Gulf of Mexico). Now that’s some customer loyalty!

southwestjournal.com / September 3–16, 2020 B19

‘Sad to see it go’ Historic Kingfield restaurant Curran’s will be missed, customers say

By Nate Gotlieb / ngotlieb@swjournal.com

Tangletown retiree Dianne Dunn ate most of her breakfasts at Curran’s Restaurant for more than a decade, reading the newspaper and visiting with other regulars.

“It kind of has the feeling of the ‘Cheers’ bar, only it’s breakfast,” she said.

On Sunday, Aug. 23, the family-run restaurant known for its all-day breakfast, vast menu and reasonable prices heated up the griddle for the last time.

After 72 years, the restaurant has closed because of COVID-19-related financial troubles. The site, at 42nd & Nicollet, will be converted into a five-story apartment building that’s slated to open in late spring or early summer of 2022.

Curran’s server Erin Souster takes an order on Aug. 23, the restaurant’s final day in business.

Dunn and other longtime customers said they’ll miss the restaurant’s modestly priced meals and friendly service and their chats with other regular diners and owner Dennis Curran.

While some plan to seek out a new regular breakfast spot, customers said Curran’s will be tough to replace.

“It’s just so sad to see it go,” said Pat Seifert of Mendota Heights, who grew up at 36th & Pillsbury.

Curran’s was founded by Dennis Curran’s father, Mike, as a drive-in in 1948 and was converted to dine-in only in 1978.

Dennis became a partner in the business in 1977 and the sole owner in 2005.

He said in a July interview that he worked over the years to improve his menu — adding fresh-squeezed orange juice and locally grown sausage, for example — and that his staff was hard-working and well-organized.

“I’m going to miss doing this,” he said.

Southwest Minneapolis resident Jack Brunelle first ate at Curran’s in 1948, the year it opened, and had been eating there regularly for the past 25 years. The 88-year-old said the restaurant evolved over the years but the food remained tasty and reasonably priced.

Brunelle, a retired attorney and accountant, said he mostly ate breakfast at Curran’s but sometimes ate there three times a day. He said he’ll be sad to no longer see Dennis Curran

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9/1/20 2:02 PM

Dennis Curran, owner of Curran’s Restaurant in Kingfield. After 72 years, the restaurant has closed because of COVID-19-related financial troubles. Photos by Nate Gotlieb

and the restaurant’s employees and customers. “[Curran] had very high standards, and his employees kept them wholly because they loved him,” he said.

Handyman Terry Knadle, a customer of 49 years who remodeled the restaurant in 1982, said Curran’s was a place where “everybody knew everybody” and that Dennis Curran was often there seven days a week.

“It’s not commercialized like other chain restaurants,” said Richard DeGonda of Bloomington, who ate at Curran’s with his wife, Mary, for over 15 years. “It’s more like a small-town restaurant where you get good home cooking.”

Adam White, who ate at Curran’s once a week with his father, Howard, said the restaurant’s waiters were down-to-earth and the food was cheap.

He and Kara King brought their son to the restaurant early on the morning of Aug. 23

to celebrate his 8th birthday before they went to work.

“I wish they weren’t closing,” he said.

Lynette Nicholson, who grew up near Curran’s, drove down from St. Cloud for one final meal on Aug. 23.

She said the restaurant was her late mother’s favorite and that she was upset about its closing.

Marvin Wilson, who worked at Curran’s in the 1980s, flew in from Greenville, South Carolina, for one last meal.

He said his daughter, niece and nephew worked at Curran’s and that his family became close with the Currans over the years.

“I had to come,” Wilson said. “I’ll really miss it.”

The Curran’s site, 4207 Nicollet Ave., will be purchased by developer Alex Gese, whose plans for an 82-unit apartment building are expected to go before the Planning Commission in the fall.

B20 September 3–16, 2020 / southwestjournal.com

Community Calendar.

Whether it’s experiencing an arts and psychology lecture virtually, engaging in fun butterfly-related activities or watching dance online, there are many options for venturing out at a good social distance and experiencing culture and art while staying safe at home.

By Sheila Regan

FIRES OF VARANASI

Staying in

Ragamala Dance Company launches their season virtually with livestreamed excerpts of the company’s new work, “Fires of Varanasi,” set to premiere in 2021. The 45-minute program is part of Ragamala’s shift to digital platforms during the pandemic and features a pre-show cocktail tutorial by spirits expert Marco Zappio, a welcome by artistic directors Ranee Ramaswamy and Aparna Ramaswamy and a dance performed at the PAIKKA event space in St. Paul.

When: 7 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 16 Where: Give Lively Cost: Free, $40 with hot Indian meal kit Info: ragamaladance.org

HOW ART WORKS, A PSYCHOLOGICAL EXPLORATION Ellen Winner, a professor of psychology at Boston College, chats about the psychology of art — what draws us to art, how it works on us emotionally — in a virtual lecture hosted by the Minneapolis Institute of Art.

MINNEAPOLIS MONARCH FESTIVAL The Monarch Festival will take place virtually this year. Visit the website for bilingual, interactive activities and events featuring artist Lynette LaRue, Aztec dance group Kalpulli KetzalCoatlicue and educational group Monarch Joint Venture.

When: Through Sept. 12

Where: Monarch’s website

Cost: Free

Info: monarchfestival.org

For 40 years Haven Housing has helped break the cycle of homelessness and despair for women and children.

When: 11 a.m.-12 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 10 Where: Zoom Cost: Free Info: tinyurl.com/howartworks

EVERYBODY NEEDS A LITTLE SUGAR

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southwestjournal.com / September 3–16, 2020 B21

Getting out

COVID CONFIDENTIAL

By Stewart Huntington and Henry Lowenstein

WORLD ROULETTE Light Grey Art Lab is publishing a book all about world building, featuring artists from around the Twin Cities and the globe.

The gallery, located in Whittier, is hosting a Kickstarter campaign as it works toward publishing the book. It also has images on view in the gallery. The exhibition includes black and white originals as well as framed prints from each artist. You can also see the works virtually via Light Grey’s online shop.

When: Through Sept. 28

Where: 118 E. 26th St.

Cost: Free

Info: lightgreyartlab.com

UNDER THE INFLUENCE

BURN SOMETHING PUBLIC ART

Frank Gaard is known for his recent portraiture work, but also for his flamboyant, sometimes shocking work from the 1980s that features an almost comic book, subversive aesthetic. With “Under the Influence,” the Minneapolis Institute of Art takes a look at Gaard’s early career in the height of the counterculture era. The exhibition includes his sketchbooks and his early prints and drawings, as well as a large-scale painting he made in 1975.

It’s a zine that doubles as public art. The revolutionary Burn Something zine has a new project curated by fellows Gabby Coll and Adrienne Doyle. The work is located at Lake & Bloomington — the site of many protests following George Floyd’s killing — and claims space for artists building social connections and reclaiming narratives. The project features work by Genevieve DeLeon, Lane Eliyahu, Zola Ellen, Justice Jones, Lissa Karpeh, Katie Robinson and Kieran Myles-Andrés Tverbakk. Their work has been digitally enlarged, printed and adhered to wooden boards. You can also see images of the piece in the latest issue of the Burn Something zine.

When: Through Nov. 29 Where: Minneapolis Institute of Art, 2400 3rd Ave. S. Cost: Free Info: artsmia.org

When: Through the fall Where: Lake & Bloomington Cost: Free Info: issuu.com/burnsomething

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B22 September 3–16, 2020 / southwestjournal.com

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southwestjournal.com / September 3–16, 2020 B23

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