Exit interview with Lisa Bender PAGE A5 • Voices from the pandemic PAGE A8 • Minnehaha Creek master plan PAGE A13
Vol. 31, No. 24 November 26– December 16, 2020 southwestjournal.com
The COVID caseload Lyndale, Whittier, Cedar-IslesDean see highest COVID-19 case rates in Southwest
WINTER SURVIVAL PLAN
Lowry Hill East resident David Wood is walking every day, preferably twice per day, throughout the “pan-damn-ic,” as he calls it. Photo by Isaiah Rustad
Minneapolitans share ideas for the months ahead
By Michelle Bruch
David Wood’s partner died on Aug. 30, their 47th anniversary, of Parkinson’s and COVID-19. Wood wrote Brian Mulhern’s obituary, describing his place in the Vietnam War resistance, the Twin Cities co-op movement, and the first generation of gay men living openly. He also wrote a personal “2020 winter pan-damn-ic surviving and thriving plan.” “Of course it has chocolate on it,” he said. A counselor who specializes in grief, Wood is among the local residents, parents and business owners who shared their plans for making it through the winter with the Southwest Journal. SEE WINTER SURVIVAL / PAGE A15
By Michelle Bruch
Minneapolis contact tracer Luisa Pessoa-Brandao finds that residents don’t always connect their own runny nose or sore throat to COVID-19. “Because I’m so immersed, I will think COVID immediately. I’m always surprised at the people that say … ‘I thought it was nothing,’” she said. It’s getting harder for contact tracers to keep up. In the course of a single week in November, Minneapolis’ positive cases went from 70 per day to more than 300 per day. Pessoa-Brandao, who manages the city’s epidemiology, research and evaluation unit, said 37% of people recently diagnosed with COVID-19 (between Oct. 18 and Nov. 14) don’t know their sources of infection. Of these people who said in interviews they don’t know how they contracted the virus, 25% reported that they had eaten inside restaurants or bars, and 23% had attended some sort of community event, such as a family gathering or religious service. “It seems like every other interview that we’re doing over the last couple weeks, someone attended a Halloween party or a Halloween gathering,” she said. For those who report contact with another case as their exposure, the majority are household contacts, she said. Since late September, Minneapolis has been faring better than the state in terms of the new daily cases per 100,000 population. But in recent weeks, Minneapolis’ rate has started mirroring the statewide trajectory, moving straight up into the “red zone.”
SEE COVID-19 / PAGE A14
Uptown Steve, online crimefighter The realtor turned digital block leader says, ‘No peace, no justice’ By Susan Du
Atop snow-slick Mount Curve Avenue, local internet personality Steve Taylor threw open the front door of one of the mansions opposite Thomas Lowry Park wearing a pair of dappled lizard shoes. He’s a leggy, unsmiling 37-year-old man with a business crew cut and the collar of his wool jacket flipped up. Taylor is from Auckland, New Zealand. He followed a Minnesotan woman stateside in 2003 and now lives in Lowry Hill, whose City Council member, Lisa Goodman, advocates equipping police with more resources to deal with the recent surge in violent crimes — up 25% from last year citywide. He’s also a longtime realtor and landlord in Uptown, the
domain of Council President Lisa Bender, who pledged to end the Minneapolis Police Department and reimagine public safety. Taylor views Goodman as one of the only pragmatists in City Hall and Bender as a misguided utopian. He blasts this view liberally across the Uptown Crime Facebook group, a virtual neighborhood watch he started in June. The page now boasts over 15,000 members. Most are lurkers whose politics are impossible to pinpoint, but those who regularly weigh in agree with him that the defund faction of the council is “disconnected from reality.” Calling police about a home invasion in the middle of the night “comes from a place
of privilege,” Bender opined on CNN this summer — a take that riled Taylor. He believes that instead of getting rid of cops to erase inequities in the system, elected officials should be working to extend the benefits of police protection to everyone. “For people in this area to want to feel safe, that’s not privilege. But if we make this area safe and we stop there, that’s privilege. Council members having security, that’s privilege,” Taylor says, referring to the $150,000 in public funds spent in June on private security for three council members after they received death threats.
Panoramic murals
Charitable giving guide
PAGE A17
PAGE A20
SEE TAYLOR / PAGE A11
Photo by Susan Du
Crisp & Green coming to West Lake
Post office opens in vacant Kmart
PAGE A3
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A2 November 26–December 16, 2020 / southwestjournal.com
southwestjournal.com / November 26–December 16, 2020 A3
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Restaurants, gyms and entertainment venues have been ordered to close through Dec. 18 as the state seeks to stem the spread of COVID-19. Restaurants may still serve meals for takeout. Photo by Zac Farber
As COVID-19 cases continue to rapidly spread across Minnesota, Gov. Tim Walz has ordered a four-week closure for in-person dining and fitness centers that will require restaurants, gyms and entertainment venues to shutter in an attempt to stem the spread of the virus. “While these actions mean incredible hardship for many, they are the fastest way to recover our economy, keep our kids in school, and get back to the activities we love,” Walz said in an announcement of the executive order, which also calls for a pause on youth and adult sports. People are requested to limit the size of social gatherings ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday. The order went into effect Nov. 20 and will go through Dec. 18. Restaurants will be allowed to serve meals for takeout, as in the first statewide
shutdown. Unlike the March stay-at-home order, the governor has allowed salons, spas and other retailers to remain open under capacity guidelines. And unlike in March, there is no imminent sign of a federal relief package. While Walz announced a $10 million small business relief grant program in early November, he acknowledged that without more federal aid, the financial impact on workers and small businesses will be great. “To all Minnesotans who are struggling to get by, I know this pandemic is devastating,” Walz said. “This pandemic is not fair. We need federal support to help keep our businesses afloat, our workers paid and our families with food on the table. I will continue to fight with every fiber of my being for that support that you need and deserve.”
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Crisp & Green coming to West Lake Street Diners visiting the former Burger Jones spot in Cedar-Isles-Dean will soon be munching on much lighter fare. Crisp & Green, the Minnesota-based salad chain restaurant, has announced it will be moving into the newly redubbed Greenway Lakes shopping center off West Lake Street. Company officials told the Southwest Journal the location will likely open in March. Crisp & Green serves salads, grain bowls
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Jamba Juice has permanently closed its location connected to the Whole Foods in West Maka Ska. Photo by Andrew Hazzard
Smoothie chain Jamba Juice has shut its sole Minneapolis location inside the Whole Foods in West Maka Ska. A sign on the storefront said the location has closed permanently due to “unforeseen circumstances.” Company representatives did
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build out the adjacent yoga studio space as a spa was suggested, Vasileiadis happily agreed. She built out the spa while the statewide stayat-home order was in place. Having the two wellness businesses connected to each other has created a positive, fun environment, she said, with room to spread out clients and maintain social distancing amid the pandemic. “It’s so peaceful here and they feel safe because it’s so spacious,” she said. The business has a COVID-19 preparedness plan in place and spas have been allowed to continue operating during Gov. Tim Walz’s recent statewide order placing more restrictions on businesses while the pandemic surges. Solasta Spa is open Monday through Saturday by appointment only. Solasta Spa Where: 3200 Bryant Ave. Info: solastaspa.com
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southwestjournal.com / November 26–December 16, 2020 A5
‘We have to come together as a community’ Council President Lisa Bender reflects on her time in office By Nate Gotlieb
After a busy eight-year run in office that has included passage of the Minneapolis 2040 plan, new policies aimed at protecting renters and controversies over policing, City Council President Lisa Bender announced in midNovember that she would not be running for a third term in 2021. Bender represents Ward 10 on the 13-member council. The ward includes the Lowry Hill East, Whittier, ECCO, South Uptown and East Harriet neighborhoods. An urban planner by trade, Bender said she has yet to decide what she will do once she steps down from the council, though she enjoys mentoring emerging leaders new to office. She spoke with the Southwest Journal about her decision, her political future and the council’s efforts to reform the police department after George Floyd’s killing. Her answers have been edited for length and clarity.
When did you decide that you weren’t going to seek a third term?
It’s hard to pinpoint exactly when I decided for sure not to run, but just over time I’ve gone from “I probably won’t run” to “I’m not going to run,” kind of over the years of this term.
Can you describe the factors in how you came to that decision?
There are a lot of different ways to serve the community and make change. Being in office is one very intense way, especially the way I’ve been doing the job as council member. I have really jumped into a lot of the big issues facing Ward 10 in housing, in transportation. I’ve led a lot of very controversial policy and budget changes. So for me, it’s just a matter of: What’s the next step in taking all that I’ve learned from my time as an advocate, as a planner, as a policymaker to continue this work?
Did the vandalization of your home and threats you received play a role in your decision not to run for office?
[Sighs.] I had already decided not to run when the pandemic began. But I’m concerned that as we seek to support more diversity in office — more women, more people of color, people at different stages of life, including folks who have young children — there is an increased level of rhetoric that I have not seen for most of my time in office — more personal attacks, more focus on our homes, where our families and children live. So while it didn’t affect my personal decision, it does weigh on me when I think about who I want to have representing me in office and how I want them to be treated as public servants. I saw a very big shift in public dialogue after Donald Trump was elected president, and I also think that the rise of social media as a mechanism of communication has created more distance for people from their elected officials. We’re city council members. We live in the neighborhoods we represent. We walk to the grocery store. We see folks at the school or the park with our kids. We bump into our neighbors, and those personal connections have really been the foundation of local government for a long time And now I see Nextdoor and Facebook attacks that are very de-personalized and are really aimed at de-personalizing us as leaders so that we become this enemy, and
I think it’s harmful to local democracy in particular, where we have a real chance to work together to innovate, to hear from each other, to pass policies and budgets when other parts of our government system are gridlocked at the state or federal level. It’s the cities that have been picking up the pieces and leading and continuing to bring people together to make change.
You’ve expressed regret for appearing in front of the “defund the police” sign in Powderhorn Park. What caused that regret?
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I’ve reflected a lot on what happened in the aftermath of George Floyd’s death, when we had thousands of protesters in the streets. Of course, we have literally thousands of complaints about police behavior from during that time and a number of lawsuits related to the police department that happened after George Floyd was killed by the police department. We’re in a pandemic, in an economic crisis. We have a crisis of homelessness, which is creating encampments all over the city, and so it is a time of significant stress in our community. To me, the pledge that we took was consistent with my position on policing and public safety. I’ve been working on building out alternatives to policing — investing in communitybased violence prevention, investing in alternatives to 911 — in close conversation with my constituents in Ward 10. I also wanted to be clear and maintain that we need very significant change to feel confident that our police department will not continue to cause harm, so I take to heart when my constituents tell me that there was confusion about what we meant. I also know that we made a very specific proposal shortly after our pledge that was very clear about creating a new department of community safety and violence prevention that included law enforcement. So I think there is also an effort to cause confusion, to stop the change that we’re trying to create, to stifle support for innovation when it is so desperately needed in our city. So when I look forward, I know that we have to come together as a community to build a better system of safety and it’s just a matter of how long it will take, and that’s honestly where I hear the biggest difference these days from my constituents. Every single person I talk to says we clearly need change. It’s just a matter of how quickly or slowly and comfort level with, particularly, police as a response to safety.
How have you felt watching President Trump try to use the ‘defund the police’ slogan to paint Democrats across the country as belonging to a far-left radical party?
I’m an elected official. I don’t write slogans that grassroots organizations use to advocate for change. It is my job to respond to what I hear from constituents and the community and translate it into legislative action, systems change, budget investments that get the results they expect from their city. I saw on Facebook someone wrote, “Lock her up” in reference to me, and that’s really disappointing, because that’s not who we are as a Minneapolis community. SEE BENDER / PAGE A12
A6 November 26–December 16, 2020 / southwestjournal.com
Details on magnet schools to be unveiled in December By Nate Gotlieb
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Details will soon be available about the new elementary and middle school magnet schools set to open next fall under the Comprehensive District Design (CDD) restructuring plan. Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) will unveil the information at a virtual event slated for 10 a.m. on Dec. 5. That includes information on the new “global studies and humanities” school for students in grades K-8 who will be located at what’s now Jefferson Community School in the Lowry Hill East neighborhood. Information about the district’s new ethnic studies graduation requirement, its revamped enrollment website and its academic and special education programs will also be presented on Dec. 5. That’s also the first day that families will be able to choose a school for next year. MPS currently has 12 magnet schools serving elementary students, middle-schoolers or both. The magnet schools, which have specialized academic programs and offer busing to wider swaths of the city than typical community schools, are aimed at increasing racial and socioeconomic integration. Under the CDD next fall, magnet schools will be located at buildings in the city’s geographic center in an attempt to make access more equitable for students across Minneapolis. Currently, more magnet schools are located in South Minneapolis than in North and Northeast Minneapolis.
The CDD also changes the district’s magnet offerings, creating two new arts schools, three schools focused on science, technology, engineering, arts and math (STEM/STEAM) and one school in Lowry Hill East focused on global studies and humanities. There will no longer be magnet schools focused on environmental education or the “open” educational philosophy, though the district will still have Montessori and Spanish dual-language magnet schools. The district plans to record the Dec. 5 kickoff event for families who are unable to view it live. Additionally, individual schools will hold open houses between Dec. 7 and Jan. 30, which will include more information on the new programs. (Visit the individual school websites for more details.) School request forms will become available Dec. 5 and will be due Feb. 7. Only families of upcoming preschool, kindergarten, sixth- or ninth-grade students are required to submit a choice card, though families wanting to switch schools or attend a school outside their attendance zone must also submit a card. Because of the boundary changes approved as part of the CDD, some families are now located in new attendance zones and will be assigned to a new school. To look up whether your family has a new attendance zone for next year, visit tinyurl.com/mplscdd2020. The district’s school-request website is schoolrequest.mpls.k12.mn.us.
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A 2018 workshop at Jefferson Community School in Lowry Hill East, which will become a magnet school next fall. Information on Minneapolis’ new magnet schools will be released Dec. 5. File photo
Public school enrollment down in Southwest Minneapolis Public schools in Southwest Minneapolis have lost more students than expected this year, with grades pre-K-12 enrollment down nearly 5% since June, according to Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS). In the spring, district officials projected that enrollment would decrease by 2.3%, or 279 students, this fall at Southwest Minneapolis schools, in part because of the recently approved Comprehensive District Design (CDD) restructuring plan. But Southwest Minneapolis enrollment has actually declined by 601 students, or 5%, since June. That has included a 236-student, or 23.8%, decrease in kindergarten enrollment and a 295-student decrease in grades 1-5 enrollment. The data does not include charter or private schools. In Linden Hills, kindergarten enrollment at Lake Harriet Lower School has decreased by 57 students, or 39%, since June. That’s the largest single-grade decline in Minneapolis. The school’s overall enrollment decline of 81 students ranks behind only Burroughs
Community School in Lynnhurst and Armatage Montessori School in terms of the greatest decreases. Enrollment at Burroughs has decreased by 82 students, and enrollment at Armatage has decreased by 112 students, though district officials forecasted in the spring that enrollment at the school would drop by 60 students. Across the Twin Cities, enrollment has declined beyond projections in almost all districts, according to a survey by the Association of Metropolitan School Districts (AMSD). MPS, for example, has 921 fewer students than expected, including 469 fewer kindergartners. St. Paul Public Schools has 585 fewer students than expected and 198 fewer kindergartners. Scott Croonquist, executive director of AMSD, said a confluence of factors has contributed to the underwhelming enrollment figures, such as families waiting a year to send a child to kindergarten and families seeking in-person instruction during the pandemic. — Nate Gotlieb
southwestjournal.com / November 26–December 16, 2020 A7
‘Great to be back’ Temporary post office opens in former Kmart building
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612-845-5273 | DianeandLarry.com | larry@larrylavercombe.com Lyndale resident Rhea O’Connor gets teary-eyed talking to Fred Brombach, a neighborhood legend who’s worked for the U.S. Postal Service for nearly 40 years. “I’m one of the regulars who look forward to walking to the post office from my house,” she enthused. “You’re such a special person.” Photos by Zac Farber
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Suheyr Nuux stepped inside the vacant Lake Street Kmart on Nov. 16. The Whittier resident was among the first patrons of a new post office that had opened that morning as a temporary replacement for the two U.S. Postal Service stations destroyed in the riots following George Floyd’s death. At the counter serving Nuux was Fred Brombach — a gently folksy, Mister Rogersesque postman who had treated the customers of the Lake Street post office like “an extended family” and who couldn’t bear to visit his “second home” for months after it was burned. “We missed you guys,” Nuux told Brombach. The new full-service post office will be open for up to 20 months as the Postal Service explores options for rebuilding the Lake Street station, at 110 E. 31st St., and the Minnehaha station, at 3033 S. 27th Ave. The staff of both destroyed stations — a total of 12 window clerks and 81 carriers covering 61 routes — are now working out of the Kmart facility, sorting packages and letters in the big room where shoppers used to hunt for blue light specials. First-class mail has dropped during the pandemic but package volume has picked up, and the new station is handling about 27,000 deliveries per day. “Between COVID, the post office burning down, working at a different station — it’s been trying, complicated, difficult,” said Reid Kirgiss, a postman who stood outside his Lyndale home with a hose during the unrest. He’s thankful the larger sorting space inside the Kmart makes it easier to social
distance during the pandemic but otherwise, he said, it “doesn’t really feel any different — I’m still working.” The Postal Service is leasing half of the Kmart from the city of Minneapolis at a cost of about $30,000 a month. The full-service facility provides retail shipping and mailing and includes post office boxes, which customers can claim keys for by showing their photo IDs. All mail held at the former post offices has been transferred to the Kmart location. The Postal Service’s lease expires on Aug. 1, 2022, and the city plans to demolish the Kmart in February 2023 in order to reconnect Nicollet Avenue, though the timeline for redevelopment is still unclear. Minneapolis bought the 7-acre Kmart site for $8 million in 2017 and bought out the 33 years remaining on Kmart’s lease for $9.1 million in March. At a Nov. 20 grand opening held inside the new post office, managers for the former Lake Street and Minnehaha postal stations sat side by side behind a folding table — wearing masks but not social distancing — and offered customers soda and fruit cups. Outside the station, Brombach, who had been reassigned to the Diamond Lake post office since May, said he was glad to have returned to the Lake Street neighborhood where he’s worked for the past quarter century. “It was really heart-wrenching [but] it’s great to be back,” he said. “I’ve gotten to know people, faces and regulars. It’s a cosmopolitan community — you’ve got anybody and everybody coming together and [forming] a cohesive unit. ... It’s been a warm community communion.”
Reid Kirgiss sorts mail at the new post office inside the vacant Kmart. The post office serves as a temporary replacement for the two stations destroyed during the riots.
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A8 November 26–December 16, 2020 / southwestjournal.com
PUBLISHER Janis Hall jhall@swjournal.com
Stories of coronavirus in Minneapolis
CO-PUBLISHER & SALES MANAGER Terry Gahan tgahan@swjournal.com
EDITOR Zac Farber
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 bedside nurse, a schoolteacher and a retired couple. All interviews are edited for length and clarity. Reporting for this issue is by Zac Farber.
612-436-4391 zfarber@swjournal.com
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Emily Bissen Michelle Bruch Susan Du Nate Gotlieb Andrew Hazzard Sheila Regan Carla Waldemar
CREATIVE DIRECTOR Valerie Moe vmoe@swjournal.com
DISTRIBUTION Marlo Johnson 612-436-4388 distribution@swjournal.com
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Barb Joyce, infection preventionist, Jones-Harrison senior living
“Don’t have your holiday gatherings. You can make a sacrifice as well as we can.” WEDNESDAY NOV. 18 There’s definitely more activity. We had our first COVID-positive patient come to us from a hospital. On her second day here, she spiked a temperature. Fortunately, we have a rapid antigen test on site that showed her positive. We got the results in 15 minutes. But the machine is only good in a very short window of opportunity when patients are newly symptomatic. It is not as accurate as the laboratory testing we’ve been doing all along. There’s still a big question mark about people who’ve had the disease before and test positive again later. We’ve had two asymptomatic repeat COVID cases that we’ve dealt with, but I’m not sure if those patients were contagious or not. Over the late summer and fall, we also had a slow trickle of staff test positive — maybe one every other week. We’ve been very, very stable up until recently. The risk of our health care workers getting COVID in the community and bringing it in has gone up with the positivity rate. About three weeks ago, I had five employees test positive at once. Two had no symptoms, one had mild symptoms and one had severe symptoms. It’s all still quite a mystery, but it was a wake-up call that this isn’t gone yet and what we do is important. We shook off the dust, tightened our processes and have been trying to prevent it from coming to our residents. All of our staff are now testing twice a week instead of once a week. The hardest part of that is our laboratory was giving us results after five to seven days, which is too long. The whole state is now doing twice weekly testing. I’ve thought, “How does this make sense to give them twice as many specimens if we can’t figure out a quicker turnaround time?” It’s hard to do contact
tracking five to seven days later. It’s a lot of work — a lot of work — but it’s the right thing to do to try to identify where this virus has gone. We have been testing the residents weekly, and so far, knock on wood, we have not had a translation from employee to resident, which means the PPE is working, the protocols are working. But it’s kind of like a little Band-Aid on a wound. If you don’t pay attention, the wound will get bigger than the Band-Aid. Before last week, the governing bodies were saying, “Open up, open up, open up. Allow visitors, allow more contact.” And a big fear of ours is that by opening up, it’s going to come through our doors and cause more harm. It’s not only about the residents but it’s also about the staff who show up every day and have families of their own. It’s not just about disconnected families but — like the butterfly effect — you really can’t predict what it will mean for others. When COVID enters the facility, we shut down our face-to-face indoor visits and only allow essential and compassionate caregivers. We’re in that stage now, with most visits held virtually through our therapeutic recreation department — video chats, FaceTime and Zoom. For the summer, we had the luxury of really good weather and a lot of families coming into our courtyards and visiting with the residents. They weren’t demanding to come in to see their loved ones. They were enjoying seeing their loved ones outdoors and we all felt a sigh of relief. Now we have the holidays to deal with and families knocking on our door asking if they can take their loved ones home. The answer for Thanksgiving is, “No, it’s not the right thing to do.” It doesn’t look good for Christmas either, but we’re not going to cross that bridge until we absolutely have to. We can have hope. Hope keeps us going. At my house, we are not hosting Thanksgiving this year. It’s just going to be me and my husband, because the risk is too great. I have a daughter who’s a registered nurse at Fairview, and their hospitals are filling up. Not only do we have to protect ourselves as an older generation, we also need to protect her as a health care worker and protect my other daughter, who is a behavior specialist for autistic children. It’s affecting us all, not just the geriatric community. What I really wish for our nation to understand is that we’re better together than we are divided. I can do everything I can to reduce the transmission, but if my neighbor doesn’t participate, it goes nowhere and we’re in the same boat we were in during March — or somewhere worse. That’s been the hardest part of this election and the politicizing of this germ. The argument of “I don’t have to do it because it’s my choice” is not just about them. We’ve gotten away from love thy neighbor. Walk a mile in our shoes and then you’ll know, and your perspective will change. I think the governor’s closing of bars, restaurants and gyms today is a good decision. We have to close our doors because of the winter weather. It’s unfortunate for business, but if I at a nursing home had to figure it out and schools were forced to figure it out, then it’s not unreasonable for businesses to have to figure it out as well. At Jones-Harrison, we’re better positioned to contain an outbreak now than we were at the beginning of the summer, but it’s still slippery and we may have to weather another storm. If it does come into the facility again, there may be a
time when the hospitals won’t have the capacity to take our residents. We are talking with our medical director and gearing up to think about what we could do on site. We don’t have a lab or physician here. We would do the best we can, but we are limited in the way our nursing home runs versus the hospital model. We can do IV hydration, use medications to help with symptoms and help get rid of mucus in the lungs. We’re open to learning new ways. Hopefully, by doing twice weekly testing we’re flattening the curve of COVID exposure for our residents. Can we handle one or two COVID patients? Yes. Can we handle 100 COVID patients? No. We’re hopeful about the vaccine. The trials we’re seeing have greater than 90% effectiveness. The United States, as one of the wealthier nations, will secure the vaccine in the quantities we’ll need and I believe geriatric facilities will get it first. We are signed up through the agency that will dispense the vaccines. But I feel bad for the countries that may be left out, so it’s bittersweet. My health has taken a hit, and I discovered my blood pressure is running high. I also had a fall that contributed to unnecessary pain. The numbers trending up or down gives us a feeling that contributes to the stress we carry on the inside of our body that nobody sees. One of my TV shows, “Grey’s Anatomy,” is back on now, and it caught me off guard. I found it very hard to watch the first episode because it was triggering my emotional instability. It was taking me back to when it was bad — the frustration and the people dying and the helplessness of the health care workers. COVID is affecting not just healthy people with this illness. It’s affecting the whole health care continuum. I can’t get my 96-year-old uncle to his audiologist so he can have hearing aids to contribute to the quality of his life during the last stages of his life. Life is more difficult these days — doing simple things we all take for granted. We’re in a very stressful state of being, and I want the rest of the world to know that. I want your understanding. Do the right thing. Stay at home. Wear a mask. Socially distance. Wash your hands frequently. Don’t have your holiday gatherings. You can make a sacrifice as well as we can.
Jennifer Vongroven, bedside nurse, HCMC
“The strangest symptom has been eye pain.” MONDAY, NOV. 16 I’m doing much better. I still sound a little crappy and have a bit of a cough, but I’m returning to work this evening. I have been home for two weeks [with COVID19]. A lot of those days I was just lying in bed. I’d get up to make something to eat a couple of times a day and that’s pretty much it. The fever lasted about five, six days, and I’ve had a sensitive stomach, but SEE VOICES / PAGE A9
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it’s been mostly just a cough, general weakness and shortness of breath. The strangest symptom has been eye pain. It felt like the muscle that runs along the top of the eye — superior rectus — was inflamed, and my eyelids were swollen for days. I typically get between 12,000 and 17,000 steps on an average workday, and I was getting less than 1,000. My goal for the past three days has been to walk 10,000 steps a day before going to work tonight so I don’t die. [Laughs.] We’ll see how things go. It’s just a short eight-hour shift and then I’m off for a couple of days, so it’s a little intro. It’s going to be hard for my dog Kaia when I go into work tonight because she’s been by my side the entire time, and so now I’m worried she’s become a little too attached. I haven’t talked to my co-workers too much during the surge. I’ve been using the time to convalesce, relax, heal and focus on my daily lung exercises. I do have a lot of messages from people saying, “We can’t wait to see you.” I’m looking forward to seeing my coworkers again, though I am nervous because I don’t know what my energy level is. I haven’t had to maintain anything for any period of time. I am trepidatious, but I’m ready to try! Next weekend I’m working three 12-hour shifts, which is really terrifying. I’m going to try to stay as active as possible this week to mentally and physically prepare my body. Because after two weeks of doing a whole lot of nothing, I need to be able to move. Am I less afraid of contracting the virus now? Heck yeah. I’m full of antibodies as we speak. I’m not going to make any changes in how I use PPE because I could still spread it to others. Also, we don’t know a lot about this disease. We think the antibodies last 90 days, but for some it’s longer and for others they’ve disappeared by that point. So I’m not taking
any risks. But there is a freedom to be able to hug someone and know I’m not going to get sick or give them the disease at this moment — per our knowledge thus far. It’s nice to have a bit of a leeway, but it’s not going to change many things for me. The last person in my family who I saw at the wedding while I was contagious got their COVID test result and it was negative. I got that news today, so officially nobody who I was exposed to got it. I have a roommate and she has gotten a negative COVID test. Every time I left my bedroom to walk around the house, I had a mask on. I performed hand hygiene every time I left my room. My roommate is still quarantining before going back to work just in case — but masks work, hand hygiene works. I feel validated by science. It feels really, really good. There are a lot of people sick right now and they need some healthy nurses.
WEDNESDAY, NOV. 18 My first day back at work after recovering from COVID was exhausting. I was not used to having that much movement in my body even though I’d set an exercise regimen for myself. And the COVID fog is real; after being off for a few weeks, my brain is just not at the level it was beforehand. I will have the cough for a long time because I do have asthma and it takes me a long time to get rid of the cough. I’m constantly watching what’s going on with my body right now, but I am not symptomatic anymore. We don’t know what the long-term effects of COVID are. Some people have clotting issues, some have inflammation issues, others have GI problems or general fatigue. Some patients who are very sick have long-lasting cognitive issues. And with my eye pain, does that mean I might have issues with my eyes in the future? Who knows? We have no idea. But I feel
relieved that I have vanquished the disease. I was really just focusing on my patients during my first shift back, but COVID has increased. There are more employees out with the disease. There are more patients at the hospital with the disease. We know it’s getting worse again. It’s also still trauma season, so our ICUs are partially designated for trauma victims. I have been watching my coworkers’ Facebook posts and there’s a lot of “I’m tired,” “Here we go again” and “Round two” going on. We were scared the first time because we didn’t know. We’re scared this time because we do know. We’re armed with a little more knowledge about the disease process — we know when and how often to prone patients on their bellies to increase their lung capacity. But with that knowledge base comes the fear of what else we know — it’s going to get harder and it’s going to get worse and people are going to get sicker again. Today’s news that bars, restaurants and gyms are closing again makes me feel sad. If we’d stayed home the first time, if we’d masked up, if we’d washed our hands, if we’d taken the proper precautions, this would have been a much smaller issue. I think it’s good that we’re closing down again, though — let’s face it — this sucks. We would like to get back to real life, but we have to face the facts that that is not an option right now. We can accept that and move forward, or we’ll need to keep closing things. It’s not our politicians who are doing this. The disease process demands it. The only people who have control of the disease process are you. Your decisions and everything you do every day are affecting restaurants, entertainment venues and small businesses closing. This is going to keep happening until people can follow the science.
Tracey Schultz, science teacher, Justice Page Middle School
“Oh, oopsie, I didn’t really think about how the kazoos might visit all the classes.” SATURDAY, NOV. 21 It’s been pretty rare to have a kid who’s sick, but I am with more frequency hearing that it’s in a family or that a family is connected to it. As far as staff morale, there are so many different levels. Right now, I have coworkers who are directly affected, so they’re now juggling all of this and COVID-19, which feels really imposing. I have coworkers who have lost child care for their own kids because of COVID, which makes doing this challenging job really impossible. Election week was like a roller coaster. In kids’ social studies classes, they were talking about the election really directly. In homeroom, we were talking a lot about the importance of everyone voting. Of course, kids always want to know, “Who did you vote for?” It’s always interesting to talk about, because we want to be really careful. We’re a public school and, you know, it’s not our place to say, “This is how we vote.” Kind of my standard line with the kids is, “Well, you’ve known me for about a quarter. You’re sixthgraders. You can probably infer how I would vote, and you’re probably right, so that’s as close as you’re going to get to the answer.” They’re never satisfied with that answer, but that’s what I feel like is professional. SEE VOICES / PAGE A10
A10 November 26–December 16, 2020 / southwestjournal.com FROM VOICES / PAGE A9
We just rolled out [at-home] science kit No. 2 this week. Our principal mentioned in a Sunday night update that she had some PTA funds that could be spent immediately. I wrote back and said, “Kit two! I’ve got a list all ready to go” (which I didn’t). I said, “Is that possible?” And she wrote back, “Of course it is. Get me your list right away.” I had been thinking about some things in the back of my head, but very quickly I put that plan on paper. We’re studying light and sound energy here at the start of Quarter 2, so we were able to pick up some really fun things that they can use to do some nice light and sound experiments. That includes — I didn’t totally think this one through — but there’s actually a pretty nice kazoo in this kit. The sound quality is really good. Yesterday, I had much kazoo playing in class, because the kids were so excited to have these. Then another teacher sent a video of kids playing the kazoos in her class, so I thought, “Oh, oopsie, I didn’t really think about how the kazoos might visit all the classes.” But we’re all just excited to see the kids excited about things. One thing that’s new in Quarter 2 is that the district activated the automated attendance calls. I’m glad that these calls are now happening, because for kids who are trying to do distance learning on their own at home, it can be hard for families to know if they are there. I can say personally that I was really struggling to make my own attendance calls Quarter 1. Because obviously the best attendance call is one that happens in the moment, right? I’d see, “These three kids are missing” and think, “I’m going to call them right now.” But it’s very difficult to do that and teach 30 kids live online. Now that I have a better handle on some of the tools in my toolbox and what is working for kids, I’m doing frequent participation check-ins during science class. I’ve mentioned that I can put a poll question out on Google Meet. It’s really easy for me when I put a poll question out there to see who’s doing it, because I get a report after class emailed to me that says the kids’ names and what answer they picked. The kids are also now doing a really nice job with their cameras, so I can say, “Turn on your camera. Hold your paper up to the camera. Let me see this wave that you just drew and labeled.” So at the beginning of every class, we talk about how we’re going to participate in class that day, and then I hold them accountable for that participation. We had a great chance to interact with Justice Alan Page live last week. We had a chance in our homeroom to listen to a
July 25–August 7, 2019 Vol. 30, No. 15 southwestjournal.com
INSIDE TOY STORE
A new place to play in Linden Hills A3
DEDICATED BUS LANES
Apartments filling their available parking spots
A
re cultFu O streett ar
No matter how many spaces they offer, garages are well used
ADDED MUR ALS LS TO 20 WAL E IN LYNLAK
By Andrew Hazzard
Hennepin Avenue to get lanes just for buses A10
ART CHAT
An interview with the Walker’s new director A12 Story and photo by Nate Gotlieb
WEIRD AND LINE-Y
Minneapolis artist Reggie LeFlore talked to passersby July 13 in front of a newly finished self-portrait on a wall behind The Herkimer in LynLake. About 20 feet away, artist Nell Triggs spraypainted bumblebees and flower petals onto another wall of the building as she wrapped up
a mural she called “Love Me Not.” Meanwhile, four other artists put the finishing touches onto murals further down the alley. The six artists were among 35 participating in the second-annual LynLake Street Art Series, hosted by the LynLake Business Association. SEE LYNLAKE STREET ART / PAGE A19
Minneapolis artist Reggie LeFlore poses in front of a self-portrait he created July 13 as part of the second-annual LynLake Street Art Series.
In July, the Minneapolis Planning Commission approved a 146-unit apartment building with 92 parking spaces at 26th & Blaisdell. These types of developments with low parking-to-unit ratios have become commonplace since the city changed its minimum parking requirements in 2015. Before, each new building had to provide at least one spot. Now projects near high-frequency transit corridors with fewer than 50 units have zero parking requirements and buildings larger than 50 units need to include one spot for every two units. Currently, Minneapolis does not keep data on parking utilization rate at apartment buildings, according to planning manager Jason Wittenberg, who said the city would like to better understand how residential parking spaces are being used. But as the city plans for a future with fewer cars and more density, newer apartment buildings constructed in Southwest before and after the requirements report their parking spaces are still in high demand. Regardless of the amount of parking, newer developments are confident they are offering attractive living situations to residents. Bryan Walters, the co-founder of Yellow Tree Development, said his firm is very comfortable constructing new residential buildings with fewer spots than units. SEE PARKING / PAGE A18
The intricate illustrations of a LynLake artist B1
Flood risk on the rise as rainstorms gain intensity
50 BLOCK PARTIES
Flooding unsurprising at 22nd & Lyndale but rainfall is getting heavier in Twin Cities By Zac Farber
Inside a tight-knit Lynnhurst community B5
FEMALE BUILDER
Ella Pendergast’s prolific early 20th century home construction B8
As motorists drove home from work along Lyndale Avenue on July 16, a summer storm dumped more than 2 inches of rain in a single hour onto a small neighborhood that’s been identified as one of the most flood-prone areas in all of Southwest Minneapolis. With the low-lying corner of 22nd & Lyndale suddenly turned into a thigh-high pond, the staff of Hum’s Liquors ventured out into the street and used their hands to pull wood and other debris from the city’s storm drains. In the shop’s basement, waterlogged cardboard boxes fell apart and two cases of wine dropped and shattered. Across the street, at the Wedge Co-op, at least five employees’ cars were damaged and one was totaled. Meanwhile, at the Red Dragon Restaurant and Lounge, patrons sat at the bar, nursing their drinks and pulling their feet up as the carpet disappeared below a couple inches of water. “It has flooded here for as long as I can remember,” said Pat Chan, who has bartended at the Red SEE FLOOD RISK / PAGE A14
Hum’s Liquors owner Hanh Van donned yellow rain gear and rallied his staff to clear debris from storm drains by hand after the corner of 22nd & Lyndale flooded on July 16. Photo by Jason Grote
read-aloud that he and his daughter did of their newest children’s book. Then the kids could submit questions that they wanted to ask Justice Page, and this week, we had an all-school morning meeting live with him moderated by our principal [Shannon Tenner], who is herself a Justice Page scholar. Every homeroom ran their own Google Meet, and then as teachers we joined the Google Meet where Principal Tenner was hosting Justice Page and shared that screen with the kids. Then Thursday was the anniversary of Justice Alan Page Day in Minnesota. We encouraged the kids and staff to have bow ties — he’s famous for always wearing a bow tie. At the end of the day, we did some photos, all coming to the same Google Meet and wearing our bow ties to honor him. He showed up for those and he was part of those photos live, which was very special. It’s so remarkable to have someone who is living that you honor at your school in the present moment.
Arminta and Ron Miller, residents, Waters on 50th senior living community
“Ronald had a Tommy gun and a hat, and I had a flask in my garter and a real fancy headdress.” FRIDAY, NOV. 13 Ron: Last week, we had our first night eating dinner back upstairs. They had wine and someone playing the harp. Arminta: There were scallops and risotto. They made it very special, but we’re 6 feet apart, even at the table. Ron and I can’t even sit together. We wanted to sit with this one couple, but they were so far away we couldn’t talk. Still, just seeing people’s faces again was nice. We’ve been going up every night; it gets us out of our apartment. They’ll still deliver, but it gets pretty boring. We’ve had one more COVID case on the [nursing home] side and a caregiver, but they’re isolated. I think that happened in late October, but it didn’t shut us down, so that was good. After the case was announced, people went through the halls at night to check for the little table they put outside quarantined rooms.
So we know it wasn’t anybody on the independent side. Ron went and verified. Ron: I walked four floors and didn’t see nothing! Arminta: That’s why I think we’re still open. We’re lucky. It’s so much more dangerous out there now. We had that nice Roaring Twenties party in the parking lot. They moved the cars out, and a three-piece band played songs from the ’20s and ’30s. We wore costumes. Ronald had a Tommy gun and a hat, and I had a flask in my garter and a real fancy headdress. They had great hors d’oeuvres. They had scallops wrapped in bacon and fresh shrimp. Ron: Arminta had a martini. There was a safe distance there, too. Arminta: Everybody had to wear a mask except when we were eating. Ron: Slowly but surely they’re opening up a little at a time. Arminta: They’ve opened up the theater for TED Talks and armchair travel. His favorite is on Wednesday mornings they drum to music. Ron: It’s amazing once you get old, what you find pleasure in. Arminta: My oldest daughter is upset she can’t visit her kids in Chicago for Thanksgiving. And of course we can’t get together. That’s hard on her, and she’s really upset about Christmas. When things settle down, we’ll have a Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner together. We don’t have to do it now. I took my brother’s funeral a lot harder than I thought I would. It was hard and it was cold — that cold, cold day. But it was very beautiful and very organized. The pastor spoke, they tapped, they shot rifles off and I got the flag put in a box for me. He served in the Navy during World War II. He was over in Guam and was going to invade Japan if the bomb hadn’t been dropped. He’d talk about it after the war but just funny stuff. My other brother was a medic in Germany and had a terrible time; he was one of the first to enter one of the camps and he didn’t like to talk about it. At the service, the pastor asked us to share memories, and one of my favorite memories of my brother was we’d visit him in California. In the redwood forest, he would always have a fancy picnic. He would have a lace tablecloth and candlesticks. Once there was a silver chafing dish with curried shrimp. Once it was beef sandwiches au jus and a hot thermos. People would come by and stare at us. In the middle of the redwood forest, he would have these beautiful, elegant picnics. So this summer our family is going to get together and do a picnic in one of our parks.
Voices
We need cars One thing that makes our winters and pandemics tolerable is our cars. We need free-flowing main arterial streets with parking for our city to be livable. Yes, we should convert to electric cars to reduce pollution, and bicycling is nice, but we cannot do without our cars. And that is why the Minneapolis Transportation Plan is not in the best interest of our citizens. A main justification for the plan is to fight climate change, but by far most of the driving in Minnesota is done in the suburbs and outstate and they are not going to change to bicycles. But the citizens of Minneapolis are expected in the proposed city plan to vastly reduce driving in favor of walking, biking, busing or scooting, and the city plans to install 136 miles of bikeways that I worry will displace much parking and cause congestion on the main thoroughfares. Why can’t bikes use the side streets? A good example of what is to come is Hennepin Avenue from Lake Street to 36th Street. This used to be a thriving avenue, with ample driving lanes, lots of parking, full-grown trees and places where a car could pull over. Much of this is gone and in its place are overly wide sidewalks, no parking from Lake to 31st and half of parking gone south to 36th, and narrow driving lanes. I think businesses have dried up because folks used to be able to go down Hennepin and park for free. Stopped cars are always blocking the bike lanes out of necessity. It reminds one of urban renewal. Urbanization is the new place for developers to spend idle funds and they don’t want to provide off-street parking and they want to build in vintage neighborhoods, especially around the lakes. While there should be development, it needs to be done in the best interest of all of our citizens.
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southwestjournal.com / November 26–December 16, 2020 A11 FROM TAYLOR / PAGE A1
“Everyone needs to be safe. No justice, no peace. No peace, no justice, right?” he asks provocatively, turning a sacred activist slogan on its head. In some circles, Taylor and Uptown Crime have a less-than-stellar reputation. He’s well aware. Online, people call him “racist” and “bootlicker” and make fun of how he looks in Facebook photos. The Google reviews on his real estate business are a mess. Part of it is because crime watch social media is notorious for devolving into sucking vortexes of racist, anti-city toxicity that trap people in reality-warping echo chambers that make light of police misconduct. To forestall that fate, Uptown Crime accepts only selfproclaimed Minneapolis residents who avow Black lives matter to them, bans national politics and encourages people to argue with fact and logic rather than ad hominem insults. At the same time, Taylor takes a forceful stance against certain forms of protest. After a small group of election night demonstrators allegedly set fires and spray-painted “loot me” on Uptown businesses, he banned commenters who tried to debate the merits of it. Likewise, he detests the vandals who cemented an “Abolish MPD” sign to Bender’s front porch in August. Just as harshly as he criticizes City Hall, Taylor is openly dismissive of traditional neighborhood associations, which he views as “mouthpieces for the City Council.” In October, he was kicked out of a virtual Lowry Hill East Neighborhood Association meeting for complaining about Bender in the chat. (No one is allowed to disparage individuals associated with LHENA, according to the neighborhood group’s code of conduct. Alicia Gibson, LHENA’s board president, said comments she made on Taylor’s Facebook page explaining the decision were deleted, but LHENA declined to provide a transcript of the chat.)
It isn’t always Taylor’s fault, but Uptown Crime’s user-generated content occasionally turns out to be false. A recent post accusing the Park Board of lavishing $70 million on bike lanes traveled far and wide, sparking much outrage, before being debunked. An oft-repeated complaint — that the City Council turned down $10 million in federal funds for traffic enforcement — apparently scrambled the fact that in March, the council decided not to apply for a $1.3 million federal grant to add 10 traffic cops. Another shocking crime update this November claimed the neighborhood fixture Uncommon Grounds had been robbed at gunpoint. No such thing happened, according to the coffee shop. “I’m really torn because [Uptown Crime] was started by somebody who is not law enforcement, who is not trained in media. A general public person has every right to speak, right? But it can get worrisome, because I’ve heard some stories where people get very fear-based,” says Jill Osiecki Gleich, president of the Uptown Association, which represents the commercial district. She takes amateur crime bulletins with a grain of salt because things heard over the police scanner are less informative than properly vetted reports from 5th Precinct staff, which include the resolutions to 911 calls. A blip on the police scanner about gunshots fired could end up being a car backfiring, for instance. “I would be concerned if anyone was using a Facebook group as their main source of information,” added Emma Erdahl, president of the East Isles Residents Association’s board. In mid-November, Taylor was the first to report that burglars had shattered the front door of Uptown restaurant Lake & Irving and cleaned out its bar and cash register. The security footage shows two people smashing bottles with abandon. Chef/owner Chris Ikeda says he called
Steve Taylor’s Uptown Crime Facebook group now has over 15,000 members. Photo via Facebook
police with some hesitation, knowing the 5th Precinct is severely short-staffed with only eight officers covering 20 neighborhoods some nights, compared with nine to 12 per shift in 2019. Cops showed up an hour and a half later. Ikeda says that in his seven years on Lake Street, he’s never seen so many break-ins and violent carjackings. To concerns that Uptown Crime gives the area a worse reputation than it deserves, which ultimately hurts businesses, Alejandro Victoria of Nico’s Tacos says he would rather his customers stay vigilant than underestimate risks. “We have to be honest. Without a page like [Uptown Crime], there’s a lot of things that get covered [up],” Victoria says. “A lot of the people who are getting caught up as the victims of crime are unaware, because some people still have the feeling of Uptown being the way it always has been. Frankly, as much as I care about my business, I care more about the safety of individuals.” Now and then, Taylor’s supporters suggest he run for City Council. That’s unlikely, given
his support of Goodman. As the new father of a 2-month-old son, Taylor doesn’t have immediate ambitions to lead. Instead, he’s signed on to a coalition of Minneapolis residents called “Operation Safety Now,” which advocates long-term police reform and shortterm support for Police Chief Medaria Arradondo. Its overriding purpose is to organize average residents — people who so far haven’t had activist training, funding and the ear of elected officials — to speak up on what they want from public safety. Following the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer, residents are more distrustful of the MPD and the City Council is now divided over how to combat violence inside and outside the department. The embattled police chief has been on the defensive, portraying his department as just the surface layer of a complex ecosystem of criminal justice, needed to stop Minneapolis’ immediate bleeding. Last year, some 6,700 emergency calls went unanswered due to staffing shortages. This year, the city’s minority neighborhoods are suffering the most from the more than 50% increase in homicides. Gun violence has been up in major cities across the country amid the pandemic and nationwide protests. Bill Rodriguez, a spokesman for Operation Safety Now, says that after 30 years in Minneapolis, he only started paying serious attention to crime after his ex-wife experienced an early morning home invasion this June. That’s when he started following Uptown Crime and talking to Taylor, whom he found to be “thoughtful” and “frank.” “He speaks his mind. He’s not from Minnesota, so Minnesota nice is not always a part of his repertoire,” Rodriguez says. “He calls a spade a spade, and I think that’s refreshing. It’s good to know where a person stands when you’re speaking about such potentially divisive issues like public safety.”
A12 November 26–December 16, 2020 / southwestjournal.com
By Nate Gotlieb
Minneapolis a leader on climate change, scorecard says
What are you most proud of during your time in office? We got so much done together. By we, I mean myself with constituents, with folks organizing for renters and workers, for racial justice and climate justice. The centerpiece of that policy work is the Minneapolis 2040 plan, which takes a
dents to make efficiency upgrades. This month, the city announced that it will offer grants to businesses damaged during the civil unrest so they can make efficiency upgrades, such as more efficient heating and cooling systems. Among city-owned properties, total carbon
emissions decreased 19% and electricity usage decreased 12% year over year in 2019, according to a July report. Overall, city buildings are producing 58% less carbon emissions compared to 2008 levels. The city said that’s because buildings are using less electricity and because Xcel Energy has added more wind-
and solar-generated electricity to its grid. New York was the highest-ranked city, according to the ACEEE report. St. Paul, along with St. Louis, Missouri, was ranked the most-improved city, because of a new building energy-benchmarking policy and a goal to reduce vehicle miles traveled.
policy approach to housing, to race equity, to infrastructure, to climate change goals, and will make it hard to take a project-byproject approach that tends to benefit the status quo. So from now on, folks will have to take a policy approach to housing and infrastructure in the city of Minneapolis, and those policies that are in place now are centered in race equity and fighting climate change. They’re values-based
policy approaches to make sure that our neighborhoods are affordable, that every single neighborhood has housing options, that it is safe to walk and bike and take transit, that we coordinated the planning of our infrastructure system and growth in housing and other destinations. And then from there, the policy work I’ve helped lead has always been driven by community: workers organizing for
paid sick time or minimum wage, renters organizing for renter protections, folks organizing for affordable housing supports, people who are organizing for safer streets, for sustainability goals. So it’s really been a joy for me to work together in partnership with the community in that way. An expanded version of this interview is available on our website at tinyurl.com/lisa-bender.
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Minneapolis ranks fourth out of 100 major U.S. cities when it comes to setting and achieving climate change goals, according to a new report. File photo
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Minneapolis continues to rank among the top cities in the nation when it comes to setting and meeting climate change goals, according to a scorecard out last month. The scorecard, from the Washington D.C.based American Council for an EnergyEfficient Economy (ACEEE), analyzed the climate policies and goals of 100 major U.S. cities and ranked them on a 0-100 scale. Minneapolis was the fourth-ranked city for a second straight year. The council said the city maintained the ranking because of progress reducing greenhouse gas emissions, efforts to integrate equity into climate efforts and policies such as residential-energy disclosure. Minneapolis established a climate action plan in 2013 that calls for reducing greenhouse gas emissions 30% by 2025, reducing energy use 17% by 2025 and generating 10% of electricity from local and renewable sources. The greenhouse gas emissionsreduction goal is compared to 2006 levels. A 2018 ordinance calls for the 100% of the city’s electricity to come from renewable sources by 2030. Greenhouse gas emissions in Minneapolis dropped 17% in 2018 compared to 2006 levels, according to city data. About a third of the city’s energy comes from renewable sources, sustainability manager Kim Havey said this past summer. Steps the city has taken to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and energy usage in recent years have included expanding its green business cost share program and offering 0% financing for low-income resi-
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southwestjournal.com / November 26–December 16, 2020 A13
By Andrew Hazzard
Minnehaha Creek master plan approved
The “daylighting” of Minnehaha Creek by Lynnhurst Park and the creation of a designated play space in the creek are among the many details included in a recently approved master plan that will guide the design of the parkland surrounding Minnehaha Creek for the next 30 years. Image courtesy of the Minneapolis Park Board
The Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board has signed off on a long-range plan for the parkland surrounding Minnehaha Creek that will seek to add new recreational features and improved naturalized spaces throughout South Minneapolis. Approved on Nov. 18, the Minnehaha Parkway Regional Trail Master Plan will guide the design of more than 200 acres of parkland along the creek for the next 30 years, with a focus on improving water quality, mitigating flooding and adding more accessible recreation features throughout the corridor. “I really like what we came up with; there was a lot of compromise involved,” said Community Advisory Committee chair Jim Tincher. In Southwest, the plan will add a nature play area near Penn Avenue, a new play area under the Nicollet Avenue bridge and a designated play space in the creek itself near the current location of the Lynnhurst rec center. Bike trails that today end at
Lynnhurst Park will continue west to Morgan Avenue. More “natural” trails will be added to the park in Southwest, including a natural pedestrian path along the creek and additional mountain biking trails near Girard Avenue. New pedestrian bridges are planned at 54th & Zenith, near Forrest Dale & Russell and near 52nd & Belmont. More water access will come at Lynnhurst Park and near Vincent, Morgan, Penn, Harriet and Nicollet avenues. The plan calls for major changes for Lynnhurst Park. Today the creek’s connection to Lake Harriet is partially covered by a drain, but new designs will “daylight” the creek as it comes toward the park. The design will move the current rec center north of 50th Street and convert it to an environmentally focused rec center with exhibits on the creek system. After lengthy CAC debate about the future of the parkway road, planners ultimately backed off from a design that would have removed small portions of the roadway
near Nicollet Avenue and implemented barriers discouraging vehicle traffic on the western portion of the parkway. Some of those moves prompted loud protests from opposing residents. The final design does offer roadway changes, however, including a new raised bridge for 50th Street near Lynnhurst Park to allow the creek and pedestrians to flow underneath. Pedestrian improvements are planned at intersections throughout the park. The project was done in coordination with a flood study being conducted by the city of Minneapolis and the Minnehaha Creek Watershed District and calls for several flood mitigation and creek naturalization strategies. In the Tangletown neighborhood, the design calls for creek meanders and stream restoration to improve natural conditions and reduce flooding. Stormwater wetlands — essentially, engineered small ponds — near Nicollet Avenue are planned to help manage water influxes. Underground water storage is
proposed beneath the playfields at Lynnhurst Park for further flood mitigation. The planning took place over two years and more than a dozen Community Advisory Committee meetings, which were interrupted and delayed by the pandemic. The plan will be implemented over the next 30 years depending on funding abilities. The total estimate for all planned repairs is $108 million. Financing could come from the Park Board, the city of Minneapolis, the Minnehaha Creek Watershed District, the Metropolitan Council and philanthropic groups. Projects considered a high priority by the Park Board, the city and the watershed district — such as mitigating flood risk through creek restoration west of Newtown Avenue and improving stormwater capture capacity near Penn Avenue — will be among the first to be implemented. Simple projects, like restoring currently mowed grass to prairie, will also be done sooner than major, costly efforts like moving the Lynnhurst rec center.
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A14 November 26–December 16, 2020 / southwestjournal.com FROM COVID-19 / PAGE A1
More than 18,000 people in Minneapolis have recovered from COVID-19 since the beginning of the pandemic. More than 1,600 have been hospitalized, and 284 have died. Senior living facilities have been hit particularly hard, accounting for about half of the city’s deaths in which COVID-19 was a contributing factor, according to Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) data. Impacted senior homes in Southwest Minneapolis include Walker Methodist Health Center, where state data indicate that 18 people have died, Jones-Harrison Residence, where 18 people have died, Mount Olivet Careview Home, where 11 have died, the Villa at Bryn Mawr, where six have died, and Redeemer Residence & Rehab, where five have died. The Lyndale neighborhood has seen the highest case rate in Southwest Minneapolis; 7% of residents have reported a positive test result. Lyndale is followed by Whittier at 6.4% and Cedar-Isles-Dean at 5.8%. “Some of the fault lines of inequities are highlighted even more during this pandemic,” said Mayor Jacob Frey, speaking about food relief during a Nov. 13 City Council meeting. Minneapolis’ population is 19% Black, but Black residents represent 25% of cases and 28% of deaths. Hispanic residents, at 10% of the population, represent 19% of cases though just 7% of deaths. White residents, 64% of the population, represent only 44% of cases and 60% of deaths. Cases are currently increasing among all ages and ethnic groups. The first vaccine doses may arrive as soon as mid- to late-December, Minneapolis Health Commissioner Gretchen Musicant said at the city’s Public Health & Safety meeting on Nov. 5. Minneapolis is preparing for mass vaccine distribution, creating a communications plan and ordering cold storage. The first vaccines will go to staff working at hospitals and long-term care facilities, followed by first responders. The second phase of distribution will reach high-risk populations, including seniors and essential workers. Last will be availability to the general public. The federal government will determine Minnesota’s allocation of doses, and the state will determine the allocation at the local level. “The entire outbreak for 1918 in cities occurred usually within 6-10 weeks, from start to finish. We are now in our ninth month,” said Dr. Michael Osterholm, a University of Minnesota epidemiologist named to the president-elect’s COVID-19
The Whittier Clinic offers COVID-19 testing on weekdays, serving people in the order of arrival until capacity is reached. Photo by Isaiah Rustad
advisory board, at a Nov. 13 briefing. “This is our COVID year. … With the advent of the vaccine, and the availability of that vaccine I believe starting in the first quarter of next year, if we can just hold out until then, we can save so many lives, so much suffering.” The governor’s current shutdown targets social gatherings, gyms, sports and indoor dining, while leaving salons and retail stores open. (See page A3.) Data guiding the dial-back order include contact tracing, which found 223 outbreaks totaling 3,589 cases at restaurants and bars in June, including one in November at Cowboy Slim’s, now temporarily closed. The state currently defines an “outbreak” as five unre-
COVID-19 CASE RATES IN SOUTHWEST MINNEAPOLIS Neighborhood
No. of cases
Population
% of residents with positive test result
Lyndale
500
7,134
Whittier
906
14,169
6.4%
Cedar-Isles-Dean
184
3,196
5.8%
East Harriet
192
3,606
5.3%
Stevens Square
200
3,835
5.2%
Lowry Hill East
366
7,140
5.1%
Windom
256
5,236
4.9%
Kenwood
44
1,086
4.1%
223
5,904
3.8%
73
2,187
3.3%
235
7,543
3.1%
South Uptown West Maka Ska Kingfield ECCO
7.0%
74
2,443
3.0%
East Isles
106
3,750
2.8%
Tangletown
120
4,512
2.7%
Bryn Mawr
69
2,651
2.6%
Lowry Hill
99
3,896
2.5%
Lynnhurst
143
5,797
2.5%
Armatage
126
5,108
2.5%
Kenny
89
3,849
2.3%
Linden Hills
178
7,727
2.3%
Fulton
143
6,355
2.3%
Data courtesy of city of Minneapolis as of Nov. 22
lated cases from five households who told contact tracers they visited only that restaurant or bar in the month prior to symptoms or a positive test. The true source of infections is ultimately unknown. Since June, 41 people with COVID-19 have reported a Southwest Minneapolis restaurant or bar with an outbreak as the only establishment they visited, according to state data. The state reported outbreaks at the Pourhouse Uptown, Stella’s Fish Café and Uptown Tavern in July. “We’re only capturing the tip of the iceberg, but it makes us pretty confident that transmission was occurring in that environment,” said Doug Schultz, an MDH spokesperson. “We know for example that with salmonella, for every one case that we identify, there are 29 more that go unidentified. … The same thing is true with COVID, especially now that we know people can be asymptomatic spreaders. For every case in a bar, there are untold numbers of other cases.” From June 1 to Nov. 19, the state documented 254 outbreaks at sports events, 111 at weddings, 72 at social gatherings, 48 at gyms, 33 at churches, 25 at funerals and five at salons. “Minnesota is now well over a case rate of 120 cases per 100,000 across Minnesota and a positivity rate of over 15%. This means at this point in the pandemic, wherever people gather there is a [significant] likelihood that infectious people are among them,” Dan Huff, MDH’s assistant commissioner for health protection, wrote in an email. Although it might be easier to distance from others at salons and retail stores, there isn’t yet conclusive data, said Ryan Demmer, associate professor at the University of Minnesota’s Division of Epidemiology and Community Health. “It’s one thing to take people who end up getting tested and have a positive result and ask them where they’ve been. It’s another thing to go out and randomly sample people and get a better sense of the true infection rates,” he said. It’s clear that the virus spreads easiest at indoor gatherings, he said, where there are close contacts and no masks over long durations of time. In large groups, it’s more likely at least one person is infected and can spread it to others. And while kids get very sick at far lower rates, he said, they are just as likely to get infected and spread the virus, especially at high school age.
“I think that they’re really powerful pieces of the infection chain and, in part, an explanation for why things have really changed this fall,” he said, noting other factors like the cold weather and pandemic fatigue. Minnesota is rolling out an app, COVIDaware MN (covidawaremn.com) — developed in a rare partnership between Apple and Google — that allows phones in close contact to exchange numbers via Bluetooth. Users who test positive can opt to anonymously alert other app users who have come within 6 feet for more than 15 minutes during the infectious period. “If you don’t have symptoms and you got that notification, we want you to stay home for 14 days, stay out of circulation so that you aren’t a potential source of infection and transmission to other people,” Kris Ehresmann, the state’s infectious disease director, said at a Nov. 23 briefing. The state’s IT commissioner said the app does not access personal information, track GPS or send data to the state. The state recommends getting tested if you have symptoms or were in close contact with someone with COVID-19. During the dial-back period, health officials are asking people to stay home and lay low, reserving community testing sites for people working outside the home in sectors like health care, child care, public safety and retail. Saliva testing sites are now open daily at the Minneapolis Convention Center and Terminal 1 at the airport; people are eligible for testing regardless of whether they show symptoms. The Whittier Clinic tests patients on weekdays, serving people in the order of arrival until capacity is reached. Axis Medical Center tests both symptomatic and asymptomatic patients by appointment. The Southside Medical Clinic tests symptomatic patients by appointment on weekdays. Minnesota also offers free, at-home COVID-19 saliva testing for people who believe they need to be tested, with or without symptoms. Pessoa-Brandao said the quarantine period is 14 days for a reason — that’s the incubation time when someone can test positive and develop symptoms, so no one can truly test out of quarantine. “Go and get tested,” she said.
southwestjournal.com / November 26–December 16, 2020 A15 FROM WINTER SURVIVAL / PAGE A1
Included in David Wood’s winter survival plan: — Order a non-fogging face mask. — Listen to loud, raucous music. Preferably dance to it. — Buy flowers, whenever needed. (Red tulips are a winter favorite.) — Do something for someone else. (Perhaps give away half of the tulips.) “My favorite thing on the list actually is a new personal rule,” Wood said. “Because exercise is the only guaranteed antidepressant with no negative side effects, I am not allowed to whine unless I first at least walk around the block.”
A
Rachel Peterson draws inspiration from her former residence above the Arctic Circle in Norway, which completely loses sunshine for two months during winter. The town of Tromsø takes advantage of the dark to hold an annual film festival, in past years creating a town square movie screen out of snow for viewers on wool sitting pads and reindeer pelts. To keep warm, she recommends a wool base layer on the skin, wool sweater, down jacket, wool blanket and a couple pairs of wool socks with hand warmers stuffed in the boots. She’s accustomed to a “non-attitude” that accepts winter. “Especially the Norwegians I know the best in the Arctic, it’s just how it always is. There is no willing the sun to come back earlier,” she said. “This winter feels different for me because of the pandemically defined rules that we don’t go into other people’s homes. … There is a mental health crisis happening for all ages.” Peterson suggests connecting through lantern walks, weekly phone calls with Grandma and distanced coffee chats on the front steps. More ideas are generated on her public Facebook group, The Minnesota Winter Dugnad.
A
Commissioned to write a COVID Response Toolkit for Hennepin County with winter strategies, Seward resident Max Musicant said that adults should rediscover the fun in sledding and making snowmen. “This is going to be the year of campfires,” he said. “[We’re] encouraging people to have those campfires in their front yard, which opens them up for more serendipity and more social interactions with neighbors that could be walking around.”
A
Mental health is a major part of Windom resident Louisa Hext’s work as a mediator. But the last six months have been a struggle. “I didn’t get a hug for two weeks after my mum died,” said Hext, who was sheltering in place when her mother died overseas in May. “My first hug that I got was from a neighbor that I knew, with a mask.” As part of The Forgiveness Project, she recently joined a call with Bjørn Ihler, who narrowly survived the 2011 attacks on Utøya island in Norway and went on to work against extremism and hatred. In a divisive time, Hext finds solace in the stories of people like Ihler who respond to tragedy without vengeance. “There are other ways to respond to our isolation and our loneliness, instead of getting really upset and rageful and making it about politics and all the things we could get angry about,” she said. “There are the people that smile behind their masks.”
A
“Just move,” said Heather Corndorf of the mXe fitness studio in Linden Hills, who recently started a virtual “recess” class for kids. “How do you move up and down the stairs? Can you walk … instead of drive? Can you find joy in doing the laundry?” she said. “In Minneapolis, we are still blessed with so many talented fitness and movement professionals. And to support local businesses here and to do virtual classes ... it’s not the same, but it’s important to help those
businesses, but also to help yourself.” Corndorf took the recent step of dropping her business’s social media activity, realizing it was draining her energy and taking up too much time. Instead she’s cooking new meals, reading up on plants and talking on the phone. “It’s like waking up. Where have I been?” she said. “Whatever that thing is that has been itching the back of your head for years — ‘One day, when I retire, I’m going to do this’ — do it. Learn about it now.”
A
After an exposure to COVID, Darnell Dixon’s family is experiencing an intense period of quarantine. “We’re in the house and in nature,” Dixon said. “Pinterest is my best friend.” They’re taking multiple walks per day in Kingfield with a 14-month-old in a carrier, a 3-year-old bundled as much as possible, and a foster puppy. They’re making dump-intothe-pot dinners like taco soup with the help of her daughter. And as chair of the Minneapolis Early Childhood Family Education Parents Council, Dixon is planning free virtual music classes and speaker events for parents. In the aftermath of George Floyd’s killing, Dixon and another parent created a quarterly activity packet on Twin Cities cultures; a Native American packet features a link to “Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?” spoken in the Dakota language, coloring pages and a map suggesting visits to places like Bdote near Fort Snelling. “I just keep thinking to myself on the hard days that this is only a period in life,” she said. “There is value too in being able to soak up your children’s time, and your partner’s.”
A
As the dining shutdown extends until at least Dec. 18, Icehouse is looking at a livestream concert series in which tickets come with takeout. A virtual concert last spring drew 2,000 people. But it’s no comparison to a live concert
drawing 300 people, he said, and takeout business is about 30% of normal operations. While patio dining is closed, The Lynhall is focusing on to-go kits like Afternoon Tea. The restaurant will fill 1,000 Thanksgiving meal orders. And they’re offering cocoa and cookies to pair with Nolan Mains’ free horse and carriage rides, offered from 4-7 p.m every Friday and Saturday through December at 50th & France. Nevertheless, founder Anne Spaeth said margins are slimmer due to lower alcohol sales and third-party delivery services that take a share of profits and tips. Neil Holman, co-owner of Zumbro Cafe, said they’ve found a rhythm with takeout, but even with a skeleton crew, the sales aren’t comparable to normal dine-in service. “It’s allowing us to tread water,” he said. “We’ve just got to take a breath and take it one day at a time.”
A
Along with exercise, personal connection and the outdoors (the phrase “no bad weather, only bad clothing” came up frequently), Minneapolitans repeated a theme of gratitude. “You just have to be grateful for the moment,” said Hext, who is thankful for Minnesota’s state parks. Dixon is thankful for Hennepin County Library virtual story time. Holman is thankful for regulars who have delivered baskets of goodies to new neighbors. Wood is thankful for the internet, which allows the annual family reunion to become more frequent over Zoom. “Someone told me it’s impossible to feel gratitude and depression at the same time, and I believe that to be true,” Wood said. “We always have choices. If I’m feeling depressed because of COVID, I ask myself, what’s one thing I could do to make myself feel 10% better? … So often we’re looking for one thing that’s going to make [us] feel great. That isn’t always possible, but we can always do something that will improve our situation.”
southwestjournal.com / November 26–December 16, 2020 A17
Murals of the mansion Susan Lynn’s Stevens Square masterpiece By Zac Farber
Artist Susan Lynn painted a series of murals on the walls and ceiling of a Stevens Square apartment unit that once served as the ballroom of a mansion built in the 1880s. Photos by Isaiah Rustad
In 1888, a mustachioed lumber baron named Sumner T. McKnight erected a 30-room mansion on LaSalle Avenue in Stevens Square — a hulking giant of Lake Superior sandstone filled with ornately carved oak panels, baroque gold leaf scrollwork, Tiffany lighting and a series of green-and-white woodblock panels depicting the legend of Cupid and Psyche. Two years after its construction, McKnight sold the building to George Newell, a co-founder of the SuperValu grocery empire, and in the early 1940s it was divided into luxury apartments. By the time my partner and I moved into a third-floor unit last year, the Newell Mansion’s once immaculate opulence had aged into a witchy, not-quite-tottering grandeur. The reddish sandstone had darkened to a sooty shade of brown and slabs of broken balustrade lay unrepaired around the grounds. A quirk of the plumbing meant some toilets flushed hot. And while a ghost hunter had assured our neighbors of the absence of ill-intentioned spirits, the building still suffered the occasional invasion of squirrels. But we were compensated for these mild hardships by an aesthetic gift bestowed on our apartment’s walls and ceiling well over a century after its creation. A panorama of painted murals. SEE MURALS / PAGE A18
A18 November 26–December 16, 2020 / southwestjournal.com FROM MURALS / PAGE A17
Our apartment’s central room — once the mansion’s ballroom — is an airy, open space about the size of a pickleball court and ringed by sloped walls that map the building’s irregular roofline. A skylight stretching over the kitchen fills the entire space with natural light, which is amplified by the murals’ bright pastel color palette. “There’s nothing like the light in Paris,” our apartment’s muralist, Susan Lynn, told us after we tracked her down earlier this year. “Paris has this special kind of pinkish, warm light.” Upon entering the room, you have the sense of being transported to the French countryside, though on closer inspection a Minneapolitan will discover a much more familiar landscape. A series of wall tableaus are anchored by natural and architectural Twin Cities landmarks, each situated in the room following a loosely geographic logic. On the west wall are St. Mark’s Cathedral and the Hennepin Avenue United Methodist Church. To the east are the sites of St. Paul: the Como Park Conservatory, the State Capitol and the Cathedral. Yet all of these landmarks have been placed in bucolic landscapes devoid of any hint of their urban surroundings — a flowing river and grassy banks lead to the entrance of the glass-domed conservatory, while neatly manicured hedges line the path to the Capitol. No busy roads, no parking lots. “I wanted to make it look like it was this 19th-century neoclassical appreciation of Greek mythology,” Lynn said. “What would the Capitol look like if nothing were around it? What would the Cathedral look like?”
Shaking with elation
Susan Lynn, we have learned, is a whimsical, elusive person who becomes most animated when sharing details of her artistic process. She grew up by Lake Harriet before living in New York and traveling throughout Europe. Today, she has a studio on Summit Avenue in St. Paul and rents an office on Cedar Lake Parkway. She said her mother once rented Theo van Gogh’s Parisian apartment on the Rue Lepic and that she painted in the same courtyard as Vincent — a memory, she said, that makes her “shake with elation.” Lynn prefers to paint on large walls or big, 17-foot canvases. “I want it to be interactive with my whole body,” she said. “I like to be on my feet and moving like in a dance. Sometimes I’m moving as fast as playing tennis.” Trained in stone masonry, architecture and archaeology, she’s received commissions for paintings and plaster work at local restaurants like Arezzo, St. Genevieve’s and Brasserie Zinc. She once painted a Paris rooftop scene covering a full floor of a real estate magnate’s Lake Minnetonka mansion.
The State Capitol is one of the Twin Cities architectural landmarks Susan Lynn included in her imagined landscapes. Photo by Isaiah Rustad
Our apartment’s murals, Lynn told us, have occupied a place in her imagination like no other project. In the winter of 2003-04, the Newell Mansion’s then-owners — friends of friends — first showed her the ballroom and she knew immediately she would paint “some angelic human form” floating on the ceiling. She was given a contract to start work the following summer and, during the spring, she flew to Paris for a season of research — trips to the Musée d’Orsay, photographs of ceilings, sketches in charcoal. She was supposed to begin painting the ballroom in June and finish in August, but a woodworker was using the space to build a stairway and she felt it was impossible to work around him. At summer’s end, she’d only just started painting. So Lynn decided to rent the unit. It was my “home away from home,” she said. “I did the work of my own will and own heart. … I rented it because I wanted to finish these murals.” Nearly everything she painted in the ballroom, she said, she did in the fall of 2004. But Lynn continued renting the space until 2014. She said she’d often come back from other painting jobs exhausted and would lie on her back, staring at the ceiling, “dreaming and imagining” about what it could be. “That’s what’ll happen when you’re not getting paid for something anymore, and you’re doing it completely on your own volition,” she said. “More than anything, I’d love to finish it.”
whole room was filled with little shards and pieces of gold flying and floating around.” In the center of the oval, she painted three female figures. She wanted to portray the Grecian Fates holding hands beneath the clouds. As she envisioned the figures, she reflected on the contours of the Damophon statuary she had once cleaned, documented, drawn and catalogued at a Greek museum — mixing those images with pictures she started taking of human models.
“I’d photograph friends of mine lying down in chaise lounges in old wedding gowns and coiled fabric,” Lynn said. “I would be on a ladder up above them and they were lying back on the lounge.” After the oval came the arches, nearly as many arches as walls. And inside each arch, she planned to create a pastoral tableau — a scene that might prompt viewers to wonder whether the painting dated to 1888, when the mansion was first built. She drew inspiration from Hudson River School artists like Thomas Cole and Frederic Edwin Church as she sought to “capture the feeling of early American painting.” Elms, ash and maple — trees found in the Twin Cities, Paris and the Hudson Valley of yore — arc regally over the Como Conservatory and the St. Paul Cathedral. “There seems to be a certain way those artists really appreciated the outline of tree limbs,” she said. “Where the shape of the outer branches create certain shapes as they lob over — as they blow in the wind — they create these sort of floret shapes like the top of broccoli.” In one corner of the ballroom (an alcove that’s become my pandemic home office), Lynn has shaded in the space above the arches with hundreds of waving ribbons of pastel browns, pinks, reds, lilacs and blues. The goal, she said, was to create a trompe l’oeil of solid stone, giving the appearance of “tiger’s-eye agatized marble.” She said it took her just a single afternoon to paint the alcove. For a long time afterward, she intended to stretch the effect throughout the ballroom, but she never did. “It would have flown everywhere in the entire room, all the way around and into the in-between space between the oval and the arches,” she said, pausing for a moment. “It pulls itself off as a work regardless of whether it’s done or not.” You can see more examples of Lynn’s work at tinyurl.com/susan-lynn.
Shards of gold
Lynn paints a 2009 residential commission in North Oaks. Submitted photo
When Lynn started her work in the Newell Mansion, the ballroom was painted all in white and she had to contend with its angular architecture. The room’s four sides are fractured into a patchwork canvas of more than two dozen walls — mostly rectangles and trapezoids, few of matching proportions. The ceiling, though also lacking spatial definition, is at least big and flat. That’s where Lynn spent her first week of work, anchoring the amorphous ballroom with a 23-foot-long oval outline stretching the ceiling’s entire length. “It’s much more complicated to create an oval than a circle — to get it symmetrical so both ends mirror the other side,” she said. To give the oval a gilded effect, she bought some composition gold leaf, designed an adhesive stamp and built a custom piece of scaffolding to lift her body high enough to reach the ceiling with her lips. “I’d blow the gold leaf into place and it would sit on the adhesive,” she said. “The
Above: The three Grecian Fates painted on the ceiling. Below: A close-up view of Lynn’s brushwork. Photos by Isaiah Rustad
southwestjournal.com / November 26–December 16, 2020 A19
Lynn completed most of her work on the Newell Mansion’s ballroom murals in the fall of 2004 after a season of research in Paris and preparatory efforts that included photographing friends lying down in old wedding gowns and sketching in charcoal. Photos by Isaiah Rustad
THE SOUTHWEST JOURNAL’S 2020 CHARITABLE GIVING GUIDE
A20 November 26–December 16, 2020 / southwestjournal.com
Helping people in a housing crisis By Sheila Regan
In some ways, 2020 has been a year of shining a light on problems that had been there all along but hadn’t been addressed properly. One place we’ve seen this is with the issues of housing and homelessness, which became especially visible as encampments popped up around the city. In Minneapolis, the lack of affordable housing has been a growing problem. About 44% of renters live in housing that’s not affordable to them and 6.2% of students of Minneapolis Public Schools experience homelessness, according to a September report from HousingLink. Meanwhile, researchers from the Wilder Foundation found that homelessness increased 10% between 2015 and 2018 around the state. Right now, COVID-19 has made things even harder for people who don’t have a safety net. For those looking to help, here is a list of nonprofits that are providing aid to folks who are either at risk of becoming homeless or working to find stable housing.
Avivo
AVIVOMN.ORG One initiative to address the homelessness crisis came from Avivo. With the financial support from CARES Act funding, Avivo plans to build “Indoor Villages” as a form of temporary indoor shelter for unhoused people. It’s an endeavor that continues what Avivo has already been doing in connection with the growing encampments in Minneapolis. Previously, the organization paid for hotel rooms for people who had been staying in encampments, both during the Minneapolis uprising in the spring and later in the year. Avivo has been at the front line working with unhoused people as they transition away from encampments into hotel rooms and more permanent housing solutions. The organization has been around since the 1960s and was formerly called Resource. It works with people who face homelessness and is dedicated to addressing addiction, mental health struggles, racism, poverty and more. Avivo also does job training, chemical and mental health services, career education and employment services around the Twin Cities and St. Cloud.
People Serving People PEOPLESERVINGPEOPLE.ORG
People Serving People puts authentic community engagement at the center of its work. Its guest advisory council brings residents to the table in order to share their stories, offer feedback and explore leadership opportunities like planning social events for families. The organization has also been engaged in addressing homelessness through its crisis response and emergency shelter. While the organization’s model, under its contract with Hennepin County, asks shelter guests to pay for their stay if they are working or can afford it, a new pilot program seeks to financially empower families by providing free shelter regardless of means.
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Vol. 31, No. 21 October 15–28, 2020 southwestjournal.com
The 2040 plan’s code switch
INSIDE BRASA
Rotisserie opens in East Harriet A4
HOLY LIVING
‘A very heavy lift’
Minneapolis brings 2040 plan for more housing into the zoning code
By Michelle Bruch
Students with disabilities, families navigate new reality
Church-toapartment plan approved in South Uptown A6
SCHOOL BOARD ELECTION
School Board candidates sPEAK AT FORUMS A9
VOICES FROM THE PANDEMIC
Virtual classes, therapy and reading and math practice greet 10-year-old Katy Gerster each school day. Photo by Isaiah Rustad
By Nate Gotlieb
Inside of her Linden Hills home, Katy Gerster, a 10-year-old with moderate intellectual disabilities, logs in to her Google Chromebook each weekday for real-time virtual classes at Lyndale Community School. Katy’s mom, Stephanie Gerster, has taken pains to make it easier for Katy to focus, covering pictures on the walls and building bins into which she can place her work. But it’s still been difficult. Internet outages have derailed entire days, Gerster said, and supervision is important for keeping Katy on track, even with her teachers guiding her virtually over Google Meet. “The second there’s a glitch, all bets are off,” Gerster said. “I know this stuff happens at school, but I’m just me. … I just get to be the bad guy all of the time, and that doesn’t help anybody.” SEE STUDENTS WITH DISABILITIES / PAGE A15
Stories from local residents A10
OUTDOOR MUSIC
New Bakken exhibit hopes to Spark innovation
SEE 2040 PLAN / PAGE A12
Bde Maka Ska museum reopens after summer restoration
Lawns, sidewalks become pandemic concert halls B1
By Andrew Hazzard
SIDEBAR AT SURDYK’S
Cafe offers imaginative spin on familiar fare B6
A year after the adoption of the Minneapolis 2040 plan, which upzones much of the city to hold more people, Minneapolis is ready to codify the plan into building standards. The City Council already introduced triplexes to single-family neighborhoods and started phasing in affordable housing contributions from new apartments with 20+ units. Now they’re moving on to details like the scale of a new triplex, the amount of space a building can occupy on a lot and a building’s setback from the property line. Thousands of people have weighed in on the 2040 plan, and now the city is looking for a little more feedback. One question relates to a handful of “premiums” developers must chip in to build bigger than what’s mapped in the 2040 plan. Premiums could include affordable units, a grocery store or outdoor public space. The premiums are meant to benefit the surrounding community and closely align with the city’s adopted values, and eligible projects would stand on blocks that allow three or more stories. “This allows the city to ask for things they can’t require in the zoning code,” said Sam Rockwell, president of the Planning Commission. “Through the premiums, we are saying yes, it is worth having a higher building, a taller building, to get a grocery store. It is worth having a taller building to have it be close to a net-zero building. It is worth having a taller building to have on-site affordable housing.” For example, the St. Louis-based developer LOCAL Ventures wants to build a 14-story, 402-unit building at 1301 W. Lake St. next to the shopping center formerly known as Calhoun Square. The 2040 plan allows up to 10 stories in this “Transit 10” zone. In order to reach 14 stories, the developer would need to contribute at least two premiums — receiving two extra stories per premium in this district — maxing out at 15 stories, which is the height limit of the next zone, “Transit 15.”
Children use a computer to create music on the Bakkenspiel, part of the new Spark exhibit at the newly renovated Bakken Museum. Submitted photo
A new exhibit at the recently renovated Bakken Museum explores the cycle of inspiration and innovation between nature, pop culture and technology by allowing visitors to create their own music, movies, images and more. “We essentially view innovation as a creative process, and a creative process needs inspiration,” said Bakken Museum President and CEO Michael Sanders. “We think of it as a loop.” Spark, the West Maka Ska museum’s newest exhibit, allows visitors to explore that loop with interactive elements ranging from code breaking in a phone booth to creating unique animated stories. SEE BAKKEN MUSEUM / PAGE A14
The owner of a century-old, 13-bedroom building in Lowry Hill at 1820 Girard Ave. S. will add a fourth basement-level unit, a change approved under the 2040 plan. Photo by Michelle Bruch
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THE SOUTHWEST JOURNAL’S 2020 CHARITABLE GIVING GUIDE
Minnesota Housing Partnership MHPONLINE.ORG
Since it began in the late 1980s, the Minnesota Housing Partnership has been a robust force in the fight for fair housing in Minnesota. With its research around housing and homelessness, grants and technical support for housing development groups, advocacy for the unhoused, and tools and training for nonprofit organizations working on housing issues, MHP aims to provide more housing opportunities for those who need it most. In addition, MHP has acted as an advocacy organization, pushing for better federal and state policies that address the increasingly dire housing needs of Minnesotans during the pandemic.
Avenues for Youth AVENUESFORYOUTH.ORG
Avenues for Youth focuses on young people ages 16-24 in Hennepin County who either need a place to stay for one night or need long-term housing. The organization offers support and mentorship, as well as health and wellness services for the young people in their programs. It has a specific outreach program for Black youth, Indigenous youth and youth of color and another program, ConneQT, that houses queer and trans youth in host homes. Avenues for Youth also has a program for young parents, working directly with landlords to help supplement rent for people under 24 who have children.
St. Stephen’s Human Services STSTEPHENSMPLS.ORG
St. Stephens runs two year-round emergency shelters and conducts street outreach throughout Hennepin County. The organization’s outreach workers help people navigate out of crisis and toward stable housing. COVID-19 presented unique challenges to the street team this year, as outreach workers had to maintain social distancing while reaching out to people without
southwestjournal.com / November 26–December 16, 2020 A21
homes. They were part of a large public health response to the encampments around the city, with a focus on providing information to people staying in the tents, making sure they had access to meal sites and other resources.
Zacah
ZACAH.ORG
Simpson Housing SIMPSONHOUSING.ORG
Simpson runs an emergency overnight shelter for adults, as well as a number of temporary housing options for individuals, families and youth. The organization is also invested in tutoring and mentorship programs for youth, taking a dual approach of both family support and children’s programming.
Since 200 unsheltered people were evicted from the Sheraton Minneapolis Midtown Hotel, Zacah has been working closely with the Minneapolis Sanctuary Movement, playing a key role in emergency response to the growing housing crisis in Minneapolis. Zacah was one of the organizations advocating for the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board to allow unhoused people to camp in city parks. Zacah gets its name from the Muslim term “Zakat,” which means “that which purifies.” The idea is for people of the Muslim faith to purify their wealth by donating a portion of it to their communities. In addition to the work the organization has been doing with the Sanctuary Movement, Zacah also provides emergency financial assistance and runs a threebedroom transitional home for women in crisis, providing housing for three months as they work toward independent living.
HOME Line HOMELINEMN.ORG
HOME Line runs a legal help hotline and provides free and low-cost legal advice, in addition to its work in organizing, education and advocacy. HOME Line has been especially important during the pandemic, offering webinars for renters that help explain the eviction moratoriums and policy changes that have been passed since March. HOME Line also has a number of form letters available on its website — for things like security deposits, privacy violation and repair requests — that are helpful to renters whose landlords are violating state statutes. Additionally, HOME Line offers support for tenants interested in organizing a tenant’s association and does other organizing work around issues such as Section 8 housing.
CommonBond Communities COMMONBOND.ORG
CommonBond Communities starts with the premise that everyone deserves to have a safe place to live. For nearly 50 years, the organization has been committed to creating affordable housing in the Twin Cities, and throughout Minnesota and Wisconsin. In total, CommonBond operates 7,000 rental townhomes across 60 cities, in addition to their advocacy for more equitable housing policy at the state and federal levels.
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27 “Take me __”: “This is me”
55 Heredity carrier
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A22 November 26–December 16, 2020 / southwestjournal.com
Unsung Architecture
Local architectural stories from the staff of Locus Architecture
Building during the pandemic? Don’t forget the world after.
A
fter over eight months of social distancing with continued trepidation about returning to the familiar — movie theaters, concerts, gyms, restaurants and more — many of us are approaching the winter with dread. A handful of our clients have begun replacing their old routines “out and about” in the city with new ones at home. Whether out of necessity or inspiration, it’s clear many of us are longing to bring variety into our dwelling spaces, if at a smaller scale. By critically evaluating the changes we intend to make and qualities we’re trying to achieve, we can start to identify some pitfalls in our rush to return to normality. Creating places to gather during colder weather increases already existing challenges. Re-thinking what it looks like to come together can be valuable. Consider how much space is needed for the majority of your life (“design for the everyday, not the exceptional” is how one architect explained it) and how much space is needed much less often (for small gatherings or future holidays). In the first Locus Architecture house on King’s Parkway, the main living space is an open “courtyard,” with apertures punched into
walls of rooms above and a hearth to gather around. The space is ideal for gathering while not becoming too vast to feel comfortable on a daily basis. Thinking long-term, as opposed to reacting to a right-now situation, is a common approach we take with clients experiencing a “pinch point.” Even before COVID-19 inspired some to think “I need more space,” we’ve had families hire us to create home additions when their youngsters started elementary school. We often warn that space pressure felt in the moment may only last a handful of years, as this need rapidly decreases when those same adorable toddlers enter high school and spend increasing amounts of time outside the house. Solutions such as finished basements, rooms over garages or backyard “clubhouses” can suffice while avoiding the “our house is too big” situation that inspires empty nesters to abandon houses where their memories reside. Providing choreographed openings to the outdoors offers flexible expansion of space when necessary but can maintain a comfortably small feel for daily spatial demands. A potential consequence of the pandemic may be the temptation to spend more of our
lives inside, even after we’re no longer encouraged or required to. Living spaces may need to be reconfigured to handle “pre-pandemic” routines previously done in the community. For instance, adding a screen porch might bring some qualities from trips taken to a resort or a friend’s cabin. A relaxing setting in our home can recall our greatly missed vacations. Re-imagining bathrooms or adding a sauna might replace outings to the gym or the spa. Adding a rooftop deck could become a more intimate alternative to the bar or restaurant setting many of us miss. Including places to create — whether art, carpentry, music or something else — can add elements missed from experiences visiting galleries/museums/ live music events around town. Amid these efforts to bring new experiences to home life, there will always be unintended results that come with well-intentioned initiatives. We can’t help but wonder what social costs and mental health issues might this home-centric “souped-up” living bring about? Some unsavory images come to mind — hospitality businesses failing, less active streets, gutted mass-transit systems, school children in front of screens, acres of empty real estate, struggling cultural institutions and increased reliance on modes of communication that don’t require face-to-face contact. Sure, Zoom is useful, but it’s still just a proxy. Not only are our social and work lives impacted by this kind of adaptation, but one must consider how the built environment will inevitably be impacted as well. Although life may never “go back to normal” after the pandemic, what kind of “new normal” do we want to design in our homes and public infrastructure? Despite some surface-level benefits,
70+ Minnesota artists
A porch is an example of an opening to the outdoors that offers a flexible expansion of space while retaining a comfortably small feel for daily life. Submitted photo
working at home, staycations and socializing within very limited boundaries leave many of us bereft of new meaningful experiences, and long-term consequences still remain unknown. While investing in your home can benefit residential architects, interior designers and construction professionals, it’s also important to provide experiential places and beautiful spaces where people interact as social beings. As we move forward with our projects for the duration of and after the pandemic, our hope is to continue challenging how design can bring more to our homes and communities than before, without falling into the temptation of “best of both worlds” at-home solutions. Emily Bissen is a staff member of Locus Architecture, located in Kingfield. Visit locusarchitecture.com to learn more.
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southwestjournal.com / November 26–December 16, 2020 A23 By Carla Waldemar
A
Bravo, Brasa
BRASA ROTISSERIE 812 W. 46th St. | 612-315-3395
s usual, grandma was right: Good things do come to those who wait. Southwest’s foodies no longer have to make the trek through the urban jungle to Brasa’s longtime outpost in Northeast, thanks to the launch of a second Minneapolis location on West 46th Street, larger than the original’s rehab of a gas station. Both sites offer takeout only these days. This is fine, because the cafe’s forte is viands whose journey from kitchen to table doesn’t have to occur at speeds normally reserved for the Indy 500. They’re cooked long and slow and happy to rest, awaiting your order — an everyman’s everyday contrast to the more refined dining experience James Beard awardwinning chef Alex Roberts offers at his other venue, the prix-fixe palace Restaurant Alma. His cooking at Brasa carries a strong Southern accent — the Creole flavors wafting from our Southern states, and even farther south, the kettles of the Caribbean. The menu is simple: Brasa’s trademark roast pork and rotisserie chicken, joined by a more recent addition, fried catfish. Choose your side dishes from a lineup you’d find in many a Southern meat-and-three, plus a couple of salads for the likes of those who do not consider mac and cheese a vegetable. Everything may be ordered a la carte or as a plate ($12 range), sandwich ($11 range) or bowl ($12 range). We ordered several bowls to share, simply out of greediness. They supplied several of the tastes of the side dishes we’d otherwise have summoned separately (mostly $4). The chicken bowl featured tender bits of juicy meat consorting with a heap of yellow rice and beans. They’re united with a sofrito of the usual Southern suspects — onion, sweet peppers and tomato — this time with the added scent of ham (though hard to detect on my simple palate). Green olives add pop. Together they complement a mild andouilletomato gravy. If you’re thinking “arroz con pollo,” you’re close. We also summoned a piece of chicken solo ($3.75) — swooningly moist under a faint hint of its Creole rub (and miles more tender and tasty than the six-buck cluck from you-knowwhere). It comes with a side of the house green sauce. That sauce is an addictive blend of cilantro (which, wisely, does not overpower the mix), lime and a subtle touch of ginger, all stirred into mayo. You can order it by the pint ($4.75) if you secretly yearn to chug it, as I do. Next, the fried catfish bowl. The slender fillet arrived robed with a crunchy crust of cornmeal-cum-rice flour — OK but not habitforming. It rested on a mound of nicely cheesy grits along with tangy collard greens dotted with bits of smoked chicken and wheels of pickled jalapenos. The pulled pork, which we ordered a la carte, proved satisfyingly tender, thanks to slow-cooking with a garlic-lime mojo. Side orders of Brasa’s sauces helped it along — that lovely green invention; a robust red sauce born from tomatillos, roasted tomatoes and chilies, carrying a bit of heat; and a nicely atypical, un-cloying barbecue number. Order those collard greens separately if you wish (nice to see them marbled with smoked chicken instead of the usual ham) — also the yellow rice and beans, the dreamy grits or yams. From a separate list of “special” sides, we summoned the creamed spinach, livened with jalapenos. I’m a sucker for creamed spinach, and this version made my day. Desserts ($3.50-$4) include lemon buttermilk pound cake served with berries and a chocolate bar that boasts crispy sweet potato and sea salt in its pedigree. Instead — big mistake — we ordered the two oh-soSouthern-sounding puddings. The butterscotch version came jazzed with toffee and whipped cream, the coconut-tapioca rendition with additions of fresh pineapple and sesame. Both were underwhelming. Order in person or online at this familyfriendly operation. To find it, just open your windows and follow your nose. Maybe they could bottle that addictive fragrance, too?
A24 November 26–December 16, 2020 / southwestjournal.com
Community Calendar.
The holidays are looking quite a bit different this year, with many businesses shut down and the state recommendation to stay home with your household. It’s time to stay in, but that doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy your free time. One day we will gather again, but for now, here are a few online offerings from local venues.
By Sheila Regan
GROUP SHOW AT SOOVAC
The Walker Art Center and Northrop co-present a virtual presentation of a new work called “DESCENT” by the disabled arts ensemble Kinetic Light. The duet between choreographers, performers and disability activists Alice Sheppard and Laurel Lawson elucidates a queer, interracial love story inspired by Rodin’s sculpture “Toilet of Venus and Andromeda.” Layered with video and lighting projects by Michael Maag, the multimedia presentation will be followed by a post-show artist conversation. The work aims to spark conversation as well as a new way of thinking about disability.
Over at the SooVAC website, see brand new work by three different artists, including Rachel Breen’s “The Shapes We Take,” which continues Breen’s explorations of labor and the garment industry. The work features abstracted patterns made from a sewing machine using cloth Breen collected in Bangladesh. Breen recently closed a solo show at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, which had been postponed because of the pandemic. In “Uff Da Gestalt,” Nathanael Flink moves outside of the frame for his wild paintings and sculptures. Finally, in “I Love You 3000, A Farewell,” Yijia Li investigates the fleeting presence of memory through her paintings. SooVAC also has a number of “Virtual Connections” videos posted on its website, where you can catch past artist talks and its recent virtual programming.
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southwestjournal.com / November 26–December 16, 2020 A25
VIE BOHEME Dancer, singer, poet and actor Vie Boheme was all set to present her one-person show “Centerplay” at the Guthrie Theater last March, but COVID-19 had other plans, axing the production just as many theater, music and dance shows were being canceled throughout the state. As originally conceived,, the work fused live music, movement, spoken word and monologues for a piece that highlighted stories of different Black female characters. Now, Boheme has re-imagined a section of the piece as a radio production.
When: Beginning Tuesday, Dec. 8 Cost: $20 Info: jungletheater.org
Photo by Dale Kakkak
ROBIN WALL KIMMERER Botanist Robin Wall Kimmerer, author of “Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teaching of Plants,” is a featured Zoom speaker in a presentation by the Minneapolis Institute of Art. Kimmerer will talk about the give and take we have with our natural world and how knowledge of the land helps us connect to each other.
When: Noon Friday, Dec. 4 Cost: Free Info: artsmia.org
TALK OF THE STACKS: IJEOMA OLUO MAYUMI AMADA AND MARLENA MYLES The Hennepin County Government Center and Forecast Public Art are moving a planned exhibition for the government building into an online space. Identity serves as a major theme for the dual exhibitions. Mayumi Amada says her Japanese heritage informs her work, and Marlena Myles, who is Dakota, Mohegan and Muscogee, uses her art to celebrate the language and culture of Dakota people.
When: Beginning Tuesday, Dec. 1 Cost: Free Info: bit.ly/HCGexhib2020 (link goes live Dec. 1)
Support the Parks You Love
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Friends of the Hennepin County Library will host Nigerian American journalist and commentary writer Ijeoma Oluo as part of its Talk of the Stacks series, now in a virtual format. Oluo will discuss her forthcoming book, “Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America,” which is set to be released in December.
11/13/17 10:49 AM
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A26 November 26–December 16, 2020 / southwestjournal.com
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southwestjournal.com / November 26–December 16, 2020 A27
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