The Minnesota Court of Appeals has sent a controversial development case back to Hennepin County District Court -- setting the stage for a trial on whether Minneapolis should pay developer Brad Hoyt millions in damages.
On September 16, Judge Stephen C. Aldrich ruled that the City had violated Hoyt's rights to due process when it rejected his application to build a tower on Loring Hill. The target of Hoyt's suit was Councilmember Lisa Goodman. Aldrich ruled that Goodman had violated Hoyt's rights to due process when she took a position against it before a public hearing on the matter. In the past, Hoyt has sought $23.6 million in damages, though that number may change as the trial moves forward.
On September 25, the City of Minneapolis appealed -- a highly unusual move as the case was not yet complete in District court. The City's move sought to undo the lower court's ruling. But now, the issue has been bounced back to the lower court -- and Aldrich -- to decide. Here is the ruling from the Appeals Court judge.
In the dark about how this Instant Runoff Voting jive actually works? Unsure what Instant Runoff Voting even means? Fret not. The city of Minneapolis has got you covered.
A second developer is poised to sue Minneapolis over a development proposal that got shot down. Sound like deja vu? It is.
Former Minneapolis City Councilman Steve Minn, who is now a developer, has prepared a lawsuit over his proposal for apartments near the east end of the Stone Arch bridge. Councilmember Diane Hofstede is at the center of the lawsuit, which would accuse her of backroom dealing, according to the Star Tribune's reporting.
Councilwoman Lisa Goodman is currently in the midst of a lawsuit accusing her of the same thing. A judge has ruled that Goodman was biased against Brad Hoyt's Loring Hill development project, violating him of his rights to due process--but the City has appealed. Uh-oh. Looks like Hoyt's lawsuit could be the first of many.
Citizens of Minneapolis soon might have another bill to pay. This time for the city's street lights.
City officials have scheduled two public meetings to propose the fee, which could cost homeowners an additional $20 per year. Minneapolis' street light expenses are covered by the city's general fund. That fund is hurting after Governor Pawlenty cut $21.3 million in local government aid to Minneapolis this year.
So Diane Hofstede, the Minneapolis City Council member who is pushing for removal of tacky couches off frat-boy porches, doesn't like ugly couches.
As media outlets are reporting, Hofstede has proposed an amendment to the nuisance ordinance that would ban upholstered couches and chairs from city front yards and porches. And no mattresses would be allowed, either.
We'd like to play devil's advocate here. Other than offending aesthetically, are ugly couches and mattresses really a problem?
The Minneapolis City Council signed today a resolution calling for President-elect Barack Obama to ban torture and added torture to the list of things for which the city lobbies the federal government. Minneapolis joins Dayton, Ohio and Baltimore, Maryland to get on board the resolution that would, among other things, give all detainees the opportunity to prove their innocence, and set a national standard for interrogation and treatment of prisoners. The resolution is spearheaded by the Minnesota-based Center for the Victims of Torture which treat torture survivors both in America and in several foreign countries including an outpost to treat Iraqi victims in Jordan. Read the full press-release below.
You there. Yeah, you: the guy lounging on you futon in unabashed warmth as your Grand Am idles quietly outside in the driveway, its frigid interior presumably warming up. You might think you're doing nothing illegal. But you'd be wrong.
Yesterday I posted information sent my way from Tara Yule, the owner of Pi Bar. In the letter Yule released, she documented the eatery/drinkery's monetary issues and noted that more than $100,000 had already been donated by patrons to chip away at the $600,000 needed to buy the building Pi occupies. Today Yule released a clarification of sorts about what the generous masses can expect from keeping the lesbian bar alive. The basics: donating will not make you part owner of the bar as hinted at in the initial e-mail. Pi is still going to close on Nov. 15 as planned. If enough cash is raised to buy the building, it will reopen. Finally, it's a cool place that should remain open because it fosters community and has cheap pool. Read the details straight from Yule below.
The City of Minneapolis will change Hennepin and 1st avenues into two-way streets. And the city wants you to voice your concerns about it at a public meeting this Wednesday. “These changes will affect property owners, bicyclists, transit riders and drivers,” says the City. But among that group, cyclists stand to feel the impact more than others. One idea still under consideration will place the Hennepin bike lane down the middle of the two-way street.
Let us lay weigh-in here with the utmost journalistic objectivity: This idea is stupid. Not stupid as in dumb, but stupid as in stupid-dangerous.
We recently received this email from a local Obamagirl:
Alyssa and I got swept up in all the hubbub, and ventured to the Dem
caucuses in Uptown last nite.
These were some of my take-aways:
1. Record turnout = long lines.
2. Damn, there are a lot of hot guys here.
3. 'Lyssa, do you see all the hot guys here?
4. My district is the MOST Democratic in the state. (shocker)
5. All resolutions proposed must start with at least 3 instances of
"Whereas"
6. Holy crap, I have a ton of good-looking neighbors.
7. Apparently the word "biomass" is a landmine for the hippies, when
discussing an eco-resolution.
8. District chair also fancies himself a comedian.
9. Why don't I see all these cute guys when I go to SuperAmerica at 10pm
on a Wednesday nite?
10. Participating in the political process makes me feel all warm in my
tummy.
Barack took our district 4 to 1. Now I have someone viable to cheer
for... for a while anyway.
Apparently, my experiences seeing a high turnout at the caucus I attended were part of a statewide trend. According to thisStar Tribune article, turnout may be at record levels this year:
Traffic jams outside caucus places, lines winding down the block and packed meeting rooms Tuesday night seemed to bear out predictions that caucus turnout this year might bust records.
Look, you and I both know why you turn (and turn again) to City Pages: the weather. Sure, others are more qualified, but they don't scare you the way we do. If you didn't see it in this week's paper, we announced the following...
Everybody's got a year-end awards list. Minneapolis made a bunch of 'em. Fox has compiled some of these into a brief post summarizing the various honors the town received from such diverse sources as Forbes, Frommer's, Fit Pregnancy and other publications that don't start with "F".
I walked over to our neighborhood cafe, Corner Coffee, the other day. They had just discovered Google Street View, the monolithic web company's new photographic interface.
Evidently our friendly neighborhood latte-slingers were outside doing an outdoor lunch promotion when the Google people drove by on July 10, so tons of folks were outside and got photographed. Pretty stunning and a little weird to see something so close by rendered in this way. Here's the shot in question.
Fortunately, I was out of the country when this was happening, since on the creepy scale (where 1 is Mr. Rogers and 10 is John Wayne Gacy) I think this slots in about 6. Thus, my lucky stars ensured that there are no shots of me to be found herein.
I admit that access to this technology, while creepy, is kind of cool in a creepy way, so maybe 10 should be Gene Simmons, who brought less shame to face paint. And thankfully, as a thong-bedecked lady used to her advantage, you can request that they take photos down. So I guess that's something. I know that if I had an intern, I would instruct them to Google Street View every strip club in Minneapolis. Blackmail potential extraordinaire. Cha-ching!
MNSpeak had a pretty interesting thread on this topic earlier in the week, with a few interesting images. How about you? Seen anything interesting in street view? Feel free to leave them in the comments, and if I can get enough good stuff, maybe I'll do a photo screengrab slideshow.
We just received a call from a concerned reader pointing out that a Minneapolis city vehicle has been idling in front of his house on the 4200 block of 27th Avenue South for more than an hour. The vehicle is a green, four-door sedan, license plate 08042, and emblazoned with the slogan "Minneapolis City of Lakes."
"Either they're visiting someone around here and have been here way too long or they just forgot to turn it off," says the caller, who only wished to identify himself as Bruce. "We're collectively putting gas in that car. I guess you could file it under your tax dollars at work."
The Minneapolis City Council approved a $4.5 million settlement with police officer Duy Ngo this afternoon. The council voted 11-1 to make the largest payout stemming from a police misconduct case in the city's history. (Lisa Goodman was the sole dissenting vote.)
In February, 2003 Ngo was shot by an unknown assailant while working undercover gang surveillance. MPD officer Charles Storlie, responding to the scene, then mistakenly shot Ngo multiple times with a sub-machine gun despite the fact that his fellow officer was on his knees and unarmed. Ngo's story was first told in a 2003 City Pages cover story, "Shot to Hell."
"I feel relieved because it's been a hard fought battle," says Ngo. "It's been five years of pain for my family."
With a city-wide campaign urging the hiring of more cops, an overtime crunch at the Minneapolis Police Department, and a general atmosphere of tension between the MPD and City Council over budget issues, Chief Dolan does not bring good news to the Ways & Means Committee at City Hall today. In September, the department was projecting it would end the year $4.7 million over budget. When the numbers were crunched at the end of October, it was projecting a $5.2 million deficit.
When last we heard from convicted City Councilmember Dean Zimmerman, he was making plans for prison ("I am hoping to be able to do some teaching while I am in"). Today, with Zimmerman already serving a 30-month sentence, his lawyers are appealing his bribery conviction in the 8th Circuit Appeals Court. Want to hear how that's going? You can listen to the oral arguments here.
For the past 16 years, Patteen Leverson has been the woman behind the counter—and the baked goodies—at the fittingly-named Café Patteen in the downtown Minneapolis International Centre office tower.
But because of a mean landlord, she says, her small store may soon be no more. Next month, Caribou Coffee will open a branch in the Oracle Centre—her building’s conjoined twin. Leverson accuses the property’s owner, Welsh Companies, of wooing the megachain in an effort to force her out.
We told you so. That's the message that Julian Loscalzo and a handful of compatriots wanted to impart at yesterday's official groundbreaking for the new Twins' ballpark. Loscalzo was the gadfly-in-chief behind the "Save the Met" campaign that vainly fought against the building of the Metrodome nearly three decades ago. Now that outdoor baseball is finally on track to return to the Twin Cities, Loscalzo was reveling in vindication.
Smoking one of his ubiquitous cigars on the back patio of Cuzzy's bar, a few blocks from the stadium site, Loscalzo notes that no less an authority than Sid Hartman once referred to his group of agitators as "geniuses." "Calling us geniuses was an insult," he says. "We proved him wrong."
Rep. Jim Oberstar, who chairs the House's transportation committee, announced yesterday that Minneapolis is one of five cities being awarded a $133.3 million grant to "implement aggressive strategies to reduce traffic congestion" over the next two years. The money comes from the federal government's Department of Transportation.
The city will also get $13.2 million from the DOT's discretionary funds to deal with the bridge collapse.
John Weeks is what some people might call an obsessive. Over the past two years, he has spent weeks at a time traveling alongside the Mississippi River, photographing more than 300 of the bridges that span that mighty body of water, from Itasca to New Orleans.
His downtime between trips is largely devoted to cataloging information on each bridge, such as its age, construction material, daily traffic count, river elevation, and other factoids that, until last week, might have seemed somewhat superfluous to anyone but himself.
So Weeks is perhaps uniquely equipped to tackle some of the conspiracies that cropped up about the I-35 bridge collapse. And that is what he has done over at his website, www.johnweeks.com. Among the more entertaining new urban myths, along with Weeks' debunkings:
On Monday, the city of Minneapolis and MnDOT released a number of alternatives for getting in to, out of and around downtown Minneapolis. The trouble is, most routes are already congested beyond belief. Main case in point? The first suggestion, taking Central Avenue into downtown as it turns into 3rd Avenue South.
Last week, head of the Minneapolis Federal Reserve Art Rolnick, whose office overlooks the river, said "I'm looking out my window at the 3rd Avenue Bridge right now, and it's bumper-to-bumper in the middle of the day, something I've never seen before." Even on Saturday afternoon, crossing Central on University proved a dificult endeavor, as traffic was backed up two stoplights in both directions.
The city of Minneapolis has released information on the change in traffic patterns and alternate routes following the collapse of the I-35W bridge. The press release is as follows:
MnDOT has made Minnesota Highway 280 the primary replacement route for I-35W traffic. It will carry traffic from I-35W in Roseville to I-94. To prevent traffic snarls, Highway 280 has been converted to a temporary freeway with altered traffic signals. The change means Broadway Avenue and County Road B no longer have access to the highway, and the lights at these intersections will stay green for the highway.
City Pages writers, freelancers, and readers have contributed to a photo gallery depicting the terrible events surrounding last week's collapse of the I-35W bridge. Visit our gallery section to view the photographs.
At today's press conference at 6th and Main, a throng of reporters hungry for new information got precious few answers as to what may have caused the I-35W bridge collapse.
"We're not here to speculate, we're here to report," said the terse, no-nonsense chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, Mark Rosenker. "There are a number of possible causes, but if I discuss one of them, I'm sure that will be tomorrow's headline."
Rosenker announced that investigators are focused now on the southern end of the bridge, explaining that analysis of video footage has revealed that this section behaved differently than the rest of the bridge.
The inspection process has already been a controversial issue in the collapse of I-35W bridge. One obvious question arises: Exactly how do you inspect a bridge that hangs 60 feet above a river?
Transportation Department officials in Wisconsin and North Dakota offered some insight into the general process. Bridge inspections, it turns out, are a decidedly low-tech procedure. Essentially, they're a more complicated version of a pilot's walk-around of a plane before takeoff. Inspections are primarily visual: a crew visits the site and inspects the structure for obvious flaws—corrosion, cracks in the steel or concrete, or peeling paint that could lead to corrosion.
The crews are small. For a bridge the size of I-35W, a crew of two to four would be typical, and they could be on the job for several days.
Before beginning, inspectors familiarize themselves with the bridge and past inspection reports, which could include photos and even hand-drawn sketches of problem areas.
For more than a half hour today, Hennepin County Sheriff Rich Stanek and Captain Bill Chandler, a 28-year veteran of the sheriff's office, gave details about the diving mission that, while hardly rosy, certainly offered some good news. On the east side river flats down the hill from the Weisman Art Museum near the Washington Avenue Bridge, some 50 reporters strained to hear as several choppers swooped over head. But the prognosis was clear: It's a far cry from yesterday.
"Recovery operations are better than expected," Stanek said.
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The Minneapolis City Council signed today a resolution calling for President-elect Barack Obama to ban torture and added torture to the list of things for which the city lobbies the federal government. Minneapolis joins Dayton, Ohio and Baltimore, Maryland to get on board the resolution that would, among other things, give all detainees the opportunity to prove their innocence, and set a national standard for interrogation and treatment of prisoners. The resolution is spearheaded by the Minnesota-based Center for the Victims of Torture which treat torture survivors both in America and in several foreign countries including an outpost to treat Iraqi victims in Jordan. Read the full press-release below. 
