Category: Uncategorized

Marcy-Holmes is frighteningly young.

In June 2004, approximately 90 people packed into a crowded room to partake in the annual election meeting of the Marcy-Holmes Neighborhood Association, the organization designated by the city of Minneapolis to represent the Marcy-Holmes neighborhood. Neighborhood meetings are typically low-key, casual affairs, but this one was monitored as thoroughly as a U.N.-supervised election in a Third World republic. Representatives from the League of Women Voters scrutinized the credentials of all attendees. To be eligible to vote, they would need to be certified members of MHNA (which required the submission of a valid membership registration at least 30 days prior to the meeting) and they would need to present a photo ID as well as proof of residency in the neighborhood. The MHNA board also hired a parliamentarian from the city’s Neighborhood Revitalization Program to ensure that all proceedings were conducted legally. They even hired an armed beat patrolman to maintain security in case matters got out of hand.

What issue could possibly have been so contentious that the board apparently felt the need to prepare against the possibility of violence? In short, reformers were trying to amend MHNA’s bylaws in order to make the organization more accessible to student residents. The previous fall, a group of students had worked with an MHNA representative to prepare a list of amendments designed to enable greater student participation. The biggest change the reformers wanted was to change the month of the annual meeting — when elections for board officers and directors are held — from June to October. The reason was obvious: Students are less likely to be around during the summer. Despite this fact — or as I suspect, because of it — the association voted to reject the schedule change as well as every other student proposal.

Membership requirements of the Marcy-Holmes Neighborhood Association.

Linden Hills is typical of vast majority of Minneapolis neighborhood orgs.

White gunman stalks Muslim woman in Texas last week.

Last Monday night, four men showed up to the Black Lives Matter protest outside the Minneapolis Police Department’s 4th Precinct and shot five unarmed black protesters. This was after a week of similar visits from white men—armed with guns, cameras, and racist commentary—streaming live video to the internet for the entertainment of their fellow racists.

It’s become a cliche after such attacks to ask overly timid headline writers, “What if the white guy with a gun was a brown guy with a gun?” When armed men in masks menace unarmed civilians; when these men post video of themselves delivering hate-filled messages and flashing weapons; when this ends in a mass shooting… This describes an act of terrorism.

Here’s why it matters. We treat terrorism differently than other violent crimes. We go to much greater lengths to protect ourselves from it, and to punish those responsible. We see some greater value in stopping politically motivated acts of violence which are intended not just to maim and murder, but to intimidate whole populations.

I worry we’re not taking seriously enough these threats from well-armed whites with a political axe to grind. The Thursday before the 4th Precinct shooting, a video was posted online showing two men in a car, driving to the Black Lives protest. The driver held up a handgun while promising to engage in some “reverse cultural enriching,” finally signing off to his viewers with the phrase “Stay white.” Sitting in the passenger seat was Lance Scarsella, who returned to the protest with three other men on Monday, the night of the attack. These are the four men now under arrest in connection with the shooting.

Minneapolis Police had four days prior to the shooting to track down the two men in the video. The driver was correctly identified by name in a comment on the “Black Lives Matter” Facebook page three days before the attack. As a resident of south Minneapolis, it took me five minutes to retrace the route taken in the video—right back to the driveway they pulled out of—using a basic knowledge of local landmarks and Google Street View. If it was a priority, these details should have led police to Scarsella.

As MPD’s union head was comparing the Black Lives Matter protest to “Benghazi” on talk radio, the job of intelligence gathering was left to an unpaid social media detective:

Scarsella, Gustavsson and Macey, along with the man who was questioned and released, are featured in several videos of a now-deleted YouTube page. The page’s banner featured two dozen men — some masked — holding weapons, along with a pair of Confederate flags. The videos were deleted by Monday afternoon, but they had been archived by Minneapolis-based researcher Tony Webster.

I’m a big Tony Webster fan, but we shouldn’t have to rely on the work of a skilled volunteer to track and archive the online activities of the violent white extremists who threaten our city. It’s just too big of a job.

Since 9/11, domestic terror attacks by white Americans have killed anywhere from two to five times as many people as those carried out by jihadists. We often hear about the social media prowess of ISIS; far less publicized is the degree to which sites like 4chan and reddit are an increasingly effective recruiting tool for a new generation of white nationalists. Though the idea of white terrorism doesn’t seem to break into the headlines, police from across the country are aware of the threat: a 2015 NY Times national survey of law enforcement agencies identifies right-wing terror as the top threat facing American cities.

I assume there are people in positions of authority who are aware of these facts, but recent events do not inspire confidence in local law enforcement. The racial and religious diversity of the Twin Cities makes them a tempting target for hate groups. Let’s be sure we’re focusing our anti-terrorism efforts, both locally and across Minnesota, beyond the usual suspects.

Is @CMAndrewJohnson proposing to round up and euthanize all unleashed cats, lizards, ferrets, weasels, and red hens? https://t.co/qQ9crcJBy7

— MRRderouSVLD (@MRRSVLD) October 17, 2015

RECIPE: Uncle Wedgie’s Extra-Burned Pumpkin Seeds

Now it’s time to cook your pumpkin seeds. Google around for a sriracha-based recipe. Make sure this recipe calls for you to cook the seeds for way too long, and at much too high of a temperature.

Sriracha, vegetable oil, soy sauce.

Perfect.

FYI

LHENA had a board meeting last night. As you may know, I am a board member. During the meeting we learned of two grievances. The individuals attached to these grievances were unnamed (a “grievance” is a new process LHENA uses to resolve complaints lodged against the organization or individual members).

One grievance had to do with a pizza-related social media post (I immediately recognized this as one of my tweets). The other grievance was something else that happened on social media–no content was specified (I also recognize this as one of my tweets).

Hey two mystery grievances just came up at this board meeting. Sounds like they’re against me and my social media.

— Wedge DEAD! (@WedgeLIVE) October 22, 2015

The pizza grievance was dismissed. The second grievance remains a mystery to be resolved later. While I don’t know who’s behind these grievances, I can guess from whose Facebook posse they might be coming. I think the strategy here is to lodge as many frivolous complaints as possible, establish your crew’s reputation as an incredible cast of goofballs, and then really lay the hammer down when I’m least expecting it (save this sentence for a future grievance).

At the very end of the meeting, during the “new business” portion of the agenda (I’m new here, but I gather that’s where you need to watch out for an ambush), someone handed me this motion: an accusation that I used an account with the name “Wedgelive/Wedgedead” to fool people into thinking I’m the official LHENA Twitter account and a demand that I remove all traces of the Wedge newspaper from my website and Twitter. At least half the board was visibly and vocally irritated to have this pile of unexpected nonsense dumped in their lap after a two-plus hour meeting, right as they thought they’d be able to go home.

Totally urgent, emergency, last-minute motion.

Exhibit A: “Today’s Header.” Distributed at last night’s meeting.

I was elected to the Lowry Hill East Neighborhood Association (LHENA) Board of Directors in April. Before that, I had been blogging and tweeting about local politics for roughly a year. Not everyone’s a fan.

At LHENA’s May meeting–my first as a member of the board–my blog was made a topic for discussion (surprising because I wasn’t on the agenda). During the discussion I was accused by a fellow board member of “publishing the home address of a single mom.” This was an intentionally vague and misleading reference to a blog post I had written about HGTV personality Nicole Curtis’ permit violations at some of her Minneapolis properties (also a threat to single moms: this WCCO story).

In July, a second board member accused me of “stalking” and demanded I delete a tweet linking to political commentary in a public Facebook post. The topic was parking reform (not vacation photos), so “stalking” seemed over the top.

Four days after the “stalking” accusation, I received an email from an unknown sender using an apparently fake name. The subject line was my girlfriend’s name. The message began by saying, “someone is playing your game.” The email contained a link to a Craigslist ad seeking sex; the ad was written to appear as if it came from my girlfriend, using her name, location and description. The email ended with a threat: “take down all your creepy posts about LHENA volunteers etc. Or who knows maybe her exact address, picture or phone # might show up tomorrow in a different category.”

We reported this to the police immediately. In September, all but one of my fellow board members voted to request the police seek a subpoena for Craigslist and Gmail to determine the identity of the person who sent the threat. I appreciate that, though I’m skeptical the police will pursue it.

You might imagine my initial reaction based on the content and timing of the email threat. Yet I’ve been told that it’s offensive to ask whether someone within LHENA has any connection to or knowledge of who might be responsible. It was said during September’s board meeting that this is no big deal; that putting my girlfriend’s name, location, and description in a sex ad is just someone being “snarky.” It’s also been said that the more important issue is all the unfair attacks (never specified, but presumably from me) coming at LHENA over the past year.

Not helping matters, Minneapolis’ Neighborhood and Community Relations Department replied to my initial email reporting the threat by sending a list of social media guidelines. I forwarded the email to NCR, and they gave me a lesson in discouraging participation. It was disappointing to have the city department that oversees neighborhood organizations suggest–in an email sent to the entire LHENA board–that my actions are the problem.

That attitude has carried over to the months-long debate regarding LHENA’s new “code of conduct” policy, with the argument being that the organization has been victimized by social media. Some folks were very adamant about including broad rules against “disparaging” language that causes a “barrier to participation,” and generally trying to define the most stringent possible standard for speech infractions.

I wish there was the same urgency to address those few LHENA board members who have disparaged me as a sort of predator–to the degree someone felt putting a Craigslist target on my girlfriend’s back was appropriate payback. As for barriers to participation: I’m pretty sure the only reason the anonymous emailer knows her name, or where she lives, or that she even exists, is because I brought her to neighborhood association meetings. She won’t be coming back.

The concerted effort to hype me as a menace has put someone close to me in danger, making it harder for her to feel safe in her own neighborhood. I sense too much denial and defiance from the people participating in that effort. This all escalated over a period of months during which I made the mistake of saying nothing. So I’m writing this post as a matter of self defense. My hope is that calling this out publicly makes it less likely to happen again.

Lisa Goodman went to war with an inflatable Godzilla over these apartments.

1. “Homeowner Revolution”
Millions of dollars in NRP money helped drive the 1992 takeover of the Whittier Alliance by property owners hostile to affordable and supportive housing. Keep in mind that the reason Whittier received so many millions of dollars in city money was because of their large population of poor and minority renters.

Two years before the “Homeowner Revolution” many activists against more subsidized housing had already formed The Whittier Homeowners Association. This coalition “was a key force in the campaign”, and after its adherents gained a majority on the 1992 Alliance board, it simply moved itself into the Alliance. The Homeowners Association had made itself defunct because while it had scant money and legitimacy, the organization it took over had reams of cash and was certified by city hall as the official representative of the neighborhood. (Ch 2, p 12)

2. Culture Shift
The big change in 1992 turned the Whittier Alliance away from its long history of supporting low income housing.

Between the Alliance’s birth in 1978 and the 1992 revolution, the Alliance had developed “330 units of low income housing … The Alliance was one of the most productive nonprofit low income housing producers in the city.” (Ch 2, p 11)

3. “Elitist Cabal”
Champe describes how difficult it was for the Whittier Alliance’s new leadership (the “Friends of Whittier”) to get along with its staff:

I find that it was naïve of the FOW [anti-affordable and supportive housing] faction to think that they would find people to work in low paying, non-profit, inner-city, community jobs, in a poor, racially diverse neighborhood, who were not “social justice” oriented, and who did not see the poor, the renters, and the minorities as underdogs deserving of extra help. Even hiring a community organizer and a director who were Republicans did not solve this problem, as both still found the board an elitist cabal that was impossible to get along with. (Ch 2, p 14)

4. Opposition to school for the blind.
In 1993, a school for the blind proposed moving into the Pillsbury mansion. Board Chair Dave Hoban is reported to have said something to the effect, “I don’t even understand why they would want to buy that building, because it is so beautiful, and they wouldn’t be able to see it anyway.”

5. “Rode out of town on a rail, honey.”
A Board Member from 1993 tells her story:

When the Pillsbury mansion was converted from a residence to the school, oh my god people flipped out. And you know, the Dave Hoban’s of the world, which I’m sure you know, went nuts, that’s how I lost my board position because I voted for Blind Inc. Lucy and I got rode out of town on a rail honey. (Ch 2, p 32)

6. Mafia-style street justice.

After the Blind Inc. vote Dave called me and wanted me to come out into the street so we could wrestle in the street. That same night the husband of another board member who voted for it got punched in the jaw outside the Black Forest and we’re convinced that Dave arranged for that.  (Ch 2, p 32)

7. Political Parties
The early 1990s sees the advent of political parties in Whittier, called Friends of Whittier (FOW) and Diversity & Democracy (D&D):

Naming themselves “Diversity” was a jab at the FOW, who were seen as hostile to ethnic minorities and the lower classes. And “Democracy” was a way to show how they were opposed to what many considered the decidedly undemocratic methods of the FOW activists – their privileging of homeowner participation, and their “dirty tricks.” (Ch 2, p 40)

8. Bylaws Shenanigans

the FOW appeared to have a three pronged strategy – mobilize the base to come out to vote for your slate at the annual meeting, manipulate the bylaws to get other FOW members on the board after the election, then harass the rivals that did get elected to the board until they quit. (Ch 2, p 41)

9. Rooftop Godzillas for Responsible Development Coalition
Lisa Goodman meets her match during a 2001 battle over low-income housing:

At that time, city council representative Lisa Goodman hosted a monthly “Lunch with Lisa” chat session with local constituents at the Acadia café across the street from Plymouth Congregational. At her lunch immediately following her public statement of support for Lydia, Citizens picketed outside the cafe while their Godzilla held his own twenty four hour protest on the roof above. (Ch 1, p 8)

With WiFi being tested on select MetroTransit buses, we recently sat down for a conversation with a transit rider on a crowded 6 bus as it traveled south on Hennepin Avenue.

Bus Guy:
Am currently on wifi on a bus

BG: 
Feels like it!
Bus wifi would be pretty sweet if it were on all busses.

WL:
is it busses or buses?

BG:
I go with busses.

WL:
people are going to start tailgating buses just to steal wifi

BG:
On the other hand it’s a 6 and it’s packed
Think of the traffic repercussions
#BanBusWiFi

WL:
you’ll have to look up from your phone while you’re driving to keep track of those sweet wifi-emitting buses. oh, the humanity!

BG:
I’m only staring at the screen so I don’t have to look at anyone because there is nowhere to look.
It’s either people’s faces or their butts.

WL:
is it butts or buttses?
i feel like this conversation needs to go on wedgelive.com as “interview with a man using wifi on the bus”

BG:
I wish to remain anonymous.
Some dude in white shorts and sunglasses keeps giving me the eyes.

image: flickr

Sixty-four units of affordable “workforce” housing are coming to the Whittier neighborhood. This is good for Whittier, and Minneapolis as a whole, which has a need for affordable housing. The project will have plenty of parking, which is disappointing, but not surprising (I once made a bold prediction that we hadn’t seen the end of off-street parking in Minneapolis).

You might think Whittier–with over half of households cost burdened, a third living in poverty, and a quarter without cars–would be a logical place to make your affordable housing more affordable by building less parking. But in this case, the developer anticipates a building occupied by car owners, which means giving residents a place to store them. So much for the aparkolypse. Rest easy Chicken Littles, the sky isn’t falling nearly fast enough.

More surprising than the persistence of parking are comments directed at the developer from official representatives of the Whittier Alliance:

“I think you’re underestimating the neighborhood in terms of design, character and cost,” [Executive Director] Biehn said. 

[Board Chair] Christ requested larger units. She said families are desperate to find larger apartments in the neighborhood. She also suggested that the neighborhood could handle higher-priced rents.

Neighborhood associations like the Whittier Alliance are city-funded, and ostensibly tasked with advocating on behalf of neighborhood residents. In Whittier, that would mean advocating for the 83 percent of residents who are renters, most of whom already spend too much of their income on housing. But the Whittier Alliance doesn’t even pretend to do that; they come right out and ask for higher rents. Six months after implementing radically restrictive rules that exclude renters, the Whittier Alliance is still doing a terrible job representing neighborhood residents.

“We’re trying to build reasonably-priced housing.” N’hood org: “What about EV charging stations and a rooftop deck?” pic.twitter.com/EKTwOJLmmx

— Anton (@anton612) July 23, 2015 

image credit: Omar Bárcena

Minneapolis is one City Council vote away from enacting a major, nationally-heralded parking reform authored by Council Member Lisa Bender. I’ve watched with great interest as the debate has unfolded on Channel 79. To summarize the back-and-forth as uncharitably as possible: utopians on bicycles deployed a slew of crowd-pleasing parking analogies* (1, 2), while some of our city’s original inhabitants countered with predictions of the aparkolypse (it’s a “boondoggle” of an “epic fail”).

We’re not telling developers not to build parking. We’re just simply saying we’re not going to tell you what the minimum or maximum is going to be. I personally think that’s a better role for the city. The people who have their money in the game are the ones who are going to have to determine if they can sell or rent homes.

“This business plan is going to require a manufactured parking crisis. Who do we know at City Hall?”

Lowry Hill East is fertile ground for parking entrepreneurs, with many parking lots constructed soon after Minneapolis enshrined residential parking minimums into the 1963 zoning code. One of those lots belongs to my apartment building. I regularly and obsessively count the empty stalls; according to my non-scientific analysis, the effect of our city’s 50-year-old regulations is a parking lot that never exceeds 60 percent full (as a pessimist, I tend to see it as 40 percent empty). Extrapolate this surplus parking goldmine to similar buildings in the neighborhood, and you can imagine the potential for ill-gotten gains.**

This is to say nothing of unintended consequences; squeeze the supply of parking too tight, and some “job creator” will capitalize by building more parking. It’s not a stretch to say this policy assures even more parking will be built. If you’re a knee-jerk liberal urbanist like myself, the last thing you want is another corporate parking lot. Even so, I’m not pretending when I say this is still a plan worth supporting.

Response from the City of Minneapolis to a question about historic parking regulations.

While I’d prefer to live in a city with fewer full-time drivers, I fully acknowledge their existence. Likewise, this proposed policy change accommodates the reality of car ownership. However, what Minneapolis’ existing parking mandate does not do is acknowledge the existence of people who live without a personal automobile. Residential parking regulations are levied against them, like a tax. It’s illegal for developers to cater to them.