Posted on

Send us your not-driving horror stories

Frustrated Man

Do you have a bus ride that takes three times longer than if you drove a car instead? Have you ever had to lug a bike upstairs because secure bike parking (or any bike parking) is just impossible to find? Are you frequently run off the road, or out of a crosswalk, by a suburban lawyer driving too fast on the way to storing his car in some remarkably cheap real estate in a downtown parking garage?

Stories about how hard it is to park are giving the impression that non-parkers are a bunch of freeloaders. You and I know that just isn’t the case! Not driving is hard. We should complain about it more.

I need you to send me stories that are sadder than this guy’s:

Non-parkers should promote their horror stories too.

DM or email me your not-driving horror stories for a chance to be featured on Wedge LIVE as a poster child for how amazingly easy it is to drive in Minneapolis—compared to, like, every single other way of getting around.

Posted on

The Great Big Mayoral Roundup

Lots of big news swirling around the race for Minneapolis Mayor.

Carol Becker sues Mayor Hodges. Becker, a member of the Board of Estimate and Taxation, says the budget document the Mayor delivered is insufficient and violates the city’s charter. The mayor says she has complied with the charter and will deliver a more robust budget presentation in September.

After routine order from the judge, Carol Becker declares premature victory. The Star Tribune frames the story in misleading way, giving impression judge is siding with Carol Becker on the merits.

Keep in mind, I am arguably less qualified than Carol Becker to dole out legal opinions. But here’s one reason why I’m dubious about this lawsuit: Her complaint quotes language that no longer exists in the city charter; the since-deleted section she cites dates to the Rybak-era (which happens to be the last time she made a similar stink over the budget).

Non-Mayoral News: Minneapolis Park Board incumbent Scott Vreeland says fellow incumbent Brad Bourn is soft on pedophiles. This could be frustration related to Vreeland’s recent defeat at the DFL City Convention.


The Saga of Hollywood Hodges. It has emerged that Mayor Hodges, in the heat of a re-election campaign, took a trip to Los Angeles for a fundraiser during the week after Justine Damond was killed by a Minneapolis cop.

Jacob Frey wants you to know the Hodges fundraiser happened at a fancy-sounding place called the “Wilshire Country Club.”

Jon Tevlin of the Star Tribune wants you to know guests at the fundraiser were served “kale wraps” and “locally sourced tofu.”

Mayor Hodges says this story is just now emerging because it was “shopped” to reporters by her better-funded opponents.

As you might imagine, Jacob Frey and Tom Hoch are sitting on enormous piles of cash received from fancy people at fancy fundraisers. I look forward to reading Jon Tevlin’s future love letters to mayoral candidate Raymond Dehn, who is so admirably bad at raising money that he was outraised by a socialist city council candidate.

Jon Tevlin

In the third major scandal to rock the Hodges campaign in less than a week, the mayor was caught doing a dance called the “wobble.” Jon Tevlin of the Star Tribune shows restraint by not turning this into one of his cracks about “rehab.“


More dance news.

The Star Tribune wonders if Jacob Frey has fallen out of favor with the business community, to the benefit of Tom Hoch. The evidence is thin: Trumper LA Nik’s campaign treasurer used to be a Frey supporter; and Steve Minn likes to give anguished quotes about not feeling supported. Bottom line: not even the people who would love to elect Tom Hoch are able to take Tom Hoch’s campaign seriously.

Yes, Minneapolis’ most prominent Trump supporter, LA Nik is now pretending to run for mayor after months of pretending to run for city council.

Here are the results from recent Wedge LIVE polls of the Business Community and the Regular Community.

Upcoming mayoral forum: Minneapolis Chamber of Commerce, September 14.

Posted on

Groundbreaking Campaign Finance Transparency Tool for Minneapolis Elections

Today, MSP Votes is debuting a groundbreaking new campaign finance transparency tool. We have combed through the finance reports of every City Council, Mayoral, and Park Board candidate for the last two years (from January 1, 2016 to July 25, 2017). We have compiled the most significant donations (nearly 1000!) and plugged that data into MSP Votes (alongside all the great info you can already access in our candidate profiles).

Where possible, donors have been categorized (developer, restaurant, fire, police, etc). These categories are visible on candidate pages, and through the campaign finance link at the top of the screen. If you want to find a particular donor or organization, you can search the site via the 🔍 icon.

From the Jacob Frey page.
Donors are often linked to an organization or employer. On an organization’s page you will see donors affiliated with that organization. 
The below example shows donations received by Lisa Goodman from individual donors associated with what we’re calling the “Peter Hafiz strip club empire” (notable for the amount they donate, and because earlier this year Hafiz was found to be subjecting his employees to dangerous working conditions).
From the “Hafiz” page.
The below example shows a portion of the page for the Minneapolis Downtown Council, which includes donations from the organization and from CEO Steve Cramer.
From the Minneapolis Downtown Council page.
Each donor/organization page has a timeline of donations. Each circle represents one donation. The larger the circle, the larger the donation. The below example shows a large cluster of donations to Blong Yang and Barb Johnson from fire fighters and fire unions in March of 2017.
From the “Fire” (firefighters) category.
Lobbyist profiles include donations, as well as a link to their lobbying records from the Minnesota Campaign Finance Board (which has a surprisingly cool website).
Lobbyist profiles on MSP Votes link directly to lobbyist reports from the state of Minnesota.
Minnesota Campaign Finance Board website.
If you come across a particularly interesting campaign contribution, click the arrow next to that donation to share it with your friends on social media. Such fun! (My favorite donations are the police/fire/Brian Rice donations to Barb Johnson and Blong Yang.)
Share your favorite donations!
This tool was created in the interests of transparency. We think campaign contributions (like endorsements) are sometimes useful for understanding where an elected official stands ideologically or, in some cases, demonstrate a problematic affiliation (Bob Kroll and the police union!). But before you dig in, here’s some important things you should know:
  • This database does not contain a comprehensive list of all donors. We used our own editorial judgment to select donors based on the following criteria: notable donors or employers; high-dollar donors; and repeat donors. 
  • Examining dozens of reports to manually compile this data is a time-consuming process subject to human error; we have undoubtedly missed some things. If you believe you’ve found a glaring omission, you can help by sending us an email or direct message–we’ll look into it.
  • Hennepin County needs to begin requiring reports to be filed and published in machine-readable format. This would make similar transparency projects much less laborious and far more comprehensive: more effort could be spent annotating data rather than entering it.
  • Campaign contributions by themselves are not a smoking gun. Please use this tool wisely. 

You may have noticed this tool does not include St. Paul campaign finance data. There are a few reasons for this. First, St. Paul is just not that interesting (St. Paul’s government could be taken over tomorrow by big donors who’d like to turn the Ford Site into a giant pyramidal parking garage and we would barely notice). But more importantly, we don’t have the humanpower. If you are willing to volunteer to compile St. Paul data, please be in touch!
The MSP Votes project is driven by the genius of Ryan Johnson, and you can support his work here: patreon.com/mspvotes.
Posted on

Tenth Ward Update: Saralyn Romanishan enters Ward 10 City Council race

Following the short-lived campaign of Scott Fine, and the blunderous beginnings of candidate David Schorn, Ward 10 now has a third city council challenger: Saralyn Romanishan. Romanishan is best known for her work running the Facebook page Minneapolis Residents for Responsible Development Coalition (MRRDC).

She’s risen to become a leading figure in a movement of southwest Minneapolis anti-apartment activists who have become increasingly bold in the last few years, engaging in acts of vandalism such as letting the air out of the car tires of a worker who was removing appliances from a vacant house [VIDEO].

In 2015, both Romanishan and I were serving as board members with the Lowry Hill East Neighborhood Association. Though Romanishan’s campaign material now touts her role with the neighborhood organization’s Zoning and Planning Committee from 2015 to 2017 as “promoting relations between the city, residents, and developers,” this doesn’t accurately reflect what she was up to at the time. 
Since the 2013 election in which Lisa Bender was elected to the City Council, Romanishan has gained prominence as Bender’s chief antagonist: coining the term “Bendrification,” calling the city’s plan for equitable neighborhood engagement a “pogrom,” and comparing the actions of city planners to Hitler’s Third Reich.
A good example of that antagonism came in July 2015, when Romanishan wrote a Facebook post addressing a parking reform ordinance [screenshot] authored by Lisa Bender.
In the post, Romanishan plays to nativist sentiment, deriding Bender as an illegitimate newcomer to the neighborhood. She points out that Bender “moved into this neighborhood 2 or 3 years before running for office.”
Romanishan goes on to observe that Bender “is from a 4th ring small town suburb and only lived in SF and NY for a very short time before moving here and running for city council…”
This was the context in which I shared a link to Romanishan’s remarkable piece of political commentary:
Below is the email that I, and 10 other LHENA board members, received from Romanishan later that day:
Today, Romanishan is explicitly running her campaign for city council based mostly on the “community organizing” she did over the past four years with LHENA and MRRDC. So I guess you could say my big offense in sharing her parking commentary was chronicling the rise of a prominent neighborhood activist and budding political star.
Four days after Romanishan’s initial message (and three days after I declined to delete my tweet), I received this email threatening my girlfriend, accompanied by a link to a sexually explicit online personals ad:
“pat farrell” is not a real name.
To summarize the timeline: in an email sent on a Friday night, Romanishan accused me of “stalking.” Then, on Tuesday morning, someone acting on behalf of “LHENA volunteers” put my girlfriend’s name, personal details, and location on Craigslist, inviting strangers on the internet to show up at her home.
Romanishan runs with a nasty crew of people, and she does her best to rile them up with wild accusations detached from reality. However remote her chances, and whatever your political inclinations, the idea of Saralyn Romanishan as a member of the Minneapolis City Council should scare you. If you are a journalist writing about her candidacy, please portray her as the fringe figure she truly is.
Posted on

The expressed political views of Ward 10 City Council candidate Saralyn Romanishan

Below is a selection of Saralyn Romanishan’s political views. You should also read this other blog post explaining why I think she’s a frightening possibility for City Council.

Note: this page may be updated. 

Comparing city government to Hitler/Isis/ethnic cleansing

“Too bad this city follows the same plan” as Isis. 1/21/2016

Compared modern urban planners to Hitler. 9/27/2015

Called a plan for equitable neighborhood engagement a “pogrom” (against white homeowners?). 8/22/2015

International Conspiracies and Agenda 21

The United Nation’s “Agenda 21” leads to “community voices” being “shut down.” 9/24/2015

Pushes idea of nefarious connection between the City of Minneapolis and Brazil. 10/28/2015, 12/2/2015

Follows a page on Facebook called “Agenda 21 News.”

Black Lives Matter

Quote: “Blacklivesmatter – yes. But please don’t detract from the message and the movement by attacking someone that thinks catlivesmatter too.” 7/30/2015

Quote: “Alot of white people support blacklivesmatter because it is the right thing to do. And they do it even though they are attacked online and made to feel small just because they were born with a different color of skin. Does this sound familiar?” 7/30/2015

Shifted blame for slavery to black people: “You know how all those slave ships got their cargo, right?” 2015

Equity

Believes long-time residents are actually the ones who are underrepresented in local politics. 2016

Disparaged work on neighborhood equity in Minneapolis solely because it receives funding from a foundation based in Detroit. 10/17/2015

Political Hot Takes

Regularly posts indecipherable, stream of consciousness conspiracy theories. 3/8/2016

Lisa Bender is illegitimate because she hasn’t lived in the neighborhood long enough. 7/10/2015

Lisa Bender is illegitimate because she lived in San Francisco and New York. 7/10/2015

Lisa Bender is illegitimate because she’s from a “4th ring small town suburb.” 7/10/2015

Coined the term “Bendrification,” then banned everyone who left a dissenting comment. 4/22/2014

Thinks too many incompetent women get promoted into leadership (hint: Lisa Bender). 9/18/2015

Refers to unnamed politician as “one-trick pony” who benefits from “propaganda articles” and “publicity articles” (Hint: Lisa Bender). 12/30/2015

Says “Twitter is simply diarrhea of the fingers.” 😲 12/5/2015

Urban Planning

Called industrial and commercial parking lots – places that are often slated for new housing – “some of the best urban wildlife habitats in our city.” 2016

Blamed a new building after car crashed into it. 2015

Opposed legalizing duplexes on smaller lots, in areas already zoned for two-family homes, because of “livability reasons.” 5/10/2016

Chastised bike advocates with 112-year-old picture of bicyclist in downtown Minneapolis: “Funny how some people think they’re doing something new.” (hint: Lisa Bender) 2016

On parking reform: “This is corporate welfare for the developers and another give in to the Cult of the Carless.” 6/12/2015

On parking reform: “This will not stop people from having cars.” 6/12/2015

On parking reform: “You cannot make people not have cars. 6/12/2015

On parking reform: “Car Hop’s business is booming.” 6/12/2015

Posted on

History teacher turned Council candidate David Schorn blunders all the facts in July 4th tribute to Founding Fathers

John Trumbull’s Declaration of Independence
David Schorn’s July Fourth tribute to the Founding Fathers turned into yet another blunder. According to his bio, Schorn spent three decades teaching history and government to unsuspecting children. Now he’s prepared to unleash his total ignorance on Ward 10.

Schorn’s Fake Fact #1: The idea that John Adams was stepping on Thomas Jefferson’s toes is not a real thing that happened, nor was it intended as symbolism by the painter. It’s just a really old painting, exposed to the elements, and subjected to primitive methods of restoration that have altered its appearance.
Schorn’s Fake Fact #2: While there is an actual myth that someone in the painting is stomping on toes, David Schorn can’t even be faithful to made up history. Schorn says that it’s Adams stepping on Jefferson. But the more typical, and completely made up story people tell about this painting is that Jefferson paid the painter to depict Jefferson stepping on Adams, in order to show that he “dominated” him.
Schorn’s Fake Fact #3: Schorn says the aggressive toe mashing happened during the “long pose,” as if Jefferson and Adams were standing there together in silence, unable to move, battling each other with their feet. The truth is the work on this painting started 10 years after the event it depicts, and the subjects were painted individually, either from “life or life portraits.”

Schorn’s Fake Fact #4: Schorn says John Adams was the “key writer” of the Declaration of Independence. This is not true. I’m not a historian, but I googled it to verify my own hazy notions. By all accounts Jefferson was the primary author. I can’t even find a mythical basis for saying Adams was the real author.

Remember: David Schorn was a history teacher! Now he’s running for City Council and wants you to believe low rental vacancy rates are made up and we don’t actually need more housing. And also his Facebook banner still says “indorsed” by the Police Federation.

Posted on

Blundering Ward 10 candidate David Schorn earns endorsement, goofs announcement

Indorsement Alert

Ward 10 candidate David Schorn has been “indorsed” by the Minneapolis Police Federation, according to the “Schorn for Ward 10” campaign Facebook page. Many observers were amused by the fact that Schorn, having already committed a number of blunders in the early days of his campaign, misspelled “endorsed” on his Facebook header image.

He could add “Indorsed by the cops” to his acronym to make something more fun. “SPIRE”? “RIPES”? “PIERS”?

— Robin Garwood (@RobinGarwood) July 2, 2017

Setting aside the other graphic design travesties, I’m pretty sure he can’t use the MPD logo, right? How illegal is this?

— David Cook (@divergentdave) July 2, 2017

The Schorn endorsement is surprising because not even the staunchly law-and-order Barb Johnson lists the Minneapolis Police union as an endorsing organization on her website (Maybe she asked them not to? Maybe she knows it’s nothing to brag about?). I’m unaware of any Minneapolis candidates listing the police union as an endorser.

The current Ward 10 council member, Lisa Bender, is enthusiastically pro-police reform. So it’s to be expected that the police union would endorse a Bender opponent. But it’s a little surprising that any union would endorse Schorn, an extremely unqualified candidate who lists no policy positions related to policing on his Facebook page (Schorn has no website or detailed positions on any issues, other than an acronym on his header image).

I’m curious what David Schorn told Bob Kroll’s Police Federation to get their endorsement that he’s not telling the public.

Posted on

Cats of the Wedge Historic Walking Tour

Today is the day. Over 100 people have committed to attend, or have committed to be “interested” in attending, the first ever cat-based historic walking tour in the Wedge neighborhood’s very historic history.

Cats of the Wedge Historic Walking Tour
Mueller Park (25th & Bryant)
Thursday, June 29, 7:00 PM

Let me say one thing to reassure all those who have asked whether this is a real event: this is a real event. If this wasn’t a real event, would it have an Official Route that has been measured at over 1.9 miles long? It would not. Pretend events don’t have Official Routes, nor do they have Official Route Maps.

I’m going to be honest. As your host for the evening, I’m hoping for a smallish crowd. Many people say the Wedge has too many people already. And I have done zero legwork consulting with the various neighborhood committees who are responsible for being agitated over a lack of parking.

After the tour, you’re invited to attend a special event called “Wedge LIVE: After the Cats” which will take place at the Lynhall, located at 27th and Lyndale, where you can purchase drinks or food. We will break into discussion groups to talk about our experience of the preceding 60-90 minutes of walking around the neighborhood. This will be a chance to celebrate our successes, reflect on our failures, and brainstorm ideas for how we can do better in the future.

Disclaimer: While we believe that cats are likely to occur, we can’t guarantee you will see any cats on the Cats of the Wedge Historic Walking Tour.

Transportation Info (tour begins at Mueller Park – 25th & Bryant Ave)
🚌 Bus: Routes 2, 4, 6, 17, and 21 provide service to the Wedge
🚴 Bike: The Wedge neighborhood is served by the Midtown Greenway and the Bryant Ave bike blvd, though we recommend you take regular streets, break all the laws, and slow down traffic.
🚗 Car: Please park your car on the 2400 block of Bryant Ave. Those people deserve it.

Posted on

Tom Hoch rides wave of cash and fawning media coverage, achieving “plausible” status

[Appreciate relentless Tom Hoch coverage? Support Wedge LIVE!]

Like me, you may be grappling with the question: Why should I take mayoral candidate Tom Hoch seriously? He’s kind of an uninspiring figure, running a conservative campaign by Minneapolis standards, and I don’t know a single person who’s supporting him.

First, let’s talk about Hoch’s campaign and message. He’s positioned himself as the fiscally conservative candidate. At a mayoral forum on June 15, Hoch said he wants “property taxes at as low a level as possible.” This is consistent with Hoch’s constant social media pronouncements referencing Minneapolis homeowners overburdened by property taxes. No other candidate hits the property tax message as hard and consistently as Hoch.

On housing, Hoch presents himself as the candidate most skeptical of building new housing in Minneapolis. At that same June 15 forum (hosted by a non-profit formed by the wealthy, white residents of tall condo towers because they needed an entity to file a lawsuit to stop the construction of a slightly taller condo tower) he pandered to people he says have told him, “If I wanted to move to Brooklyn, I would have moved to Brooklyn.” He’s tweeted that people have told him “we’re over the tipping-point” in terms of growth.

Tom Hoch recounts these conversations, without challenging the content of these statements, because he is intentionally running a campaign that’s targeted at residents resistant to change. If that’s how he campaigns, that’s who he’ll favor once in office.

But if you really want to learn about Tom Hoch, you need to go to the tweets. Tom Hoch’s Twitter account is unlike any other politician in Minneapolis. Every week or so, his social media team fires off a few dozen tweets, containing many of the same talking points he tweeted the week before, and the week before that. It’s repetitive, but also instructive. Here are the big themes from Hoch’s tweets:

1. “Food could help bridge the urban-rural divide.”
My favorite Hochism is the constant call for briding the urban-rural divide with food. I suppose it’s a call for healing in the Trump-era. But it’s a weird thing to keep saying over and over, especially when you’re running explicitly to become the “first gay Mayor of Minneapolis,” a job title that’s sure to make you the most hated man in rural Minnesota.

2. Hoch has an exclusively negative outlook on a minimum wage increase.
Tom Hoch’s message on the minimum wage is always negative, never positive. He never calls for raising the wage. His public attitude is resignation that a wage increase will happen, while also warning of its “consequences.” It’s great to be prepared for the unexpected, but the universal negativity makes it hard to believe he supports raising the wage, even though that’s his official position (I think).

3. “FYI: the Nicollet Mall project is NOT on time.”

Would be wild if @TomHochMpls based half of his campaign on complaining about Nicollet Mall, when hey look: https://t.co/wg700GVLgD pic.twitter.com/oqyundLcib

— Ben Somogyi (@brsomogyi) June 24, 2017


4. Tom Hoch vows to never consult with colleagues via text message.
This is a finger-wag at Mayor Hodges for circumstances surrounding her rescinding Police Chief Janee Harteau’s appointment of John Delmonico as Inspector of the MPD’s 4th Precinct. Tom Hoch wants you to know he has a problem with the early 21st-century practice of consulting with colleagues via text message. But Tom Hoch has never said whether he has a problem with Chief Harteau putting a widely reviled police figure in one of the most sensitive law enforcement jobs in Minneapolis (Delmonico is the man who helped kick off #pointergate, a contrived scandal premised on the racist idea that an obviously innocent gesture showed a black man to be a dangerous criminal.)

Now, the question: why should we pay attention to this uninspiring campaign? After months of fading into the background, Hoch recently started spending lots of money on advertising and expensive campaign swag. His campaign produced a large number of Wheaties-style “cereal boxes” (containing mints, not cereal) to distribute during Pride weekend. The campaign sponsored an issue of Lavender Magazine. Hoch’s most visible spending was for a (plagiarized) television commercial, currently running on local broadcast and cable channels. No other candidate has a TV ad.

Tom Hoch’s plagiarized TV ad.

Tom Hoch’s giant rolling cereal box at the Minneapolis Pride parade.
(video produced by Wedge LIVE, not Tom Hoch’s campaign)


First impression. Little white balls aren’t gonna bridge the urban rural divide. #unboxing pic.twitter.com/q8G8qKGe13

— Wedge LIVE! (@WedgeLIVE) June 24, 2017

Hennepin Ave littered with Tom Hoch cereal boxes, discarded after parade watchers realize they contain no food. #HochHoax pic.twitter.com/79dKEzD594

— Wedge LIVE! (@WedgeLIVE) June 25, 2017

Lavender Magazine, brought to you by Tom Hoch.

Hoch’s spending stands out as extravagant — some would say wasteful or desperate — but it’s earning his campaign at least some return on investment. Consider the free, uncritical media coverage Hoch has received as a result of his TV commercial. There were two stories on WCCO alone (1, 2).

During a fluffy WCCO-TV interview with Esme Murphy on Sunday, Hoch and his husband repeatedly called the ad “authentic.” Considering this was an interview focused entirely on a candidate’s television ad, Murphy should have asked how Hoch can present himself as the “creative” candidate at the same time he’s plagiarizing another politician’s commercial.

And it’s not just WCCO that’s inclined to take it easy on Hoch. The Star Tribune wrote about Hoch’s ad, but very generously called it a “spoof” rather than a blatant rip off.

Mark and I were interviewed by Esme Murphy of WCCO! pic.twitter.com/MzYucFgp2O

— Tom Hoch (@TomHochMpls) June 25, 2017

Another reason to pay attention to Tom Hoch: he’s got an unregistered, and therefore illegal, anonymous right-wing PAC supporting his campaign on Facebook. The “Anyone But Betsy” page became somewhat prominent on Facebook for spending a lot of money on ads against Mayor Hodges, racking up thousands of likes. In addition to criticism of the mayor, the page has also increasingly singled out Tom Hoch for praise.
Anyone But Betsy But Hopefully Tom Hoch pic.twitter.com/evKRBjESqK

— Wedge LIVE! (@WedgeLIVE) June 27, 2017

 

If the race for mayor remains a muddled field of candidates following a likely no-endorsement at the DFL City Convention in July, Tom Hoch could be well-positioned. Lack of money won’t be the thing that stops his campaign from competing all the way to November (finance report deadlines mean that we won’t see what Hoch’s spent or who’s funding his campaign until August). There’s no reason to think Hoch won’t continue to be the beneficiary of uncritical media attention, like his WCCO appearance to gripe about Nicollet Mall or the two WCCO stories focused on his (plagiarized) television commercial. All of which means the most conservative of the plausible candidates for Mayor of Minneapolis might have better odds than you think.

Posted on

Tenth Ward Update: Candidate David Schorn blunders into Ward 10 City Council race

This is the second part of an ongoing series about the hapless white dude city council candidates of Ward 10. Read Part I here.

A guy named David Schorn has entered the race for the Ward 10 City Council seat currently held by Lisa Bender. Schorn is the second candidate to announce a challenge to Bender.

Here are some quick facts about David Schorn that you can pick up from his campaign Facebook page. First, he doesn’t know where Ward 10 is. He thinks the Lyndale neighborhood is in Ward 10 (close, but it’s actually next door in Ward 8). Geography isn’t his strong suit, but he is able to list wrestling, football, tennis, running, swimming, and weight training on his candidate resume.

Schorn was elected to the neighborhood association board (LHENA) on April 19th. He started campaigning for City Council on April 24th on nextdoor.com. The problem is LHENA bylaws prohibit candidates for office from sitting on the board (he still hasn’t resigned). This has led some observers to say that David Schorn is bad at planning for the immediate future.
David Schorn is also badly misinformed about Wedge neighborhood controversies involving the local developers known as “The Turkey Guys.” First, some things you need to know about the Turkey Guys: 1) they made lots of money selling turkey sandwiches at the state fair; 2) they own and build rental housing in the neighborhood, such as the world famous Rocket House; and 3) they are the subject of controversy among a special contingent of concerned residents (not for their sandwiches, but for their houses).
I suspect that new candidate David Schorn (who seems like he’s only just begun to grapple with many issues) has recently been exposed to a lot of turkey talk: as in, Turkey Guys did this and Turkey Guys did that. This may have caused Schorn some confusion. As you can see in this exclusive screenshot obtained by Wedge LIVE, David Schorn thinks the Turkey Guys are from Turkey the country, instead of  Turkey-To-Go, the booth at the state fair.

Private Facebook reply from Schorn campaign page.

Turkey the sandwich, not Turkey the country

Schorn also has some terrible policy ideas. He would like to solve our housing affordability crisis (which is driven largely by a housing shortage) by stopping housing from being built. And what does the slogan “Parking and Traffic Solutions” mean? Not even David Schorn can tell you. These aren’t really policy ideas so much as local issue buzzwords combined into a terrible acronym on his campaign’s dasharez0ne-style Facebook header.

Someone pointed out to me that David Schorn is the @dasharez0ne candidate. #daSchornz0ne pic.twitter.com/yjbjIifMNh

— Wedge LIVE! (@WedgeLIVE) June 14, 2017

David Schorn is a “low vacancy rate” denier.
Also troubling, considering Schorn’s slogan is “Listening to Neighbors,” is his disregard for the rules of the neighborhood electoral process. In a story you’ll only see reported on Wedge LIVE, David Schorn cast an illegal vote at a CARAG meeting last night. Schorn is not a resident of the CARAG neighborhood and is therefore ineligible to vote at CARAG meetings.

And let’s not forget there is a second Not Lisa Bender candidate in Ward 10 named Scott Fine, who announced his campaign in February. Fine is a web developer with no candidate website, no obvious signs of an active campaign, and he can no longer be reached by phone. Neither Schorn nor Fine have yet registered a campaign committee with Hennepin County; until they do so, both candidates are prohibited from spending or raising more than $100 on their pretend campaigns.