This post will help you catch up on all the neighborhood news you missed in the first two months of 2019 while you were focused on Amy Klobuchar eating airplane salad with a comb.
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❄️🅿️ Parking Crisis: Day 6
70,000 Minneapolis parking street parking spaces are currently being held hostage by the snow. The parking crisis comes to St. Paul starting Monday at noon.Meanwhile, the Pioneer Press reports the city is keeping their snow in protective custody.
With the crisis expected to last until April 1st, stay tuned to Wedge LIVE for continuing coverage of the Parking Crisis.
📡 LIVE from Seattle!
We took the show on the road for a 4-plus hour meeting about affordable housing and upzoning single-family neighborhoods in Seattle. It was almost as exciting as our debate about the Minneapolis 2040 plan. Check out thread here.
🗳️ March 10: St. Paul DFL caucuses
2019 is an election year in St. Paul. All seven seats on the City Council are up for election. On Sunday March 10, a very small number of residents will convene at DFL caucuses across the city to select delegates to endorsing conventions. Party-endorsed candidates often have a decisive advantage in a general election.
👉 Find dates, candidates and locations for St. Paul caucuses and conventions here.
🚴♀️ Transportation Action Plan
Public engagement is underway on the City’s 10-year Transportation Action Plan. A final version of the plan will be adopted by the City Council in 2020. The plan “will identify specific actions for the City and its partners to take to implement the transportation vision outlined in Minneapolis 2040.”
Transportation Fact: the population of Minneapolis grew by 18% between 2006 and 2017, while vehicle miles traveled decreased by 3%.
Mayoral Message
Beloved “Sassy” Commissioner calls it quits
Nick Magrino, known affectionately as the “Sassy” Commissioner on the Minneapolis City Planning Commission, won’t be approving anymore variances. After three years on the commission he’s decided to hang up his cleats while still a young man. A wise decision in the face of medical research suggesting that repeated exposure to hours of public testimony about traffic, parking, and shadows could result in irreversible brain damage.
🚗 Push back against plan for 800-car downtown Minneapolis parking garage
According to a representative of the Federal Reserve, the Minneapolis Heritage Preservation Commission called it “the most beautiful parking ramp we’ve ever seen.” But not everyone fell in love at first sight. One man (me) felt so strongly that he emailed city planners a yard sign in protest.
🏀 Wedge Basketball News
The Wedge neighborhood lost its full court basketball 20 years ago after decades of anti-basketball racism.
The Minneapolis Park Board is taking feedback on a plan that could restore the court.
💰 ICYMI: Lowry Hill Neighborhood diverts $225,000 in affordable housing money to rehab a fountain
📫 Dangerous sidewalks contribute to shortage of Minneapolis postal carriers
Related: USPS is hiring in Minneapolis.
🎙️ Interview with Ward 3 Council Member Steve Fletcher
Raising standards for city-funded neighborhood groups
If you’re like me, and you’ve attended a neighborhood organization meeting, you may have noticed that the people at that meeting are whiter, wealthier, older, and crankier than your neighborhood as a whole. After decades of funding these groups with hundreds of millions of dollars, the city of Minneapolis is finally considering a plan aimed at fixing that dynamic.
🛴 Scooter News
This week: the City Council’s Transportation and Public Works Committee will consider a plan to increase the maximum number of rental scooters in Minneapolis to 2000.
10-story building proposed in Uptown
How does it measure up to other marvels of engineering history?
Great Moment in Wedge History: 1977
A moment that still fills every Wedge resident with pride is that time in 1977 when the Governor came to the Wedge and left us a heartfelt note that said “Enjoyed my visit to the ‘Wedge.'”
🗿 Uptownhenge takes shape at Sons of Norway site
🚶♀️ St. Paul neighborhood fights City Hall, prevents installation of sidewalks
🗑️ St. Paul Trash News
- City Council President “scolds” restaurant owner for bringing trash to her office to protest sustainable to-go packaging ordinance.
- Trash protesters threaten to embarrass mayor by wearing trash bags to his snowball fight.
- “Trashy Taco Fundraiser” planned to aid the fight against organized trash collection.
- Laura threatens to leave St. Paul for good “because of this Hitler trash scam.”
- Minneapolis Council Member Cam Gordon remembers what it was like when Minneapolis took a St. Paul-style approach to trash collection.