The new and improved Ole Olson Park is such a cool spot. Really exciting stuff happening on the Northside riverfront.

When Einstein developed general relativity the closest thing to a practical application that could even be imagined at the time was a slightly more precise description of where to look for the planet Mercury in the sky, and yet now we’d all be literally lost without it. Anyway: fund basic research.

Yes please

Yes! And I strongly recommend people read the pithy and passionate "Field of Schemes" (book or blog) which opened my eyes even wider about the myriad & hidden ways that publicly-financed stadiums are a total corporate racket & giveaway to moneyed interests. www.fieldofschemes.com

Not sure a full ban is in the cards or necessarily desirable in some cases. But we absolutely must reconsider our relationship to parkways and I'm proud that the board voted to do just that. Will have updates on the pilot soon! Be sure to stay tuned and engage with it so it can be a huge success!

Hey terrible news! Mn Sen. Ann Rest has cut the HCMC-saving sales tax plan from 1% to .25%, hiked the Twins’ skim (from $7m to $9m, way above current $1.1m). The sales tax will fall far short of what HCMC needs, so will do more to save the Pohlads than the hospital. assets.senate.mn/committees/2...

Appreciate Chris surfacing this - the Twins grafting on a take is a major concern on the D side even as they labor to rescue HCMC. I believe the initial lease only required $1.1m per year, adjusted for inflation, from the county. law.marquette.edu/assets/sport...

I strongly support the sales tax increase to fund HCMC. We can't let our safety net hospital close. But I am intensely opposed to the $7 million per year that SF 4986 would also give to the Twins Stadium. It's a major expansion of corporate welfare. The Pohlads should pay for it!

Every car in your city represents $8-12K/year being sucked out of your local economy instead of being spent on housing, goods & services. I wish more retailers & elected officials understood this. #WindshieldBias #CarBlindness #CarBrain

I will endorse the 2029 mayoral candidate who pledges to bring us smaller firetrucks.

Transportation politics is about dragging people kicking and screaming into change that results fairly quickly in a widespread consensus that we can't imagine going back to the way it was before.

Yes of course we were biking around today. Yes of course everyone biking around today noticed that the parkways were choked with bikes and pedestrians. Yes of course our respective Park Boards/Departments should begin closing parkway roads to cars on weekends this summer. Or weekdays. Or both.

austin was told by habitat for humanity that it costs $700k to build a new house. calls that unacceptable fateh is a big supporter of the “yes to homes” coalition. says parking spaces cost $40k to build! we love to hear this pointed out!

Lake Harriet walk and bike paths were packed. Thousands of people out enjoying the summer weather.

Absolutely gutting story on Annunciation parents pouring their souls into enlightening legislators, knowing they’d the GOP brick wall. But the piece contains one of the most horrifying paragraphs an American parent could read; it will stay with me: www.startribune.com/in-living-ro... (gift)

You love to see it folks.

Bus lane enforcement hell yeah!!!

Hero. This spot is nasty.

Bopping in to say that clearing ice from corners and bus stops is excellent community care and also good for getting out some kind of energy and connecting with strangers.

we elected such a fucking good park board, y’all. thank you to my park board reps @engy5150.bsky.social @olsenforparks.bsky.social @amberforparks.bsky.social

Fantastic protest art

Commissioner Kay Carvajal Moran votes against Al Flowers' preference on the Uptown Mall. Then he responds to her, "c'mon immigrant community, that I'm out there fighting for." (he thinks a Mexican American commissioner owes him her vote bc he's personally anti-ICE?) Then Garcia yells at Flowers.

I live in Linden Hills and wrote to Cathy Abene saying I support pedestrianizing park roads----precisely BECAUSE I'm a senior! Precisely BECAUSE we are all either pre-disabled or disabled--and we need an alternative to car culture. Especially in our parks. Thank you for your leadership!

Do I have to watch the video of tonight's shitshow of a park board meeting? I'd rather just repeat what I've heard from witnesses: ➡️ open parkways resolution passed ➡️ Uptown Mall resolution passed ➡️ President Tom Olsen continues to be told to take his ass back to Edina ➡️ Al Flowers v Chris Meyer

Open streets has existed as a popular, regular local event for more than a decade. Yet the idea of exploring open parkways events on the riverfront is the crime of the century. You can thank MPRB commissioners Cathy Abene and Charles Rucker for working people into a rage over it.

Protesters carried a giant rendition of the U.S. Constitution through downtown Minneapolis on Friday, chanting "ICE out now." 📷️: Kyeland Jackson

Alex Jeffrey Pretti, licensed nurse

I just responded to the scene at 26th and Nicollet shortly after the observer was shot. They teargassed and/or pepper sprayed Jana Shortal of KARE11 at the scene and she was being treated when I walked up. ICE have a fancy camera they are using to scan the faces of the crowd.

Source:

Witnesses are being taken to Whipple. From a lawyer friend: “They’re trying to keep local PD and BCA from getting statements and confiscating any phones with video.”

All those people downtown yesterday, no ICE involvement, and not one incident. ICE shows up in a neighborhood and now another Minnesotan is dead. It's pretty obvious who the violent outside agitators are.

Both the Uptown Mall and Open Parkways resolutions passed out of committee unanimously! There is still more work to be done, but these are the first steps in making our park system greener, more climate friendly, dynamic, accessible! Be sure to give your commissioners love for these strong votes!

Amended resolution approved in committee, will go forward to the full board.

Presentation on the open parkways pilot and toolkit. Testing the theory that people are capable of becoming less angry about a thing when they learn it isn't what they believed it to be.

The slippery slope is, start small, people love it, then the cat's out of the bag. Can't stop the spread.

Try this argument at your next park board meeting

It's stupid that the anti-accessibility/pro-car folks are spending so much of their time on this while most of us are trying to materially protect our neighbors, but they are. Email MPRB commissioners that parks that are for people + green and growing things, not cars + pavement, by 5:30 today.

The Uptown Mall plan is back on the agenda at the park board next week. Mike Erlandson and pals are extremely energized over a loss of parking. If you support park space over parking, emails to commissioners and in-person testimony would be helpful. agendasuite.org/iip/mprb/mee...

AOC: I want everybody to understand that the cuts to your health care are what’s paying for this. You get screwed over to pay a bunch of thugs in the street that are shooting mothers in the face.

The official explanation they’re apparently going with here is that they aren’t 100% convinced that breathing soot and ozone is actually bad for you.

Oh hey if you're from MN 37A please give your rep a call and let her know that we don't need to "wait for the facts" when we can watch the fucking video, and no one's getting paid. She won 57-43 last time. That's a surmountable gap.

First day back in the term, been up since 6am only to end up attending an 1.5 hour debate on a proposal for an increased parking variance to end the day. I’m doing just fine?! 🙂🙃 btw variance was denied. 🎶

1st motion - approve the amount of parking (48 new spots), but reject the park board shoving the parking lot up against Minnehaha Parkway - failed 2nd motion - approve the whole thing as designed - failed. 3rd motion - reject the whole thing - success!

Example of how bad infrastructure builds on itself. Planning commissioner: can your employees just walk from the existing parking lot without building a whole new parking lot? Park board guy: no way, our property has no sidewalk.

It's a new day on the Minneapolis Park Board.

This was once Park Avenue. Bring it back:

Such a good rep for the planning commission!!!!!! Thank you Jason Garcia!

tom olsen just elected park board president ! congrats @olsenforparks.bsky.social!!!

congrats to jason garcia getting the planning commission!! @jason4parks.bsky.social

this minnesota single stair study is fascinating in that how it shows how much *higher* risk is in status quo development - a massive double loaded corridor/dual stair building - v. single stair from 3-8 stories.