Minneapolis Police Federation: "No place for racist or bigoted cops"

After an incident in Green Bay, Wis., and another in Apple Valley, five officers are under Internal Affairs investigation for the incidents, which involve racist abuse, disorderly conduct and other charges of bad behavior.  Sgt. John Delmonico, the head of the union that represents Minneapolis police officers requested Sunday to be part of Chief Janeé Harteau’s planned community dialogue in the wake of  the two incidents.

MInnPost article on the mayoral race

Using the rhetorical device of bouncing around an argument about what progressive means, MinnPost came out with a rather bland and anodyne article about a few of the candidates. Frankly, it was a bit irritating to read, especially the way they "introduced" some of the minor candidates without introducing them at all. For instance, Dan Cohen has his two short paragraphs, in which they never even say he is running for mayor, interrupted by a headline "sound bite" that says 'A Liberal on Steroids?' and a picture of the sole Republican candidate, Cam Winton. I had to read it three times to sort it out. Oh, and the first paragraph is introduced with name-dropping Gary Schiff, who is not even in the race. And they left out the only candidate who could possibly come up with authentic "progressive" credentials, Doug Mann. He put his statement, which perforce comes off as a bit of well-deserved rebuke, in the comments.

Our latest project - forcing the City Council to do the right thing

Tomorrow morning, Mayoral candidate and Green Party member Doug Mann will file a petition for a writ of mandamus in an attempt to force a referendum on the city's expenditures on a new Vikings stadium project. See also the Southside Pride's article Can This Man Stop the Vikings Stadium? (If this were a British paper, the headline certainly would read, Can This Mann Stop the Vikings Stadium? but I digress.) Although, as Mann points out, the writ, if executed, will not actually "stop the stadium". It will stop the un-democratic rush by the city council to ignore its own charter and throw an non-proportionate amount of city money at the project, which is already contracted and in the advanced planning stages. If the move succeeds in getting a referendum on the ballot for November 5, most analysts agree that it will fail, although that is by no means guaranteed. For the Minneapolis Farmer Labor Association, it may mean another big push, this time to get the No vote that most members want. And even a No vote will only cause consternation and a renegotiation of the city's share. It would be a major re-negotiation, since the charter allows only $15M to be spent, while the current formula calls for a minimum contribution of ten times that amount.

Launch of the Minneapolis FLA Blog

The new incarnation of the Minneapolis Farmer-Labor Association has been in existence for about five months now and we have grown from virtually nothing to an affiliation of several hundred people gathering around a dozen or so activists to form - something. We are in broad agreement of what needs to be done, but some of us are structure geeks, and some of us aren't. We get along OK though. The best place to get the history of what we've been doing in that five months, as well as the more ancient history of the "old" Farmer-Labor Caucus, is from the 2013 Southside Pride articles of January, February, April, and May-June. While the Minneapolis FLA has held numerous small meetings, and helped to present a 9th Ward candidates debate, and was a noticeable presence at the DFL Minneapolis City Convention, probably the thing that has the most people talking was the extensive questionnaire we sent to Mayoral candidates, and will be sending to other city candidates after the filing deadline. We have been promising to post somewhere on the web the complete answers from the candidates, and this blog will be where you can find these, as well as a means of keeping up with what the FLA is doing if you can't make it to all the meetings. You are encouraged to follow our blog through the email link in the margin. Our latest project is supporting Doug and Linda Mann's efforts to bring about a belated referendum on the Vikings stadium "deal" through a petition for a writ of mandamus; more about that will be found above very shortly. (Doug Mann is a Green Party member who is running for Minneapolis Mayor. Look for his questionnaire answers in the Pages index.)