Finding a Green Way to Govern

I've received some information about Minneapolis' contribution to the flood relief efforts in outstate Minnesota from our Emergency Preparedness Director Rocco Forte. On Wednesday, September 22 a widespread heavy rain event overnight caused flooding in the southern third of Minnesota that impacted many counties. In response to the flooding, the State Emergency Operations Center requested assistance from City of Minneapolis Emergency Preparedness and Regulatory Services as part of the initial response and subsequent recovery efforts. On Friday evening, a member of the City of Minneapolis Emergency Preparedness team was deployed as part of the state-wide Incident Management Team to assist Fairbault with EOC and emergency management support. On Saturday, five City of Minneapolis building inspectors were sent to assist the City of Owatonna and Steele County Building Officials in conducting initial and follow-up inspections to residential, commercial and other structures as water le...

Fall Bike Walk Week Bike Walk Week is going year-round. This summer’s Bike Walk Week in June was a great success – with more than 7,000 participating. This fall – October 2nd to 10th – these selected events will take place: Share the Ride Day, featuring Nice Ride, HOURCAR, and Metro Transit rideshare Bike Walk to School Day in conjunction with Safe Routes to School Bike-n-Ride for free on Metro Transit Bike Walk to Worship Visit http://www.bikewalkweek.org/ for a full list of the week’s activities and to register to participate.

I stand with the peace and justice activists whose homes were raided last week by the FBI, and who will be required to testify in court about their travels to parts of the world that continue to be wracked by violence and injustice. At least one of the victims of these raids is a Second Ward constituent, and I consider them all important allies in the ongoing struggle for a world in which violence is never seen as a political tool, and in which the rights and dignity of all people are respected. These raids send an overtly political message likely to discourage people from publicly questioning and criticizing their government, and to deter them from organizing, communicating about and openly opposing policies that they believe are unjust. These kinds of govenment actions that chill the free speech of peace activists and the rights of all of us to freely associate are contradictory to the founding princples of the United States and have the potential to profoundly harm our democracy....

One of the projects of Homegrown Minneapolis, a series of four home-canning classes in different parts of the city, is being noticed by the local media. Like much of Homegrown's work, this project is a collaboration between our Department of Health and Family Support (using funds from the Statewide Health Improvement Program) and experts on food systems. These classes are exciting, because they help teach people how to preserve produce from the region - backyards, farmers markets, CSA's, etc - so that they can eat locally even during our long, cold winters. It's good to see this get the buzz it deserves.

Hymie's Vintage Records, which has recently moved to the Second Ward, has been named one of the 25 best record stores in the nation by Rolling Stone magazine. Congratulations, Hymie's!