Minneapolis, MN
Minneapolis government needs to support Open Streets Minneapolis, monetarily | MinnPost
Minneapolitans delight themselves within the areas the place folks could be collectively on foot, bikes and in any other case rolling at a human tempo. We relish strolling round Lake Harriet, rolling alongside the Mississippi River, enjoying in our many metropolis parks. However the roads, streets, and sidewalks all through our metropolis nonetheless have an extended strategy to go to being people-friendly.
Highways impose intimidating and polluted limitations, busy avenues are hostile to households on bikes and crosswalks could also be few and much between for folk not ready or prepared to sprint by visitors.
In distinction, annual Open Streets occasions encourage folks to think about a special world, the place our thoroughfares are shared peacefully and safely, even joyfully. Organized by Our Streets Minneapolis, Open Streets occasions shut down lengths of main Minneapolis streets on completely different days all through the summer time to permit folks on foot, bikes, scooters, wheelchairs, walkers, skateboards and rollerblades to completely occupy the streets, taking of their metropolis and each other at below 25 miles per hour.
Final 12 months, volunteering at Lyndale Open Streets, I witnessed common curiosity on the faces of so lots of my neighbors who had been fortunately taking of their cityscape, unencumbered by the in any other case omnipresent hazard of huge motorized autos. The Open Streets idea originated from ciclovia occasions organized in Colombia in 1974, and has since morphed right into a worldwide motion, which permits folks to ascertain a future the place our metropolises will not be held hostage by vehicles. This imaginative and prescient is in step with Minneapolis’ personal growth targets in direction of higher density, elevated utilization of bikes, transit and non-car technique of getting round and vibrant, people-first areas.
Our Streets Minneapolis, an unbiased non-profit with a small employees, has been the only real organizer of Open Streets since its inception greater than a decade in the past in 2011. From its begin with 5,000 attendees, it has grown to a number of occasions per 12 months, and was attended by 103,500 folks in 2019 – 1 / 4 of town’s inhabitants.
The occasion engages 700 volunteers and over 150 group companions every season.
Whereas the Metropolis of Minneapolis dedicates public works and police time to the occasion, it has but to commit funds in direction of the occasion. In 2022, Our Streets Minneapolis is asking the Metropolis’s Division of Public Works to amend the 2022-2024 Public Service Settlement to incorporate yearly compensation of $100,000 for the Open Streets Minneapolis occasions, sourced from the Public Works discretionary finances. Our Streets can also be searching for the inclusion of $100,000 of ongoing funding within the mayor’s 2023 finances to assist Our Streets Minneapolis.
This quantities to $.25 for each Minneapolis resident to assist one of many metropolis’s flagship occasions, an occasion embraced by town by itself official web site as considered one of its “packages and efforts to enhance our Metropolis.”
Many Minneapolitans sit up for these welcoming and inclusive occasions because the excessive level of the nice and cozy climate season, much more so than the State Truthful. However the lack of metropolis funding has constrained the route choice course of and places Our Streets Minneapolis able to cost a registration payment that creates a monetary barrier for deprived distributors and contributors or forces the group to altogether exclude a group within the route choice course of. To ensure that Our Streets to proceed to supply these occasions and make them absolutely accessible and equitable to all, monetary assist from the Metropolis of Minneapolis is crucial.
Nina Clark is a board member of Our Streets Minneapolis, a Minneapolis resident {and professional} within the discipline of arts and tradition.
Minneapolis, MN
Minneapolis announces plan to flag police officer problems early
Minneapolis leaders on Monday announced they had selected a company to build a database designed to flag problems with police officers — before they become problematic.
The idea is a technological approach — an “early intervention system” — to both support officers in need of say, mental health services, while also preventing cops with patterns of potential misconduct from ascending the ranks unchecked.
The latter was arguably the case for former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, who had pressed his knee against the necks of at least two men before he did the same maneuver to George Floyd in 2020. Floyd’s murder by Chauvin was the impetus for state and federal legal interventions that will lead to years of court-approved police oversight. City officials see an early intervention system as satisfying one of a litany of changes mandated by those legal cases.
“People say all the time, ‘How could they not know that this officer would do that?’” Police Chief Brian O’Hara said at a news conference Monday. “This is the answer to that.”
On Monday, Mayor Jacob Frey, O’Hara and other officials announced that after a national bidding process, they had selected Benchmark Analytics, a Chicago-based firm that includes researchers at the University of Chicago and has implemented similar systems in several other major cities, to build the Minneapolis system.
“It is not going to solve all our problems,” O’Hara said. He emphasized that the system “is not discipline” but rather an “early-warning system” that can identify potential concerns for officers that go beyond traditional complaints around misconduct.
O’Hara said the database will analyze information — such as overtime, patterns of calling in sick, arrest records and off-duty work — in search of outliers. The program can assist supervisors, who can intervene in an attempt to “correct officers’ behavior” before actual problems arise, he said.
Nick Barkley, a civilian member of a team implementing the program, said officer wellness was an essential part of it. “Happy, healthy humans produce the best work,” he said.
The five-year contract for $2.375 million needs approval from the City Council, which could take up the measure as soon as Thursday.
The money would be paid in part by a $500,000 grant from the Pohlad Foundation. The rest of the funding would come from general fund spending from the city’s police and information technology budgets.
Minneapolis, MN
Minneapolis music teacher recognized by GMA
A special teacher in Minneapolis was recognized for his efforts in and out of the classroom on live television on Monday morning.
Good Morning America is shining a light on exceptional educators who go the extra mile as classes begin wrapping up for the school year.
On Monday morning, they gave Edward Barlow – a Minneapolis music teacher – an incredible surprise. Over the decades, thousands of students have called him Mr. Barlow, but some like to call him The Music Man.
“He has a marching band that goes around the neighborhood, and they play for the neighborhood,” said one person familiar with Barlow.
Barlow has been teaching music for nearly 40 years, but his impact goes far beyond Anwatin Middle School.
“Everybody always goes to Mr. Barlow for any advice or support that they need. He’s really engrained in Minneapolis Public Schools culture,” said one student.
“He gives me a lot of motivation speeches. He doesn’t give up on anyone,” said another student.
That’s why GMA hand-picked him for a live surprise on national television on Monday.
When asked what keeps him coming back to the classroom despite being able to retire, Barlow kept the reason simple.
“Well, it’s purpose. There’s purpose in meaning in what we do as teachers,” he said.
Cheers rang out from students, staff, and his wife – a fellow teacher – as Barlow was given two checks for $35,000.
“I was totally unprepared; I had no idea. People can keep really good secrets,” he said.
Coworkers think a big chunk of the money may go toward repairing the school’s broken piano.
Minneapolis, MN
Minnesota passes new driver pay minimums
A plan to boost pay for Uber and Lyft drivers in Minnesota that lawmakers believe would prevent the companies from leaving the market advanced in the state Legislature on Sunday before the midnight deadline.
The House passed the compensation bill but the measure was held up in the Senate before winning approval prior to the deadline for lawmakers to pass bills before they adjourned. The bill now moves to Gov. Tim Walz to be signed into law, the Star Tribune reported.
The proposal that initially gained approval in the House was crafted by Democrats to replace a minimum pay measure the Minneapolis City Council passed that prompted Uber and Lyft to threaten to leave the state’s biggest city.
The House agreement announced Saturday after a day of negotiations would set a minimum pay rate at $1.28 per mile and 31 cents per minute. Uber has said it will keep operating in the state under those rates. The bill would take effect next January if passed.
“While the coming price increases may hurt riders and drivers alike, we will be able to continue to operate across the State under the compromise brokered by the Governor,” Uber spokesperson Josh Gold said in an email to the Star Tribune.
Lyft representatives didn’t immediately respond to emailed questions from The Associated Press about the deal.
The measure that raised objections from the companies would have required them to pay drivers at least $1.40 per mile and 51 cents per minute — or $5 per ride, whichever is greater — excluding tips, for the time spent transporting passengers in Minneapolis.
Marianna Brown, vice president of the Minnesota Uber/Lyft Drivers Association, told the Star Tribune that even though the pay rates are lower than drivers sought, they were happy to see the deal come together.
Following passage in the House, the governor said in a post on social media platform X that the deal “gives rideshare drivers a 20% raise and keeps these important services operating in Minnesota. I’m grateful to our partners in the House and Senate DFL for coming together to get this done.”
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