Southwest Journal August 20-September 2

Park Board clears Kenwood encampment PAGE A5 • Man shot dead in Stevens Square PAGE A6

August 20– September 2, 2020 Vol. 31, No. 17 southwestjournal.com

INSIDE ANOTHER LYNHALL

Not so fast

CR A C TEA K IT. B R U

IT D

LynLake food hall adds second location at 50th & France A3

IN-PERSON WORSHIP

Y IT. OWN .

Local churches weigh community vs. safety A8

POSTAL BOX STOLEN

Developer sued for damaging affordable apartment now plans to demolish it Thieves nab East Isles collection box A9

VOICES FROM THE PANDEMIC

Stories from local residents A11

TWEEN STORIES

The owner of 2003 Aldrich Ave. isn’t sharing its cost estimate for repairing the building. Randolph Street Realty Capital plans to demolish it in September and build a marketrate apartment on the site. Photo by Isaiah Rustad

By Zac Farber

Lowry Hill East neighbors are mobilizing to try to save what was once a 25-unit affordable apartment from demolition, but despite the current owner having played a role in damaging the building, city officials say there’s little to be done to stop it.

The city ordered the apartment at 2003 Aldrich Ave. to shut down in 2018, with families forced to move out, after cracks large enough to see through floors appeared in the facade and inspectors fretted that further shifts of the building could cause a gas leak and, potentially, an explosion.

The building, which includes two retail spaces, has been vacant ever since.

SEE CRACKED APARTMENT / PAGE A14

Charter Commission’s slow-rolling of public safety amendment follows pattern

By Andrew Hazzard

When the Minneapolis Charter Commission voted to use its full review period to consider an amendment to replace the traditional police department with a new public safety model — a move that will keep the issue off the 2020 ballot — Council President Lisa Bender wasn’t surprised.

In many ways, the move echoes events that Bender saw play out two years ago. On June 23, 2018, Thurman Blevins, a 31-year-old Black man, was shot and killed by Minneapolis police during a foot pursuit. In the aftermath, Council Member Cam Gordon (Ward 2) proposed a charter amendment that would have given the City Council more power over police department operations. The council approved the amendment on a 7-5 vote and sent it along to the Charter Commission for review. Like this year, the body opted to take its full review, and the amendment was kept off the 2018 ballot.

The killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer has drawn unprecedented levels of protest, activism and attention to city government, including to the Charter Commission, a little-known, judge-appointed board that didn’t even broadcast its meetings until the coronavirus pandemic began.

Now that board, and the role it plays in Minneapolis, is under more scrutiny than ever.

The proposed amendment would have eliminated the requirement for a minimum number of police officers and replaced the Minneapolis Police Department (MPD) with a public health-based department of public safety using a combination of traditional peace officers, social workers and interveners to address crime and safety issues.

The City Council’s intention was to create alternatives to armed police, to assert more direct power over the force and to increase the SEE CHARTER COMMISSION / PAGE A6

Ilhan Omar wins big; Fateh ousts Hayden Two seasoned local DFL lawmakers suffer primary defeats

By Nate Gotlieb

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Crawfish boil on the menu at new Jamie Malone venture B2

U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, the first Somali-American elected to Congress, swept to victory over a well-funded primary challenger on Aug. 11 as two other progressive candidates of color — both second-generation African immigrants — staged primary upsets against established local DFL state legislators.

In Southwest Minneapolis, Omar bested the Uptown resident and media lawyer Antone Melton-Meaux on his home turf, winning every precinct in the Uptown area while also taking the neighborhoods along Interstate 35W. Melton-Meaux won most of the higherincome, whiter precincts south and west of the Chain of Lakes, showing strength in a majority of the precincts won by former Vice President Joe Biden in the March presidential primary.

Omar won every Southwest precinct that went to Sen. Bernie Sanders, as well as

precincts in Bryn Mawr, Kingfield, Tangletown, Linden Hills, Armatage and Kenny that went to Biden and Sen. Elizabeth Warren in March.

Out of the 40,389 ballots cast in 39 Southwest precincts, roughly 58.1% went to Omar, 40% went to Melton-Meaux and 1.9% went to other candidates in the five-way race.

Omar, a progressive hero whose left-wing views, political missteps and racial identity have attracted a variety of critics, won 58.2% of all votes cast in the 5th District — a 19-point margin of victory and a significant expansion of her base from the 2018 primary, when she won 48.2% of the district.

“We earned a mandate for change,” Omar said in an election-night statement. “Despite the attacks, our support has only grown.”

SEE PRIMARY / PAGE A12

Omar Fateh, 30, was overcome with emotion on Aug. 11 after defeating incumbent state Sen. Jeff Hayden in the Senate District 62 primary.

Photo by Isaiah Rustad

A2 August 20–September 2, 2020 / southwestjournal.com

southwestjournal.com / August 20–September 2, 2020 A3

By Andrew Hazzard / ahazzard@swjournal.com

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It’s the Natural Choice Your CBD Store is the latest CBD shop to open in Southwest Minneapolis. It is part of the largest chain of CBD retailers in the U.S. Submitted photos

A new CBD store at 50th & France is the flagship Minnesota outlet for the largest industry retailer in the nation.

Your CBD Store, a prominent retailer in the emerging cannabis industry, opened its first Minnesota location in the former Luxury Garage Sale space in Fulton this spring. The shop, run by owner and operator Nick Williams and general manager Kevin Costello, offers a range of therapeutic CBD products used for treating many conditions.

Williams secured the space for his Your CBD Store affiliate in January and said he was attracted to the 50th & France location because of the opportunity to be in a highend, well-populated shopping area. The plan had been to have a grand opening in mid-March, but the coronavirus pandemic brought that to a halt. In late April, the shop began a soft opening for curbside business before a larger debut in late May. During the civil unrest, some neighboring stores were looted and Williams and Costello removed all products from the store for a few days.

While their opening plan was severely disrupted, the past two months have seen a steady amount of growth, they said, with many repeat customers purchasing CBD. “It’s absolutely starting to shift for the positive,” Williams said.

Given the relatively new nature of the CBD industry, Costello said customers still need plenty of information.

CBD, or cannabidiol, is a compound found in cannabis. Unlike the psychoactive ingredient THC, or tetrahydrocannabinol, CBD does not give users a high. But proponents of CBD say it gives users relief from a wide range of ailments such as chronic pain, inflammation, arthritis, migraines and epileptic seizures. The industry is growing nationwide. At least four other specialized CBD stores have opened in Southwest since 2018.

“It’s rewarding and super exciting, and the feedback we’ve received from customers has been great,” Costello said.

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Your CBD is known for selling high-end, higher-priced CBD products, mainly from SunMed, an American producer. All their products have third-party certification and lab results that members of the public can view. Products come in the form of tinctures, creams, edible gummies, capsules and bath bombs. The store also carries a range of CBD catered to pets.

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A4 August 20–September 2, 2020 / southwestjournal.com

50TH & FRANCE

The Lynhall adds second location

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The Lynhall has expanded to a second location at 50th & France that opened for brunch, coffee and pastries on Aug. 18. Submitted photos

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At a time of uncertainty in the restaurant industry, The Lynhall has opened a second location at 50th & France.

The Lynhall No. 3945 opened for business Aug. 18 with coffee, pastries and brunch in a restaurant space in the newly completed Nolan Mains apartments on the EdinaMinneapolis border.

“We’ve been welcomed so positively,” Lynhall founder Anne Spaeth said.

At its original location, The Lynhall sought to create a community space where people could gather around quality food, and the 50th & France location aims for the same, with long wood tables, comfortable seating alcoves and an expansive coffee bar.

To start, it is open 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. for coffee and brunch, with the full menu of Lynhall pastries baked at its LynLake location. This fall, the restaurant hopes to add dinner service, afternoon tea and wine, cheese and beer hours, once they work through the alcohol license with the city of Edina.

Spaeth was not looking to expand The Lynhall, which opened in LynLake in 2017, but was approached by Pete Deanovic, one of the developers behind the revamping of the Edina side of 50th & France. He was seeking a cafe-type retail anchor in the building and wanted to bring The Lynhall further south.

The opportunity appealed to her, and she finalized a lease in December 2019.

The world has changed in the past eight months and while determining an opening date wasn’t easy amid the pandemic, they decided to move forward.

“It never felt like there was going to be a right time,” Spaeth said. “You can’t go into

this thinking you have any control.”

The brand-new building features an allelectric-powered kitchen, a change from the gas-based cooking most commonly found in fine dining. There have been advancements in the electric stove field recently, Spaeth said, but some menu items were altered in response to the equipment.

For example, the 50th & France location will feature waffles, not pancakes, and egg scrambles instead of omelets.

Overall, the menu at 50th & France will be about 95% consistent with that of the LynLake location, though more differences could emerge when the new restaurant begins dinner service.

“It will be the same quality people have come to love and expect from us,” Spaeth said.

To give a new building a classic, older feel, Spaeth sourced many of the furniture pieces from Southwest shops like Loft Antiques and Hunt and Gather.

The venue can be rented for private parties and events.

The tables at The Lynhall No. 3945 are all spaced for social distancing, and the restaurant has patio seating and a walk-up window for coffee and pastries. Much like the original location, the new Lynhall will sell goods from local artisans. To start, there will be a floral pop-up from Apricot Floral Design.

“We still want to promote a safe, welcoming, comfortable environment for people,” Spaeth said.

The Lynhall No. 3945 Where: 3945 Market Street, Edina Info: thelynhall.com

southwestjournal.com / August 20–September 2, 2020 A5

Park Board clears out Kenwood encampment

By Andrew Hazzard / ahazzard@swjournal.com

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The encampment at Kenwood Park was down to about nine residents when the Minneapolis Park Board cleared out the camp on Aug. 12. Photo by Andrew Hazzard

Minneapolis park officials have cleared out a homeless encampment at Kenwood Park as the agency moves to implement more restrictive encampment guidelines approved by the board in July.

Kenwood, along with Peavey and Elliot parks, were targeted for removal due to concerns of criminal activity, according to the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board (MPRB). Kenwood and Peavey are also located in school zones, which made the parks incompatible for an encampment under an ordinance approved by commissioners July 15.

The Kenwood Park encampment was down from about 25 residents at the end of July to about nine residents and 14 tents when a notice to vacate was issued on Aug. 11. The people living there were given 24 hours to leave, and the encampment was cleared by about 2 p.m. on Aug. 12, according to volunteers on site that afternoon. By 4 p.m., all that remained were tire tracks and tent-shaped depressions in the ground.

The week was a major removal period for the MPRB, which cleared out the remaining 35 tents at Powderhorn Park on Aug. 14, two weeks after notices to vacate were issued at the site. The encampment at Powderhorn was also located in a school zone and had repeated crime and safety incidents, according to the MPRB. Park Police cleared the encampments in what the Star Tribune described as a tense scene with protesters attempting to block squad cars and officers pepper spraying some demonstrators.

Chris J., a young man who had been staying at Kenwood for about a month since leaving Powderhorn, said on Aug. 10 that he hadn’t seen any violent or dangerous behavior in his time at the Southwest park. Kenwood, he said, had remained small and didn’t have the same issues surrounding security he’d seen at Powderhorn. He was among those living at the former Sheraton hotel in South Minneapolis that was used by unsheltered people during the civil unrest after George Floyd was killed.

In the parks, Chris J. said, it has been good to meet others who struggle with similar issues to his, like bipolar disorder and anxiety. Many living in the parks, he said, have mental or physical health conditions.

On the afternoon of Aug. 12, a few volunteers loaded the last remaining supplies and gear from Kenwood Park into a van. Noah, a volunteer who declined to give his last name, said the removal action at Kenwood was unnecessary and that notice had been given in a confusing way. At other encampments where removal actions have occurred, the Park Board has issued a 48- or 72-hour notice to vacate, he said, but at Kenwood signs were placed Aug. 11 saying the park would no longer be considered a place of refuge by noon on Aug. 12. That language was confusing, he said. The

residents at Kenwood had largely left by the time Park Police arrived in the mid-afternoon and no one was arrested.

“People thought they had some stability and it’s been retracted,” he said.

At a Park Board meeting on Aug. 6, Vice President LaTrisha Vetaw (At Large) said she was concerned MPRB staff had not been moving quickly enough to implement the encampment number, size and location restrictions approved by commissioners in July. Constituents had been calling her daily about the encampments at Kenwood, Peavey, Powderhorn and Elliot parks, she said.

“We took action three weeks ago; I need to see results,” she said. “I can’t believe how little has been done.”

The encampment at Kenwood Park began as a direct offshoot of the Powderhorn community and was initially located on the southern edge of the park near Lake of the Isles. The site was eventually moved to the north side of the park. A man was arrested at Kenwood Park for exposing himself in mid-July, according to Park Police Chief Jason Ohotto. On July 14, there were other fights and arrests.

The Kenwood Neighborhood Organization and Park Board President Jono Cowgill, who represents the area, had requested its removal due to safety concerns.

“Our priorities are to address those sites with documented crimes, reduce the number of parks down to no more than 20 and get permits issued for temporary encampments that currently don’t have one. The priority for our state needs to be additional funding for our city and county partners so they can immediately increase available shelter and housing for those experiencing homelessness,” MRPB Superintendent Al Bangoura said in a statement.

In June, park commissioners designated all parkland in the city as a refuge space for unsheltered people, primarily in response to the large encampment at Powderhorn that emerged after the civil unrest. In July, the board retracted that declaration in an ordinance that set a maximum of 20 parks with no more than 25 tents at each site and established a permit system for encampments. The resolution also prohibits encampments in school zones and limits how much space in a park the tents may occupy. So far only five permits have been issued, three of which are in Southwest at Lake Harriet, William Berry Park and The Mall in Uptown.

Park staff have identified 16 parks the organization believes are suitable for encampments, including Bryn Mawr Meadows, Lyndale Farmstead, and Dr. Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. parks in Southwest, all of which have sizable communities. The MPRB estimates there are about 450 tents in 44 parks as of Aug. 11.

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A6 August 20–September 2, 2020 / southwestjournal.com

Public Safety Update

Rod Helm R E A L T Y

Man shot, killed in Stevens Square

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A man was shot and killed in a Stevens Square apartment Aug. 14.

Minneapolis police say they were called to an altercation on the 1700 block of 3rd Avenue South at about 4 a.m. and received additional reports that shots had been fired en route. At the scene, officers found an unresponsive man with gunshot wounds.

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Healthcare by ambulance, where he was pronounced dead.

The man’s identity has yet to be released by the Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s Office.

The death marks the second homicide in the 5th Precinct this year. Citywide there have been 49 homicides in 2020, a figure that already has surpassed the total for 2019, according to police data.

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A group of protesters vandalized Southwest Minneapolis’ 5th Police Precinct on Aug. 15, breaking windows and marking the site with graffiti.

A group of about 50 people marched toward the precinct headquarters at 31st & Nicollet shortly after 10 p.m., according to the Minneapolis Police Department (MPD).

Inspector Amelia Huffman, who commands the precinct, said the group broke windows and launched large fireworks into the building, which was also covered in graffiti and paint.

The graffiti included anti-cop rhetoric, the message “blood on your hands” and profanity directed against police union leader Lt. Bob Kroll, whose name the protesters wrote as “KKKroll.”

Huffman told the South Uptown Neighborhood Association that the group came to the

building at a time when police were responding to two separate shooting incidents in Southwest, at 27th & Colfax and 36th & Hennepin, leaving few officers at the precinct headquarters. The precinct called for backup, but the group fled before more officers arrived, she said.

No arrests have been made in the incident, according to MPD spokesperson John Elder.

“This unlawful and senseless behavior will not be tolerated,” Police Chief Medaria Arrodondo said in a statement. “Acts such as these do absolutely nothing to constructively engage and activate true and real needed reforms.”

The Minnesota Police and Peace Officers Association said it “is tired of being nice and politically correct to people who destroy, burn and loot” in a Twitter post responding to the incident.

NOTED: Historical metal stop signs and

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FROM CHARTER COMMISSION / PAGE A1

7/6/20 12:26 PM

city’s leverage over the powerful police union.

Critics of the amendment have argued that it leaves questions about the future of public safety unanswered, that it would decrease mayoral power and that it would be a dangerous change at a time of heightened violent crime and flagging police morale.

But the council voted unanimously to place the amendment on the ballot, saying the decision should be left to voters.

Minneapolis residents largely disapprove of the MPD but have mixed views on decreasing the size of the force, according to a new poll conducted by the Star Tribune, KARE 11 and MPR. While 66% of residents have an unfavorable view of the department, the city is split on whether to decrease the size of the force; 44% oppose a reduction in force, while 40% support it. (The poll’s margin of error was 3.5%.) However, 73% of residents said the city should redirect some police funding to social services like violence prevention, drug treatment and mental health programs.

When the Charter Commission voted 10-5 to use the full 150 days allotted to it by state law to review the proposed amendment, instead of the minimum 60 days, it effectively prevented a vote on the issue this fall at a time when urgent change is sought by many residents.

How we got here

Minneapolis took longer than other large Minnesota cities to adopt a home rule charter. While St. Paul voters approved a charter in 1900, Minneapolis voters rejected adopting one that year and several attempts failed before the charter was adopted in 1920.

Since its adoption, major changes to the city’s constitution have been rare and contentious.

“It’s something people have been fighting over for more than 100 years,” said Michael Lansing, an associate professor of history at Augsburg College.

Most voters don’t pay any attention to the Charter Commission, he said, but the body is essentially a standing constitutional convention. The commission itself doesn’t have much power — its recommendations are nonbinding — but it does have the ability to delay.

“In some ways the Charter Commission doesn’t matter, but in other ways it matters greatly,” Lansing said.

The unique structure of the police department within the city charter today emerged from a mid-20th century political battle, according to Lansing, who is researching a piece about the MPD and the charter for Minnesota History magazine. The police union of the 1950s, led by Carl Johnson, became more adept at city politics. At the time SEE CHARTER COMMISSION / PAGE A15

southwestjournal.com / August 20–September 2, 2020 A7

Why racism was declared a public heath crisis

By Andrew Hazzard / ahazzard@swjournal.com

When Minneapolis Health Commissioner Gretchen Musicant looks at geographical concentrations of poverty, violence and high infant mortality in the city, something becomes clear right away.

“It’s the same map,” she said.

All of those health issues are rooted in Minneapolis’ history of racist housing covenants and redlining that pushed Black residents and other communities of color into concentrated pockets of the city.

Now, in the wake of George Floyd’s death and with the coronavirus pandemic disproportionately impacting people of color, Minneapolis and Hennepin County have officially voted to declare racism a public health emergency.

“I think it’s an important statement in these times,” Musicant said. “My hope is that it’s more than that as well.”

Nationwide studies have connected racism to inequitable health outcomes for diseases including cancer, diabetes, hypertension and coronary heart disease, according to the city’s declaration.

In Minneapolis, Black and Indigenous infants die at rates three to four times higher than white infants, according to a 2018 report by the health department. The city’s residents are more likely to be hospitalized for asthma if they live in zip codes with more than 50% residents of color and with more than 40% of residents below the poverty line, according to a separate 2018 report. Hennepin County’s Black residents, only 12% of the population, made up 43% of residents diagnosed with HIV in 2016. Native Americans in the county are dying of opioids at a rate 10 times higher than the average resident.

Public health officials have tied race to health for several years, but the push for governments to declare racism as a pressing public health issue began in 2019 in the cities and counties around Pittsburgh and Milwaukee. Since Floyd was killed by a Minneapolis police officer on Memorial Day, several other cities, counties and some entire states, including Wisconsin and Michigan, have followed suit.

Dr. Michele Allen, an associate professor at the University of Minnesota Medical School and director of the Health Disparities Research Program, said she sees the impacts of racism in the structural determinants of health. Longstanding social and economic inequities make it so Black, Latino and other populations of color have less access to health care and are more likely to have to make tough decisions about spending for health care.

Not only does race factor into the level of access Americans have to health care, it also impacts the way people are treated when they do see a physician. There is an “irrefutable” amount of data documenting that doctors treat people differently based on race, Allen said.

COVID-19 “really highlights the intersection of social determinants and historical health issues that make people more vulnerable,” Allen said.

Black and Latino people are more likely to work the jobs deemed “essential” that require

George Floyd would still be breathing right now if it weren’t for racism.

— Council Vice President Andrea Jenkins

close proximity with others, and they are more likely to live in housing where it’s more difficult to socially distance, she said. Historical factors like lack of quality food access in many communities of color have led to higher rates of the underlying conditions that exacerbate COVID-19, like diabetes and obesity.

“George Floyd would still be breathing right now if it weren’t for racism,” Council Vice President Andrea Jenkins (Ward 8) said.

Systemic racism has been a defining characteristic of the United States before the nation even existed, Jenkins said, and if people aren’t working against it, they can become complicit. Built-in inequalities must be fought against, she said, and naming racism as a public health crisis begins to address some of those underlying issues found in America’s criminal justice, education and housing systems.

The resolution approved by the Minneapolis City Council calls on the body to recognize “the severe impact of racism on the well-being of residents and the city overall” and to commit funding and staff to work to repair harm done to impacted communities. It calls for investments in housing, community infrastructure and small-business development for Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC). It also calls for creating a sustainable source for funding for youth development programming, an area in which Musicant said has seen a decline in investment since the early 2000s.

Hennepin County’s resolution directs the entity to advocate policies to improve health outcomes for BIPOC residents and gives county staff three months to create a timeline to improve service delivery for people of color and to assess internal policies to improve health outcomes in those communities.

“Ultimately this resolution is about the health and well-being of Hennepin County residents who have borne the brunt of racial discrimination and racial inequity through various different systems,” Commissioner Angela Conley (District 4) said.

Allen said the combination of COVID-19 and the death of George Floyd has created a unique opportunity to raise awareness about these discrepancies and have more white people receptive to and exhibiting understanding of the concept. Naming racism as a public health emergency raises the issue to a level at which people think about acute responses and look for long-term solutions, Allen says. She hopes it will keep the issue off the back burner.

By making racism a public health issue, more data can be brought in to identify and try to address the longstanding inequities in our society, Musicant said. The resolution reminds her of when the city declared violence a public health crisis in the mid2000s, and she believes it will give the city an opportunity to look at a wide array of factors.

Minneapolis last completed a report on racial disparities in 2018. Musicant is hopeful that new data from the 2020 census will help update the health department’s understanding of where those discrepancies are most felt today.

Jenkins is glad that the county has also made the declaration but said it is critical for the state to get involved as well, because the issue doesn’t end at city or county lines. The Minnesota House passed a resolution naming racism as a public health crisis statewide, but it ultimately failed in the Senate. Only Olmsted County has joined Minneapolis and Hennepin County in making such a declaration in Minnesota.

“We have to be coordinated in this,” Jenkins said.

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A8 August 20–September 2, 2020 / southwestjournal.com

PUBLISHER Janis Hall

Churches navigate in-person opening

jhall@swjournal.com

By Becca Most

CO-PUBLISHER & SALES MANAGER Terry Gahan tgahan@swjournal.com

EDITOR Zac Farber 612-436-4391 zfarber@swjournal.com

STAFF WRITERS Nate Gotlieb ngotlieb@swjournal.com

Andrew Hazzard ahazzard@swjournal.com

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Stacie Nielsen Bortel Michelle Bruch Sheila Regan Carla Waldemar

EDITORIAL INTERN Becca Most

For Arden Haug, a pastor at Lake of the Isles Lutheran Church in Kenwood, the past couple of months have been a “spiritual challenge.”

Before March he had no recording equipment, no camera and nothing that would have allowed the church to transition to virtual worship, especially within the span of a week. Now, five months later, the church has been getting creative with its weekly sessions and has started allowing some in-person worship.

Although the shift to virtual worship has been difficult for most congregations in Southwest, navigating the return to in-person services has been even harder. From worship watch parties to camping trips to not meeting in person at all, different faith groups have taken different approaches.

Justin Schroeder, a minister at First Universalist church in South Uptown, said after a month-long deliberation, the congregation has chosen not to hold any in-person events for the foreseeable future.

The decision comes, in part, out of the church’s anti-racist work and the fact that people of color are disproportionately impacted by COVID-19, Schroeder said. With the number of COVID cases high statewide, he said the last thing he wants to happen is for a community member to contract the virus at a church gathering.

“Rather than just thinking about this as a short-term thing to endure, [we’re] really recognizing that this is going to be here for a while and we need to build new practices of how we connect with one another,” Schroeder said. “Our faith is strong enough to survive in a new way with a new set of practices.”

Nearly half of the parishioners at Lake of the Isles Lutheran Church said they weren’t comfortable resuming in-person worship in a July survey.

Photo by Becca Most

Under the governor’s order, indoor event spaces are limited to 25% capacity, with a maximum of 250 people. An exception is made for faith communities, which are also capped at 250 people but can operate at up to 50% capacity. The 250-person limit holds for all outdoor gatherings. All organizations must have a COVID-19 preparedness plan and congregants must wear masks indoors.

At the beginning of July, Haug surveyed his congregation at Lake of the Isles Lutheran Church about their comfort level with in-person reopening. Nearly half said they weren’t comfortable meeting in-person.

The church has continued holding virtual worship services while opening up to members who want to pray inside individually, although

they have to register for a time in advance.

In August the church started allowing 40 people to sit in on the weekly recorded worship service, which is 25% of the congregation’s capacity. Although they have to remain socially distanced and masked, Haug said, the opportunity to recognize someone’s eyes and sit in a familiar pew has been welcome.

“Every congregation has to find its safe way to nurture people again, and there is no onesize-fits-all [approach],” he said. “The most important thing is that we have to find a way to live with the coronavirus.”

Other congregations have opted for outdoor events, like Zoom worship watching parties or

SEE CHURCHES / PAGE A10

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By Nate Gotlieb / ngotlieb@swjournal.com

The resumption of a traditional letter-grading scale in Minneapolis Public Schools, announced Aug. 5, has generally been welcomed by families and teachers, who are preparing to start the school year in online classes.

When classes start on Sept. 8, students in grades 6-12 will be evaluated on an A-F scale, though high school students on pace for Fs will be given the chance to recover credits through virtual programming.

While traditional grades were scrapped in the spring to provide flexibility to students, teachers still used the A-F scale to evaluate students’ progress, said Justice Page Middle School science teacher Tracey Schultz. (Schultz was a teacher at Clara Barton Open School last year.)

She welcomed a return to the traditional grading scale, adding that grades can be motivating for some students and that families typically have a

better understanding of such systems.

“Anything we can do as normal should be [normal],” she said, adding that it will be critical to make accommodations, such as being lenient about late work.

Roosevelt High School sophomore Fernando Velazquez said he doesn’t think there should be a grading system this year.

“It’s unfair to people who put in a lot of effort,” he said. “Anyone could get a good grade right now.”

School Board member Ira Jourdain (Southwest) said a lot of colleges look at students’ letter grades when making admissions decisions.

He said the district is better suited this year to support online learning because it has more support in place for students who receive special education services and more flexibility for teachers to provide one-on-one support. Still, he said he SEE GRADE SCALES / PAGE A13

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southwestjournal.com / August 20–September 2, 2020 A9

Voices

Postal box stolen in East Isles On the tree-lined corner of 24th & Girard, there used to be a postal drop-off box.

Today all that remains of the blue collection box are two metal legs, neatly cut with a saw by two thieves who stole the mailbox the afternoon of Sunday, Aug. 9.

The theft happened in the middle of the afternoon, according to MPR News.

Jocelyn Frank, an East Isles resident, told MPR she saw two men cut the box from the sidewalk, toss it in the back of a van and drive away.

The United States Postal Service is investigating the incident, according to spokesperson Nicole Hill. The USPS does plan to replace the box swiftly, she said, but there is no official timeline.

Postal Inspector Rachel Williams said that the stealing of a blue collection box “is a rare occurrence and not often attempted.”

— Andrew Hazzard

A blue USPS collection box was cut away and stolen from the corner of 24th & Girard in East Isles Aug. 9.

Photo by Andrew Hazzard

Why ‘Bde’ is important As businesses and community organizations have moved quickly in recent weeks to remove “Calhoun” from their names, some may be thinking about a name that connects with Bde Maka Ska. It has always been the water that has drawn people to the area — centuries of Indigenous people and then, in the last 200 years, predominately white people.

It’s important for those entities that may be considering referencing Bde Maka Ska in their new name to be mindful that any use of Dakota language should be done respectfully. This means consultation with Dakota speakers, who should be compensated for their services.

Having served on the committee reviewing the name of the former East Calhoun neighborhood, we faced the question of whether “East Bde Maka Ska” or “East Maka Ska” would be more appropriate. Fortunately, a committee member had connections to the Dakota community so we could hear their counsel. With their perspectives in mind, we determined that “East Bde Maka Ska” was the more appropriate way to reference the lake in a potential new neighborhood name. (After decades of referencing the lake in the neighborhood name, the neighborhood ultimately voted for a name that did not reference the lake.)

Joe Bendickson, a Dakota speaker, talked about the importance of including “Bde” in an interview on TPT’s “Almanac” that aired May 17, 2017. The interviewer asked about shortening the name to “Lake Maka Ska” since “bde” translates to “lake,” and Bendickson replied, “The Dakota language is very descriptive. When you say the words, you are describing a scene. … The Dakota language

describes the landscape, so I think it’s important we preserve the whole name.”

To assume that “Bde Maka Ska” would follow the same place name norms as English would be to Anglicize the Dakota language.

Removing “Calhoun” in organization names has been about recognition of the hurt and harm caused by John C. Calhoun to Black and Indigenous communities. Let’s ensure we are not inflicting new hurt and harm in the renaming process; instead, let’s elevate and honor the Dakota people and their language when using the lake name.

Ryan Brown ECCO

Please hire AIM In response to the recent rise in crime in Minneapolis, I encourage the city of Minneapolis to offer salaried leadership roles and jobs in “maintaining the peace” (and security) in Minneapolis to representatives and appointees of the American Indian Movement (AIM). AIM was founded in July 1968 in Minneapolis to address systemic issues of poverty and police brutality (against Native Americans). AIM did a laudable job of keeping the peace on East Franklin Avenue during the riots in May and June, saving untold tens of thousands (hundreds of thousands?) of wouldhave-been property damage. AIM should be rewarded for the courage, bravery and timeliness with which they spontaneously responded to these riots as they occurred, night after night, over about a two-week period. AIM knows how to “keep the peace” without resorting to police brutality. We are extremely fortunate to have these knowledgeable human resources called AIM in Minneapolis, and we should employ them for their wisdom and capability going forward.

Karen Lunde Linden Hills

Justice delayed All Minneapolitans deserve to have a say in what safety in our community looks like. On Aug. 5, the Charter Commission voted to keep the amendment to remove the Minneapolis Police Department from our city charter off the ballot. The people of Minneapolis have been demanding new approaches to public safety, and it is imperative that we work together to get this done.

In “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote that when the white moderate says “wait,” it almost always means “never.” The Charter Commission said “wait,” but we must make sure that this doesn’t mean “never.” As a white teacher in Minneapolis, I have seen many fellow white progressive teachers talk about change but not take actions necessary to dismantle institutionalized racism in our schools. We cannot allow the same facade of change that perpetuates violence toward Black, Indigenous and people of color in our schools or from police.

Our City Council must take this time to authentically listen, especially to our Black leaders, as we work to ensure that this delay does not impede our ultimate goal of creating more just and equitable public safety systems driven by the vision of communities most impacted by injustice. We are ready for change and must come together to guarantee that we amend the charter in 2021 and create communitybased public safety solutions.

In his letter, Dr. King goes on to reiterate that “justice too long delayed is justice denied” and though justice has been delayed by the Charter Commission, we refuse to be denied.

Rachel Durkee Lyndale

A10 August 20–September 2, 2020 / southwestjournal.com

By Nate Gotlieb / ngotlieb@swjournal.com

County waste-reduction initiatives planned to learn specifically how to reduce food waste, and it will allow them to document and track the actions they take.

They also will be able to interact with other households participating in the challenge through an online message board, said Amy Maas, who is coordinating the initiative.

Hennepin County has held Zero Waste Challenges since 2016 and is adding the Food Waste Challenge to raise awareness about the issue, senior environmentalist Carolyn Collopy said.

According to the Natural Resources

Defense Council, up to 40% of food in America goes to waste, costing the average family of four $1,800 annually.

Food waste is the No. 1 contributor to U.S. landfills by weight, and it is responsible for at least 2.6% of the country’s annual greenhouse gas emissions.

“The environmental benefits of just preventing [food waste] in the first place are huge, because so much water and energy goes into growing and distributing and producing food,” Collopy said.

She said that participants in the Zero Waste

Challenge generally reduce their trash by about 30% and typically continue with wasteprevention measures once it’s complete.

The Food Waste Challenge will provide residents with online resources on reducing food waste. They’ll earn points for actions they take and will be able to see the collective impact that they and other participants are making through their efforts.

Registration for the Zero Waste Challenge will open Aug. 24, and registration for the Food Waste Challenge will open Aug. 28. More information is at tinyurl.com/hennepinzwc.

FROM CHURCHES / PAGE A8

such uncertain and challenging times.

“Human beings are meant to be in connection with one another,” she said. “Some people can be satisfied with remaining in their home and having virtual experiences, connections with people. But I do believe there are some people [for whom] that has not been healthy.”

Although members are encouraged to wear their masks when standing less than 6 feet apart, Peterson-Hilleque said it can be easy to forget as events go on. Although she said the church has been following CDC guidelines, the church plans to incorporate periodic announcements during events to remind people to keep wearing their masks and stay apart.

The church is organizing a September community camping trip in Waseca, where families will have a chance to participate in various activities like dancing, basketball

and swimming. Peterson-Hilleque said congregants will be allowed to participate in any activity they feel comfortable with.

Kumi Smith, an epidemiologist at the University of Minnesota, said dancing or engaging in other physical activities where people are in close contact could make transmission more likely. When doing these activities, masks are more likely to slip or have to be adjusted and heavier breathing expels more airborne particles.

But as a health official, Smith said, it’s hard to ask citizens to take more precautions than they’re being asked to by government officials.

Evaluating whether to meet others in person comes down to weighing risk, she said. State guidance that limits indoor gatherings to 10 people or fewer in private homes is frankly arbitrary, she said. Most important is the

number of close contacts each person has.

“It’s not really necessarily that there’s a magical number of the people you gather each time,” Smith said. “The recommendation is to keep the contacts consistent and to really, really try to reduce the number of unnecessary contacts outside of that pod.”

If people are not social distancing, or have many close contacts, it could just take one person to cause a superspreading event, she said. Education about the benefits of maskwearing, setting guidelines and anticipating potentially awkward social situations (like avoiding a hug) can help form good habits and maintain social adherence.

“Quarantine fatigue is real,” she said. “But I think that it’s going to become more important than ever as we move into the fall to really remind ourselves why we’re doing this.”

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camping trips. Victoria Peterson-Hilleque, a staff member of Solomon’s Porch church in Kingfield, said the congregation is trying to provide services that meet a variety of comfort levels. In addition to virtual services and online prayer meetings, members have hosted several backyard gatherings — and one indoor movie night — between June and August.

Eight people sat in a classroom eating pizza during the movie night, with social distancing maintained between family groups, PetersonHilleque said.

Peterson-Hilleque said the congregation has chosen to do these types of activities because its membership of under 50 parishioners is so small and tight-knit. She said it’s important to foster community, especially in

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Two Hennepin County initiatives launching in September aim to help households reduce waste and increase recycling.

A “Zero Waste Challenge” will provide up to 50 households with one-on-one support and teach lifestyle changes they can make to reduce waste.

Participating residents will track their waste for four weeks at the beginning and at the end of the eight-month challenge and will attend a workshop on reducing waste.

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southwestjournal.com / August 20–September 2, 2020 A11

Voices from the pandemic

Stories of coronavirus in Minneapolis How do you tell the story of what it’s like to live through a pandemic?

Throughout this crisis, the Southwest Journal is keeping in touch with a selection of local residents including a schoolteacher and a Whittier resident who recently stopped receiving her $600 unemployment payment.

All interviews are edited for length and clarity.

Reporting for the stories in this issue is by Nate Gotlieb and Zac Farber.

Tracey Schultz, science teacher, Justice Page Middle School

“Sometimes I wonder about our assumptions.”

FRIDAY, AUG. 7 I really wanted to be back.

That doesn’t mean that everyone should be back. There are some families for whom going back is not going to be right or safe, and safety and health are absolutely the No. 1 priority.

And there are also some teachers who, for safety and health reasons, cannot come back.

I wasn’t optimistic, but I was somewhat hopeful we could figure out a way that folks who needed to be at home could be at home and people who wanted to be at school could.

As someone who doesn’t have young kids at home and doesn’t have any underlying health conditions, I feel like at this point in my life, I’m somebody who can be back sooner with maybe less personal protective equipment during some of that trial-and-error period.

I do think it’s possible to get kids to wear masks and social distance. We don’t give kids enough credit. Oftentimes kids do things so much better than adults if they know why.

And you know what, they want to be back in

school. They want to be with their friends.

Obviously, the risks of community spread are really high, but sometimes I wonder about our assumptions. Are there things that actually we could do at school that could reduce community spread? If we’re teaching kids, “This is what you need to do to be safe, and this is how to do it and here are some supplies to make sure that you can do that,” maybe there are actually ways that life outside of school gets safer for those kids. But at the same time, I want to stress that I also completely understand that there are kids and families and teachers who can’t do that right now and that we’ve got to figure that out, too.

Teaching remotely out of my classroom at Justice Page is one of my big hopes and dreams. [The district will allow teachers to work out of their school buildings if they choose.] First of all, it’s just really weird if your teacher is teaching you from their living room or their closet or whatever. For kids to see us in school, I think, makes it more school-like without a doubt. I also think that for a large majority of us, school is a safe place for us to work right now. I am more socially distanced in my classroom at Justice Page than I am practically anywhere else in my life.

We need to do everything we can to really communicate with folks. It’s always a big push to make sure that all families know when school is starting and how to enroll in school and find your school, and this year it’s just a whole different ballgame. We need to make sure everyone has a Chromebook and WiFi, not just now but forever. Let’s always make sure that kids have all the tools that they need to be successful at home and in the classroom.

Haley Paige, Whittier resident

“Now that the $600 ran out, I can’t get benefits.”

TUESDAY, AUG. 11 I’ve lived in Minneapolis for five years.

I’m a sex worker, I’m a stripper, and I’m in a weird situation where I hang out with the 1% while I’m at work, so I get to talk to people

who do not share the same political values as me and who are not socialists. Based on my interactions with a class that I would have no access to without my job, it makes me dig my feet in more that we need things to change.

I believe in things like the Green New Deal and think there should be big tax reformation in our entire country. The idea that making more money has any reflection on your character is complete bullshit. Rich people are not any better or worse than poor people — they just happen to come from a situation that was more stable. Sex work is one of the few jobs that if you’re really lucky and work hard and spend money on investing in your appearance and trying to meet physical beauty standards, then you can elevate your class, which isn’t an option in pretty much any other job.

I also DJ weddings and do artwork. I went to MCAD. I do a lot of odd jobs, and I’m kind of in the same position as a lot of people my age who are freelancers trying to make it in this market. We look at the world we live in and go, “I need government health care to survive. I need government to be able to cover the bills for things like education.”

I’m only a sex worker because I would never be able to pay my bills without it. I would never have been able to go to some place as expensive as MCAD without that. We demonize poor people even though they’re the people who are the backbone of the country.

I have a lot of student loans and am still in debt for it, but at the same time I was going to school with kids who didn’t have a job until their senior year of college, whose parents were paying for everything.

No one likes to think they’re privileged, but it’s hard not to see it when you meet people who have less than you. Growing up I thought I was a lot more privileged than I actually was because Waterloo, Iowa, was a place that was kind of ravaged by deindustrialization in the ‘80s due to Reagan’s policies and union busting, and a lot of jobs that specifically held up the working class have completely vanished. There is no big railroad industry there for people to rely on anymore.

Everyone hopes to get a job at John Deere because that gives you access to different benefits and stability, but those jobs are slowly disappearing and being replaced by fast food jobs, working at a convenience store, being a stripper — things that people deem as lesser.

I’ve seen firsthand what happens when a town is kind of forgotten: It leads to excessively high crime and unemployment rates and the town becomes a dangerous, toxic place for working class and minority people to live.

I had an “I’ve got to get out of this town”

thing, and I came here to go to MCAD. I was originally really into painting and portraits and had never worked with oil paint before, which was definitely a learning curve. I didn’t feel like I was making thoughtful work with my painting and it wasn’t conceptual whatsoever, so I took a leap of faith in taking film classes.

I dropped out my senior year of MCAD because I couldn’t justify spending more money.

If the school wasn’t so expensive, I would have graduated and it would have been fantastic.

Most of my post-school work has been in the gallery scene with performance and installation — a lot of stuff I do is experimental video-based projects. I’ve made professional artwork about being a sex worker. When the pandemic hit, I was getting ready for my first big show at the Weisman through a feminist strip club, but we found out that wouldn’t be happening anymore.

The pandemic has been a f—-ing nightmare. Aside from the fear of homelessness at the beginning — we were like, “Are we going to get evicted because we don’t have jobs?” — I have a disability, I have ADHD, so I rely on an exterior structure in my life. That’s impossible when everything shuts down. Plus, I had to go two months without my medication because my doctor’s office canceled my appointments at the beginning of quarantine.

Working in the wedding industry and strip clubs, we got totally shut down immediately as things started to get really bad here. The government is mishandling it to the point where I really don’t feel safe going back to work. My bosses [at Downtown Cabaret] can do some of what they can do but at the end of the day, we’re strippers so we’re supposed to be in bikinis basically breaking all social distance rules. And there’s nothing we can really do about it, except for hope that our customers will respect those boundaries.

I haven’t gone back to work yet, but I’ll be going back this week. I have some regulars messaging me and I’m like, “Hey, I kind of need money.” They got rid of the aid that was really, really helpful. The unemployment benefits I got through my DJ job were the entire reason I was able to not work. I was only approved for $77 a week, and the $600 figure was added on top of that. Now that the $600 ran out, I can’t get benefits.

It’s frustrating because there are many businesses handing out masks to people but because it’s been so politicized — and because the Trump administration thought the virus would hurt Democratic voters — people don’t wear them. I think Americans focus too much on the individual and not enough on making sure everyone’s needs are met.

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Twin Lake

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A12 August 20–September 2, 2020 / southwestjournal.com 52

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FROM PRIMARY / PAGE A1

In state Senate District 62, which includes most Southwest neighborhoods along I-94, 30-year-old Omar Fateh defeated incumbent Sen. Jeff Hayden 54.9% to 45.1%.

Hayden, a leader in the DFL Senate caucus, has been in the Legislature since 2009, but Fateh won the DFL endorsement in May. It was his second run for state office, after an unsuccessful run for the House in 2018.

Fateh, a University of Minnesota business analyst and the son of Somali immigrants, campaigned to Hayden’s left as a democratic Crystal Lake

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Because the Minneapolis area leans so heavily Democratic, Omar, Fateh and Agbaje are all virtual locks to win in the general election.

Minneapolis had record turnout for a primary election this year, with 130,888 votes cast, including 85,217 before election day. In District 62 alone, nearly four times as many people cast ballots in the state Senate race as did in 2016, when Hayden faced a less viable primary opponent.

Both Fateh and Agbaje’s campaigns focused on issues of housing, police reform, climate and education.

Hamline University political science professor David Schultz said he was more surprised by Hayden’s defeat than by that of Dehn, who narrowly withstood a primary challenge in 2018.

He said Hayden and Dehn might have been overconfident about their election prospects as

socialist seeking a single-payer health care system, free college and a guarantee of housing as a universal right.

In House District 59B, Esther Agbaje narrowly upset four-term Rep. Raymond Dehn. Agbaje won 48.2% to Dehn’s 41.7%.

Agbaje had also won the DFL endorsement in the district, which includes Bryn Mawr, Downtown and parts of North Minneapolis.

Agbaje, 35, a Harvard-educated medical malpractice lawyer and daughter of Nigerian immigrants, ran on a platform of housing, environmental justice, public safety reform and transit.

She said her campaign focused on meeting and building relationships with voters, by going into communities that don’t usually have contact with candidates for socially distanced meetings and events.

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No. of votes

% of votes

No. of votes

% of votes

23,475

58.1%

103,535

58.2%

16,147

40.0%

68,524

38.5%

405

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2,721

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177,948

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ROOFING

they began shaping their campaigns and that their lack of DFL endorsements likely hurt them.

“They were just basically outgunned in terms of the resources that they needed to win,” Schultz said.

Hayden said he felt criticism that he wasn’t sufficiently progressive was unfair.

“I’m the guy who’s sitting in the room fighting my tail off for people of color and urban neighborhoods,” he said.

Voter reaction

In a 5th District race that appeared to be a referendum on Omar’s first term in office, her admirers said her dedication to progressive politics merited her a second term, despite controversy over payments to her husband’s consulting firm, comments about the state of Israel that some have labeled as anti-Semitic and other political miscues.

Graphic designer Ivan Nuñez, who voted at Whittier Park, said he voted for Omar because he wanted to “stay with someone I know well, while wanting her to do better.” (Nuñez, a Venezuelan immigrant, said her campaign dodged his questions about whether she opposes the regime of autocratic President Nicolás Maduro.)

Haley Paige, another Whittier resident, said she voted for Omar because the country needs more women of color in office and because she appreciates Omar’s support of policies like the Green New Deal and raising taxes on the rich.

“Donald Trump likes to say she’s spending too much time being a celebrity, but she’s only in the public eye as much as she is because she is signaled out for being a woman of color and people are uncomfortable with the fact that she covers up her head,” she said.

Jay Botten said he voted for Melton-Meaux, though he was not sure whether Melton-Meaux would better serve him in Congress.

“Really we have to have a real representative who’s actually legislating and interested in doing things for the district besides talking,” he said.

Schultz said that Omar’s incumbency and SEE PRIMARY / PAGE A13

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effective social and digital media presences were key to her victory, adding that MeltonMeaux lacked a robust social media presence and made minimal efforts to phone bank.

Melton-Meaux was criticized during the campaign for his lack of prior experience in public service, for a job he had at a law firm with a union-busting reputation and for the fact that a number of large donors to his campaign also donated to Republican candidates.

What’s next

Uptown resident Antone Melton-Meaux concedes to 5th District Rep. Ilhan Omar on Aug. 11 in the parking lot of his Whittier campaign headquarters. Photo by Andrew Hazzard

Winning DFL candidates said their main goal now is maximizing voter turnout and assisting other campaigns in the general election, with Minnesota being viewed as a potential swing state in the presidential race and DFLer Tina Smith running for re-election in the U.S. Senate.

Republican Lacy Johnson, who won a threeway race in the 5th District GOP primary with 76.6% of votes cast, and Legal Marijuana Now party candidate Michael Moore will face Omar in the general election.

Each Southwest Minneapolis-area state legislator will also face a Republican challenger. A candidate from the Green Party is running in District 59B against Agbaje and Republican Alan Shilepsky.

District 62 Republican candidate Bruce

Lundeen said that while he’s expecting limited resources from the state GOP party, Fateh will be easier to campaign against than Hayden, given his more progressive stances.

“Jeff and I are probably not that far off in a lot of ways,” Lundeen said, describing himself as more liberal than “upstate Republicans.”

“I like to call myself an ‘urban Republican,’” he said.

He said he recognized that his odds are impossibly long but is hoping Minneapolis’ push to defund its police department

FROM GRADE SCALES / PAGE A8

College apps

worries about teacher and staff burnout.

“They’re being asked to do a lot more with a lot less,” he said.

Teachers will be conducting virtual lessons in real-time, the district has said, though specific requirements about when and how much students will be expected to be online haven’t been announced. (Last spring, students were not expected to attend real-time classes.)

School Board student representative Nathaniel Genene, a senior at Washburn High School, said he’s hoping for a more regimented schedule this school year.

He said a lot of students are worried about college applications, asking how they’ll be able to receive letters of recommendation without being face to face with teachers. Genene’s first application is due Sept. 19.

Washburn senior Vincent Gladbach, who is on the Millers’ football team, said he thinks

Omar Fateh gives an election-night victory speech to supporters and campaign staff inside an adult day care center in Seward. Photo by Isaiah Rustad

and the hesitancy to reopen schools for in-person learning nationwide will attract people to his campaign.

Voters in Southwest Minneapolis will also decide on three School Board races in the general election, two of which just had their fields set in competitive primaries.

DFL-endorsed candidate Kim Ellison earned the most votes in the at-large race and will face the second-leading vote-getter,

Michael Dueñes. Christa Mims, also endorsed by the DFL, earned the most in the District 4 race and will face Adriana Cerrillo.

Ellison and Dueñes finished ahead of three other candidates — Lynne Crockett, Doug Mann and William Awe — in the at-large race.

In the District 4 race, Ken Shain was eliminated after finishing third.

online school will be better this fall because teachers will be prepared, though he’s not necessarily excited about it.

He said it was disappointing when the Minnesota State High School League announced it would be delaying the football season until 2021, but the team will keep practicing and lifting weights.

As teachers get ready to return to work the week of Aug. 24, the school district is collecting supplies to be distributed to students at in-person welcome activities.

Michelle Kellogg of the district’s external relations department said the district hopes to distribute 15,000 supply kits, adding that headphones are a hot commodity this year, with families looking to maintain quiet home-learning environments.

Zac Farber contributed reporting to this story.

The school year for students in grades 1-12 will begin on Sept. 8. Visit the district website (mpls. k12.mn.us) for more information on back-toschool programming.

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A14 August 20–September 2, 2020 / southwestjournal.com FROM CRACKED APARTMENT / PAGE A1

Council President Lisa Bender (Ward 10), who represents the area, said that while she is saddened and angered at the loss of naturally occurring affordable housing, the city has no legal avenue to make the owner repair the building. She said the wrecking permit, which is currently being processed, cannot be denied on subjective grounds.

“It’s so unbelievably frustrating,” she said.

The building’s current owner, Randolph Street Realty Capital, purchased the building in March after settling a lawsuit filed by the previous owner, Michael Feddersen.

At the time of the cracking, Randolph Street was doing excavation work on a project immediately to the east of 2003 Aldrich — razing the Theatre Garage and Steeple People sites on Lyndale Avenue to make way for the 111-unit Pure Lowry apartment complex that’s opening to tenants this September.

Feddersen’s lawsuit alleged that Randolph Street’s subcontractors negligently installed soil nails, soldier piles and something called “rammed aggregate piers,” leading to an over-excavation of the soil and a “cave-in deep below the surface” of 2003 Aldrich. Soil conditions are poor in the area, which was once the site of a 40-foot deep swimming hole, “Lake Blaisdell,” that was filled in the late 19th century as the city’s population grew.

The result of the cave-in, the suit claimed, was that the site “settle[d] abruptly” in July and August of 2018, causing pipes to leak, doors to stop working, aluminum windows to bow and twist and walls both inside and outside the building to crack.

On Oct. 12, 2018, the city gave residents three days to vacate. While all buildings move and have some cracks, Ken Staloch, a city building official, told the Southwest Journal that he’d never seen a building move to the degree that residents needed to leave.

A handful of the tenants had to go to emergency homeless shelters, according to consultant Monica Nilsson. She said the property management company moved tenants who could afford it into units in other buildings.

“They were more expensive and smaller, but people were desperate,” she said.

The 2003 Aldrich apartment, built in 1923, had needed some interior and exterior repairs, patching and brick tuckpointing before 2018, but a report that Feddersen commissioned from the forensic engineering firm Wiss, Janney, Elstner Associates found that were it not for the damage from the project, 2003 Aldrich “would have continued operating as normal into the foreseeable future.”

Randolph Street hired its own forensic engineering firm, Encompass, which concluded that its client’s activities were “the primary cause of the recent movement of the 2003 Aldrich structure.” (Encompass’ report found that rain sliding off 2003 Aldrich’s roof and into the soil over the past decade was also a “significant contributing factor.”)

Randolph Street and Feddersen reached a confidential settlement in February, and Feddersen sold 2003 Aldrich to Randolph Street for $525,000 in March — significantly less than the $3 million Feddersen paid for the property in May 2017. Feddersen and Randolph Street principal Jonathan Saliterman have declined to comment for this story, and it’s unclear whether the sale was a term of the settlement. Feddersen reached a confidential settlement with his insurance company, Midwest Family Mutual Insurance, the same month he settled with Randolph Street.

During litigation, both Feddersen and Randolph Street commissioned independent estimates of the cost of repairing the building, but those estimates are not included in public court documents. Feddersen’s lawsuit places the cost of damage at over $50,000.

The owner of the soon-to-be-completed Pure Lowry apartment complex (left) at Franklin & Lyndale settled a lawsuit for damaging the affordable apartment building at 2003 Aldrich Ave. (right) during 2018 excavation work on Pure Lowry’s site. The city shut down 2003 Aldrich after cracks large enough to see through floors appeared in the facade. Photo by Isaiah Rustad

Before it was vacated, rents at 2003 Aldrich were $799-$1,099, according to apartment listings.

Randolph Street has preliminary plans to replace the nearly century-old, four-story brick building with a five-story, 47-unit market-rate apartment that includes ground-floor retail and 14 parking spaces.

At a Lowry Hill East Neighborhood Association (LHENA) committee meeting on Aug. 12, board president Alicia Gibson vowed that neighbors would fight the proposal tooth and nail.

“We are in an affordable housing crisis, and there were people made homeless by this,” she said. “Developers need to know that if they pull a stunt like this in our neighborhood, there’s going to be hell to pay.”

Andrew Hazzard contributed reporting to this story.

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LHENA wants time to determine whether it’s possible to repair 2003 Aldrich and is looking to wage a public pressure campaign against demolition. Gibson said city leaders need to use their power to stop the destruction of naturally occurring affordable housing.

“Our city’s elected officials should be held accountable for saying bye-bye to affordable housing,” she said.

Saliterman has told LHENA staff that his firm plans to demolish 2003 Aldrich by mid-September.

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southwestjournal.com / August 20–September 2, 2020 A15 FROM CHARTER COMMISSION / PAGE A6

the union did not have collective bargaining power and fought for an ordinance that set police wages at 85% of the maximum salaries of the largest trade unions in Minneapolis. The ordinance, approved in 1954, was seen as a big win for the police union and helped structure the union’s relationship with members of the City Council, Lansing said.

In 1960, a proposed charter amendment would have changed Minneapolis from a weak-mayor government to a strongmayor government. The police union feared a strong-mayor system would limit its bargaining power and the influence it could exert on individual council members, Lansing said, and organized labor in general opposed the amendment, which failed.

In the 1961 election, the police union maximized its power. Feeling undercompensated and overworked, members backed a charter amendment that established the staffing ratio requirements that exist today (1.7 officers per 1,000 residents). That year, Lansing said, the union had its members actively support all incumbent council members. With the support of labor unions, the City Council and the mayor, the charter amendment won easily.

The victory led the union to want more, Lansing said, and in 1962 it pushed for another charter amendment that would have boosted police wages to match the maximum salary of the largest trade union. The Charter Commission rejected this amendment, but it made its way onto the ballot, where it was soundly defeated by voters.

The political power of the union faded over the ’60s during the civil rights movement but rose again in the late 20th century, Lansing said. Today, the union, led by Lt. Bob Kroll, who spoke onstage at a 2019 Donald Trump campaign rally, has more power over the rank and file than the police chief, he said.

He thinks changing the public safety system in Minneapolis will be a multi-year process.

“Any system or structure that can be made by people can be unmade by people,” Lansing said.

Role of the commission

Many have criticized the body as an unelected group that trends older, whiter and wealthier than the city as a whole. The 15-member commission has just three members of color.

Members predominantly reside in South and Southwest Minneapolis, according to data compiled by the Minnesota Daily.

“People in Minneapolis have been in the streets for months demanding change, only to hear from the Charter Commission that there haven’t been enough studies and consultants,” said Sophia Benrud of activist group Black Visions Collective. “When white supremacy is the law of the land, it is a luxury to say we need ‘more time’ before we can make change. Every single voter should have had the chance to vote on this amendment in 2020. This should have been our decision, not the Charter Commission’s.”

The Charter Commission heard hundreds of public comments on the amendment before its decision and received more than 5,000 written comments. Most comments made in hearings called for the body to let residents vote in November.

For those upset by the commission’s decision, there’s little immediate recourse.

Commissioners can only be recalled by the chief judge of Hennepin County District Court or by an amendment to the state constitution. Commissioner terms last four years, and current terms don’t expire until 2022 and 2023.

The day of the vote, the Charter Commission debated its own role in city government.

“I don’t think we’ve come to a consensus as a commission of what our job is,” vice chair Jan Sandberg said.

When considering a charter change, the commission can vote to recommend approving, rejecting or proposing an alternative amendment.

Commissioners supporting the delay

said there is additional legal review and public engagement needed on the amendment. Those opposed to taking more time largely disagreed with the amendment, but thought the commission was outside its role to keep it off the ballot this year.

“I’m concerned this motion will be viewed by our residents and council as a delay tactic,” Commissioner Toni Newborn said.

Commissioner Andrew Kozak, who voted to use the additional 90 days, said the body should use its delay to safeguard against poor amendments.

Charter Commission Chair Barry Clegg said the body knows it is unelected but has a job to do under state law. Part of its role is to decide if a charter change is well-considered and that he believes the council’s amendment was not.

“Charter changes should be discussed for months, not hours,” Clegg said.

Commissioner Al Giraud-Isaacson, who proposed a failed amendment that would have eliminated police staffing requirements in the charter, said the commission had enough time to make a recommendation or propose alternatives. He said he would recommend rejecting the amendment, but thought the body was outside its role if it sought to improve the proposal.

“This should be going to the ballot in November and the ultimate decider and safeguarders should be the people and voters of Minneapolis,” Giraud-Isaacson said.

Council reaction

Council Vice President Andrea Jenkins (Ward 8) said she believes voters should decide the issue and the council will continue to try to engage residents on the issue.

“It doesn’t deter us — we’re going to move on that path,” Jenkins said.

People in Minneapolis are fed up with the government system set up by its founders, Jenkins said. But the Charter Commission, she said, serves as a de facto judicial branch in that system and has a role to play.

While many have said they fear delaying a vote to a nonpresidential election year in 2021 will lead to lower turnout, Jenkins believes there will be substantial interest in municipal elections next year — when City Council seats are on the ballot — and that residents will want to participate.

Many commissioner comments indicated disagreement and skepticism with the substance of the amendment, which Bender believes is outside the body’s purview.

“I think it’s really too bad and there was a clear outcry from the community to have a chance to vote on this,” Bender said.

The 2020 election will likely have record voter turnout, she said, and putting it on the ballot this year would have been a good gauge of how people feel about making a large change.

Bender thinks it’s likely there will be a signature campaign to put a similar amendment on the ballot. A civilian petition to amend the charter must garner 5% of the total votes cast in the city in the last state general election, which would mean at least 10,356 signatures.

It’s good that people are paying attention to the commission, which will soon be redrawing ward lines after the 2020 census results, she said.

Council Member Linea Palmisano (Ward 13) said that while she’s not sure what the Charter Commission will do with its additional 90 days, she does think there is a benefit to aligning the likely vote on the amendment with the yearlong engagement process the City Council approved to learn more about what residents want in public safety.

“I think it’s good that we have a whole year more to hammer out something that people can say yes to,” she said.

Palmisano voted with her colleagues to put the question on the ballot because she felt residents deserve to decide the future of public safety, but feels there are improvements needed to the amendment. She sees the Charter Commission’s role as ensuring the City Council thinks through all angles of a change and didn’t see the move as a pocket veto or as the commission overstepping its bounds.

“Ordinances are things that can change all the time; our charter really shouldn’t,” she said.

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Southwest Journal August 20–September 2, 2020

Where the Wildlings are Linden Hills-based nonprofit runs storytelling workshops for middle schoolers

By Stacie Nielsen Bortel

Photos by Martin Rittenberry

A

dults have few reasons to remember their middle school years — some may even actively choose to forget them. So when Megan Kaplan, founder of the nonprofit The Wildling, asked a roomful of adults at a late 2019 Story Jam to close their eyes and picture themselves as adolescents, it was met with nervous laughter.

“I want you to think about that person at that age,” she said. “Maybe you were feeling a little uncomfortable in your own skin. Maybe things were tumultuous.

Maybe you weren’t sure where to turn and who to turn to.”

Kaplan then asked everyone to imagine a different type of middle school experience.

“Imagine a pair of hands at your back holding you there,” she continued. “Feel that. Feel that in this room. This is what we’ve taught these Wildlings, to have each other’s backs no matter what.”

The mood in the room shifted from nervous to surprised, perhaps because feeling like someone has your back is not a common middle school experience. That, according to Kaplan, is why she started The Wildling, a nonprofit organization that facilitates storytelling workshops for middle schoolers.

During the pandemic, the group has moved its curriculum to Google Classroom, but the mission is the same. To Kaplan, who started the The Wildling out of her Linden Hills home in 2018, it is a lifeline she wishes she had as a middle schooler.

SEE THE WILDLING / PAGE B4

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B2 August 20–September 2, 2020 / southwestjournal.com

Pistol packin’ Jamie

By Carla Waldemar

G

rand Café has been in the top tier of my dream-dining destinations ever since wunder-chef Jamie Malone stepped in to marry her kitchen talent with her hospitality gene: the combo it takes to get guests returning as well as critics gushing. So, as soon as I learned that she’d been tapped to create a new take-out menu concept for Downtown’s Eastside, life under COVID looked a whole lot brighter. I couldn’t wait.

Well, perhaps she should have. A few rehearsals might have worked out the kinks, which start in the cumbersome online-only ordering process. One cannot order via phone, as I’ve been doing during the reign of the virus, so that I can ask a few questions about the menu; in fact, one cannot even phone there before 3 p.m. or one is soundly chastised. Nor can one walk up to the window backing the sidewalk tables and place your bet. No online order, no food.

And no bread, although a boule is listed on the menu anyway ($8, not available).

The concept has been dubbed La Pistola (“the pistol” — don’t get me started), and its menu focuses on Southern seafood and ham, as in Louisiana. As in Spain. (Oh, there’s a pair of burgers — beef, mushroom — if you really must.) Southern beverages, too, ranging from bubbly cava, tempranillo and sherry to Red Stripe and lemonade.

LA PISTOLA |

Consider this prime picnic fare. Your take-away bag even supplies a handy list of nearby parks (Gold Medal, Stone Arch, etc.) if you cannot wait to hit the Chain of Lakes. And if you order the crawfish boil (two pounds for $38, geared to serve four polite, or two serious, eaters), you’ll find a brown paper “tablecloth” to unfold, plastic surgical gloves for the fastidious to use to peel the little varmints and those embarrassing bibs you get whenever you go to a lobster joint. Paper dishes and plastic cutlery are included, too.

The crawfish — dozens of them, maybe three inches long with a slender inch of tail meat to prize out (and a wisp in the itty-bitty claws for the truly dedicated) — emerge from a spicy and modestly hot Old Bay-type brine, bits of onion clinging to their shells. They’re joined by a few rounds of meaty, mild-flavored andouille sausage, several flaky new potatoes and a few inchplus lengths of broiled corn on the cob. A pair of too-tiny lemon wedges and a couple of tablespoons of a lovely, lemony mayo are terrific, if insufficient, additions. A dolly’s bottle of Tabasco completes the assortment.

It’s a pretty accurate reconstruction of a small-town experience in the bayou, where elbows meet newspapers on a picnic table. Did I mention that bread would have been nice?

305 Washington Ave. S.

|

The best-seller, however, (I was told at the pick-up window) is the single serving of almost half a lobster, Thermidor-style, with fries and Alabama white sauce ($28).

I personally was underwhelmed and wouldn’t order it twice (nor does it represent value for money). A drive-in-type paper basket is loaded with shoestring fries — tender and fresh but so overly, enthusiastically, through-and-through salty that after two or three, I quit.

On top rests half a lobster shell filled with chopped bits of steamed flesh, not particularly sweet nor memorable, all visited by a light, slightly sharp and creamy white sauce.

A dollop of that lovely, lemony mayo and another of ketchup are included on the side.

The menu also offers white anchovies and hand-sliced Mangalitsa or Iberian ham — served (it says) with sourdough bread.

Dessert, too: a lemon-blueberry icebox cake to serve two ($8). Macerated berries and blueberry jam mold graham cracker crumbs into a “cake,” topped with a lovely sheen of satiny, lemon-infused mascarpone. A delicious update on a blast from the past.

By the way, I simply spied a take-away bag waiting on the sidewalk counter, grabbed it with, “That’s mine,” and walked off — no identification asked for or offered.

Just sayin’…

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southwestjournal.com / August 20–September 2, 2020 B3

Dateline Minneapolis

By Steve Brandt

I-35W bridge’s artistry evokes what the freeway gouged

W

hen it came to designing the artistic elements of the new pedestrian bridge over Interstate 35W at East 40th Street, Seitu Jones didn’t have to be taught what the freeway destroyed.

“I grew up around freeway construction, and freeway disruption as well,” said Jones, who was raised within blocks of the rebuilt bridge.

The original bridge to span the freeway at 40th Street was built in the 1960s. It was far narrower than current standards require for a foot/bike bridge. Chain-link fence curved inward at the top, imparting claustrophobia.

The new bridge is part of MnDOT’s 35W@94 project. The project grew out of a push by Lake Street area interests for better access to and from the freeway. But it’s now grown far beyond that with bridge and ramp rebuilds, the reweaving of lanes and stormwater work.

The replacement footbridge is far wider, with an airy open-top feel. The artistic contributions from Jones are financed by state road aid money that supplemented the city’s public arts project budget.

Although the new bridge opened to the public last October, the final artistic touches designed by Jones are just being added to the foot and bike span.

There are open-hand bronze medallions on four pilasters at the bridge’s ends. There are Adinkra symbols inspired by West African culture in the middle. And most noticeably — both to drivers on the freeway below and to people crossing the bridge — Jones has created subtle shadings with the bridge railings. They ghost an image of the houses and trees that once lined the erased block between Stevens and 2nd avenues before the freeway trench was gouged.

The freeway’s route also consumed part of what was then Nicollet Field and is now Martin Luther King Jr. Park. Like many such road projects nationally, it segregated the historically Black Central and Bryant neighborhoods from mostly white Kingfield to the west. The Black business district around 38th & 4th withered.

In the process of soliciting community input for the bridge design, Jones said he found that “these tensions still exist.” But one recurring theme from people was that the new bridge could serve as a new connection. The bronze hands are meant to convey a welcome. They’re cast at the nearby Chicago Avenue Fire Arts Center. The Adinkra symbols with two alligators sharing one stomach are meant to convey unity and give an Afrocentric touch.

CROSSWORD PUZZLE

The bridge railings pay homage to the houses and trees demolished to make way for Interstate 35W. Photo by Steve Brandt

incorporated bike lanes, and also curb bumpouts before they were widely incorporated into city road design. That element of roadway design evolution is shown by the proposed design for reconstruction of Grand Avenue South. It includes bumpouts at an intersection where city engineers once feared they’d hamper truck and bus turns.

It also includes chicanes, a more serpentine type of lane shift intended to slow traffic.

Replacing the old footbridge was on our long-term list but we kept being told that MnDOT had no plans to replace it. That was the case up until the city’s Department of Public Works negotiated with the state to include it. The result is a much more intriguing crossing with the overlay of history and tradition that Jones created.

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17 Rental vehicles for self-moving 19 “Pleasantly” chubby 20 President after Madison 21 Mother-of-pearl sources 23 Has title to 25 __ standstill 26 Tea biscuit 29 Designed for comfort and efficiency 35 Guffaw syllable 36 Pirate in “Hook” 38 U.S. state with the lowest average annual rainfall 39 Horse known for its endurance 41 Wed 43 Not fer 44 Wisdom teeth, e.g.

46 Fabled loch 48 Stooge Howard 49 Rainy day protectors 51 Casual conversations 53 Contend (for) 54 Bro of van Gogh 56 Dedicatee of an annual MLB tribute game 61 Snare 65 Lion’s warnings 66 Lost-one’s-place words often preceded by the two-letter

Jones recalled executing many sketches before settling on his design. “My biggest challenge was transferring this sketch into an actual image,” he said.

His partner in that was Kevin Swehla, an engineer and vice president at SRF, the design and engineering firm for the I-35W project.

Swehla’s job was to ensure that the concept from Jones could be executed with the standard materials and coatings used by MnDOT for metal bridge railings, while also making sure the railing withstood expected loading.

“Behind the scenes, developing this design at a technical level was really complex,” said Mary Altman, the city’s public arts administrator.

The design used vertical palings of varying widths to subtly convey the rooftops and foliage that Jones envisioned. Safety considerations dictated that the railings be vertical rather than climbable horizontal ones. Also for safety reasons, gaps between the palings were limited to four inches.

Most MnDOT pedestrian bridges feature concrete bases and metal fences of uniform height, but Jones was able to vary the height from the bridgeheads to the center, a small deviation from the standard pedestrian bridge. “This is a foot in the door for MnDOT and the feds,” Jones said. He hopes to open that window wider in the future.

For me, the pedestrian bridge replacement is a final punctuation mark on a project I began 25 years ago. That’s when I conceived the first 10 blocks in Kingfield of what became the RiverLake Greenway. Credit should also go to Kingfield’s Steve Jevning, who labored with me, and Sarah LinnesRobinson, the long-time staffer who keeps the neighborhood association running.

The Kingfield section built in 2001

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Legacy Mental Health SWJ 062520 H12.indd 2

start of 17-, 29- and 49-Across 68 Lake craft 69 Bubbly-textured Nestlé chocolate bar 70 Muscle pain 71 Change for the better 72 Tall tale 73 Classic Jaguars

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9 Double-winged WWI aircraft 10 Norway’s capital 11 Leave slack-jawed 12 Arrive 13 “Sorry, my mistake” 18 The Home Depot competitor 22 Shows contrition 24 Noticed 26 Former SeaWorld star 27 Off-the-cushion billiards shot 28 Dental care brand 30 Spanish queen 31 Caesar’s eggs 32 Molten rock 33 Meathead 34 Curved-top candy shapes 37 Mosque visitor

40 Saloon 42 Exam 45 Made changes in 47 Play division 50 Wiggle room 52 Hair-removal substance 55 White wader

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e l a S a t o s e n n i M

56 26-Down, for one 57 Rich soil 58 “Great” dog breed 59 Suffix with Jumbo 60 Flightless bird 62 __ of lamb 63 Tennis great Arthur 64 Crusty desserts 67 Goof up Crossword answers on page B4

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B4 August 20–September 2, 2020 / southwestjournal.com FROM THE WILDLING / PAGE B1

“I was inspired to bring the live storytelling experience to middle schoolers because this is an age when they stop speaking. They fear rejection, yet they long to be heard,” she said.

In normal times, each workshop contained get-to-know-you activities, writing prompts, graphic story organizers and mini-lessons on topics like how to hook your audience at the start of a story. Workshops would culminate in a live performance, called the Story Jam, where participants (called Wildlings) shared a story they focused on during workshop sessions.

Families and friends were invited to attend.

Things have shifted during the pandemic to an online curriculum. The kids still join together to tell their stories, but now it’s done virtually through the Wildling’s YouTube and Instagram channels. A remotelearning program, which they call Distance Jam, will hopefully be launched this fall at local middle schools.

But whether in person or online, what makes The Wildling special hasn’t changed: Unlike in a classroom or a writing workshop, the focus isn’t on the end result — critiquing a performance or an essay — but on the process

of finding your story, having the courage to tell it and then listening to others do the same.

“Our curriculum encourages kids to explore their own personal narrative and ‘point of view stories,’ investigate why it is valuable to tell them and explore ways to communicate and listen to one another intentionally and effectively,” explained Mekea Duffy, co-director of The Wildling.

The only rules for what stories can be told are simply that they are true and they are valuable to the speaker. There is no grading, no critical feedback and no competition. At The Wilding, everyone is there to listen.

Listening and feeling heard is especially profound for this age group because many are facing an issue the American Psychological Association (APA) has termed “middle school malaise.”

Middle school malaise is the insecurity, fear and self-consciousness that intensifies as students transition from elementary school to middle school. Everything about life starts to change, and change can bring anxiety and depression.

Middle school malaise is becoming more common, and depression and anxiety are rising among middle schoolers and teens. In

Having fun is an important part of the Wildling experience. Photo by Parker Johnson

fact, suicide is the second-highest cause of death in children ages 12-18. In the face of such a serious issue, storytelling may seem like a naive solution. It isn’t.

The APA believes a supportive peer environment, often maintained with adult help, is the most important factor. The Wilding creates such an environment.

In addition to mini-lessons, every session includes activities that give participants a chance to voice their opinions and practice listening to each other. For participants like Oliver, they were the highlight of each session. “My favorite was ‘pass the mic,’ where we got to hear everyone else’s perspectives on things,” he said.

Having a variety of perspectives in each session is something The Wildling focuses on. “We intentionally gather kids from different neighborhoods, backgrounds and schools to encourage a celebration of what makes us unique AND what we have in common,” Duffy explained. Scholarships are available to make sure cost isn’t a prohibitor.

Every workshop session ends with a ministory jam that’s just for the participants. Each person has the opportunity to share and be heard, and every story is met with applause and congratulations.

Feedback from participants and their families shows The Wildling is having a positive impact.

Marice, a Wildling participant, is happy with his experience. “It was a great opportunity,” he reflected. “I’m more talkative and open, not as shy.”

Another Wildling participant, Graham, agreed. “I thought that it was a good expression of everyone’s identities. It brought out the potential in us,” he said.

And to Wildling participant Ava, the environment was special. “The Wildling is an amazing place where everyone is welcome and feels safe to speak their mind and not be judged,” she said, confirming that The Wildling is creating the kind of environment the APA recommends for combating middle school malaise.

At the start of one pre-pandemic Story Jam, the adults in the room were asked to imagine what middle school might have been like if

Wildlings have turned to Instagram and other social media platforms to tell their stories during the pandemic.

someone had their back. A few moments later, as each middle schooler told their story, they saw it in action.

The stories they told ranged from humorous — finding out you have lice at summer camp — to serious, addressing racial prejudice and gender identity issues.

But whether the stories were about paintball or the death of a grandparent, a universal truth was in each one: We all want to know we’re not alone.

Middle school may still be stressful, but where the Wildlings are there is truth. There is trust. There is hope that our future generations will know how to listen to each other.

COVID CONFIDENTIAL

By Stewart Huntington

CROSSWORD ANSWERS

Crossword on page B3

Castle Building SWJ 082020 V12.indd 1

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Crossword Answers SWJ 082020 V12.indd 1

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southwestjournal.com / August 20–September 2, 2020 B5

Community Calendar.

By Sheila Regan

Staying in

Normally the end of August and the beginning of September is when we all head to the State Fair. Sadly, that ain’t happening this year, and the drive-through food parade sold out immediately. While we grieve, here are a few other options for getting out or staying in while being connected as the summer comes to its close.

VIRTUAL SOUND FOR SILENTS The Walker Art Center is taking its annual hillside film and music festival to your screen with Virtual Sound for Silents. Get a taste of experimental films paired with new scores created by local sound artists like Beatrix*Jar, Lady Midnight, Dameun Maurice Strange and more.

When: Aug. 20-Sept. 8 Where: Walker website Cost: Free Info: tinyurl.com/sound-4-silents

Getting out SOCIAL DISTANCE SIDEWALK CONCERTS Bring a mask and a chair and get prepared to sit with social distance as you enjoy local musicians in an event put together by the Everett & Charlie gallery in Linden Hills. Find a spot in the patio at Harriet Brasserie (with a reservation) or head over to Everett & Charlie to enjoy the experience. You might as well take advantage of the warm summer days to get some art and culture because let’s be real here — this is going to be a long winter without indoor performance experiences.

When: 6-8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday through September Where: Everett & Charlie, 2720 W. 43rd St. Cost: Free Info: everettandcharlie.com

BLACK FUTURES WITH OUR BLACK SISTERS SHINE A LIGHT

For the latest Black Table Arts virtual event, Keno Evol brings in Black male artists to talk about Black feminist futures in the context of Black Lives Matter.

Evol is joined by the multi-talented Joe Davis and Antonio Duke for the discussion.

Designers from the Jungle Theater and Catalyst Arts will be adding some luminous art to Lake & Lyndale for this event aimed at lifting spirits. Among the designers are folks who had been contracted to work in the Jungle’s 2019/20 season. They include Sarah Bahr, Chelsea M. Warren, Mina Kinukawa, Michael Murnane, Karin Olson and Bayou from Catalyst Arts. During the day, take a peek at the large lobby windows installations. Then at night, you’ll be able to see the projected designs on the north side of the building.

Of course, be mindful of social distancing.

When: Projections on view 9-11 p.m. Aug. 20-31 Where: The Jungle Theater, 2951 Lyndale Ave. S.

When: 6-7 p.m. Friday, Aug. 28 Where: Zoom Cost: Free Info: tinyurl.com/futures-sisters

Cost: Free Info: jungletheater.org

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