Southwest Journal Sept. 17-30

Robbery pattern persists in Southwest PAGE A6 • School district’s child care workers want hazard pay back PAGE A8

Vol. 31, No. 19 September 17–30, 2020 southwestjournal.com

INSIDE TACO CONVERSION

Back to online class Distance learning still frustrating despite improvements

Hector Ruiz turns Don Raúl into a taqueria A4

TASTY TENDERS

Chicken tenders are what’s on the menu at Uptown takeout window A4

GRAND AVE REDESIGN

Added safety features, changes to parking A7

VOICES FROM THE PANDEMIC

Stories from local residents A11

N R U T E R OF T H E

By Nate Gotlieb

The first day of kindergarten in Tami Tripp’s class at Burroughs Community School was full of stories, show-and-tell and nervous energy — with each student learning in their own home.

“It’s so fun to see your smiles, friends,” Tripp told the students via Google Meet. “You’re going to have an amazing day.”

Public school students in Southwest Minneapolis — forced into remote learning because of COVID-19 — experienced a first week of school like no other.

Teachers, parents and students said there were some technology issues and that distance learning has been more challenging for the youngest learners, some of whom need constant supervision to complete their schoolwork.

While they said it has been a smoother transition than in the spring, they’re eager for students to return to in-person classes and are prepared to make changes to the distancelearning program as issues arise.

“We just have to be ready to make shifts,” said Holly Kleppe, principal of the pre-K-8 Jefferson Community School in Lowry Hill East. “We put our best thinking forward in a schedule [and] ways to serve the students, and we just have to be really good listeners now to see how we’re implementing and what we can do better.”

Learning the technology

Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) waited until Gov. Tim Walz’s announcement that schools could chart their own path before deciding to return to distance learning in the fall. (The teachers union and other district workers had advocated for the remote start.)

But district leaders also vowed that distance

First opened in 1927, the theater has sat empty for nearly a decade Amy Reher is a partner in the team that’s restored the 1920s-era Granada Theater in Uptown. The theater was previously known as Suburban World. Photo by Isaiah Rustad

By Andrew Hazzard

Starry skies have returned to Hennepin Avenue.

The Granada Theater, formerly known as Suburban World, has been restored to its former glory. The theater’s ornately appointed auditorium — featuring gilded statuary, elaborate colonnades and a vaulted ceiling painted to look like the twinkling night sky — is once again ready to host revelers, even if big shows are out of the picture for a while.

The theater opened its restaurant on Aug. 15 and is beginning to schedule smaller, socially distanced shows for its new stage. After years without occupants, a lengthy historical restoration and months of delay due to the pandemic, the 1920s structure is back.

“Just seeing the response from people felt really good,” said Amy Reher, a partner in the project.

SEE BACK TO CLASS / PAGE A14

Building TRUST

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After 50 years, Tangletown church coalition is still asking, ‘What’s the need, and how can we help?’

Market is still hot in Southwest B1

A ROOM OF ONE’S OWN

Boardinghouses, apartment hotels provided affordable housing in decades past B3

SEE GRANADA THEATER / PAGE A15

By Michelle Bruch

“Everyone has to examine, has to do a deep dive and discern: How can I be an agent of change?” says the Rev. Toya Richards, the new executive director of TRUST, a coalition of South Minneapolis churches marking its 50th anniversary. Photo by Isaiah Rustad

Throughout a 30-year career in journalism and communications, the Rev. Toya Richards documented people of faith tackling challenges around the world. She wrote about a Congolese pastor braving death threats to promote peace in 2013. She wrote about church groups restoring water service in Lebanon following a cease-fire in 2006. She directed a 2017 documentary about migrants from Central America seeking asylum and the interfaith groups trying to help them.

Now it’s her turn to be the changemaker in the news.

Richards is the new executive director of TRUST Inc., a nonprofit coalition of 20 South Minneapolis churches from SEE TRUST / PAGE A5

A2 September 17–30, 2020 / southwestjournal.com

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Simply Jane/ArtAble, a nonprofit all-abilities art studio, is leaving its Diamond Lake home in late October. Photos by Andrew Hazzard

Jane Elias has spent the last decade creating a soothing, inspirational environment at her art therapy studio at 54th & Nicollet, but now she finds herself looking for a new canvas to cover.

Simply Jane/ArtAble will be moving out of its Diamond Lake neighborhood home at the end of October, Elias said. The building’s owner wants the space back and Elias cannot renew her lease. Leaving the studio’s home of 10 years is unfortunate, she said, but Elias trusts that she can manufacture a suitable home wherever the real estate hunt takes her.

“I’m not attached to physical things because I can always recreate something,” she said.

A muralist by trade, Elias founded Simply Jane/ArtAble in 2007 at 48th & Nicollet as a drop-in painting studio that served clients of all abilities, working with many organizations that serve people with disabilities. In 2012, she converted the business to a nonprofit. Today it serves people with and without disabilities and each year reaches about 10,000 artists through partner organizations, parties, summer camps, after-school programs and drop-in painting sessions. Most of what she does is art therapy.

Elias is highly sensitive to her environment, and sought to create a studio with natural light, bright surfaces and a soothing atmosphere. Flowers, butterflies and peace signs line the floors and walls.

While she’s unsure where the studio will go next, she has no plans to stop and would like to remain in the area.

“I would love to stay in Southwest Minneapolis; it’s a great community and it’s very accessible,” said Elias, who lives in Linden Hills.

People in the community have been very kind, she said. Heartfelt, an arts and crafts store in Linden Hills, has offered her some temporary space if needed. Ultimately, she’d like to buy her own space for the new location.

The pandemic has altered operations for Simply Jane/ArtAble. It has to do some of its

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Jane Elias founded the studio in 2007 and converted it into a nonprofit in 2012.

regular painting classes via Zoom, and typical Paint Pizza Parties, where individuals of varying abilities gather for food and art, have been postponed. But all of the 13 weeks of summer camp were full this year, Elias said, taking advantage of the 2,300-square-foot studio and large outdoor space. She’s continued to host birthday parties and is beginning socially distanced afterschool programming.

For now, Elias is selling most of the furniture and gear at the studio in a large moving sale. Chairs, desks, tables, paint shirts and brushes are all available. Wherever she ends up, it’ll be a new beginning.

“I’m just going to start over,” she said.

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A4 September 17–30, 2020 / southwestjournal.com

FULTON

Don Raúl to become taqueria El Travieso Southwest Minneapolis chef and restaurateur Hector Ruiz knows the local culinary market well and has a sense of when to adapt.

So, with the coronavirus pandemic raging on and the restaurant scene struggling to maintain itself, he’s changing course on his latest project at 50th & Xerxes. Don Raúl, which opened last April serving upscale international cuisine rooted in traditional Mexican flavors, has closed. But Ruiz isn’t done with the Fulton location and is opening a new taqueria, El Travieso, in its place.

Don Raúl was great, Ruiz said, but the current pandemic conditions, with people out of work and earning less money, mean there’s less demand for fine-dining experiences.

“It’s not about fine dining right now; it’s more about comfort food, great food,” he said.

Comfort food will be on the menu at El Travieso. Simple, traditional tacos such as barbacoa, braised adobo pork and octopus topped with onion, cilantro and fresh salsa made in-house. Quesadillas and Honduranstyle tamales (made with banana leaves instead of corn husks) will also be available, and Ruiz plans to build from there.

The new restaurant will also have takehome-and-heat family meals for customers.

While Don Raúl was named for his grandfather, El Travieso, which roughly translates troublemaker in Spanish, was inspired by his late son.

“He was all about living life to the fullest,” Ruiz said.

The space at 50th & Xerxes is getting a new look to go with the new restaurant.

Ruiz said he has hired a local artist to do some murals and the walls have been given a new coat of bright green paint.

The goal is to be open by the end of September.

Ruiz, who also operates popular Southwest spots Café Eña, La Fresca and Rincón 38,

El Travieso taqueria will open in the former Don Raúl space at 50th & Xerxes with chef Hector Ruiz seeking a more casual restaurant featuring comfort food at the Fulton location. Photo by Andrew Hazzard

said his other locations did well this summer between takeout and patio dining, but now he is trying to prepare for colder months with fewer outdoor options for customers amid the pandemic. Other than Café Eña, all of his restaurants are making some tweaks to better fit the pandemic times.

Ruiz has also closed his Northeast eatery, Costa Blanca Bistro, and said he is working on a new concept for that space as well.

— Andrew Hazzard

El Travieso Where: 4953 Xerxes Ave. S.

UPTOWN

Peck-ish? New chicken restaurant CHX out

CHX owners Frederick Huballa, Shawn Edwards and Marques Johnson. Photo by Becca Most

Serving out of a sliding window on the side of the Pourhouse in Uptown, a new chicken place called CHX is putting its own spin on fast casual dining. The menu is simple: fresh chicken tenders, crinkle cut fries, CHX sauce and a homemade buttermilk biscuit. (Fresh lemonade or limeade is optional.)

Operating out of a section of the Pourhouse’s kitchen, owners Frederick Huballa, Shawn Edwards and Marques Johnson said

they wanted to create a restaurant centered on local ingredients and made-to-order fast food.

The team plans to cater to the nightlife crowd of Uptown, while also appealing to locals who prefer takeout to in-person dining.

Initially scheduled to open the week George Floyd was killed, the owners postponed until late July. Over the course of three months, the friends finalized menu items and tested out the SEE CHX / PAGE A5

southwestjournal.com / September 17–30, 2020 A5 FROM CHX / PAGE A4

perfect chicken recipe through a painstaking process of trial and error.

Before officially opening Aug. 8, they built hype and gauged consumer reaction by handing out free chicken to passersby.

“We probably gave out maybe a thousand tenders,” Huballa said with a laugh.

Edwards said the community’s response has been incredible, and they normally see around 170-200 customers per day. Johnson said sometimes the line outside snakes around the block.

“I would go out of my way just to get their biscuits,” said Paul Backer, the executive culinary director at the Pourhouse.

Growing up in the Twin Cities has made this experience even more exciting for the CHX team, Huballa said. The group of friends have been walking down Lagoon Avenue together since high school, and he said it’s surreal to see their hard work pay off.

FROM TRUST / PAGE A1

nine denominations that pool resources to support work they couldn’t do on their own.

“All the work that I do is about justice. It all intersects,” Richards said. “It’s all about bringing light to the dark spaces of the world.”

Based in Tangletown, TRUST is marking its 50th anniversary and reimagining how to operate in a pandemic. Staff and volunteers are delivering frozen meals every week, starting a buddy system to check in with people living alone and relaunching an in-person grief group this fall.

“The beauty of TRUST, which is why they came together, is the congregations realized they were stronger together,” Richards said.

50 years of help

Former TRUST executive director Nancy Biele was a founder of the Sexual Violence Center and a state violence prevention planner. She was looking for a quieter position when she answered a newspaper job ad to become TRUST’s director, a position she held for 19 years.

“We were the good deed doers,” she said.

“What’s the need, and how can we help?”

When TRUST was founded in 1970, residents were concerned about the construction of I-35W after seeing the impact of I-94 dividing the Rondo neighborhood, Biele said.

“Everything they were afraid of happening did,” she said. “There was a racial barrier set, which also meant there was an economic barrier. We had churches on both sides.”

Realizing some residents didn’t have access to food, eight churches banded together and asked a nursing home to make a few extra meals, three years before the formal Meals on Wheels program existed and TRUST

A CHX chicken tender basket.

Photo by Zac Farber

“We used to buy food out of the same window,” Huballa said. “We never even imagined that we’d be behind that window.”

— Becca Most

CHX Where: 2923 Girard Ave. S. Info: project-chx-llc.square.site

took on its local operation. The coalition also started the city’s first daycare for sick children, designed for women who couldn’t afford to take a day off when their kids were ill.

A mental health clinic operated at Judson Church until 2010. When Mayflower Church faced opposition to an affordable housing partnership at 54th & Stevens, the TRUST board mobilized in support of the project.

Today, volunteers build affordable housing and help the homebound buy groceries or hire people for lawn care. The parish nurse is currently preparing flu shot clinics.

During the last recession, some ministers worried that half the calls they received were from people asking for financial aid, and they didn’t have any money set aside for them. Bethlehem Lutheran and Judson Baptist created Starfish Network to vet requests for aid.

“After the first week of the month, the money’s gone, because there is so much need out there,” Biele said.

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In TRUST’s annual survey, 43% of respondents said Meals on Wheels is often the only food they eat each day, and 46% said the delivery volunteer is often the only person they see each day.

“If anything, COVID has shown us that older people living alone in their homes — there’s a lot of need out there. Sometimes it’s communication and contact, and it’s not necessarily food all the time,” said Diane Hansen, TRUST’s board president. “There are a lot of people alone in their house that don’t have other people around.”

That’s why TRUST’s South Minneapolis Coalition for Grief Support will resume in SEE TRUST / PAGE A15

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A6 September 17–30, 2020 / southwestjournal.com

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Marni Allyson had parked her car in Uptown the afternoon of Sept. 6 and was about to begin her shift as a stylist at the Fox Den Salon at Lake & Fremont when two teenagers jumped out of an unmarked black SUV — punching, kicking and throwing her to the ground before taking her backpack and keys. Left with bruises, cuts and scraped elbows, she checked on her car and discovered it had been stolen.

“It’s absolutely insane to me that they felt bold enough that they could do this at 2:30 on a Sunday,” Allyson said. “The fact that they did this and got away with it absolutely blows my mind.”

A half hour later that afternoon, just after Gabriel Evaska dropped off his girlfriend — a coworker of Allyson’s — at the salon, Evaska said two cars full of seven or eight teens and young adults pulled up alongside his Jeep on Fremont Avenue. He heard the sound of a gun cocking and someone say, “Take his car.” Evaska drove a block in reverse before his pursuers pinned him into a parking space. When one of the young men began to exit his vehicle, Evaska said he accelerated his Jeep and made an escape.

“I wasn’t one of those people who was going to let it go,” Evaska said.

The two incidents follow a brazen pattern of robberies and carjackings in Southwest Minneapolis’ 5th Precinct that police say appears to be stretching into the fall and continues to be focused on the Wedge and Whittier neighborhoods. The 5th Precinct is also facing trends of burglaries and nighttime gun violence, assaults and drag racing, police say.

Violent crime totals in the 5th Precinct dipped in early August after police announced arrests related to the robbery spree but rose again in late August and early September.

Robbers in stolen vehicles have been approaching people on sidewalks or in parking lots, often using physical force, or implying they have weapons, and targeting purses, cell phones and cars. Robberies in the 5th Precinct were up 86% between Memorial Day and Labor Day this year compared with the same period last year, and non-domestic aggravated assaults were up 39%. Many of the suspects are teens and children as young as 12 and 13, and police have made more than a dozen arrests so far.

Many factors have been named in the rise in violent crime this summer.

The pandemic has increased economic hardship, closed down schools and youth programming and added to social stressors.

And as adult and juvenile detention facilities seek to limit exposure to COVID-19, some people with felony warrants have been released at the time of booking, according to 5th Precinct Inspector Amelia Huffman.

“There are young people who are gaming the system knowing they are going to be immediately released,” Council Member Phillipe Cunningham (Ward 4) said.

George Floyd’s May 25 killing by a Minneapolis police officer has decreased trust in law enforcement, which research has linked to citizens seeing violence as more acceptable.

And the unrest following Floyd’s death may have helped create an atmosphere where rule breakers are less afraid of repercussions.

At the same time, staffing levels in the 5th Precinct are down a little over 20%, with the Minneapolis Police Department (MPD) seeing a wave of resignations, early retirements, officers out temporarily on quarantine and permanent disability claims due to PTSD. Some City Council members say their constituents are reporting purposeful slowdowns. “Officers on the street are telling them that they are not enforcing crime,” Council President Lisa Bender (Ward 10) told Police Chief Medaria Arradondo during a Sept.

15 study session. “Perhaps they think they are making the case for more resources for the department. In my ward, it is having the

opposite effect. It is making people even more frustrated with the department.”

Arradondo responded that this was “troubling to hear” and that he would follow up with his command staff.

Huffman said the 5th Precinct is meeting a minimum target of eight officers on each shift, with two shifts overlapping during the busiest 9 p.m.-2 a.m. hours. In November 2019, Huffman told a Whittier Alliance committee that most shifts in the 5th Precinct were staffed by nine or 10 officers, including one officer working the desk.

“It’s harder for us to keep up on a busy day with the volume of incoming 911 calls,” she told the Cedar-Isles-Dean Neighborhood Association on Sept. 9. (Since Memorial Day, the MPD has denied at least five requests to interview Huffman from the Southwest Journal, though she provided information through a spokesperson on one occasion. Huffman answered some questions that the paper asked during the meeting.)

Between Memorial Day and the end of August, police stops responding to 911 calls were down 29% in the 5th Precinct, though responses to violent incidents were up in the city from 2019. Other police stops in the precinct, including stops for traffic violations and to detain pedestrians and drivers suspected of crimes, were down 73%.

In addition to patrols, the MPD is working to counter crime trends in the 5th Precinct through partnerships with the Uptown Association, owners of late-night bars and restaurants and street outreach groups like MAD DADS and A Mother’s Love, Arradondo said.

In an effort to stop retaliatory violence among gangs and groups, the city’s Office of Violence Prevention is deploying five teams of street outreach workers under a model called “Cure Violence.” One team will be detailed to the full Lake Street corridor “within the next several weeks,” a city spokesperson said in early September, while another will work exclusively in Uptown on Friday and Saturday nights.

On Sept. 8, two days after Allyson and Evaska were mugged, the Fox Den Salon held a meeting to discuss staff safety. Workers are thinking about self-defense techniques, planning to walk in and out of the store in groups and lobbying for more police cameras in the neighborhood.

Sica Dawn, the salon’s owner, said the community’s distrust of the MPD means it’s important to learn strategies beyond “pulling that 911 trigger over and over again,” but that in instances of violent assault, there’s currently no other option.

“We need to turn it over to the police sometimes,” Dawn said. “[But] there’s so much animosity, and it’s really hard for people who have ethical and moral obligations to their Black and brown peers.”

Allyson is still processing what happened to her.

She said she doesn’t think the city necessarily needs more police officers and that the root causes of violence should be addressed through more social services, economic relief and community-based solutions — though she’s not quite sure what that should look like.

She’s frustrated with her experiences with the MPD — that the officer she talked to didn’t seem to believe her at first, that her follow-up calls to the station went unanswered and that she only found her car at an impound lot with the help of social media. (A request for the police report for the incident was not fulfilled as of press time.)

For her assailants, she wants them to get help with “whatever caused them to feel like they had to do these things.”

And for the public?

“I want people to know how actually serious this is,” she said.

Michelle Bruch contributed reporting to this story.

southwestjournal.com / September 17–30, 2020 A7

Grand Avenue design approved; reconstruction to begin in spring

Team Larry Trusted for Twenty Years

By Andrew Hazzard / ahazzard@swjournal.com

The City Council has signed off on a design to reconstruct more than two miles of Grand Avenue south of Lake Street — adding new safety features and concentrating parking near commercial hubs.

Grand Avenue will be reconstructed between Lake and 48th streets beginning in spring 2021 in a project that will replace 60-year-old pavement, improve the pedestrian realm and add new safety features like chicanes — midblock pinch points and curves designed to slow drivers down.

“What we’ve heard is that people support the elements that enhance the pedestrian experience,” project planner Dan Edgerton said.

The reconstruction will cost about $16 million. The city plans to pay for it with state aid, bonds and assessments on property owners who live on the road.

The design, approved by the City Council in August, will maintain two-way vehicle traffic on Grand Avenue.

The final design includes 35 more parking spaces than existed in a concept presented in January that had drawn concern from local business groups.

The future Grand Avenue will primarily consist of two design patterns: one with a 54-foot right-of-way and street parking on a single side of the street and the other with a 60-foot right-of-way and parking on both sides of the street. North of 39th Street, the project will largely follow the 60-foot model, with parking on both sides of the street. South of 39th Street, parking will alternate sides block-by-block but will be extended to both sides of the street at business nodes at 46th and 48th streets.

Both design patterns will include 12 feet of sidewalk and boulevard space on each side of the street, as well as larger bump-outs at intersections, intended to slow drivers and give pedestrians a shorter crossing district.

Most blocks will incorporate a chicane,

Locally Owned, Community Focused The reconstruction of Grand Avenue will include new safety features, like chicanes, intended to slow drivers. Submitted image

essentially a mid-block patch of green jutting out from the boulevard to narrow vehicle space and slow traffic.

Enhanced medians with features like raised crosswalks and flashing beacons will be added at 43rd Street, which is part of the city’s planned “All Ages and Abilities” bike network, and 33rd Street, near Lyndale School.

Transit stations along Grand will be consolidated, Edgerton said. The design calls for eliminating stops at 32nd, 36th, 41st and 47th streets.

There will be no protected bike path added along Grand Avenue for the project; however, the design calls for a two-block protected trail running along 31st Street West from Pleasant Avenue to Grand Avenue and one block north from 31st Street to Lake Street. The goal is to allow cyclists using the Pleasant Avenue bike lane to access a traffic light when crossing Lake Street, Edgerton said.

The city estimates that over 3,400 people live within a block of the road segment and that between 1,150 and 2,100 people drive it each day. About 330 people walk the sidewalks, 80 bike it and 550 board buses on it daily, according to city estimates.

Man shot in Lowry Hill East is back on his feet

By Zac Farber / zfarber@swjournal.com

A 27-year-old man is back on his feet after being shot in the side on Aug. 15 at 27th & Colfax. The reason for the shooting is unclear.

The man called 911 for help around 9:30 p.m. as he ran more than four blocks to the TruStone Financial credit union on Lyndale Avenue, where police found him sitting up in the parking lot.

A single bullet had entered and exited his body on the right side. A police officer cleaned his wound with a towel and applied a chest seal before paramedics took him to Hennepin County Medical Center.

The bullet went through the man’s “love handle” and did not damage his internal organs, his father said, and he was released the evening of the shooting. Police initially considered the man to be a suspect in the shooting, so his clothes were taken into evidence and he had to walk back in his hospital robes to the Downtown homeless shelter where he is staying.

“It was very scary,” the man’s father said in an interview. “He had messaged me and just said

he got shot in the ribs — and your ribs are your lungs and your heart — and then I couldn’t reach him after that [for about an hour].”

The man told police the shooting was random, but his lack of detail in answering basic questions about the night provides some justification for doubt. Police spokesperson John Elder declined to comment on whether investigators believe the man was shot by a stranger.

Witnesses said they heard three gunshots and then saw two men in a black Dodge Charger drive west on 27th Street and then south on Dupont Avenue. Police found shell casings at 27th & Colfax.

Police have closed the case “pending further evidence or further cooperation from the victim.”

In addition to the 11 people injured in the Uptown shootout in June, there have been 16 other gunshot victims in the 5th Precinct this year as of Aug. 26. Between January and August of 2014-19, there was an average of one shooting victim per month in the 5th Precinct.

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11/6/19 1:49 PM

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A8 September 17–30, 2020 / southwestjournal.com

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Hazard pay, remote work sought by district child care workers Staff say they’ve been ‘railroaded’ by in-person assignment

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

STAFF WRITERS Nate Gotlieb ngotlieb@swjournal.com

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By Nate Gotlieb / ngotlieb@swjournal.com

With Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) resuming virtual classes this fall, the district is continuing to offer daytime child care to the children of dozens of categories of essential workers, as required by Gov. Tim Walz.

The employees tasked with caring for the children say they want better pay, more staffing help and the option to opt out of the assignment for any reason — without losing their jobs.

The district has assigned the in-person care job to its cadre of child care workers and child care assistants, who in normal times would staff its before- and after-school program, called Minneapolis Kids.

That’s unlike the spring, when, as the district transitioned to an asynchronous remote-learning model, school support staff could volunteer for the assignment. (This fall, those staff are assisting with the real-time virtual classes.)

No hazard pay is being given this fall and the district is requiring Minneapolis Kids employees to work in person unless they qualify under the federal Families First Coronavirus Response Act for remote work.

That’s also a reversal from the spring, when the district’s in-person workers received a $3 hourly wage premium (increased to $5 an hour on April 30) and child care workers could opt out of in-person assignments if they wanted to.

Additionally, the district has increased the maximum student-to-staff ratio in the school-day program to 14:1 from 9:1 in the spring, according to leaders of the district’s education-support-professionals union, which represents Minneapolis Kids workers. That’s the maximum allowed by the state.

Child care assistant Stacey Gurian-Sherman, a union board member, said Minneapolis Kids staff feel “railroaded” by the on-site work requirement and are overwhelmed by the larger student-to-staff ratio.

(A district spokesperson said there are over 360 students of “Tier I” essential workers in the school-age care program, but declined to comment further for this story.)

Gurian-Sherman said workers were frustrated that the district did not explain why it rescinded hazard pay, which she said made employees feel appreciated and reduced staff turnover.

Everybody just feels at a loss.

— Stacey Gurian-Sherman

Stacey Gurian-Sherman says child care workers are frustrated by the in-person requirement and lack of hazard pay for district employees watching the children of essential workers. Photo by Nate Gotlieb

“Everybody just feels at a loss,” said GurianSherman, who is working remotely this fall as she recovers from neurosurgery. She added that some workers have also been irritated by the district’s prohibition of staff helping students with their schoolwork and that it has been difficult to accommodate students’ different school schedules.

“With staggered bell start and end times, the set recess and lunch are proving to be ill thought out, as some students are missing essential instruction to be able to take lunch or recess,” she wrote in an email.

Gurian-Sherman said she wants the district to put at least two staff in every room and to open the assignment up to other support staff, such as associate educators.

She also said that if the district doesn’t have the funds to pay for the wage premiums, MPS leaders should pay for it by donating a portion of their own salaries.

In public testimony to the School Board on Sept. 8, she and seven other union members said the district should reimplement hazard pay and the work-from-home option.

One worker said he was surprised when he was told he needed to work on-site this year and that he feels taken for granted. Another said it’s unfair to expect one adult to handle 14 kids, given the cleaning and sanitizing precautions that need to be taken.

“If money is the issue, in my opinion, there’s no better time to find a way to shuffle money around than during a global pandemic when everything is unprecedented and nothing is certain,” child care worker Willa Johnson told the School Board.

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Noted • Mimi Kol-Balfour, a 2020 Southwest High School graduate, has been named the first recipient of a new $5,000 scholarship endowed by the Minnesota Vikings in honor of George Floyd. Kol-Balfour is a freshman at Barnard College in New York City.

• Five Washburn High School students — Maggie Faust, Max Henschel, Austin Hunt, Etta Leugers and Kina Paguyo — have been named semifinalists for National Merit Scholarships, which are given annually to top high school students nationwide.

The five scored among the top 2% of students nationwide on the PSAT exam and are among 288 semifinalists named in Minnesota.

CLARIFICATION The story “Watching the mail” on page A1 of the Sept. 3 issue should have clarified that although registered voters’ absentee ballots won’t require a witness signature, non-registered voters still need a witness to indicate their proof of residence.

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southwestjournal.com / September 17–30, 2020 A9

Pandemic changes how city reaches its residents

By Andrew Hazzard / ahazzard@swjournal.com

Council Member Jeremy Schroeder used to randomly knock on doors in his 11th Ward to try to reach out to people who don’t typically attend neighborhood meetings or call their local representative, but he can’t do that anymore.

In some ways, he doesn’t have to. Since the pandemic began and in the aftermath of the May 25 police killing of George Floyd, Schroeder and other elected officials in Minneapolis have heard from residents who don’t normally write or call their representatives. Big issues like policing, housing, pandemic-related job loss, rebuilding from civil unrest and local business retention are front of mind.

“Right now, people are reaching out,” Schroeder said.

The pandemic has altered the manner in which public entities and elected officials are able to reach their constituents at a time when residents have more questions and thoughts about what’s transpiring in Minneapolis and what should happen next.

Many Southwest Minneapolis elected officials are holding ward meetings on Zoom, which were very well-attended in the weeks after Floyd’s death. Schroeder said he’s been doing his normal open office hours on Skype and Council Member Linea Palmisano (Ward 13) said she’s been doing backyard block meetings and made a more concerted effort to be digitally present at every neighborhood organization.

For Cheyenne Brodeen, community engagement director for the city’s Neighborhood and Community Relations (NCR) department, the pandemic and Floyd’s death have changed how outreach is done and emphasized its importance.

Her department produced an online engagement guide with a goal of making sure city activities and initiatives are reaching intended audiences in thoughtful ways. The work has shifted online out of necessity, but she said the goal hasn’t changed and that NCR must continue to develop relationships within neighborhoods to communicate effectively.

“Online engagement will never replace” the importance of meeting people where they are, Brodeen said.

But there are elements of digital outreach that public entities will try to replicate going forward. Being more broadly accessible to people with hearing, vision or language barriers has been a major emphasis in online engagement, Brodeen said. The chat function on apps like Zoom has allowed people not comfortable speaking up to ask their questions. And, importantly, people don’t have to travel to meetings or figure out a child care plan.

“I actually think that we’re learning some key things that might be useful even when we transition back to traditional in-person engagement,” said Adam Arvidson, director of strategic planning for the Minneapolis

Park and Recreation Board.

Both the city and the Park Board say letting residents tune in to meetings remotely will be a priority when in-person gatherings return.

The Park Board is trying to reach residents about multiple long-term planning efforts for city parks right now, including the Parks for All Comprehensive Plan and the newly launched Cedar Lake-Lake of the Isles Master Plan initiative, which will map the future for regional parks around the northern Chain of Lakes.

The MPRB extended the comment period on the Southwest Service Area Master Plan multiple times due to the pandemic and ended up receiving 1,200 survey responses, many more than for past area plans — so many that the final approval of the plan by commissioners has been delayed as staff SEE PUBLIC OUTREACH / PAGE A14

Voices

Beware of aerosols In welcoming students back to school, both private and public institutions have said much about their ability to keep surfaces clean. That worries me. The new coronavirus spreads through both droplets and aerosols, both types of spreading recognized since the end of May. The more people speak and shout and laugh and sing and breathe hard, the more virus particles they release into the air. Both pre-symptomatic and asymptomatic people can be infectious, and some of those will be superspreader, releasing more infectious material than others. Uncovered flushing toilets also send aerosols into the air. Since aerosols are tiny virus particles that remain in the air for a long time, only fresh air can dilute them. Recirculating cooled or heated air without mixing it with fresh air is recirculating virus-laden air. Good filters might help, but I doubt that they are adequate in many building HVAC systems.

Tamara Root Lynnhurst

VOTER’S GUIDE The Southwest Journal will print a guide to candidates in competitive local general election races in our Oct. 1 issue.

To request a mail-in ballot, visit mnvotes.org. Make sure to leave time for election officials to mail out your ballot. Ballots must be postmarked on or before election day — Nov. 3 — but officials recommend not waiting until the last minute this year.

Secretary of State Steve Simon told the Southwest Journal that voters should request their ballots as soon as possible and “as soon as you’re comfortable with your choices, get that ballot in.” Absentee voting begins Sept. 18.

A10 September 17–30, 2020 / southwestjournal.com

Loss of income challenges Southwest theaters, artists

By Becca Most

When Butch Roy had to close down HUGE Improv Theater in March, the executive director thought it would be a good time to catch up on some maintenance projects, maybe a fresh coat of paint.

But after spending a couple hours inside the empty LynLake comedy theater, Roy gave up and went home, confronting the heartbreaking reality that he didn’t know if the theater would ever reopen.

“There’s no relief,” he said. “The stage was the biggest tool in our arsenal, and we couldn’t use it anymore.”

For Southwest theaters and their artists, the onset of the pandemic meant instantly evaporated revenue streams, performances halted on the verge of opening and uncertainty about when (or if) venues could ever return to full capacity.

Roy said the LynLake theater would normally host about six shows a week. When it closed March 13, staff were gearing up for the Twin Cities Improv Fest at the end of June, their biggest event of the year.

“It’s really hard to overstate just how precarious of a position entertainment venues are in,” Roy said. “We were the first things to close and we will be the last things to get to open.”

Unlike other businesses, Roy said, theaters can’t really operate via “curbside service.” Even

if the staff and the audience were comfortable sitting inside, the wearing of masks and following of social distancing protocols in the small indoor theater would ruin the atmosphere, which thrives on laughter and interaction, he said. Although Roy has been able to pay rent for the building and received a PPP loan to pay staff for a short period of time, the threat of eviction is heavy.

“That’s the nightmare that we’re in,” he said.

“The company you built with a community of artists, and got off the ground against all odds and nurtured to a place of financial health, [could end up] just wasting away and dying.”

Last summer, HUGE was plotting a move into the Art Materials building a few blocks north on Lyndale Avenue, but the theater’s loan application was rejected before the pandemic and the plans to move were abandoned. The theater’s staff, who focus on building inclusive community, had wanted to distance themselves from current landlord Julius DeRoma, a political supporter of former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke. Roy said the theater will continue to explore options during the three years remaining on its lease at 3037 Lyndale Ave. Laura Zabel, executive director of Springboard for the Arts, has been working overtime to help direct artists toward resources, financial aid, legal help and community support.

SEE THEATERS / PAGE A12

Jungle Theater managing director Robin Gillette (right) and actress Isabella Star LaBlanc outside the theater. “It’s so precarious to be an actor,” LaBlanc says. “It’s like, ‘Oh, OK, so I’m not making money doing theater again’ — I’ve been here before.” Photo by Becca Most

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southwestjournal.com / September 17–30, 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 retired couple.

All interviews are edited for length and clarity. Reporting for the stories in this issue is by Zac Farber and Nate Gotlieb.

Tracey Schultz, science teacher, Justice Page Middle School THURSDAY, SEPT. 10 Every step of preparation for class just takes so much longer than it did before. I’m not real sure how sustainable it is on my end, but I’ll just take it one week at a time and maybe a week from now, some things will feel easier.

Working inside the school building has been great. [While students have started the school year with virtual classes, Minneapolis Public Schools teachers are allowed to work out of their school buildings if they wish.] I feel like I’m in the science lab, and that just helps me to be a better teacher.

Any time I’m in my room alone, I don’t

Greenspring Media SWJ 091720 H2.indd 1

have to wear a mask, but if I have someone else in the room or if I step out of my room, I’m always wearing a mask and observing distance. Our engineering staff does a really intense cleaning every day. So it has felt really safe to be there.

In virtual classes, microphone management is really one of the secrets to success. We’ve got to get it right, and it’s not something the students have necessarily ever practiced before.

We are saying that when we come into Google Meet, we turn our microphones off.

We’re also being really clear about, “Here’s what you do when you have a question,” and, “Here are the times when you’re going to get to turn your microphone on.” It’s not perfect, but the kids are managing it.

Helping students who get lost was a big question we needed to problem-solve. At school, there are people everywhere. Eventually someone notices or hopefully you can easily find someone to ask, but that’s not true in this setting. We set up a virtual classroom called our “Help Class” and for the first two days of school, our administrators and counselors and social workers and other support staff members managed that Google Meet.

At Justice Page, we switched to a block schedule with three 90-minute classes a day instead of six 50-minute classes. We felt like it was going to be best for kids with distance learning to manage a smaller number of classes each day.

Before the school year, my fellow sixth-grade teacher and I were talking about how we were going to create hands-on opportunities for kids at home where they’re not just interacting with a lab on a screen. We ended up putting together 300 science kits — one for each of our students — that fit in a gallon-sized zip-up bag. Each one has a composition notebook, a measuring tape, a dropping pipette and tape, an assortment of rubber bands and all of these

different things we brainstormed.

Next week we’ll fall into our regular schedule, ending with what we’re calling a study hall hour.

Starting at 3 p.m., kids could say, “Gosh I really need some extra help with math,” or, “You know what, I missed science today. I want to go check in with my science teacher.” Some kids on a certain day will feel like, “I’m in good shape.” We’re talking about some other things they can do with that time.

If we really settle into distance learning, and it becomes clear that this is going to be the way we go for a long period, there’s certainly going to be a lot of emotions that kids feel. They’re obviously really hopeful that they get to come back into the building, but it feels good to have routines.

Arminta and Ron Miller, residents, Waters on 50th senior living community THURSDAY, SEPT. 10 Ron: It’s another day in paradise. We take one day at a time. This month we’re going to get our flu shots and tested again for the virus.

Arminta: They’re coming to our rooms to test us now, so we don’t have to go out and have lines of people. I think more people will come this way. They’re doing the tests every two weeks. With the staff it’s mandatory; it’s not mandatory for us, but I feel like it is.

After that test came back negative [a Waters resident falsely tested positive, prompting a brief shutdown], they have opened up more and more. We can get our own mail now. We have to wear our masks and stay distanced, but at least you can say hi to people and see half faces.

Every Thursday now, four people can get together outside. We’re 6 feet apart, but at least we can talk to people. We’ve been talking about how it’s sad that the gal who was in charge of

the activities has left to become a personal assistant. And we’ve been talking about some of the residents who’ve moved away.

In our conversations, we kind of steer clear of the election.

Ron: Because you’re not going to change anyone’s mind.

Arminta: But this particular election, I don’t want my grandkids thinking a president can be so untruthful and unkind — he’s made fun of people.

Let’s see, what else has been happening here? We’ve been watching the Twins, although we’re a little disappointed right now.

Ron: And we’ve got the Vikings on Sunday.

Arminta: Oh, yes! Ron’s birthday is Oct. 13, and my kids bought him a cardboard cutout that will be in the seats of the stadium by the end zone.

Ron: You send in a picture and they do the cutout. If I’m not there physically, my cutout is there. It’ll be me from the stomach up.

Arminta: And then he gets to keep the cutout afterward, so he’s going to stick it in the hall. They’ll probably tell him he can’t keep it there but, anyway, they’ll know a Vikings fan lives here.

We’ve been spending time looking at old pictures. We had a bag of photos with no people in it — just our garden, and how beautiful it was, and food I’d served at parties. It was very nostalgic and made me remember how active we used to be. It’s different now.

My brother, who’s 93, is at Mount Olivet nursing home. They’re taking very good care of him, but he has Alzheimer’s and he’s been having issues and really going downhill. I feel bad that I can’t visually see him. So that’s hard. He’d had some bad incidents, temper tantrums — though with Alzheimer’s, it’s the disease and not him. If he doesn’t know who I am, he might get mad. Still, if he could hear my voice even ...

But other than that ... well, I still feel like a prisoner, I really do. But it will be good to see my grandson soon. And I’m reading lots of books.

9/8/20 4:47 PM

A12 September 17–30, 2020 / southwestjournal.com

By Nate Gotlieb / ngotlieb@swjournal.com

Textile education planned in Tangletown After a March event was canceled because of COVID-19, the Tangletown Neighborhood Association (TNA) has reshaped its plans for raising awareness about textile waste, with two virtual events now in the works.

On Oct. 22, the association’s environmental committee will hold a virtual screening of the documentary “The True Cost,” which focuses on how fast fashion has impacted developing countries.

On Nov. 21, it has plans for a virtual panel about shopping at consignment stores and responsibly donating unwanted

clothing and other textiles.

The committee is also working on a textileeducation fair for the spring or summer, though plans are still in development.

The Tangletown environmental committee is focused on textiles — which include everything from blue jeans to curtains — because Hennepin County has discontinued its textile recycling program.

(The county could not find a vendor that would guarantee that textile waste would actually be recycled.)

Committee members and advocates for

reducing textile waste have noted the large amounts of water required to produce textiles and also have concerns about the environmental effects of dyes used in textiles.

Other activists have noted how the fibers from synthetic clothing leach into wastewater when washed and eventually make their way into the oceans.

Tangletown committee co-chair Andrea Siegel said volunteers are hoping to get people to change shopping habits and think about buying used clothes and/or sturdier clothes that will last longer.

She said donating clothing is a good thing but it’s better to limit purchases in the first place, if possible.

The neighborhood association is conducting the event series with the help of a $10,000 grant from Hennepin County’s environment and energy department.

Executive director Sally Bauer said the goal is to draw at least 200 people to the three events, though she thinks more than 200 will attend the fair in the spring alone.

More information is at tinyurl.com/ tangletowntextiles.

FROM THEATERS / PAGE A10

Many of these lines of work have also been impacted by the pandemic.

Although she considered herself lucky to be able to act full time, Jungle Theater actress Isabella Star LaBlanc (who was involved with the theater’s recent “Shine a Light” project) lost 90% of her income three weeks into the pandemic. After acting almost all her life, she was finally able to earn enough to work solely in theater two years ago.

“It’s so precarious to be an actor,” she said.

“To be back to that place where it’s like, ‘Oh, OK, so I’m not making money doing theater again’ — I’ve been here before.”

LaBlanc said those in theater are used to being adaptable and are constantly multitasking, budgeting and planning ahead for their next show or performance. Many of her actor friends’ second jobs, backups and

safety nets have dissolved, forcing them to go back to school or transition to other careers that offer more stability. Although this can be hard, pursuing other passions or interests can be exciting and will ultimately make them better artists, she said.

For some artists, theater has been a way to work through the stress of the pandemic.

Vanessa Brooke Agnes started Dark Muse Performing Arts in June following George Floyd’s death.

On June 10, the company featured singers, poets and speakers — all Black, Indigenous or people of color — in a protest and performance event titled, “The Uprising Vol. 1,” which took place in the parking lot of Theater 45° in Stevens Square.

With over 300 people in attendance at the event, Agnes let the participating artists decide

most of the content and structure of the event, though she coordinated a couple of specific poems and songs to include.

“This is the way we’re fulfilled as people, and this is our outlet,” Agnes said. “Being a performing artist is a way of life, and that’s threatened right now — not only financially but also mentally, emotionally, physically.”

Looking to the future, Agnes said she predicts the performing arts community will continue having conversations about diversity, equity and accessibility in the field. She hopes people will keep supporting the arts through this time and said she’s inspired by the creativity she’s seeing.

“There’s nothing that really captures the human experience more than art,” she said.

“So hopefully that’s something that people will be craving when we come out of this.”

Since March, the nonprofit has raised over $1 million and distributed $500 grants to more than 2,000 artists throughout the state.

Zabel said the pandemic has highlighted gaps in eligibility for unemployment. Those who are classified as “mixed-income” workers, which include freelancers, gig workers and the self-employed, don’t qualify for full unemployment benefits and often get paid inadequately when they do apply for unemployment due to certain technicalities.

“A lot of artists have built whole careers with these really diverse income streams,” she said.

Some artists and actors make a living selling goods at craft fairs, working in schools or teaching community classes. Others work as servers, Uber drivers or employees at theaters.

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southwestjournal.com / September 17–30, 2020 A13

By Andrew Hazzard / ahazzard@swjournal.com

Proposed 2021 levy highlights COVID hardships The Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board has begun its formal 2021 budget process by approving a maximum levy that sets the stage for a reduction in services due to the financial hardships imposed by the coronavirus pandemic.

Commissioners voted Sept. 2 to set a maximum levy of $70.3 million, a 1.18% increase from 2019. The additional $820,000 in the increase will go toward the MPRB’s new responsibility to manage The Commons park in Downtown, which fell under its control following a lengthy legal battle that concluded last year.

MPRB officials project an across-theboard cut in services in 2021 to make up for lost income and added expenses. Revenues from sources like event rentals and recreational sports have declined due to

COVID-19 and addressing encampments of unsheltered people in parks has brought on additional costs.

“We are going to have a reduction budget,” financial director Juli Wiseman told commissioners.

The budget will require about $6.2 million in general fund reductions.

“We anticipate reductions in services across all departments in 2021 while upholding our mission to provide beautiful places and dynamic programs for all people to enjoy, particularly our youth,” Superintendent Al Bangoura said.

2021 will also mark the end of an additional MPRB $1.4 million annual levy used to beef up the city’s tree canopy following emerald ash borer infestation and damage from a tornado in 2011.

The 1.18% increase would represent part of the revenue from the overall maximum 5.75% property tax levy increase proposed

by Mayor Jacob Frey to the Board of Estimate and Taxation. The MPRB receives about 7% of city property tax dollars, which funds about 75% of the Park Board’s budget.

Mayor Frey has not requested an adjustment to the 20-year neighborhood parks and streets improvement plan, Wiseman said.

Commissioner Brad Bourn (District 6) said he was hesitant to support the levy because he believes the mayor is using the Park Board to offset the average of his proposed 8.4% increase to the city’s general fund and make the overall levy increase look smaller than it really is. He said the board should look at other options, like a reduction in the neighborhood parks improvement plan, before

approving a levy that will require cuts.

“It’s hard to look at this as anything more than a layoff budget,” Bourn said.

Park Board President Jono Cowgill said it was loud and clear that commissioners wanted a minimal levy increase during a difficult financial time for many residents and dismissed criticism that the MPRB is being forced to shoulder a disproportionately large cut.

“I don’t think it’s at all unfair,” Cowgill said.

The resolution to approve the levy increase passed 5-0, with Commissioners Bourn, Londel French (At Large), AK Hassan (District 3) and Kale Severson (District 2) abstaining.

Bangoura will present a recommended budget to commissioners on Oct. 21, and the board will have until Dec. 9 to approve a final budget and tax levy.

Improvements planned for Armatage, Linden Hills parks Two neighborhood parks in Southwest Minneapolis are slated for playground improvements.

The Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board is planning to update the children’s play areas at Armatage and Linden Hills parks in 2021 and has been soliciting community feedback on potential designs.

Both parks are set to receive updates to their current playground spaces that include improvements to play areas designed for children aged 2-5 and those between 5 and 12 years of age.

While each park would be up to ADA accessibility standards, the playground at Armatage Park is being specifically designed to be universally accessible to children with a wide range of disabilities. Features in such playgrounds typically include wheelchairfriendly surfacing and ramps to all platforms.

Both projects will likely begin scheduling following the final approval of the Southwest Service Area Master Plan, which has seen its public hearing delayed multiple times due to

New projects will rebuild the playgrounds at Linden Hills (above) and Armatage parks in 2021. The Park Board is currently seeking feedback to finalize designs. Photo by Andrew Hazzard

COVID-19 but is expected to receive commissioner approval in the coming months. The Southwest Service Area Master Plan also calls for a new nature play area at Linden Hills Park.

The Armatage Park improvements are esti-

The proposed playground improvements at Armatage Park will seek to make the area universally accessible to children with disabilities.

Submitted image

mated to cost about $300,000 and will be paid for mostly using dollars from the 2019 capital improvement program and about $3,000 in local park dedication fees. The Linden Hills project is expected to cost about $291,000

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You can respond to online surveys for both projects through Sept. 18 (tinyurl.com/ armatage-park, tinyurl.com/lh-park).

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A14 September 17–30, 2020 / southwestjournal.com FROM BACK TO CLASS / PAGE A1

learning would be better than in the spring — when, with limited planning time, teachers cobbled together lessons and kids worked independently.

Perhaps the biggest change from the spring has been the implementation of real-time classes. That has required district and school leaders to ensure that all students have either an iPad or a Google Chromebook and reliable internet service.

The goal is for more kids to participate in online learning than last spring, when about 20% of high school students and 25% of middle school students did not submit schoolwork.

Schools distributed devices at backto-school events held in the first week of September and the last week of August, and teachers have made calls to students to ensure the technology was working properly. (It’s unclear how many students still don’t have the technology needed to participate in classes.)

Some schools have distributed headphones to

make the remote-learning experience more pleasant for households with multiple kids and materials for independent work.

Kleppe said a big focus early in the year will be on ensuring kids know how to use the technology (including, crucially, the “mute” button).

“Sometimes [teachers] will do the same lesson multiple days in a row, because you’re building up that stamina for kids, too,” she said.

The week before the start of classes, Washburn High School helped its ninth-graders ease into the building with a socially distanced in-person orientation event. The new students went around the school’s outdoor track to learn school cheers, hear from their new teachers and support staff and meet fellow students.

Some of the advice — “You don’t want to be the one senior in your gym class” and “Take your freshman year classes seriously” — was universal for any freshman year. But other tidbits — “You’re going to have to start checking your email more regularly” — were unique to the COVID-19 era.

Afterward, the ninth-graders said they were nervous but excited for the new school year, even though it was online. Some said they expected to do well online and others said they are looking forward to the eventual in-person return.

“I feel like I can do better in person,” Muntaha Mohamud said, adding that she thinks online high school will be fun and that she’s excited to meet new people.

‘All still welcome’

Staff at Anthony Middle School tried to make the first day of school one to remember, despite having to hold remote classes. Submitted photos

FROM PUBLIC OUTREACH / PAGE A9

work to organize feedback into themes to present to the board.

The pandemic has prevented the Park Board from reaching people in more spontaneous ways in parks and at community events like Open Streets Minneapolis. But more people have been tuning in for digital events than would show up at a typical planning meeting, he said, and many have said they prefer to attend online for convenience. Presentations that are typically made to sparsely attended Park Board meetings are now being uploaded on YouTube and have had solid viewership.

The Park Board partnered with a local Somali-American influencer who livestreamed a Zoom Somali language planning meeting and helped translate questions from viewers.

While there’s been success reaching nonEnglish speakers, Arvidson is concerned about how to contact people without consistent internet access.

“I don’t think we’ve totally cracked the nut on how to engage folks who don’t have access to the same technology many people in our city have access to,” Arvidson said.

Not only are local entities trying to figure out how to reach people at a time when in-person interactions are discouraged; they are also gauging how to reach neighborhoods at various levels of economic and emotional crisis due to the pandemic and everything that’s followed Floyd’s killing.

Some conversations can wait, Brodeen said, and should. That, and not a lack of response, is why NCR decided to extend its comment period on Neighborhoods 2020, which will change the way neighborhood groups are funded, from early July to Sept. 30.

“I think the communities are at different places in how they are able to respond,” she said.

As the week wore on, some parents reported that the adjustment became smoother.

Paula Luxenberg, who has two kids at Armatage Montessori School, said her fourthgrader has no problem with the technology but that her first-grader needed a lot of support on the first day.

She said she imagines virtual class would be tough for the youngest kids who don’t have parents to guide them.

Tyrice Edgeworth, the parent of a third-grader at Kenny Community School, described the first days of distance learning as a “nightmare” after facing a series of frustrating tech problems.

Students in Tami Tripp’s kindergarten class at Burroughs Community School got to know their classmates as they met on Google Meet during their first morning back at school on Sept. 10.

He said the transition to Google Classroom from the online platform Seesaw, which was used in second grade, has been difficult. And during the first week of school, the code that was supposed to be used to see the online gym class didn’t work, forcing his son to miss the class.

Opinion about the new distance-learning setup has been mixed among the 12th-graders at Southwest High School, though several said the technology has been working well for them.

Gus Johnson said online learning has been pretty easy for him and that he likes the block schedule the school has implemented.

(Students now have three 120-minute classes each day instead of six 55-minute classes.)

Deremer Rouser said that while virtual learning has been easier than in the spring, he’d still rather be meeting in person.

Southwest and other middle and high schools have also begun restarting some in-person extracurricular activities and transitioned others online. At Southwest, for example, auditions were held for a virtual musical and the soccer teams played Washburn for the “Sylvester Cup,” a trophy honoring John Sylvester, a beloved Minneapolis soccer coach who died in 2017 of ALS. (Washburn won the boys varsity match; Southwest won the girls.)

At Washburn, the football team began its fall training in preparation for the season,

which has been postponed, and the debate team met for a virtual kickoff event.

Back at Burroughs, Tripp’s class bobbed around the screen on their first day, many with their parents sitting next to them. They showed off the red-colored items that Tripp had asked them to present and learned how to properly hold a scissors. (“It’s a little tricky to show on camera,” Tripp said.)

The class also listened quietly as Tripp read a story called “All Are Welcome” about a diverse group of kids and families in a typical day of school.

“Our class might look a little different because we’re all on the computer here,” she said, “but we’re all still welcome.”

Sometimes [teachers] will do the same lesson multiple days in a row, because you’re building up that stamina for kids, too.

— Holly Kleppe, principal, Jefferson Community School

NEIGHBORHOOD MEETINGS: TO RECORD OR NOT TO RECORD The Kingfield Neighborhood Association began recording its meetings in May and posting them to YouTube, a move that board president Chris DesRoches said has helped increase transparency. He said he appreciated being able to direct residents who missed an apartment developer’s presentation to “the primary source.”

“People can watch those discussions without having to read minutes, which may not be as reflective of the conversation as video,” he said.

Yet in early July, DesRoches and other neighborhood leaders received guidance from the city recommending that meetings not be recorded because “some community members may feel uncomfortable, hampering the group’s ability to have an honest conversation.” If organizers do record meetings, the city advises, participants should be informed.

Jane Kirtley, a professor of media ethics and law at the University of Minnesota, agreed that it’s courteous to tell attendees they’re being recorded. But she said the city shouldn’t discourage recording of neighborhood meetings, which offer an opportunity for city council members, government officials and others to make presentations on matters in the public interest.

“It’s very difficult for most people to take the time to attend public meetings, and increasingly news organizations that don’t have the resources they once did are not able to monitor the meetings in real time,” she said, adding that the “little projects” discussed at meetings — such as what will happen to a local park — “have a huge

impact on the day-to-day lives of people.”

Steven Gallagher, a policy specialist in the city department serving neighborhood organizations, said the guidance was drafted “using input from city staff, residents and other stakeholders.”

Of the 20 neighborhood organizations in Southwest Minneapolis, Kingfield is the only one recording its meetings. While the organizations are required to post minutes on their websites, Kirtley said that “meeting minutes, by their very nature, tend to be summaries.”

Cedar-Isles-Dean resident John Abraham, a contributor to the Hill & Lake Press, said he’s been frustrated that his neighborhood organization is not posting recordings of its meetings online.

“People in any type of public capacity, even on a neighborhood board, need to be held accountable,” he said.

Mary Pattock, president of the CedarIsles-Dean Neighborhood Association (CIDNA), said her bias is “toward openness and disclosure,” but it’s important to “balance privacy with transparency” and she thinks recording meetings can disincentivize attendance.

At the beginning of a Sept. 9 CIDNA meeting, which included presentations by a City Council member and a highranking police official, Pattock cited the city’s guidance before requesting that a Southwest Journal reporter not record the meeting. (Her request was declined.) The city says the guidance was not meant to govern the conduct of journalists.

The only time Pattock has recorded

a CIDNA meeting, she said, was for a meeting with the Met Council, asking officials for commitments on the construction of the Southwest Light Rail Transit project. “We wanted to get [their] words down,” she said.

“There’s a difference between, say, standing up at a City Council meeting and a Park Board meeting and representing your ideas and getting up with your neighbors and talking over problems,” she said.

Pattock is worried recording meetings would leave residents open to mockery on the Twitter account WedgeLIVE, where she said she was once quoted out of context as saying she “doesn’t have long for this world.”

“In the last year or two ... ordinary people, not seeking to go public but only wanting to communicate with their neighbors, were getting ridiculed and trashed in online postings,” she wrote in an email.

DesRoches said he’s been ridiculed on social media “fairly frequently” and that it can happen “anytime someone goes and speaks in public, whether or not it’s posted online.”

“I think you have to balance that,” he said, “with the bigger concern that there is money being spent by a group of people in our neighborhood that is allocated from the city and ensuring that is not done behind closed doors.”

DesRoches said he can notify residents they are being recorded in the Zoom comments pane. Despite the city’s recommendation, he said, Kingfield has no plans to stop recording and posting videos of its meetings.

— Zac Farber

southwestjournal.com / September 17–30, 2020 A15 FROM GRANADA THEATER / PAGE A1

People have been waiting for action in the theater for a long time.

The Hennepin Avenue venue opened as the Granada Theater in 1927 and was the first neighborhood theater to show talking pictures, according to a city report. In the 1950s it became Suburban World Theater, which flourished in the late 20th century.

The new millennium has not been as kind. It has had long bouts of unoccupancy, including from 2002 to 2005, and has changed hands multiple times. It has been closed since 2011 and, despite a concerted effort in 2013 toward restoration and reopening, has sat empty for nearly a decade. Reher and business partner Doug Hoskin bought the property in 2018 and worked diligently, following guidelines from the Heritage Preservation Commission, to restore the building.

While the city’s historical preservation staff had long requested the Suburban World letters be retained above the marquee, Reher and Hoskin opted to go further back and restore the original name to the building.

The old Spanish-revival style, with terra cotta roof tiling, was kept as well. All the balconies and statues lining the concert hall are original, but had suffered from wear, tear and neglect over the years. To restore those elements, the group needed to hire artisan plaster and paint crews.

“Really what we wanted to do was work within the existing structure,” Reher said.

The group worked to flatten out the main auditorium space, creating a floor-style area in front of the stage that maximizes room for a standing concert crowd or table seating for weddings and corporate events. Modernizing and improving the acoustics was a difficult task, Reher said.

GRANADA THEATER Where: 3022 Hennepin Ave. Info: granadampls.com

FROM TRUST / PAGE A5

person at a limited capacity. Zoom doesn’t work well for seniors who can’t or don’t want to use it, said Norine Larson. When Larson took over the grief coalition 20 years ago, she started with the delicate task of placing limits on participation — one elderly man said he’d been attending for five years to scope for “chicks.” Through the tears, the group often finds much to laugh about, like the things people say at funerals.

“The one that really makes people crazy is: ‘She’s in a better place’ — and it’s like, what’s the matter with my place?” Larson said.

(To support people grieving, she recommends simply saying “I’m sorry,” checking in with phone calls and helping people get out of the house.)

The pandemic is making grief harder, Larson

The Granada Theater is once again open to the public after nearly a decade, with a renovation maintaining the building’s historic nightsky ceiling and Spanishstyle facades.

Photos by Isaiah Rustad

To help boost the maximum capacity from 200 to 600, the group added modern fire sprinkler systems and more restrooms, creating space by removing the original orchestra pit and an ancient boiler room. The old film projection room was removed to make way for a commercial kitchen.

The pandemic was particularly derailing to the Granada. The theater was set to reopen in March and had a year’s worth of shows and events booked before COVID-19 hit. Because it hadn’t been in business long, and because the group’s few early employees were contractors, the theater has been ineligible for relief measures approved by Congress like Paycheck Protection Program loans.

“We’re still struggling through,” Reher said.

It could be a while before the newly restored theater gets to take full advantage of its 600-person live event capacity. The buzz in the industry is that it could be until late 2021 or early 2022 that concerts return to normal, and even that’s just a guess, Reher said. The truth is no one can say when the pandemic will ease enough to

allow large, indoor gatherings. (For more on the challenges facing local theaters, see page A10.)

“The conversations can be a bit much at times,” Reher said.

But the theater is making do with what it can right now. Small, socially distanced dinnerand-a-show events with musical performers are scheduled for Sept. 24, 25 and 27, Reher said.

They are also booking for small weddings and corporate events, something the group expects to be a large part of its business going forward.

For now, the group is letting chef Ron Koch serve guests Spanish-inspired cuisine in its large bar area, adorned with shining chandeliers and lined with the original brick walls. There’s room for about 40 guests in the Hennepin Avenue patio space and large doors enable lots of open air to flow to the bar.

Residents in South Uptown and ECCO have been tracking the development with great interest, Reher said, and as soon as the restaurant opened, people were coming in to see the space.

“The local community has been wonderful and very supportive,” Reher said.

said, because people are more isolated and now worry about COVID-19 while adjusting to a life that will never go back to “normal.”

“People don’t realize that when they are grieving, one of the questions they have to answer is: Who am I now? … What am I going to do with that new role?”

It’s a similar question facing TRUST, where finances are hurting due to a lull in grant-writing combined with the pandemic, which slowed down estate sales that generate revenue for the coalition. Churches typically contribute whatever they wish, and this year some churches in lockdown aren’t able to contribute at all. Paycheck Protection Program funds have helped with cash flow.

The 2020 Great TRUST Auction, conducted virtually, is Oct. 24.

“There are things that TRUST can do in the future that can build it back up again,” Hansen said.

The board is preparing to reach out with questions to determine what more the coalition should be working on, perhaps issues like racial justice, housing or food insecurity.

— the Rev. Toya Richards

“What do we need to do for such a time as this?” Richards asked. “What else?”

She said all of TRUST’s programs can use volunteers, and anyone can make an impact.

“Everyone has to examine, has to do a deep dive and discern: How can I be an agent of change?” Richards said.

TRUST INC. MEMBER CHURCHES Bethlehem Lutheran Church (since 1974)

Living Spirit United Methodist Church (1970)

St. Joan of Arc Catholic Church (1970)

First Universalist Church (1999)

Lutheran Church of Christ the Redeemer (1998)

St. John the Baptist Episcopal Church (1986)

Judson Memorial Baptist Church (1970)

Lynnhurst Congregational United Church of Christ (1970)

St. John’s Lutheran Church (1970)

Lake Harriet Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) (2003)

Mayflower Congregational, United Church of Christ (1993)

Lake Harriet United Methodist Church (1989)

All the work that I do is about justice. It all intersects.

It’s all about bringing light to the dark spaces of the world.

Many of the original, 1920s-era statues needed to be restored by specialists to maintain historic preservation standards before returning to line the halls of the theater.

Lake Nokomis Presbyterian Church (1995) Linden Hills United Church of Christ (1990)

Mount Olive Lutheran Church (2011) Richfield Lutheran Church (2020)

St. Leonard’s Catholic Church (1976) St. Luke’s Episcopal Church (1975) St. Thomas the Apostle Catholic Church (2016)

Richfield United Methodist Church (2005)

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Southwest Journal September 17–30, 2020

g n i l l e s p e e k s e m Ho c i m e d n a p g n i r u d

By Sheila Regan

S

arah Bigger and her husband, Mike Slingerland, have thought about buying a home for years. When COVID-19 hit and they both found themselves working from home, they realized now was as good a time as any to get some more space.

“Both of us are 40,” Bigger said. “That’s probably later in life than most people buy their first home.”

Ten years ago, the couple had wanted to buy a home, but they were in a very different financial position. Since then, they’ve been saving, have developed good credit and have put themselves in a position where they could afford something nice.

When the shutdown happened last March, Slingerland and Bigger, who generally travel extensively for work, found themselves crammed in their smallish Kingfield apartment.

SEE REAL ESTATE / PAGE B5

REAL ESTATE GUIDE Sarah Bigger and Mike Slingerland stand outside the home they recently closed on in Tangletown. During the pandemic, Bigger says, “I just started to think — we need more room.” Photo by Isaiah Rustad

B2 September 17–30, 2020 / southwestjournal.com

A little bird told me

PAJARITO

3910 W. 50th St., Edina pajaritorestaurant.com 612-268-4770

By Carla Waldemar

A

tweet alerted me to the opening of Pajarito (“little bird”), featuring modern Mexican cuisine in the former digs of Tejas. The 50th & France Pajarito location marks the second iteration for the successful St. Paul restaurant.

Its slightly expanded menu reads like a wish list of Latin flavors, starting with riffs on mainstream salsas (three for $7; six for $12). The tlayudas ($11) are inspired by the cooking of Oaxaca, arguably Mexico’s best culinary outpost, and make good use of this kitchen’s wood-fired oven. (BTW, it’s in Oaxaca that I first ate roasted crickets, which did not make the transition to Pajarito’s menu.)

For my tlayuda, I chose the eggplant version: two saucer-sized wood-fired flour tortillas, each loaded with sweet, juicy chunks of tomatoes topped with mild, melty queso fresco atop a thin (and almost undetectable) skim of roasted eggplant, scattered with sesame seeds (again hard to discern), along with an unannounced and fiery (to put it mildly) burst of hot, hot peppers. Use caution or risk your tongue’s dissolving.

On to the Oaxacan-based enmoladas ($13) on the restaurant’s “not tacos” list, which also includes the likes of celery root, sweet potato and pork ribs, which all sound terrific. Similar to enchiladas, the enmoladas feature one of the famous moles of Oaxaca — this one, dark and rich with (maybe) unsweetened chocolate.

The smoked chicken breast it flavors proved moist and sweet under its tortilla wrap, dusted with a shower of finely grated white cheese — nothing revolutionary, but tasty. Save a lime wedge from your taco order to temper the combo.

That taco list ($9) reads well, from beef barbacoa to chicken tinga. I chose the potato-mushroom version — a pair of loaded tortillas plump with thin-sliced, chewy mushrooms and mealy cubes of potato in chorizo seasoning, all dotted with bits of melted queso fresco and, supposedly, an avocadoserrano hit, which went undetected. Satisfying, if not earth-shattering.

On to the excellent crab tostada ($13, or choose tuna), which features three mini tortillas loaded with lots of sweet, moist crab meat among matchsticks of celery root in a mild, almost unnoticeable dressing the menu dubs as Caesar. Each pretty little helping gets a topknot thread of preserved lemon.

Chilaquiles, my favorite Mexican breakfast, date back to the Aztecs and originated, I like to imagine, when some thrifty granny sought to use up yesterday’s tortillas. This ample version ($13) is pure comfort food and could feed an entire family. Moist, softened bits of torn tortillas are melded with lots of tender, juicy, pot-roast-like beef barbacoa blended with a mushroom crema and topped with a runny egg — all nice innovations to granny’s dish.

The menu also offers wood-fired main dishes: chicken, pork chop, beefsteak, octopus ($16-$20).

And, of course, dessert. The sole choice is a cinnamon-laced rice pudding ($8), so why not?

It’s limpid with palate-cooling grains of chewy rice from which a few bits of fruit emerge.

If you’re dining in-person rather than takeout, consider the generous pricing (mostly $5) of its happy hour list of food and drinks, too.

HOT TIP Here’s a vote for the food truck called Nashville Hot Chicken, which I spy parked near the Guthrie every so often. I run home for my credit card, then join the line to place my order: huge, meaty white-meat strips liberally coated in whatever degree of hot you claim to handle. (When, on the 1-to-4 thermometer, I chose the 4, they rang a bell in my honor.) I’d advise a 3 or under for most Minnesotan palates, including mine. The accompanying coleslaw serving is generous, as are the fries and Texas toast ($12). Way to go! Find the truck at nashvillecoop.com.

southwestjournal.com / September 17–30, 2020 B3

Moments in Minneapolis

By Karen E. Cooper

Back when there were boardinghouses

H

er husband was a doctor who died young of pneumonia. And so my great-grandmother Mattie Craft Cooper hung onto the edge of the middle class by taking in strangers. She raised her three sons, my grandfather included, in a boardinghouse.

The boarders were always young women, usually students or teachers. Great-Grandma cooked their meals, cleaned their rooms and the shared bath and kept her family together. I have her cookbook. The food was unspectacular.

From its earliest days, Minneapolis has had lots of boardinghouses, some of which were successful enough that they were run by the same families for years. Single men who came to Minneapolis for opportunity would typically take a room, find a job and work towards prosperity. Plumbing was unheard of in those days, of course. The shared bath was literally just a tub.

This modest idea of unrelated adults living in one place and sharing meals was practical in frontier times, and it has stayed practical today. Unfortunately, as the middle class grew, the boardinghouse became an undesirable neighbor. Urban renewal was the result of community disgust at the circumstances in which the less affluent found themselves.

Today, there are about 200 boardinghouse licenses in Minneapolis, and only a tiny handful of them are run by people who are taking in “paying guests.” Most licenses are held by social service agencies. For now at least, the city does not issue new boardinghouse licenses; one has to buy an existing license to run a boardinghouse. Most of the

licenses are for establishments renting sleeping rooms and a shared bath and kitchen. Only a few offer meals.

The 20th century gave us two world wars and the Great Depression, but Minneapolis also went through great industrial changes.

Millers and lumberjacks did not have the work they once did. Minneapolis had a great need for inexpensive housing.

The boardinghouse, or sleeping room, was seen as the lowest housing option. A step up from a sleeping room, the apartment hotel offered furnished rooms by the day, the week or longer. The more expensive of them had private baths. Dining was sometimes offered on site.

Some of these buildings still exist in parts of Downtown. Even the finest Minneapolis hotels in the 1920s or 1930s had furnished apartments of three or five rooms and a kitchenette. The Normandy Residence Hotel opened in 1926, offering rooms with or without a bath, and advised, “Try the noon luncheon service. You will want no other.”

Today’s Normandy Inn was itself built on a lot previously home to the Zier Row, a onceluxurious row house that had become the Residence Apartment Hotel, wrecked in 1967.

This world of the furnished room and the residence hotel was, of course, a business opportunity. And into that opportunity stepped a man named Fay N. Fuller.

He was a realtor and hotel owner. He had a partnership with Charles Beery, and their projects included taking over some apartment buildings to create the Woonsocket

The Woonsocket Hotel, pictured in 1970, advertised running water as a perk for a room that cost $4 a week. Telegraph operators, stenographers and railroad freight clerks made the Woonsocket their home. Photo courtesy of Hennepin County Library

Hotel at 1518 3rd Ave. S., about where the Convention Center stands today.

Their hotel was nowhere near as fine as the Normandy, the Curtis or the then-new Francis Drake. They advertised running water as a perk for a room that cost $4 a week. Telegraph operators, stenographers and railroad freight clerks made the Woonsocket their home.

Fuller and Beery soon enlarged the property.

Their partnership did not last, which might have been due to Beery’s political views; he loudly proclaimed “America for Americans!” But Fuller continued to own apartment hotels. Around the corner from the Woonsocket, Fuller acquired the Clinton Hotel, and gave it his name. He lived in the building and managed it until he bought a fine residence at 2322 W. Lake of the Isles.

And even there, he committed to providing housing for people in need. He remodeled his house into a duplex and advertised “comfortable, quiet accommodations for a refined woman.”

Fuller apparently liked the bustle of having lots of neighbors and he returned to apartment living. As he aged, he sold the Fuller Hotel, which became more down-market. After 20 years, the rent there had only doubled, to $8 per week. It was torn down in 1973 to make way for the new Convention Center.

The apartment hotels of the 20th century have been remodeled into apartment buildings or torn down and replaced with office towers or parking lots. We see new apartment buildings all over South Minneapolis, but most of these are not meant to house people for whom prosperity is just beyond reach.

Boardinghouses and sleeping rooms are rare today, but as Minneapolis looks for more tools to battle a growing affordable housing crisis, they may become more common.

Following a July request by the City Council, the city is now fleshing out the details of a plan to allow for new rooming houses, single-room occupancy units and congregate living facilities.

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B4 September 17–30, 2020 / southwestjournal.com

Some local grocers no longer giving hazard pay

By Nate Gotlieb / ngotlieb@swjournal.com

Six months into the COVID-19 pandemic, many Southwest Minneapolis grocery workers are no longer receiving a pay bump, though some have received gift cards or bonuses in recent months.

In the early days of the pandemic, most grocery stores offered their workers extra hourly pay as they worked on the front lines amid the early uncertainty over COVID-19.

That included Cub Foods, Kowalski’s, Aldi, Whole Foods and the Wedge and Linden Hills co-ops in Southwest.

Cub, Aldi and Whole Foods ended their hazard pay increase of $2 an hour sometime this summer, according to employees.

(The companies declined to comment for this story.) A Cub employee said full-time employees have received $400 Cub gift cards, and part-timers have received $200 gift cards.

Whole Foods provided all full-time employees who were with the company in June a $500 bonus and part-timers a $250 bonus.

Kowalski’s Markets has extended its $2 an hour pay bump through Oct. 3, administrative director Deb Kowalski said.

Josh Resnik, CEO of the company that operates the Wedge and Linden Hills co-ops, estimated that his company had spent over $600,000 on extra pay as of Sept. 15. “It’s money well spent,” he said. (The company has extended hazard pay through at least Sept. 27.)

Lunds & Byerlys gave full-time employees a $500 bonus and part-time employees a $200 bonus in April and plans on paying out additional bonuses after its fiscal year

ends in September, depending on profits.

A spokesperson wasn’t sure for how much those bonuses would be.

Two stores, Seward Community Co-op and Target, have upped pay for all employees to at least $15 an hour.

In interviews conducted at four Southwest Minneapolis stores, workers said they have generally felt safe working these past few months, noting precautions their stores have taken, such as installing plexiglass in front of checkout counters.

Cub employee David Evans said he goes straight upstairs to shower and change after his shifts, which is a prerequisite before his wife will allow him into the rest of the house.

He said that he has felt more comfortable this summer because most customers have been wearing masks, as required by Gov. Tim Walz starting in July.

“The level of tension in the store is less,” he said.

Wedge Community Co-op worker Tyler Jacobson, who works in customer service, said the start of the pandemic was stressful but that the store has felt normal this summer, despite extra duties like wiping down carts and baskets.

Employees at the store are asked to call a supervisor if someone does not want to wear a mask, though most have been good about wearing them, according to cheese packer Jordan Parshall.

(Cub and Lunds & Byerlys employees also are asked to call managers if they see someone who is unmasked, according to workers at the stores.)

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A worker cleans the checkout conveyor belt at the Linden Hills Co-op. The co-op has extended hazard pay for workers through at least Sept. 27. Photo by Isaiah Rustad

Parshall began his position in early August, after being on unemployment for most of the spring and summer, because he was laid off from his barista job at Peace Coffee in Downtown Minneapolis.

He said he would have preferred not to work during the pandemic but that his savings would only have sustained him for a couple of months after the national $600 unemployment bonus expired in July.

Because he’s 23 and doesn’t have health conditions that would put him at a higher

risk for severe illness from COVID-19, he said he feels more comfortable than he would otherwise.

Bills that would provide additional funds to essential workers have stalled at both the state and federal levels. An April proposal from U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) would have provided an additional $25,000 to each essential worker through Dec. 31, and a May proposal from Minnesota state Rep. Mike Sundin (DFL-Esko) would have provided $250 to each essential worker.

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REAL ESTATE GUIDE FROM REAL ESTATE / PAGE B1

“Usually we are not in each other’s face as much as we have been,” she said. “I just started to think — we need more room.”

Once they made the decision, things happened fast. After getting pre-approved by their bank, Slingerland went camping with his buddies over the weekend in August while Bigger went house shopping — settling on a home in Tangletown.

“I had a super good feeling about it,” she said.

Bigger made an offer on a Saturday, and her husband got to see the place the following Tuesday.

“He loved it, thank goodness,” she said.

Bigger’s experience mirrors at least one real estate trend happening during the pandemic: home buyers looking to expand their space.

Leah Drury, a realtor with Lakes Sotheby’s International Realty, said she’s seen people want to live in larger homes “because they are in them more than they used to be.”

At the same time, for folks who have lost income because of the pandemic, selling off property is a way to free up cash.

In one case, Drury said, a couple in the Powderhorn neighborhood reached out because one worked in the restaurant industry and the other was a musician.

“Their biggest asset is their property,” she said.

“They said, ‘Just to be on the safe side, let’s sell it.’”

The market hasn’t yet fully revealed the fallout of the state’s massive job loss, but it has caused a small drop in house prices at the top level, while housing stock continues to be very tight.

Realtor Steven Taylor, who focuses on the Uptown area, said that the market is still

seeing a lack of housing stock, keeping with a years-long trend.

“There are not enough homes, and there are a lot of buyers,” he said. “With interest rates hovering around 3%, this is pushing a lot of buyers back into the market, and they can afford more than they were able to previously because of those lower interest rates.”

According to data provided by Minneapolis Area Realtors, the inventory of homes for sale in areas around Lake Harriet was slightly down — 182 in July of this year compared with 191 in July 2019 in the neighborhoods of Armatage, East Harriet, Fulton, Kenny, Kingfield, Linden Hills, Lynnhurst, Tangletown and Windom.

Meanwhile closed sales in those neighborhoods went up from 83 last July to 123 this year.

Over in neighborhoods around Cedar, Isles, and Bde Maka Ska, meanwhile, inventory was slightly up— from 1,046 last July to 1,090 this year. Closed sales were down by 5 percentage points in those neighborhoods — Bryn Mawr, Kenwood, Lowry Hill, Cedar-Isles-Dean, East Isles, Lowry Hill East, West Maka Ska, ECCO and South Uptown.

Taylor said now is a great time to get prequalified as a buyer to stay “ahead of the pack in a competitive market.”

“Even if you do not have a home in mind, call a mortgage broker to find out what you need to do to get pre-qualified so you are ready to go when a desirable property does hit the market,” he said.

Realtors say that while homes under $300,000 or $400,000 are often going into bidding wars, higher-priced houses are tending to sit a bit longer and sometimes require price reductions.

The impact on more expensive homes particularly affects the high-priced homes in neighborhoods around Lake Harriet. Data from Minneapolis Area Realtors show that while the new listings and sales have gone up in July compared with last year in those neighborhoods, the change in median sales price went down. In addition, the median sales price for the area dropped 9.2 percentage points, from

$468,000 in July of last year to $424,750 this July.

It’s a bit of a different story in neighborhoods around Bde Maka Ska, Isles and Cedar, where new listings have also increased, and sales have gone up as well — even the expensive homes in Kenwood, where the median sales price rose from $799,000 in July 2019 to $865,000 this July. Still, the rolling average for that neighborhood has basically flattened, so it’s possible prices may take a drop there in the future as they have in Linden Hills.

“Demand is much greater in those middlerange price points, and there’s less demand as you go up the scale,” said Telly Mamayek, an executive at Minneapolis Area Realtors. “A lot of people are staying put. They are investing in their homes [and] that is adding to the fact that there is not a lot of demand for additional housing.”

Financing

Meanwhile, the financial industry has more stringent application procedures for getting a loan, according to Lisa Wells, who does mortgage financing for single-family homebuyers as well as people purchasing duplexes, triplexes and four-plexes. Wells said the mortgage industry immediately saw the effects of COVID after the shutdown.

“Clients could go into forbearance, which basically means not make their payments,” she said. “The industry freaks out. When clients don’t make payments to services like mortgage companies, the mortgage companies still have to make their payments to bond holders.”

Interest rates went up, she said. “It really wreaked havoc. First-time buyer loans went away overnight.”

Because of that, Wells said, rules changed quickly for individuals applying for loans.

Anyone in the restaurant or hospitality industry, as well as self-employed people, had to provide current profit and loss statements.

“Did they get PPE money? Is that a mask for future losses? It’s a glass half-empty,” Wells said. “Prove to us you are going to make this loan vs. the other way around.”

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Constance Vork, an agent with Keller Williams Realty Integrity Lakes, said that when the shutdown started, showings plummeted.

“No one knew if we should or could be meeting, or if we would be putting people at risk.”

Even after real estate agents were deemed essential workers in Minnesota, Vork said there was still a sense of unease. But in June, she said, things started to return to normal.

“Showings didn’t race back immediately,” she said. “We saw a ton of virtual showings — buyers wanting to continue with their search.

There was a pause with the sellers. We all tried to determine if they could sell their house.”

By the end of June, the market was hopping, especially in Kingfield and Armatage, Vork said.

“It has just been a feeding frenzy,” she said.

“Anything good gets multiple offers. It’s pretty amazing. I don’t have a simple answer for it.”

Vork said that even though unemployment is high, people with jobs still want to engage with the market.

“Nothing about the pandemic is slowing it down,” Vork said. “Our big problem is inventory.”

The housing market also seems to have remained steady through the civil unrest following George Floyd’s killing, according to a report posted on MAR’s website. House listings went down in Minneapolis and surrounding areas after May 30, but the number of days on the market for homes on sale also went down. According to the MAR report, homes sold about 6% more quickly in Minneapolis in June of this year than of last year, while suburban areas like Golden Valley, Eden Prairie, and Minnetonka — as well as St. Paul — saw increases in how long it took houses to sell.

MAR’s findings mirror what Vork has seen.

While she has seen people on social media say that people are fleeing the city, she hasn’t seen that happen.

“I have seen zero evidence of it in my experience with my own clients,” she said. “People who are asking questions on their blog are not Minneapolitans.”

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B8 September 17–30, 2020 / southwestjournal.com

Community Calendar.

Six months into this pandemic thing, artists, presenters, galleries and institutions are still figuring out ways to navigate safety with our need to connect. Some events are virtual, some are in-person with social distance and some groups are taking a hybrid approach.

By Sheila Regan

Getting out

GREENWAY GLOW ARTS FESTIVAL The Midtown Greenway’s annual Greenway Glow Arts Festival is offering socially distant and virtual ways to experience the fun this year as artists create installations between Uptown and Longfellow/Seward along the Greenway. For the in-person festival, visit the installations for free, or sign up as a VIP to help support the Midtown Greenway Coalition — and get goodies like free appetizers at Krishna’s Delight, ice cream, beverages from Eastlake Craft Brewery and other swag.

When: 3-9 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 26 Where: Midtown Greenway Cost: Free; VIP is $59 for adults, $39 for youth Info: go.midtowngreenway.org/glow

THE PEOPLE’S POSTER

LANTERN LIGHTING CELEBRATION Honor those who have passed on at Lakewood Cemetery’s annual Lantern Lighting Celebration. You’ll decorate a floating lantern and write a message to a lost loved one. It will later be set afloat in the cemetery’s Jo Pond. Take part in this beautiful ceremony that celebrates the beauty of Lakewood Cemetery while reflecting on loved ones and others who are no longer with us. Registration required.

When: 5-8 p.m. Friday, Sept. 18 Where: Lakewood Cemetery, 3600 Hennepin Ave.

Cost: Free admission; lanterns cost $5 in advance, $10 at the door Info: lakewoodcemetery.org

For its Third Thursday event this month, the Minneapolis Institute of Art is teaming up with The People’s Library, an artist collective centered around social justice, arts and education. The People’s Poster will feature a new design selected by an online vote, which will get a live screenprinting at the museum on Sept. 17. Pick up your own copy of the poster for free at the event.

Registration required.

When: 4-6 p.m. Thursday, September 17 Where: Minneapolis Institute of Art, 2400 3rd Ave. S. Cost: Free Info: tinyurl.com/peoples-poster

UPTOWN ART FAIR: ART HEALS MINI EVENT Women’s boutique fashion store Local Motion creates a socially distant, scaled-down homage to the Uptown Art Fair with its upcoming Art Heals Mini Event. The shop will be hosting 12 local artists in its parking lot and inside its doors — limited to 20 people.

It might not be the same as the Uptown Art Fair, but it’s a taste of local artists done with an eye toward safety.

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Staying in BRILLIANT COLORS OF GARY R. MELQUIST Get a virtual tour of the colorful nature and animal paintings of Gary R. Melquist, an artist who didn’t start to paint until he was in his 60s, courtesy of the Hennepin Theatre Trust and Avivo ArtWorks. Melquist, an advocate for mental health issues, will talk about his art and the therapeutic benefits that practicing art has brought him.

When: 1-2 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 20 Where: Hennepin Theatre Trust Cost: Free Info: tinyurl.com/GaryRMelquist

COVID CONFIDENTIAL

By Stewart Huntington

THE GOLDEN ERA OF FAKE NEWS The Hennepin History Museum dives into a historical perspective on the concept of “fake news,” circa the 1800s, when conspiracy theories were rampant, snake oil salespeople hawked miracle cures and the partisan press thrived. Historian and filmmaker Alex Weston, a program associate at the Minnesota Historical Society, offers his take on this topic via Zoom.

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