Better Minneapolis Podcast

On recent Mondays, when the weather is nice, I ride my bike to Turtle Bread at Chicago and 48th to meet David Therkelsen. We’re planning a trip to Seattle, Portland, and San Francisco, July 18–28, where we’ll meet with policymakers and residents to record their lessons on good governance and bring back recommendations for Minneapolis. One topic on our list is drug addiction. These cities, and Minn...

Tuesday night, the Theater of Public Policy, presented by Danger Boat Productions and City Cast Twin Cities, brought Mayor Jacob Frey and Council President Elliott Payne to the Granada Theater in Uptown for an evening of policy discussion and improv comedy. It managed to be both serious and entertaining. We respect that these city officials showed up. The evening opened with a discussion about les...

Early Voting Has Begun Voting for the August 11 primary has begun. If you’ve chosen your candidate, we encourage you to vote early. You can do so in person Monday through Friday from 8 AM to 4:30 PM at Minneapolis Elections & Voter Services , 980 E Hennepin Ave, through July 24. Hours vary from Monday, July 27 through Monday, August 10, so check the website before you go. The office is closed Frid...

On a recent trip to Chicago, we found ourselves contradicting ourselves as we explained to friends that Minneapolis is safe. We live in South Minneapolis, and we have never referred to it as “unsafe.” We still wouldn’t. But it was difficult to explain how, in the past year alone, our house was broken into and a man with a knife fled through the front window. Then a dozen neighborhood vehicles had...

His name was Kenneth White. He was 19 years old when Pearl Harbor was bombed on December 7, 1941. According to my father, Ken ran naked from his barracks in search of cover. It wasn’t until he found the safety of a bunker that he realized the bottom of his feet were cut and bleeding. As many military men do, he moved his family all over the world, Puerto Rico (my grandmother loved it), North Carol...

The Obama Precedent It’s ancient history, but Barack Obama was the first candidate to forgo public campaign financing and spending limits for his presidential campaign. On June 19, 2008, he sent a video message to supporters explaining that small-dollar donations would easily surpass the money he’d gain from public matching funds and those same donations would allow him to avoid spending limits. O...

The Counter Argument For today’s interview, I sought out someone with real-world experience in property ownership around Uptown. I wanted to test the claims made in Christian Heller’s May 26 Star Tribune Commentary, “Stop scapegoating homeless people for Uptown’s problems” , particularly his explanations for the area’s vacant storefronts. Heller argued, first, that landlords are using spaces for p...

The Humphrey Mondale dinner Firday night drew a sold-out crowd to the Minneapolis Convention Center. For DFL leaders and donors, it was an opportunity to network and discuss the party’s path forward. Past keynote speakers have included Hakeem Jeffries, Nancy Pelosi, Hillary and Bill Clinton, and Elizabeth Warren. This year’s speaker was Andy Beshear, Governor of Kentucky, a choice that carried a m...

Lyndale Avenue Reconstruction On Monday evening, business owners along Lyndale Avenue invited Mayor Frey to the Uptown VFW for a listening session. He may have thought he was walking into a respectful gathering. Instead, he found himself in a standing-room-only rally, business owners and their supporters on one side, biking advocates seeking to preserve the latest design on the other, and a large...

The Reform Agenda Minneapolis must ask itself what it wants from the police and how we’re going to prioritize our public safety dollars. Chief O’Hara resigned on the heels of the 6th Anniversary of George Floyd’s murder, an occasion that saw community gatherings of remembrance and panels devoted to pushing for greater change within the Minneapolis Police Department. Social media has been abuzz wit...

It is 8:30 p.m. on Tuesday and we are pulling an earlier version of the newsletter to report that Chief O'Hara has resigned. An investigation into his conduct contained "concerning substantiated findings," though no details have been officially provided. Until they are, we will treat rumors with circumspection. Beyond the investigation, a range of concerns about O’Hara’s performance had been raise...

Memorial Day is here and with it the unofficial beginning of summer. You can now wear white. For some, the start of summer is the solstice, which this year falls on Sunday, June 21. But don’t let the sunshine fool you. When it comes to cooperation and progress at City Hall, there isn’t the joy of sunshine and festivals that come with the season. Minneapolis City Hall continues to be where dark clo...

Monday night at the VFW in Uptown, a familiar argument played out. Residents gathered to review reconstruction plans for Lyndale Avenue, and the room quickly divided along predictable lines. Business owners raised concerns about extended construction timelines, reduced parking, and a concrete median that would make their already-struggling storefronts harder to reach. On the other side, advocates...

On Thursday, May 14, Mayor Frey announced that Agape Movement was his choice to be the city’s development partner for the Peoples’ Way. Our research has found no evidence that the group has the “relevant experience” or “financial qualifications” necessary for managing a multi-million-dollar project of this scope. Response to the choice has been criticized by several council and community members,...

Introduction Josh Bassais wants Hennepin County to do its job, on public safety, housing, transit, and county services, and he has a plan to get there. Central to his pitch is better collaboration across levels of government, particularly with the state, at a moment when the legislature holds the fate of HCMC in its hands. District 3 is shaping up to be one of the more competitive Hennepin County...

This essay is for all the mothers with cracked hands, scarred bellies and breasts, and fantasies of what life might have been like without children. Brunch and Flowers A typical image of Mother’s Day is brunch and flowers and a day off from the regular Sunday routine. Those things are well-deserved, and if you’re a mother who has such a day, we hope you enjoy it. You’ve earned the recognition. How...

Impressions from the Mayor and City Council Speeches Watching the press conference in which Council President Payne, Vice President Osman, and Ward 2 Council Member Wonsley responded to Mayor Frey’s 2026 State of the City address left me with several impressions and a few questions. The mayor and city council have competing priorities, few shared ones, and little apparent interest in resolving the...

The Long and the Short of It Sitting down with Commissioner Marion Greene, we covered a lot of ground and learned how much the county actually does. Hennepin County’s $3.15 billion budget is larger than Minneapolis’s and dedicates 26.8% to Human Services, 21.2% to Health, and 15% to Law, Safety and Justice. The county also runs HCMC, the region’s trauma 1 teaching hospital, which is currently figh...

It’s been roughly six months since I last interviewed Eric Roper. He has been writing for the Star Tribune since 2009, and his columns fuel a significant amount of conversation in Minneapolis and the surrounding area. For this interview, I wanted to hear more about his recent work. Links provided below. Over the past month, he has weighed in on some of the city’s most difficult topics. We agreed t...

Will the Real Leader of Minneapolis Please Stand Up? Thursday, I spent half a day watching the Minneapolis City Council meeting and feel as though I’m still recovering. When my editor asked how it went, I struggled to find the right words. “Well, if I were opening a business, the last place I would choose right now is Minneapolis.” The reason is simple. The current city council has reached a mind-...

Introduction This newsletter is dedicated to documenting the people, politics, and solutions working to improve Minneapolis. As a two-person operation, writer and editor, we pride ourselves on bringing you a unique perspective that no nonprofit think tank could replicate. We are genuinely grateful to every reader who chooses to support that mission with a paid subscription. Occasionally, though, w...

Introduction The major news out of the Hennepin County Attorney’s office this week was the filing of charges against Gregory Donnell Morgan Jr., 34, a federal ICE agent . Morgan faces two counts of second-degree assault for pulling his weapon, a Glock 19 equipped with a laser light, on two people in another vehicle while driving on the shoulder of the Highway 62 and Interstate 35W interchange on F...

Introduction This interview with David Fhima comes at a critical time for Minneapolis restaurants and businesses. Restaurants in particular are feeling the pressure of rising wages, food costs, and property taxes. Add to those challenges a shift in lifestyle, less drinking, more nights at home, and it’s easy to understand why a concerted effort from the city is needed to rehabilitate Minneapolis’s...

In preparation for our interview with Ward 8 City Council Member Soren Stevenson, we put together a long list of questions. We appreciated his patience and willingness to engage on all of them, even the more controversial ones, including the rejection of Community Safety Commissioner Toddrick Barnette’s nomination, the effort to decriminalize drug paraphernalia, and overturning the ban on adult ba...

Social media has become a significant distraction in daily life. People under 30 spend three to five hours a day on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. If you’re 30-49, that drops to two to three hours. Over 50? You’re more likely on Facebook, spending an hour and a half scrolling through baby photos and political news. Over 65, it’s less than that. The numbers vary, but the through line doesn’t: we i...