Riverside Chats

David Levy is a candidate for the Regional Metropolitan Transit Authority’s Board of Directors in District 2. The Transit Authority, also known as Metro, is responsible for running Omaha’s bus system, including ORBT and MOBY services. Levy is running against Clarice Dombeck, who was on this show in June. You can hear my conversation with her wherever you get your podcasts. The first elected transi...

Ameen Wahba is a licensed mental health practitioner whose work is grounded in the belief that psychotherapy can be a liberatory practice, both individually and institutionally. Wahba is also a multidisciplinary artist, writer and musician. In 2018, he published a book of poetry titled “Bear Witness to That Which Is.” He’s been part of various gallery installations around town and was a 2023 Fello...

Zedeka Poindexter and Gina Tranisi are co-executive directors of the Nebraska Writers Collective. NWC is responsible for the annual All Writes Reserved Youth Spoken Word Festival, formerly known as Louder Than a Bomb, which reaches more than 30 schools and 500 students across Nebraska and Iowa with free spoken word poetry lessons, workshops with local writers, open mics, and a space to be heard. N...

Astrid Munn is a lead attorney at CIRA, the Center for Immigrant and Refugee Advancement, where she represents immigrant clients who have survived violent crime, domestic violence and trafficking. CIRA was previously known as the Immigrant Legal Center and Refugee Empowerment Center. Munn is also a comedian who performs improv and standup at clubs around town. Munn was born in Scottsbluff and rece...

Roger Garcia represents District 1 on the Douglas County Board of Commissioners. Garcia was elected to his first term in 2021, becoming the seven-member board’s first-ever Latino commissioner. He’s up for reelection this year but is running unopposed. Garcia was born in Los Angeles to immigrant parents from Honduras and Mexico. He was raised in Columbus, Nebraska and moved to Omaha in 2005. He hol...

Eduardo Gardea is a self-taught painter who works out of his studio at Hot Shops Art Center in the North Downtown neighborhood. He recently decided to quit his day job and pursue art full-time. His work is influenced by stories of the disenfranchised, often encouraging the viewer to think more deeply about the immigrant experience. Gardea has also created a number of murals around Omaha. One of hi...

Episode 198 Attorney Matthew Wurstner returns to the show for a conversation with Tom Knoblauch about the legality of the United States' attempts to ban TikTok if it isn't sold by its Chinese parent company ByteDance. Originally aired 6-24-24

Cyrus Jaffery is the founder and CEO of Jaffery Insurance. His new memoir is “Triumph After Trauma: How a Scrappy Battle-Scarred Refugee Insured His Own Success and Can Inspire Yours,” which he co-wrote with Leo Adam Biga. The book outlines Jaffery’s journey of migrating to the United States as an Afghan refugee, and applying the principles he learned in his journey to the business world.  Jaffery...

Episode 199 Doris Lassiter is a public health advocate for North Omaha. Lassiter’s career began with a corporate job, which she left after becoming pregnant unexpectedly and prematurely giving birth to her daughter. The experience led her to work with the Omaha Housing Authority on reducing infant mortality rates among Omaha's Black community. With OHA, Lassiter helped launch the Omaha Healthy...

Episode 200 Marcos Eduardo Mora Barrientos is the executive director of Casa de la Cultura, the organization behind Omaha’s annual Cinco de Mayo celebration. Mora was born in Los Angeles and raised in Omaha, where his family has lived for nearly a century after his grandfather, Vidal Barrientos, migrated from Mexico in the 1920s. La familia Barrientos has been known for its musicianship in South O...

Episode 201 Martin Sneider, former co-CEO of Edison Brothers Stores, is author of the new book “Amy Unbound,” the second installment in his Feldman Family Saga. The series follows a powerful family in the fashion industry, and the rise and fall of their business empire. Some of the story based on Sneider’s own experience as a fourth generation fashion retailer. “Amy Unbound” is out now and availab...

Episode 202 Diana Rogel is the diversity outreach and engagement coordinator at Live On Nebraska, one of 56 organ procurement organizations in the country. Live On is responsible for recovering organs and tissue from deceased donors for transplantation, and maintaining the state's donor registry. According to the United Network for Organ Sharing, more than 100,000 people in the United States a...

Episode 203 Leah Whitney Chavez is the founder and executive director of World Speaks Omaha, a nonprofit that works to expand language access in Omaha. World Speaks offers low-cost tutoring and language classes, and translation services in more than two dozen languages to businesses and other organizations. World Speaks is also launching the Open Doors Initiative later this year. The program is me...

Clarice Dombeck is a candidate for the Regional Metropolitan Transit Authority’s Board of Directors in District 2. The Transit Authority, also known as Metro, is responsible for running Omaha’s bus system, including ORBT and MOBY services. The first elected board will have seven nonpartisan members, one for each district. Prior to this year, seats were appointed by the mayor rather than elected. T...

Shelley Mann is the founder and executive director of Nebraska Abortion Resources, also known as NEAR. Mann started NEAR in 2020 with a mission of providing financial aid to people seeking abortions. That assistance can take different forms, such as paying for the procedure itself or covering travel costs. Mann says NEAR has helped 800 people access abortions in four years. Mann has a long history...

In today's episode, Michael speaks with Lucia Pedroza-Estrada, Elevate Omaha ’s advocacy and grantmaking director. Born in Guatemala, and a self-described lifelong lover of politics, Pedroza-Estrada’s work involves acting as a connector to elected officials and other advocacy groups. She also makes the grantmaking process more accessible to youth and develops advocacy strategies that are youth...

The  Omaha Summer Arts Festival  is a weekend-long, annual celebration of the city’s culture. The festival includes an artist market with more than 130 vendors, a lineup of local musicians, and lots of local food. This year’s festival is June 7 through June 9 in Aksarben Village, and it’s a milestone: number 50. Today, Michael is speaking with Maggie Winton, the Omaha Summer Arts Festival’s market...

Ja Keen Fox is an advocate from Nebraska with experience in political organizing, journalism, and media. Earlier this year, Fox began working on The Dreamland Report, a nonprofit news service expected to launch this November. Fox created the serice in an effort to close the information gap between North Omaha and the rest of the city, and to make news about the Black community accessible to reader...

Susi Amendola is a yoga therapist, author and Ornish Lifestyle Medicine trainer. She has more than 30 years experience in yoga and stress management. Her studio  Yoga Now , where she still teaches, opened in Benson in 1983. Amendola also directs the studio’s annual yoga teacher certification program, which begins this September. Amendola’s new book is “The Centered Heart: Evidence-Based Mind Body...

The Omaha Mobile Stage is a traveling performance venue that was built out of an 18-foot box truck. The truck is rented for block parties, markets, youth talent shows and other community-centered events as a platform for all kinds of live performance. On this episode, Jessica Scheuerman and Keiria Marsha talk about their goals for the stage as a creative placemaking effort, and what’s planned for...

Qasim Shabazz Asad is a co-founder and co-chair of the  Black Agenda Alliance , a Pan-African group working to improve social, economic and cultural conditions in Omaha’s Black community In 2019, Asad and other community members formed the Black Agenda Alliance to bring a new perspective to advocacy in Omaha. The organization’s goals include youth education, strengthening families, building econom...

Miah Sommer is the founder and executive director of Astute Coffee, formerly known as the Bike Union. The nonprofit coffee shop employs young adults impacted by the foster care system and creates programming to give them the tools to succeed in the workforce and their personal lives. Sommer was born and raised in Omaha. His mission with Astute Coffee was informed and inspired by his childhood.

Maurtice Ivy was a record-breaking basketball player as a student at Central High School in the 1980s. She went on to play for the Nebraska Cornhuskers women’s basketball team, where was the first player in Husker history to surpass the 2,000-point barrier. Her jersey was retired in in 2011. She was inducted into the Nebraska Athletics Hall of Fame in 2020. Today, Ivy is pursuing her doctorate deg...

Today's episode features a conversation between Tom Knoblauch and Matthew Wurstner, an attorney from Omaha, Nebraska. If you've ever watched Supreme Court proceedings, a word that you've heard a lot is "precedent." How much does precedent matter? How much should we revere the standards of the past, and how much should we look to rewrite the rules of the future? These question...

Today's show is a conversation between Michael Griffin and Tena Hahn Rodriguez, co-interim executive director of Black & Pink National , a nonprofit prison abolition organization headquartered in Omaha. Hahn Rodriguez is a dancer, educator and Omaha native. She’s worked at various nonprofits in Omaha, including Inclusive Communities and Heartland Pride, and co-founded the queer nightlife e...