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Water main break cuts off service to much of downtown Minneapolis
Posted by: Steve Brandt Updated: January 3, 2013 - 4:18 PM
A major water main break in downtown Minneapolis at mid-afternoon Thursday cut off or reduced water service to downtown and a major swath of the city.
Workers were not expected to finish repairs until well into the evening after isolating the break. Traffic and buses service were rerouted.
The break was probably caused when an unidentified excavation contractor working for a utility company was working near the pipe shortly after 2 p.m., according to Marie Asgian, the city’s superintendent of water distribution. The break occurred at Hennepin and 2nd St. N., where a grocery-apartment complex is under construction. Water surged through nearby streets, and several bus routes detoured.
Workers on the scene said that an excavation bucket ruptured the main. The main is one of several major pipes carrying water across downtown to distribute through the city and caused a major impact downtown, with reports of lower pressure extending beyond Abbott Northwestern Hospital and to Lake of the Isles and University of Minnesota .
“We’ll work into the night, whatever needs to be done,” Asgian said. “Nobody is going home until this is complete.” The city said a four-block area near the break will take longer to regain service. That area is S. 2nd St.
The loss of water forced some businesses to curtail service or close temporarily. At The Crossings condominium nearer the break, workers attached a hose to a fire hydrant so the hundreds of units in the building could regain water.
The kitchen closed at The Local restaurant at S. 10th St. and Nicollet Mall, leaving the staff serving beer and wine in disposable cups. General Manager Josh Petzel said happy hour will be affected and he’d already had numerous cancellations for dinner reservations. He said his staff was able to save enough water in buckets to continue washing their hands.
Asgian said the cast-iron pipe will be repaired by cutting it and placing a sleeve over the break. She said that will happen after the break is isolated. Typically those pipes rest eight feet below the surface.
At Hennepin County Medical Center in downtown Minneapolis, surgeries and other operations remained on as scheduled despite the water loss thanks to a back-up system, a spokeswoman said.
The Mill City Museum closed at mid-afternoon due to the break, and residents of nearby lofts were left with little or no water.
Chair wants better budgeting rationale
Posted by: Steve Brandt Updated: January 3, 2013 - 10:26 AM
Alberto Monserrate
He’s the current school board chair in Minneapolis and he wants to stay in that position again next year, but that isn’t stopping Alberto Monserrate from voting against the district’s property tax levy.
Monserrate cast the lone board vote against the 2013 school levy this month, repeating his stance in his first year on the board. The first-term board member vowed to keep doing so until the public feels like it’s getting more for its money.
He spoke long and passionately at the board’s finance committee recently about what he’s hearing from the public and expanded on that in a subsequent interview.
It’s not just the anti-tax crowd that spoke last month at the board’s levy hearing. It’s also the skepticism he’s hearing in the voices of those who define themselves as progressives – those who define themselves as supporters of public education and the levy referendum but who are telling him they’re not getting their money's worth from paying more school taxes.
Monserrate, who runs a Latino-oriented media company, said he’s out of patience waiting for the district to develop a strategy to counter that skepticism. “We need to sell to the public that they are getting good value,” he said.
That involves responding to criticisms and building a case that the district is taking steps to educate the students it isn’t reaching. He called for stronger steps to shift money to schools where those students are concentrated, as San Francisco and other districts have done to attack the achievement gap.
The criticisms that Monserrate hears most frequently mention the district’s executive pay raise snafu of 2011, the construction of a new headquarters that opened in 2012, and the size of the central administrative staff. There are also comparisons with St. Paul, which has more pupils but spends less on each. Monserrate wants the district to address those lingering sores by checking the facts and making its case.
He cited St. Paul’s approval of a levy referendum, and expressed doubt that Minneapolis could do the same until it shows better results and tells its story better.
Precedent opposes council-to-mayor ascension
Posted by: Steve Brandt Updated: January 2, 2013 - 2:53 PM
Mayor Marvin Kline
What do Hussein Samatar, Mark Andrew, Jackie Cherryhomes, Tom Hoch and Bob Fine have going for them as declared or potential mayoral candidates that Betsy Hodges, Gary Schiff and Don Samuels lack?
Precedent.
Except for the recent example of Sharon Sayles Belton, nobody has been elected mayor directly from the City Council since 1941.
Marvin Kline was the last person to achieve that feat, going as did Sayles Belton from City Council president to mayor.
Here’s how the mayors since then have arrived: Hubert Humphrey was a University of Minnesota instructor; Eric Hoyer was on the City Council but gained the mayor’s seat without an election when Humphrey quit to join the U.S. Senate; P. Kenneth Peterson was a lawyer and former legislator; Art Naftalin was previously commissioner of administration; Charles Stenvig was a police detective; Albert Hofstede was a former council member who was serviing as Metropolitan Council chair; and Rybak was an internet consultant and activist against airport noise.
The above comes courtesy of Tony Hill, the University of Minnesota Duluth political scientist who maintains a Minneapolis history web site.
Of course the path to the mayoralty has changed a lot since Kline was elected. The job is a four-year term, shifted from two years in 1981. The election is held in November, not June, a 1973 change.
Maybe the biggest change in how mayors are selected has yet to be fully appreciated because Rybak was so overwhelmingly reelected in 2009. That’s the switch to ranked-choice voting, which means no primary, and the possibility in a crowded field that the next mayor may be elected on the second-choice votes if no one gains 50 percent on first choices.
Kline was bounced from office when Humphrey campaigned on ridding City Hall of corruption, and later was convicted of grand larceny in his job as executive director of the Sister Kenny Institute.
Andrew weighs bid for mayor
Posted by: Steve Brandt Updated: January 1, 2013 - 5:29 PM
Mark Andrew
You can add Mark Andrew to the list of retired politicos considering a comeback by running for mayor.
The South Side native served as Hennepin County Commissioner from 1983 to 1999. He joins Jackie Cherryhomes, another onetime elected official, in considering a bid.
Andrew told MPLS that he's "very interested" and expects to decide in two to three weeks on running for the job that R.T. Rybak plans to vacate in a year.
A Washburn High School alum, Andrew cut his activist teeth in the environmental movement at the University of Minnesota, helping to organize Earth Day, and co-founded Minnesota Public Interest Research Group. He worked for the Minnesota Senate Finance Committee before winning election in 1982 for the County Board seat covering the western half of the South Side and St. Louis Park, defeating Nancy Olkon. He is 62.
"I just closed the sale with my wife," Andrew said Tuesday. "I think I can add a lot to the mix. If I do run, I'm going to be proposing, proposing, proposing. I'm a creative policymaker."
He said stands out in the field because he would bring both political and business experience to a run.
As a commissioner, he advocated both the county's construction of the downtown garbage incinerator and vastly expanded recycling programs. He also chaired the state DFL party and had gubernatorial ambitions.
Andrew, along with Peter McLaughlin, then a fellow commissiner, was interested in running for mayor when Don Fraser stepped down in 1993. But they deferred to ally Sharon Sayles Belton, who won, and McLaughlin unsuccessfully tried to wrest the mayoralty from Rybak in 2005.
Andrew left politics for PR, then in 2007 launched GreenMark, an environmental consulting and marketing firm that links sports teams and their buildings with environmental technology. Clients include Target Field, the Boston Red Sox and Meadowlands stadium. Andrew was also a long-time French fry purveyor at the Minnesota State Fair. One consideration in making up his mind to run is maintaining an income and being able to deliver to clients during a campaign, Andrew said..
Others running for mayor or considering it are Council Members Betsy Hodges, Gary Schiff, and Don Samuels, school board member Hussein Samatar, park Commissioner Bob Fine and theater executive Tom Hoch
How Minneapolis made news in 2012
Posted by: Steve Brandt Updated: December 31, 2012 - 11:09 AMOne reporter’s take on the top 10 Minneapolis-focused stories of 2012:
• A new Vikings stadium approved by the Legislature for downtown, using city-derived taxes, capping a come-from-behind challenge to a proposed Blaine site, and City Council concurs on a 7-6 vote. Deal also subsidizes Target Center renovation.
• Mayor R.T. Rybak walks away from what he’s called his dream job, meaning his tenure at City Hall will end after 12 years and setting off a scramble to succeed him.
• A fired employee shoots and fatally wounds six people at Accent Signage Systems in the Bryn Mawr neighborhood, including the company’s founder, then kills himself.
• Redevelopment surges, with plans for several ambitious housing projects downtown along with an upsurge in apartment construction along transit routes.
• Metropolitan Airports Commission blocks a proposed routing change that would have concentrated jet noise over several corridors in Minneapolis (and Edina.)
• Hiawatha power line is ordered buried under E. 28th St., ending fears that it would mar the Midtown Greenway, and the extra cost is spread over all ratepayers, rather than just those in the city.
• Failure of plates anchoring cables for the Martin Olav Sabo bike-ped bridge detours traffic for several days on Hiawatha Avenue and disrupts bike commuting on the greenway for months.
• Enrollment of white students in Minneapolis schools rises for the first time in at least 35 years and the dawn of the desegregation era.
• Nizzel George, age 5, is gunned down in his sleep on a sofa in a North Side home, culminating a series of drive-by shootings.
• Police and fire chiefs both turn over in Minneapolis, with Janeé Harteau succeeding retiring Tim Dolan, and John Fruetel following Alex Jackson, who retires under pressure from the City Council.
Other notable developments:
School Supt. Bernadeia Johnson is named to a new three-year term when her first one expires on June 30, making her the district’s first two-term chief since Carol Johnson.
Police accumulation of license plate data draws numerous data requests, including from a rep man, and prompts the city to ask for a temporary classification of the data as private until the Legislature acts on its status.
Portland and Park avenues are converted to two-lane streets in a development that frustrates drivers but gives bikers extra space.
Haven’t we done this before? Long Election Day lines form at several precincts, with equipment malfunctions ranging from pens to ballots, and the first results aren’t available until hours after everywhere else in the state, and the final results take several days.
No-sort recycling is adopted by the city, with some households getting their bins now and others in the spring. All recyclables go in one bin, a system some suburbs adopted years ago.
Most city high school students switch to Go-To cards on Metro Transit,
Downtown rowdiness and shootings forced a police and licensing crackdown, with two clubs surrendering their liquor licenses.
Peavey Plaza will get a makeover that historic preservationists decry, including a city commission, but the Minnesota Orchestral Association wants it and the City Council falls in line.
The school district gets its first scratch-built headquarters ever, bringing hundreds of workers to W. Broadway Avenue.
Minneapolis City Council nixes a proposed Hennepin County service hub on W. Broadway Avenue after the community objects to it for drawing thousands of poor people.
Walker Community Church goes up in smoke in a fire that is ruled accidental but injures five firefighters, one of them severely.
A proliferation of new taprooms slakes the city’s thirst for microbrews, while Surly explores a southeast Minneapolis site.
Block E gets even lonelier as its movie theater closes down. But that doesn’t stop its political architect, lobbyist and former City Council President Jackie Cherryhomes, from announcing a comeback bid for mayor.
The school board goes unconventional, contracting for a self-governed school and a third charter school in educator Eric Mahmoud’s empire, both on the North Side.
Civilian review of alleged police misconduct is weakened in Minneapolis with the scrapping of the Civilian Review Authority. The review job turned over to a new agency dominated by police.
Some notable departures:
City Coordinator Steven Bosacker leaves the job, where he instituted statistical results measurement, to see the world.
Gregg Stubbs, named to replace Rocco Forte, who resigned before an investigation into his conduct was finished, leaves himself after only nine months on the job.
Tim Dolan, the retiring police chief, will work with the gun control lobby and chair the mayoral campaign committee for Council Member Don Samuels.
In memoriam:
Marv Davidoff, activist par excellance
Lauren Maker, political activist
Doug Davis, longtime teacher and union activist
Larry Harris, school lobbyist and civil rights champ
Robert T. Smith, Tribune columnist and city editor
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recent posts
- Water main break cuts off service to much of downtown Minneapolis
- Chair wants better budgeting rationale
- Precedent opposes council-to-mayor ascension
- Andrew weighs bid for mayor
- How Minneapolis made news in 2012
- Don Samuels exploring bid for Minneapolis mayor
- Reaction to Mayor Rybak's decision not to run again
- Mpls. Mayor Rybak says he's not running for re-election next year
- Gagnon will get little sleep handling 2013 duties
- New finance chief seeks balanced school budget
- Judge tosses wrongful death suit against city
- Mpls. fire captain wins $420,000 verdict in retaliation suit
- Storm sewers get a robotic review
- Supreme Court reinstates part of tax claim
- City Pages to implement stricter ad policies
- Rybak backs new gun laws, slams violent media
- Mpls. license plate tracking data under wraps -- for now
- Rybak forms state PAC
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