Minneapolis is edging into the stadium discussion after securing a meeting with the Vikings sometime in the next five days, Eric Roper reports. After largely avoiding the city to focus on their Arden Hills site, Vikings officials now say they will help the team winnow down their list of sites. Mayor R.T. Rybak is leaning toward the Metrodome location, while the Downtown council prefers two others to the west. Overnight Wednesday, the Downtown Minneapolis Neighborhood Association weighed in to support the Metrodome location.
In other stadium news, columnist Sid Hartman writes that he sat down for lunch with Rybak and Council President Barb Johnson and considers them "eager to work out a deal."
The newly renamed Occupy Minneapolis found the city inhospitable territory today, as the county dismantled their tent colony on Hennepin Government Center Plaza at 4:15 a.m., then the city did the same at 9 a.m. to a few tents that relocated to the sidewalk in front of City Hall, Randy Furst reports (with an update from me).
Continuing his investigation of the city impound lot's auction practices, Matt McKinney reports that the city was informed as early as 2009 that it wasn't notifying vehicle owners who were owed money from impound lot auctions. The city used that money to fund impound lot operations, but changed its no-notification policy after McKinney's original report on the subject. City officials said they couldn't remember why nothing changed when they were informed about the problem nearly three years ago.
The City Council is plenty steamed over the ballooning overtime bill from the fire department, and some openly question why weekends and summer days are such popular times to call in sick, Steve Brandt reports.
Across from City Hall at the Grain Exchange, Google chief Eric Schmidt schmoozed with Mayor R.T. Rybak and local entrepreneurs and admired the old trading floor-turned-collaborate workspace now known as CoCo Minneapolis. See McKenna Ewen's video and read Steve Alexander's story here.
Public safety: North Minneapolis was the site of a 24-year-old woman's suspicious death in a home on Thomas Avenue N. and a Wednesday afternoon shooting on West Broadway that left a man fighting for his life.
