I've been having a hard time with the blog's image uploader so sorry that this post is so late and without photos.
Dog lovers in south Minneapolis may get a new off-leash dog park in a portion of a parking lot, I wrote. The planning committee of the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board approved Tuesday night a citizen advisory committee recommendation for a dog park in the west corner of Lyndale Farmstead Park, converting a portion of the parking lot of the board's South Side operations center. A vote should be to the full board next month. The preliminary approval comes more than a year after a controversial proposal to put a dog park in Martin Luther King met opposition.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota accused Hennepin County of using a back-door approach to try to stop the occupation by OccupyMN protesters of the County Government Center plaza by issuing a rash of trespass notices in the last several days, reports Randy Furst, who has been covering the OccupyMN protest since it started in early October. The ACLU had sued Monday to try to stop the county from evicting the protesters.
An 24-year-old OccupyMN protester was treated early Tuesday after showing signs of hypothermia, Kevin Duchschere writes. Police found protesters trying to wrap blankets around the man, who was shivering and hard to understand, the officer reported. No word yet on his condition.
In other Occupy news, the first two months of the Occupy protests across the country have cost local taxpayers at least $13 million in police overtime and other municipal services, such as cleanup and sanitation, according to a survey conducted by The Associated Press. The survey focused on costs through Nov. 15. Minneapolis ranked 8th in terms of highest cost out of the 18 cities, with $226,655. The number includes $132,912 in overtime for the Hennepin County Sheriff's Department, $42,488 for contract workers for Hennepin County Security to replace employees put on special detail, and $51,255 in overtime for the Minneapolis police.
Paul Walsh reports that the "Man in Black" bank robber has struck again. His latest victim was Uptown's Calhoun Square shopping mall, where he made off early Tuesday afternoon with cash from a Bremer branch.
