The Minneapolis Story -- Columns 2014 Quarter 1

The Experience of Ron Edwards

A Renaissance Black Man in a White Man's World

A Beacon for Freedom in the City

2014 Columns
Quarter 1: January thru March ~ Columns #1 - #13

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March, 27, 2014 #13: Was it Tubby Smith’s Fault? Gophers miss NCAA Basketball Tournament.

"Through My Eyes,” by Ron Edwards
Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder
March 27, 2014

A year ago this month, the Minnesota Gophers Men’s Basketball team played in the NCAA Basketball tournament. The African America Head Coach, Tubby Smith, had retooled the team. It was on the move again. But even when 15-1, Star Tribune started a series of negative, anti-Tubby columns. To his credit, Sid Hartman didn’t agree (writing the day before Smith was fired that it would be a “mistake by the Gophers”). Coach Smith went deep into the tournament last year, losing only in the 3rd round, the “Sweet 16”, three games from the championship. Next day: fired.

The century long peculiar smell in the UM athletic culture raised the bar so high so that if he didn’t win the National Championship he would no longer be UM Men’s Head Basketball Coach.

For those who know the University of Minnesota history with Black coaches, this was not surprising. In 1951, Head Basketball Coach Ozzie Cowles said no African American would ever step on his court of competition. His teams played slow, “control basketball.” There are still those slow at acknowledging either civil rights or Blacks as Minnesota teams head coaches.

When the great All American Quarterback, Sandy Stephens arrived in 1959 as a UM Freshman, and was designated by Mississippi born Head Foot Ball coach Murray Warmath, as the next QB, replacing Smokin’ Joe Salem, white alumni and the white media in MN put up a howl. They hadn’t won a championship in nearly 30 years. Sandy Stephens, along with fellow Black All Americans, Bobby Bell, Carl Eller, Bill Munsey, and Judge Dixon, put up with the hatred and venom directed towards them. They led the U to a Rose Bowl win and its last national football championship. None,, now, for over 50 years.

Four years later, the greatest trio of Basketball Players ever to select UM basketball, all African Americans, Lou Hudson, Archie Clark, and Don Yates, led the Gophers to three successive winning seasons. The constant besides winning: criticizing and attacking Black players.

The culture: there were too many “shadows” on the court. Five year later, Brewer, Turner, Young, and Taylor came to the Gopher Basketball program. The white media in this city said there was too much racial imbalance on the basketball court. How to balance? White coach.

And then there was Clem Haskins, brought here to rejuvenate and breath life back into UM men’s basketball. Also forced out. When Lou Holtz left he told Clem that these folks don’t want a winning program, football or basketball, if Blacks are given starting and star roles. And soon, Clem Haskins was sent on his way. Little has changed. A decade later, when Tubby Smith came here from Kentucky, and turned around a Basketball program that had fallen on hard times, he too, despite winning, was told to move on (in one of the most cowardly displays in big time sports).

Tubby’s replacement was not negatively critiqued by the white media, so, in the final analysis, the dark shadow of Raymond “Red” Presley, a friend of mine who was the legendary UM 3 sport athlete not always allowed to play, continues to speak volumes about a culture that really doesn’t want too many blacks, and certainly doesn’t want them in positions of power and leadership, and that never wants to refer to them as heroes. Its why, other than hockey, the U of Mn will have a hard time winning championships. The late, great Bobby Marshall, stated in 1903, about how difficult it was to be a Negro in the culture of Golden Gopher Sports. It still is.

Stay tuned.
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Sid Hartman, Star Tribune, March 25, 2013: “Firing Smith would be big mistake by Gophers

My columns of a year ago:
March 28, 2013: “Tubby Smith Says, “I’ll gong to coach Again.”
April 3, 2014, Thank you Tubby for an excellent run! Tubby Smith: a man of principle and integrity.
April 10, 2013: Congratulations, Tubby! Texas Tech hires Tubby Smith while U of M keeps looking

About Tubby on UM Athletic Dept web site, 2013: Smith came to Minnesota with a reputation for winning at the highest level not matched by many coaches in the country. In his 20-year career, he has claimed a National Title (Kentucky in 1997-98), made four "Elite Eight" appearances, nine "Sweet Sixteen" appearances and has posted 17 straight 20-win seasons. His 407 wins entering the 2008-09 season was the sixth-best record of any head coach in their first 17 years in NCAA Division I basketball, joining such names as Roy Williams, Denny Crum, Jim Boeheim, Nolan Richardson and Jerry Tarkanian.

On five different occasions, Smith has been named a conference coach of the year (1994 & 95 in the Missouri Valley Conference and 1998, 2003 & 2005 in the SEC). He has also collected national coach of the year honors on three different occasions (1998, 2003 & 2005).

UM, 03/25/2013: Tubby Smith Relieved of Coaching Duties [Fired day after losing Sweet 16 game to Florida]
Director of Athletics Norwood Teague made the announcement today.
UM 03/24/2013: Florida Too Much for Gophers, 78-64
Minnesota falls in the third round of the NCAA Tournament [ “sweet 16” round]

For Ron’s hosted radio and TV show’s broadcast times, solution papers, books and archives, go to www.TheMinneapolisStory.com. To order his books go to Beacon on the Hill Press.

Posted Wednesday, March 27, 2014, 11:26 a.m.

March, 20, 2014 #12: Nine hundred complaints disappear. Only 16 cases under investigation.

"Through My Eyes,” by Ron Edwards, Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder

March 20, 2014

Pull quote: It would be more accurate to change the name to the Office of Civil Rights Misconduct, as that is too often the prevailing action within the Minneapolis Civil Rights Department.

The Police Misconduct Board operates under the custody and control of the Minneapolis Civil Rights Department. The Police Misconduct Board has hired a significant number of attorneys over the last year. They receive a nice stipend to review and make determinations regarding allegations of police misconduct.

Observers as well as workers in City Hall want to know why, under Michael Brown, 900 police complaints, going back several years, have now been jettisoned with no more than 16 active investigations. Police officers call this “bait and switch” and unidentified “Xs and Os.”

Nine hundred complaints have been passed through a shredder. This is not public service; it is sabotage of public service.

The tax payers of Minneapolis are being assessed a significant dollar amount to hire more case reviewers even as the number of cases is reduced. It is clear that, once again, City Hall has adopted its own version of “have a pen and phone” to bypass its own laws, using a shredder and a dumpster for cases, rather than properly reviewing them so that determinations can be made relevant to the statutory importance of these cases to be reviewed.

I am reminded of the cases that came out of the Civil Rights Department itself due to its patterns and practices of dumping cases, as I have reported in this column about how the department sent letters to citizens about their complaints, indicating that their cases had been investigated when they had not been investigated.

Nine hundred complaints represent a lot of citizen expectation that concerns would be taken seriously by government officials, and that the integrity of investigations would be maintained and honored. This is clearly not the case with the Department of Civil Right’s Office of Police Misconduct.

Given the failure of the Department of Civil Rights to stand up for civil rights and to honor and investigate complaints of violation of civil rights, it would be more accurate to change the name to the Office of Civil Right Misconduct, as that is too often the prevailing action within the Minneapolis Civil Rights Department, which has made its business not the investigation of civil rights complaints but dismissing the complaints without review or investigation.

How far is too far? An indicator of the answer is when even police officers, who are members of the tribunal, shake their heads in disbelief at such patterns and practices in the City of Minneapolis. These are signs that the tax-paying citizens of our city are in big trouble, and should feel very concerned regarding the application of good government.

We are not watching the breakdown of our government system. “Breakdown” implies natural degrading, as with an old car, an old roof, an old furnace, etc. Rather it is deliberate, premeditated, and purposeful.

Different leadership groups are given to “getting theirs” at the expense of others who do not get theirs. Remember how the newly elected council person of the b, came to her office only to find most of the files missing? This paper included a picture on its front page. The Star Tribune tried to avoid the story.

There are enough laws and statutes on the books. What we have is system sabotage — unnatural, on purpose. Too many Black officials no longer mimic the great civil rights leaders of the first half of the 20th century. They now, as Whites, mimic the sabotage of the Black community in order to better facilitate their being able to say, “we got ours.”

In other words, self-sabotage of today and, thus, sabotage of the education and jobs of future generations.

Stay tuned.

Editors note: this column fits into what a book sub-title calls "Self-Sabotage in Black America."

For Ron’s hosted radio and TV show’s broadcast times, solution papers, books and archives, go to www.TheMinneapolisStory.com. To order his books go to Beacon on the Hill Press.

Posted Wednesday, March 20, 2014, 1:00 a.m.

March, 13, 2014 #11: What happened to the receipts? Revisiting the Tornado Relief Funds.

As submitted to Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder, March 6, 2014
for their March 13, 2014 edition,
for the column: "Through My Eyes,”
by Ron Edwards

A shock wave rolled like a tornado through the March 3, 2014 meeting quietly held in an out of the way University of Minnesota location, as the representatives of the State of Minnesota, Hennepin County, City of Minneapolis, and the University of Minnesota, gathered to consider questions raised regarding how tornado relief money following the May 22, 2011 tornado was spent.

Though quietly held, the meeting was not one of secrecy. It was one of quiet inquiry. These oversight agencies finally realized they had incomplete accounting for tornado relief funds spent. Their reputations were at risk. They were caught napping in our age of “forensic accounting” (doing financial autopsies on what some hoped were dead accounting records). This is why they confronted relief distribution organizations and their leaders with specific questions regarding tornado relief funds distribution, as sums in the hundreds of thousands of dollars are unaccountable. How much was actually used to help tornado victims and how much was diverted from such help? Incompetence? Embezzlement? Both?

Recall questions raised in late 2011 and early 2012, because of the Status Update Report of June 3, 2011, of the Minneapolis Foundation’s Minnesota Help North Minneapolis Recovery Fund, a fund set up to accelerate distribution funded by tremendous donations from corporate Minnesota.

On July 6, 2011, the Minneapolis Foundation and the Greater Twin Cities United Way announced they had raised $513,258 for the Northside Community Response Team (NCRT) relief effort. Elim Transitionary Housing, Inc. had receipts for every penny received and distributed.

This column reported and raised questions about the distribution of relief money (see our columns of 2011):
Disaster accelerates gentrification of North Minneapolis. Reconstruction proceeds without Black workers, June 01, 2011.

When experience and knowledge truly mean something. Real vs. Fake Ministry Responses to the North Minneapolis Tornado, June 8, 2011.

For two and a half years the general public has been told all is in order. No longer. How was over $700,000 marked for tornado relief actually spent? Far less than what the minutes of the Northside Community Response Team of June 10, 2011, at 2 pm, suggest, falsely suggesting happy days were here again. Were over 5,000 families/people really accommodated with these relief funds?

Documents awaiting examination by investigators show tremendous amounts of cash money paid to tornado victims, 80% of whom were African American, out of the benevolence and compassion of organizations who proclaimed membership on the Northside Community Response Team. Was it so?

Why was it that the very respected and beloved African American woman who had worked for 23 years for the Minneapolis Foundation, and who had receipts for every dollar of relief paid out or items bought, lost her position, while others who were unable to produce a record of receipts for the hundreds of thousands of dollars that they said they had provided to residents of North Minneapolis did not lose their positions?

Overseers at the March 3rd meeting want to know accounting documents are accurate, authentic and complete. We know there will be estimation. We await an explanation of the accounting details and why receipts cannot be found.

Given the status update of the June 3, 2011 report and the impressive response to the call to arms to help and provide for citizens who had been battered by the May 22, 2011 tornado, one wonders why blue tarps are still up and why not all people claimed didn't receive any of the close to $1M in direct contributions, as well as the millions of dollars in federal funds poured into North Minneapolis, in the ensuing months and years after the tornado, as discoered. May those identified June 3 2011, have the opportunity to retrieve their lives and look forward to a more steady future. Anything less is unacceptable.

Stay tuned.

Editors note: this column fits into what a book sub-title calls "Self-Sabotage in Black America."

For Ron’s hosted radio and TV show’s broadcast times, solution papers, books and archives, go to www.TheMinneapolisStory.com. To order his books go to Beacon on the Hill Press.

Posted Wednesday, March 7, 2014, 3:10 p.m. Originallyu ubmitted to Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder, March 6, 2014, for their March 14, 2014 edition.

March, 6, 2014 #10: Title Here

M.A. Mortenson not up to the task for an NFL stadium
Construction manager track record in construction: Junior Varsity

"Through My Eyes,” by Ron Edwards
Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder

March 5, 2014

Pull quote: The “accident” a couple of weeks ago of the massive beam falling during demolition, out of sequence (resulting in a change to dynamiting the rest), shows they were unprepared…

In these columns a year ago, I called attention to the concerns making the Minnesota Vikings uncomfortable with the selection of M.A. Mortenson as construction manager for the now over $1 billion Vikings "multi purpose" stadium, concerns shared also with the NFL. Nothing against Mortenson. It’s a really nice square peg, but they are trying to fit it into a round hole and it doesn’t fit.

Mortenson, great at smaller venues (see below), is out of its league with the Vikings, lacking the expertise, experience, and success history with projects of this size and magnitude. Contrast this with those the Star Tribune reported as rejected (January 21, 2013): Hunt Construction, of Scottsdale, AZ, builder of nearly 50 professional sports venues, including NFL stadiums (two with retractable roofs), and Skanska, the international firm that has also built NFL stadiums. Mortenson has built none.

But Minnesota politics dictated Mortenson receive the project. It is becoming clear each day that the Vikings were correct in their suspicions that M.A. Mortenson was junior varsity and not first-string senior varsity as Hunt and Skanska.

The “accident” a couple of weeks ago of the massive beam falling during demolition, out of sequence (resulting in a change to dynamiting the rest), shows they were unprepared, couldn’t fix their plan, and thus resorted to dynamite. They currently lack an integrated plan.

The conclusion is clear: M.A. Mortenson has never undertaken a project of this size and magnitude (see list below), raising serious questions about the investment and trust made on behalf of Mortenson by the elected representatives of the tax payers of Minnesota that was forced onto the Vikings and the NFL.

The decision to change — in mid-stream — the method of demolition of the Metro Dome should worry investors, bond holders, and others who have a stake in this stadium and now worry about the consequences if these and future delays prevent on-schedule completion.

The fact that Mortenson now talks about a second plan, one that is not as of the writing of this column in place, is troublesome to bondholders and other investors, now having to wonder what additional costs will be incurred and additional moneys needed. At no point in time during the legislative and planning process was there ever a discussion involving a second plan protocol.

July 2016 is the stated date of completion. I continue to maintain that just as in the case of delays with the specialty steel now being prepared in Luxemburg, certain political powers knew that this stadium would not be ready until the year 2017 or 2018. That’s the reason there was discussion to avoid a four-year operational contract, as with TCF stadium. Here are the “largest” of Mortenson contracts. Size (or lack of size) matters (the Mortenson portfolio is here:

• 2013: Pinnacle Bank Arena, Lincoln, NB, $161 million, 15,147 seats
• 2012: St. Paul, Union Depot restoration: $243 million.
• 2011: Mortenson to build largest concentrated photovoltaic (CPV) solar power plant in the world (solar arrays are very different from stadiums)
• 2010: Target Field, $412 million, 40,000 seats, open air
• 2009: Third largest sports arena in China, $220 million; will seat 18,000.
• 2009: Gophers’ TCF Stadium, $288 million, 50,000 seats, open air
• 2008: the $139 million IBCT Company Operations Facilities project at Ft. Bliss, TX, “one of the company’s largest design-build projects,” consisting of 12 separate buildings, with operational support space for more than 7,000 soldiers.

Mortenson’s Vikings stadium claim: “7,500 construction-related jobs and…substantial business opportunity for hundreds of local subcontractors and suppliers.” We still await diversity numbers.

Stay tuned.

For Ron’s hosted radio and TV show’s broadcast times, solution papers, books and archives, go to www.TheMinneapolisStory.com. To order his books go to Beacon on the Hill Press

February, 26, 2014 #9: Title Here

When bribery and corruption causes death!
In the deaths of five children in North Minneapolis

"Through My Eyes,” by Ron Edwards
Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder
February 26, 2014

Pull quote: Saying the tenant is at fault for faulty setting of the controls passes the buck to sidestep poor wiring and unsafe space heaters.

On Saturday, February 15, 2014, Minneapolis Fire Department units rushed to a blazing and fatal fire at 2818 Colfax Avenue, North. Five beautiful, precious and innocent children lost their lives. The father, who lost his wife to heart disease a couple of months ago, now loses five of his children.

He tried to rescue them. Three were burnt beyond recognition. The father, suffering burns and smoke inhalation, is still in the hospital.

This tragedy will forever have an enormous impact on the father, Troy Lewis, and his surviving daughters, as well as on the many friends, family and loved ones. This tragedy raises two major question: (1) why the continued lack of good affordable housing in Minneapolis, and (2) why does the pattern and practice continue in the City of Minneapolis inspections that allow slum land lords and city inspectors to prey upon the poor, specifically people of color?

The Fire Department did everything that could be done professionally and humanly for this fire that should never have happened. This father and his children had only been in the house a couple of months. Yet the house passed city inspection. How, when they were forced to use space heaters for heat, one in the middle of the apartment? This calls for an examination of the inspection reports.

Rules and procedures, codes and statutes governing government protocols for inspections and examinations and clearances for houses to be occupied are too often ignored. It’s a win win for slum landlords and inspectors but not for those in danger due to inspection deals. It has long been felt — and many know stories about —that too many envelopes are passed back and forth under the table that allow inspectors to look the other way.

Any damn fool would have recognized the red flag: space heaters situated throughout the apartment, and a neglecting land lord, Paul Bertelson. Why did the Star Tribune intentionally spell his name with an “o” instead of an “e”? Could it be because another member of the family, Philip, was involved in the death of two African Americans on November 3, 2013, in North Minneapolis on Olson Highway?

In fact, the company that is used by these landlords, Mission Inn Minnesota, Inc., has a history defined by inspectors ignoring what they find and the White media not investigating. The number of properties that they control and their ability to get them to pass inspection, particularly in North Minneapolis, again raises serious questions about bribes and kickbacks.

It is bad enough that the November third vehicular homicide has yet to receive a complete a reconstruction. Why does the Star Tribune make no effort to report this drunken murderer?

Yes, it is murder, vehicular homicide. We know that if it was an intoxicated Black driver killing two Whites, he would be under the jail as we speak.

Will statements made by Bertleson that the walls and ceilings were insulated when they were not be investigated? Saying the tenant is at fault for faulty setting of the controls passes the buck to sidestep poor wiring and unsafe heat. The Star Tribune has a responsibility to the public to use the Freedom of Information Act, to pull inspection reports.

Blaming the victims is the sad default of too many dealing with tragedy in the Black community. We can only offer prayers for those that have survived and for the five beautiful African American children who perished, whose deaths again remind us that there are serious questions of the culture of corruption at work in the city of Minneapolis.

Stay tuned.

For Ron’s hosted radio and TV show’s broadcast times, solution papers, books and archives, go to www.TheMinneapolisStory.com. To order his books go to Beacon on the Hill Press
Posted Tuesday, February 26, 2014, 5:20 p.m

February, 19, 2014 #8: Title Here

A reappointment that is a mistake
Velma Korbel to again head the Department of Civil Rights

"Through My Eyes,” by Ron Edwards
Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder

February 19, 2014

Pull quote: Ted Mondale admitted the lack of diversity for the Twins stadium. He pledged it wouldn’t happen with the Vikings stadium.

Velma Korbel’s reappointment by newly elected Mayor Betsy Hodges to continue as Minneapolis Department of Civil Rights (MDCR) director is a huge mistake that nonetheless exposes the city culture we have long reported: that city government, regardless of who is in charge, is a culture opposed to diversity (the silence on this by the DFL, churches, foundations, and Black nonprofits places them in the same culture). Shamefully, leading Black organizations participate in this culture as they compete for their share of the spoils at the expense of those they are supposed to serve and represent.

Velma Korbel’s reappointment continues a departmental disaster going back through two permanent directors and one interim director. The African American community will continue to be ill served as seen by the 99 percent White work force of the Vikings stadium.

Last week the Minneapolis Star Tribune published an investigative report on former regulatory services director Rocco Forte, former Chief of the Fire Department. Reporting that he served with distinction and effectiveness, it then incorrectly reported that he was a bully and disgrace to his position of authority.
For the Star Tribune to be accurate, it must report the biggest bully and the department producing the most law suits costing tax payers money: Velma Korbel and her Minneapolis Department of Civil Rights (MDCR). A local weekly paper, City Pages, last November, reported on the bullying and discrimination within the MDCR.

Although ineffective in fighting for diversity, she is highly effective in fighting against diversity, hence her reappointment. She will gladly massage stadium work force numbers (people working categorized by race and gender). The MDCR expects a significant payday from the Minnesota Sports Facilities Authority (MSFA) for assisting in developing bogus numbers.

The MDCR demonstrated for the Twins Ball Park Authority that they could help further Chicago-style corruption in Minneapolis. Consequently, with the exception of two contracts awarded to African American firms, the kickbacks went to majority firms as part of their “arrangement” from which the African American community was excluded.

The same is true regarding the construction of the University of Minnesota’s TCF Gopher’s stadium: African Americans excluded. Ted Mondale admitted the lack of diversity for the Twins stadium. He pledged it wouldn’t happen with the Vikings stadium.

Yet he continues it. A former African American MDCR director bragged Minneapolis could meet minority hiring requirements without having to hire a single Black person. The laws suits settled or currently in litigation involving the MDCR under Velma Korbel are smoking guns, including the cases of the late Marvin Taylor, the late Lauren Marker, and former compliance director, Ronald Brandon.

Diversity is a sham in the MDCR, as it shreds evidence and documentation, especially regarding the Twins Stadium. This is a disturbing pattern and practice of corruption that continues the falsification of information pertaining to compliance on the Twins stadium, which has strategically positioned Mr. Tittle to help facilitate a second round of falsified numbers about the Vikings stadium. Watch for falsified existence of personnel and falsified compliance of the goals set by Kevin Lindsay, Minnesota Commissioner of Human Rights.

Mayor Hodges and her new administration know of the MDCR musical chairs and obviously believe they can continue this practice with impunity. Looking back: for two years many scoffed at my reporting that Star Tribune land was all part of the Grand Stadium Deal, and that it, too would also exclude Black Americans.

Deny no longer: Star Tribune headline, Feb. 11, 2014: “Star Tribune land sold to Ryan [AND] stadium authority.” Why? For their “proposed $400 million project next to the new Vikings stadium.”

Stay tuned.

February, 12, 2014 #7: Title Here

Significant economic surge for the Black community by Sports Authority? Or manipulation of numbers to conceal few Black workers?

"Through My Eyes,” by Ron Edwards
Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder

February 12, 2014

Pull quote: The 34 percent workforce suggests significant economic uplift, not unlike that occurring in the energy fields of North Dakota. But is it?

A week ago, at the meeting of the Stadium Equity Committee, created by the stadium authorizing legislation, Alex Tittle, director of equity for the Minnesota Sports Facilities Authority (MSFA) reported that “hours” — not persons — in the workforce would be how the 34 percent minority workers on the stadium doctrine would be counted. Thirty-four percent was advanced almost two years ago by State Human Rights Commissioner, Kevin Lindsay and put into the legislation. The euphoria was understandable. The disappointment and disillusion today is just as understandable.

The 2009 joint study by Mortenson Construction and Conventions, Sports & Leisure, International (CSL) reported: “construction of a new stadium will support approximately 13,000 jobs, including 7,500 construction and trades workers who will be employed during the three-year building process.” Also: “Nearly 4.3 million work hours with almost $300 million in wages for construction workers will be required for this project.” The 34 percent workforce suggests significant economic uplift, not unlike that occurring in the energy fields of North Dakota. But is it?

Here is how the Mortenson/CSL figures pencil out when tallied over three years:
• 34 percent 13,000 total jobs equal 4,420 jobs for minorities.
• 34 percent 7,500 construction jobs equal 2,550 jobs for minorities.
• 34 percent of 4.3 million hours equal ,462,000 hours of work for minorities.
• 34 percent of $300 million in wages equal $102 million in wages for minorities in salaries, wages, bonuses, subcontract profits and other compensation.

Key question as always: how many African Americans will be included in “minorities”?

The January 15, 2014, report delivered to the legislative commission overseeing the stadium reflected the potentially significant economic benefit for communities of color if the state follows through on its commitment as expressed in stadium legislation Section 17, Article 473j.12, “Employment,” line 19.12: the percentage applies to current city goals: workers from zip codes with high rates of poverty and unemployment. Is the change of 34 percent minority persons to hours to again manipulate the numbers and exclude African Americans, as with the Gophers and Twins stadiums?

This is historically significant as it is the same formula used on the construction of the Minneapolis School District Headquarters, at 1250 West Broadway, which resulted in few actual African American workers. When asked, the district could not produce for this paper the actual dollar amount, although they showed each day on a bill board situated at the site the posting the hours worked by minorities. But few actual African Americans.

Why did Commissioner Lindsay decide this was the clever protocol to adopt, which they announced at the equity committee meeting on January 31, 2014? Will the accounting in three years show few actual African American workers on the Vikings stadium just as with the Gopher and Twins stadiums?

What clever manipulation will be used to make it appear they met Section 13 of the stadium authorizing legislation, 473j.09, entitled “Powers and duties of the authority”? Sub paragraph nine of Section 13 authorizes the MSFA to conduct research, collect and analyze data, and hold hearings to inform decision making.

What study/analysis led them to make the change from number of “persons” to “hours,” and how will it possibly enable ensuring the full inclusion of people of color, especially African Americans, in this stadium project? How were the details of this change expressed in the 2nd Annual Legislative Report presented to the legislature on January 15, 2014?

It is important that the real economic infusion, or lack thereof, into the African American community be made on an annual basis so the enthusiasm and bright future expected for and on behalf of the African American community is realized.

Stay tuned.

For Ron’s hosted radio and TV show’s broadcast times, solution papers, books and archives, go to www.TheMinneapolisStory.com. To order his books go to Beacon on the Hill Press

February, 05, 2014 #6: State of emergency in Minnesota:
When corporate and government greed take over America

"Through My Eyes,” by Ron Edwards
Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder

February 5, 2014

Pull quote: We need to be more sensitive to the importance and safety of all of our citizens, not just the top five percent.

“State of Emergency!” declared Governor Mark Dayton, January 27, 2014. "Minnesota is cancelled due to the cold," said Star Tribune meteorologist Paul Douglas, tongue in cheek. But it’s no joke.

Governor Dayton activated Minnesota’s National Guard to help with safety and rescue situations, opened Minnesota National Guard armories as shelter for people without heat, and called for a meeting with propane sellers and distributors to discuss price gouging.

The Governor pushed to the sidelines issues not of life and death, lesser issues like the Vikings stadium and the Minnesota bid for Super Bowl 2018, as he spoke to the hardship suffered by Minnesotans and others in the upper Midwest due to the dangerous shortage of propane gas to combat the cold in a nation of abundant energy.

Why a shortage? Because of two dangerous ideas: (1) place profit over compassion, denying propane to those without heat who can’t afford the price gouging, and (2) a shortage of propane due to the change from 1968’s discussion of the need for fuel for warmth in a new ice age to claiming there will be no more polar ice caps and no more extreme cold due to global warming. We see the protection of profit, price gouging, and fees (whether both “green/sustainable” and “regular”), as seen in the Minnesota State Supreme Court’s ruling on Viking Stadium law suits, in the extra fees for delivery charged by propane distributors, and in the governor’s statement that additional costs have to be passed on to the consumer, even though the shortage and higher costs were created by planners ignoring (due to “warming”) the Farmer’s Almanac warning of this cold.

Over abundance of potential energy for heat has been crippled by over abundance of regulations and “warming planners” ignoring the over use of propane last fall to dry out water-soaked corn crops, making our beloved Minnesota sound like an underdeveloped nation. Some Minnesotans are being asked to pay five dollars per gallon for propane gas that last year was going for $1.59. Some are told they must pay $1,000 for 150 gallons of propane. To regulators, sellers and propane distributors alike: Shame! Shame! Shame!

I shudder thinking of families with babies, children and elderly without propane, facing plunging temperatures and wind-chill readings of minus-55 degrees below zero, as wind-driven blizzards sweep across the state, freezing solid everything in its path, with their primal fear and survival anxiety made worse by federal planning interfering with where such planning should occur (denying state and local levels: Minnesota knows cold).

We have been locked in a block of ice for over a month. I commend Governor Dayton for recognizing the desperate situation facing Minnesotans. Although we hope that by July 4th we’ll be laughing when we speak of The Great Winter of 2013-14, this is not the time for levity when facing the uncompassionate greed of big corporate or the lack of cold planning by global warming bureaucrats. We need to be more sensitive to the importance and safety of all of our citizens, not just the top five percent.

Those seeking excuses for not being compassionate ignore the moral framework of Adam Smith, who wrote of the need for “compassion” in the marketplace of the “invisible hand” in pursuit of economic benefit: “All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind.” For Smith, society survives when there are rules for not harming each other.

This senselessness must be explained. Those responsible must be held accountable.

Stay tuned.

January, 29, 2014 #5: NAACP activates legal strategy. Local branch joins Doug Mann in law suit against the Minnesota Sports Faciliteis Authority

"Through My Eyes,” by Ron Edwards
Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder

January 29, 2014

Pull quote: The financial settlement should be significant for the economic future of African Americans in Minneapolis and throughout the state.

One of the traditional strengths of the NAACP movement has been its shrewd planning for taking legal action against those violating rights of African Americans. When you think of the successes of NAACP legal redress committees, you think of such leaders as Walter White, Roy Wilkens and Thurgood Marshall, as well as such historic actions and legal milestones as the 1954 decision of Brown vs. Board of Education and Martin Luther King’s 1968 Poor Peoples March.

The legal redress committee, a historic pillar of strength of NAACP branches across America fighting for African American civil rights, is seen once again in the local NAACP branch’s crafty move on the legal front to join the suit of long time NAACP member Doug Mann against the Minnesota Sports Facilities Authority (MSFA) for its failure to meet its diversity pledge.

With the appointment of long time local branch NAACP supporter Louis King to its executive committee, the trap door has been slammed shut on the MSFA. It is clear that Louis King and others would be the chief negotiators in a significant financial settlement involving the NAACP groups organized to carry this out.

The MSFA failure to create a diverse work force is clear. Its time of stalling by again saying “wait” has run out (see Martin Luther King, Jr.’s seminal 1963 book regarding this, Why We Can’t Wait. Hint: injustice and unfairness).

We understand the historic and brilliant legal redress strategy to support the action initiated by NAACP member Doug Mann. The MSFA shell game has been exposed. After all of the chest-thumping bragging, we see the MSFA cannot show an equity or affirmative action plan on either the front end or back end of whatever plan the MSFA has talked about (hence Louis King’s statement that only 100 workers are on board stadium construction now with the majority not until mid-2015). No wonder the NAACP is officially joining with Mr. Mann.

Now it will be even tougher for the State Supreme Court to reject the NAACP legal brief to be heard on this matter of a continued violation of the civil rights of Black Americans and others of color. This column will be watching closely as announcements are made of pending legal actions against the MSFA’s misrepresented commitment to equity and inclusion of African Americans in jobs at and contracts for stadium construction by the MSFA.

The sleeping giant of the NAACP, re-awakened, marches with its time-honored NAACP legal redress committee strategy. It is a bright day, a triumphant day. The local NAACP branch joins a long line of legal redress committees in the forefront of successful challenges and strategies as used by Thurgood Marshall, Nellie Stone Johnson, and Cecil Newman, etc., who would be proud of this very clever plan being activated.

The financial settlement should be significant for the economic future of African Americans in Minneapolis and throughout the state. Of those involved, we know “the color of their skin.” Now we’ll learn about “the content of their character.”

To the graduating class of Morehead college in 1959, Martin Luther King, Jr said, "An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity."

In his 1963, “Letter from a Birmingham jail,” Dr. King wrote: "The question is not whether we will be extremists but what kind of extremists we will be. Will we be extremists for hate or for love? Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice or the extension of justice?"

Stay tuned.

Ed. Note: Columns are submitted 8 days prior to publication. Following submission of this column, the Minnesota Supreme Court dismissed the suit, “stating in a five-page order handed down Tuesday [Jan 22, 2014], the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled it does not have jurisdiction over the matter.” This is a troubling decision, as it not only leaves unresolved the question of the City ignoring its own charter but also turns a blind eye on the fact that the stadium enabling legislation gave the Supreme Court jurisdiction over the issuance of bonds. It is one thing to go through the process of changing the Charter. It is quite another to ignore it when it is felt to be inconvenient. The precedents this set will come back to haunt. The same is true of the Supreme Court finding a narrow way to side step its legislatively determined bond sale jurisdiction.

For Ron’s hosted radio and TV show’s broadcast times, solution papers, books and archives, go to www.TheMinneapolisStory.com. To order his books go to Beacon on the Hill Press.

January, 22, 2014 #4: Financial disaster for Minnesota Sports Facilities Authority

"Through My Eyes,” by Ron Edwards
Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder

January 22, 2014

Pull quote: The MN Supreme Court has to decide whether they will protect the rule of law or continue to break law in the name of favoritism, cronyism, and rich privilege.

When Douglass Mann filed his motion with the Minnesota Supreme Court, early Friday morning, January 10, 2014, no one knew his motion was being sent to the State Supreme Court, raising serious constitutional issues with regard to the funding of the $1 billion “people’s stadium.”

As of the writing of this column, three days after the filing, the Minnesota Sports Facilities Authority (MSFA) did one of the most peculiar things in the modern legal history of Minnesota: asked to be a defendant in this landmark constitutional case, peculiar because one thing that never happens in America is for people to rush into court to be a defendant, especially when there are allegations of constitutional violations.

Besides obviously believing they can’t/won’t lose, the MSFA is employing a shrewd strategy: requesting that the Minnesota Supreme Court impose a $50 million bond upon the Mann group to stop their pursuit seeking justice and fairness for the taxpayers of the City of Minneapolis, and, by extension, the taxpayers of Minnesota, The MSFA, in about 16 months or less, has gone through $74 million, including the $50 million in cash provided by Ziggy Wilf and the Minnesota Vikings.

Before the Supreme Court does anything, it should require a forensic audit as to how the MFSA conducted its business from July of 2012 through December of 2013, and how it has spent its money ($74 million) and doesn’t have money to pay the bills due ($28 million) later this month (Public Company Accounting Oversight Board says one in three company audits have “high levels of deficiencies.” How high for government agencies like MFSA?).

The MSFA is paying more for the foreign steel they purchased than they are confirming, and have apparently consummated contracts that are $50 million beyond what they have ever had in their bank accounts. And Thursday evening, Jan 9, MSFA Equity Director Alex Tittle not only pointed out that 46 percent of current stadium work force were women and minorities (hard to believe), but that “to date more than $120 million have been awarded in contracts.” Really? With what money?

I’m not sure who is doing the math for the MFSA or the state, but this offers a better understanding of how $50 million was on the MFSA radar scope (if the MFSA loses and the deal falls through, MSFA would have to pay the Wilfs back their $50 million), when they asked the MN Supreme Court to impose those conditions on Mr. Mann and his group (or any other MN citizen who challenges the breaking of the rule of law by officials embracing the doctrine that it is okay to break the law as long as it is the rich and privileged taking care of the rich and privileged just as bank robbers rob to take care of bank robbers).

The MN Supreme Court has to decide whether they will protect the rule of law or continue to break law in the name of favoritism, cronyism, and rich privilege. This is a historic test for the state that produced Floyd B Olson, Hubert H. Humphrey, Nellie Stone Johnson, Cecil Newman, and other great Minnesota initiators of principle.

Many great legal scholars who have sat upon the bench of the Supreme Court of Minnesota will be looking down from afar to see if the rule of law is still in place. We know the MN Sports Facilities Authority is broke, but woe to us if breaking the rule of law is authorized by the state Supreme Court. Will the Court establish a dangerous precedent or take the constitutional and moral high ground?

Stay tuned.

January, 15, 2014 #3: Promises, Promises, Promises. What good is an Equity Plan with no follow through?

"Through My Eyes, the Minneapolis Story Continues"
A weekly column by Ron Edwards
Featured in the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder

January 15, 2014

Pull quote:

The current mayor and six members of the city council did nothing to address the inequities that were pointed out in the $500,000 taxpayer study on the lack of equity access and opportunity in the city of Minneapolis.

Liberals have become extremely proficient at making promises to the constituent base of people of color. The theme song is “come vote for me so that me and my people get paid to distribute a few tax dollars to you,” not “come fly with me to prosperity.”

Betsy Hodges, our incoming mayor [Mayor Hodges, city council off to a raucous start in Minneapolis, January 6, 2014], made the traditional liberal promises last Monday, January 6, 2014, in her inaugural. Under the guise of equity, the constituent base, people of color were told to wait on another five-year plan. The Soviet Union communist five- and 10-year plans were not funny. With the African American community no longer having access to City Hall, it’s still not funny: plans as promises made with no intention of being kept.

Someone pointed out the other day that the Bush Foundation gave a $100,000 grant to a member of city council to develop an equity plan. As we can’t get an equity plan implemented for the Viking stadium, how for the entire city?

The Somali community announced (January 5, 2014, Star Tribune) that it has been rewarded with a special Somali Advisory Committee attached to the mayor’s office. And yet, despite all the pain and broken promises that slave-descended African American communities endured over the decades, no previous mayor — liberal or conservative — created a Native American or African American Special Advisory Group to the mayor of the city of Minneapolis.

The City Council could not muster enough votes last Monday to allow 100 citizens to have input on a proposed equity plan. The suggestion made: “You people” do it through the committee structure, not public testimonies. So, even the council rule of only two minutes per person never happened.

This is how the least of our citizens (in this case a powerless Black community) is left dangling, despite the funding and expectation of the Bush Foundation that the City Council will begin to craft an equity plan. The waiting for a stadium equity plan now shifts to waiting for an equity plan for the building of a light-rail system (that represents 100s if not 1,000s of jobs in North Minneapolis that. at best, cannot begin until 2017), and then shifts to wait for the next big or small projects.

The equity plan/promise also talks about housing and education. Nellie Stone Johnson always said “no education, no jobs, no housing.” And yet, after the equity study report of October 2010, the current mayor and six members of the city council did nothing to address the inequities that were pointed out in the $500,000 taxpayer study on the lack of equity access and opportunity in the city of Minneapolis. So why should we think they will now?

The observation from people aware of what did and didn’t happen have every right to say, in a public manner, that we can expect nothing but broken promises in a broken city with broken morals that goes to great lengths to pretend they care for the least of our citizens and children of color.

Clearly, their pretense is as false as their mission. No promises kept. No expectant future. That is the sad, immoral, and corrupt Minneapolis Equity Plan. The failed $10 Trillion War on Poverty begun 50 years to beat poverty which is now at a 50-year record high. President Lyndon B. Johnson, January 8, 1968: “unconditional war on poverty in America to attack causes not just symptoms of poverty;…a fair chance to develop their own capacities;…an investment…[that will]…return its cost manifold to the entire economy;…to replace their despair with opportunity.”

Stay tuned.

For Ron’s hosted radio and TV show’s broadcast times, solution papers, books and archives, go to www.TheMinneapolisStory.com. To order his books go to Beacon on the Hill Press

Posted Wednesday, January 15, 2014, 5:50 a.m

January, 08, 2014 #2: The Rooney Rule is dead. Next Vikings coach “must” be White

"Through My Eyes, the Minneapolis Story Continues"
A weekly column by Ron Edwards
Featured in the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder

January 8, 2014

Pull quote:

The Vikings will go through the motions, bring a Black guy in for an interview, and then say to the world they have satisfied the Rooney Rule requirement.

With the firing of Leslie Frazier December 30, the NFL is down to two African Americans head coaches out of the 32 teams that make up the National Football League (none were hired in the 2013 hiring cycle; Big Ten: none in the last 10 years).

This is not about Affirmative Action; this is about affirmative discrimination. With 65 percent of players being African American and most coaches being former players, statistically, all things being equal, to get the best of the best you would have at least 20 Black head coaches. I’d settle now for 10.

Statistically the NFL numbers reflect discrimination. The real number that counts is how few entry-level Black coaches are hired who can then compete for moving up. Closing the beginning of the coaching pipeline guarantees fewer qualified for the coordinator to head coach move.

Not since the mid-1970s has there been so few African Americans as NFL head coaches. To head off comments, NFL propagandists, late Monday afternoon, December 30th, started to feed information to the sports media that former Chicago head coach, Lovie Smith, was the leading candidate for the Tampa Bay job.

How ironic that the NFL Pittsburgh Steelers is owned by the Rooney family, the same people who crafted the Rooney Rule, which says that wherever there is a head coaching vacancy, at least one of those interviewed must be an African American, or a candidate of color. It will be interesting to see who the Minnesota Vikings will interview and pass over in an effort to “abide” by the Rooney “rule.”

Let’s be realistic, my friends. The Vikings need to sell a lot of seat licenses in order to sell season tickets. The false liberal philosophy of equity will show its ugly side. Likewise, the false NFL belief that they need White head coaches to get viewers or sell tickets. The Vikings will go through the motions, bring a Black guy in for an interview, and then say to the world they have satisfied the Rooney Rule requirement. Did you find it as telling as I did that in all the White sports media in this city the commentary about replacing Frasier did not include a single African American candidate.

This helps heighten the significance of the miracle hiring of Denny Green as the head coach of the Minnesota Vikings over a decade ago in the late 1990s. Have no doubt: Leslie Frazier was the type of human being, coach, father figure and mentor that the NFL pretends that they support, but in reality they do not, as seen by the fact that the NFL is now down to two African Americans in a head coaching position as of this writing on December 30, 2013. That speaks volumes to the return of overt racism regarding the coaching ranks of America’s biggest sport.
If you tie this into the almost non-existent African Americans as head coaches at prestigious White colleges, you understand the doctrine whispered about, that Blacks can play and entertain us, but they are not smart enough to lead or provide inspiration for young men and women, Black or White. Even greater irony is the National Football League having fewer African American head coaches during the administration of a Black president. There is something very symbolic about that and it has a lot to do with the games people play and the lack of a sincere commitment to the Rooney rule by the NFL.

We conclude that Leslie Frazier was in the wrong city with the wrong team at the wrong time in history.

Stay tuned.

For Ron’s hosted radio and TV show’s broadcast times, solution papers, books and archives, go to www.TheMinneapolisStory.com. To order his books go to Beacon on the Hill Press

Posted Wednesday, January 8, 2014, 11:50 p.m

January, 01, 2014 #1: Looking at 2013, Through Real Eyes

"Through My Eyes,” by Ron Edwards
Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder
and Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder News Online

January 1, 2014

We wish to convey to all of our readers and the staff at the Spokesman Recorder, all the best for a bright future.

Our last column of 2013 ended with “We just celebrated the life of Nelson Mandela, a man who proved a Black man can be a success as president of a country with both Blacks and Whites.”

In this first column of 2014, we celebrate another Black man, Barack Obama, who has moved beyond proving that a Black man can be a success as president of a country with both Blacks and Whites: he proves that a Black man can be President of the most powerful country in history.

Although some say President Barack Obama is a lame duck president, a failure with no legacy, we disagree. “Lame duck” is short hand by ivory tower public policy academics who don’t get out from behind their lecterns but still think they should be in charge. President Obama has succeeded with health care where all, from Teddy Roosevelt forward, have failed (Ted Kenney and Jimmy Carter each wrote, in their last books that Ted purposefully killed health care under Nixon and again under Carter). We don’t know what the final shape of health care will be but it will be, and it will be part of his legacy.

The President shares everyone’s dream: a free, democratic, prosperous society for all. Disagreements are over how to achieve this shared dream, whether through centralized or "localized" influence, or federalist as Congress/White House or federalist/constitutional as states/cities/neighborhoods. Required is compromising forward, engaging “the politics of moderation,” making haste slowly to allow for the peaceful inclusion of diversity. Those opposed to real diversity are tyrants.

Nelson Mandella fought for a South Africa constitution modeled on ours. Too many in the world today, left and right, want to dispense with constitutions. If we spent more time ensuring the survival of our institutions of democracy, the greatness of our First Amendment’s protections of minorities of religion, speech, press, gathering, and redress of grievance, we would not have to worry. That is the true sense of compassion and caring that is needed by our democratic institutions that President Obama brings to the conversation.

Too many of both party’s self defined “betters” are committed to the failure and nullification of those they define as “lessers”. This column continues to subscribe to the doctrine that there are more of us who believe in what is right, who believe in compassion, who believe in humility, who believe in opportunity, than those who are opposed to those doctrines because of ugly visions and devious motivations (such as racism and opposition to diversity).

The elections of 2014 will reflect voters rolling up their sleeves to support our institutions of democracy and democratic dreams of people. We are a good nation with great institutions of freedom and liberty (history reflects this). We have good people with achievable dreams. President Obama is committed to this. It is in that spirit that this column encourages all Americans to work to achieve fairness, justice and inclusion that will allow the least, the youngest, and the most compassionate to see success on the horizon.

We live in a city of Scandinavians who brought the spirit of Martin Luther and the Reformation’s sense of renewal, new beginnings, and second chances. When will the Lutherans of this city stand up for their consciences and Luther’s “no ruler” (secular or religions) perspective to aid our new Mayor and new City Council to finally achieve the reform needed to enable true diversity and inclusion?

I stand with President Barack Obama as he declares at each speech’s end: God bless the United States of America.

Stay tuned.

For Ron’s hosted radio and TV show’s broadcast times, solution papers, books and archives, go to www.TheMinneapolisStory.com. To order his books go to Beacon on the Hill Press.

Posted Thursday, January 2, 2013, 3:13 a.m.

Ron hosts "Black Focus" on Channel 17, MTN-TV, Sundays, 5-6 pm, and co-hosts Blog Talk Radio’s “ON POINT!" Saturdays at 5 pm, providing coverage about Black Minnesota. Order his books at http://www.BeaconOnTheHill.com. Hear his readings and read his solution papers and "Tracking the Gaps" web log. Formerly head of key civil rights organizations, including the Minneapolis Civil Rights Commission and the Urban League, he continues his "watchdog" role for Minneapolis.

Permission is granted to reproduce The Minneapolis Story columns, blog entires and solution papers. Please cite the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder and www.TheMinneapolisStory.com for the columns. Please cite www.TheMinneapolisStory.com for blog entries and solution papers.

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2014 Columns Quarter 1: January thru March ~ Columns #1 - #13

2014 Columns
Quarter 1: January thru March ~ Columns #1 - #13