Seven years ago, in the gym at Edison High School, I told a group of 9th graders about what was then a new summer-jobs program called STEP-UP. One of the students who heard me was Hashim Yonis. Hashim applied and a few months later, he had a STEP-UP job at the downtown law firm of [...]
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One of the top goals of Homegrown Minneapolis has been to get more healthy local food in our schools. Now Minneapolis Public Schools Superintendent Bernadeia Johnson has taken a significant step to make that possible by hiring Bertrand Weber to the top food position at the school district. I first learned of Bertrand’s pioneering work through [...]
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Saturday morning I was at the graduation for parents in the Northside Achievement Zone’s (NAZ)FamilyAcademy Shortly after getting her “diploma” while Pomp and Circumstance was being played, north Minneapolis parent Lucretia Gibbs came to the microphone to tell what this meant to her. She talked about the struggles in her life as she [...]
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It’s official: the City of Minneapolis will not increase the property-tax levy in 2012. That’s because last night, the City Council unanimously passed the no-tax-increase budget that I proposed in September. The newly-adopted 2012 City budget makes a major new capital investment in street improvements and invests in the coordinated One Minneapolis initiative to start [...]
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This week, my proposed 2012 zero-property-tax budget for the City passed another hurdle, after the City Council’s Ways and Means/Budget Committee, led by Chair Betsy Hodges, recommended it to the full City Council for adoption next Wednesday. I was grateful that we were able to partner with committee members to make some positive changes to [...]
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Minneapolis is rapidly emerging as a hotbed of entrepreneurship, as two new developments and many success stories are proving. Small businesses are the backbone of our economy, and fast-growing entrepreneurs are setting the pace for our economic recovery. Yesterday, I attended the first graduation ceremony in Minneapolis of the e200 Emerging Entrepreneurs initiative of the [...]
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I went on a tour of a great Minneapolis business today that reminded me once again that the business of Minneapolis, at least in part, is beer. J.J. Taylor is the largest beer distributor in Minnesota, moving 7,000,000 cases of beer a year. The company’s roots are in Minneapolis — their predecessor began in Northeast in 1933, [...]
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Our economy is still in tough shape and working families are still struggling to get ahead. That’s why we’re working hard with a wide variety of partners to make the most of our city’s and region’s assets and constantly look for ways to grow jobs. One of the promising areas for doing this is the [...]
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Yesterday, we wrapped up the 2011 street-paving season, and I’m happy to say that more than 45 miles of Minneapolis streets are now freshly resurfaced or sealcoated. Downtown Minneapolis in particular has seen a lot of improvement: over 50 blocks of streets, some of which were in tough shape, have been resurfaced, thanks in part [...]
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I’m very excited that this week, I helped unveil the new design for a revitalized Peavey Plaza for the 21st century. Whether you visit, live or work in Minneapolis, people have loved Peavey Plaza for decades. For many people, it’s been a getaway from the hustle and bustle of the street where they can reconnect [...]
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