Minneapolis, Don't Forget to Miss Me

North by Northside, signing off.

Ever since I began to be drawn to the move to Superior, this song "Don't Forget to Miss Me" has been my personal Twin Cities theme song.

She said she's gonna make it back, it could be any day
It's not so much the waiting as not knowing what to say
She said, oh always keep me close
Even 'cross the distant sea
One more thing, oh yeah, before I go
Don't you forget to miss me

Sometimes I would be singing it as if directed at a place that had been my home, hoping the contributions I made and whatever lessons I could teach would remain and be built upon.  (Minneapolis, don't you forget to miss me.)  Other times I envisioned Minneapolis singing it to me, reminding me to keep what I have learned and continue my service to a community in my new home.  (Minneapolis: Don't you forget to miss me.)  For a very long time, my relationship with wherever I happen to live has extended almost to a personal level of attachment.

Have you ever been in a long-term relationship with someone and then felt yourselves growing apart?  Have you ever woken up one morning, and turned your gaze to your loved one only to realize that because one or both of you have changed, now you don't love them the same way anymore?  What do you do when that happens, do you recommit yourselves to what essentially amounts to a new relationship, do you go through the motions and stay together even though things now feel hollow, or do you realize that it's now time to part ways?  What happens when you feel that way about your home?

I don't love Minneapolis anymore and I hadn't for a while even before I left.  Or at least I stopped loving it in the way I used to.  If I were to characterize my relationship with this city on a personal level...

First-Time Home Seller, Part III: The Move

Before you get your home ready to show prospective buyers, the most important thing to realize is that you have terrible taste.  Sure, you love the color scheme in the dining room and it was fashionable, but trust me, those particular shades of whatever paint you used look awful now and your buyers will hate it.  And if they don't like it then the first thing they'll do when they put an offer together is start to take money off the top.  "Well since we're going to redo almost every surface in there, let's drop our offer by maybe two grand.  I mean Jesus. Burnt orange and chartreuse?"  There is a scientific basis for this as well, in that people react differently to colors, but can more easily imagine their preferred color scheme on a neutral surface.

Lesson 10: Paint it white.  Go back and watch the business card scene from American Psycho, write down every "shade" of white that they describe, bring that list to a Sherwin Williams store, and tell them this is your new color palate.

"Look at that subtle off-white coloring..."

This is a good time to remember that all of your furniture is ugly too.  Sure you knew the couch you picked up in college from someone's alley and is now in the basement man-cave should be passed on to the next generation of kids getting their first apartment or possibly destroyed via exorcism.  But everything you bought since then is awful too.  The bench that looked so charming on the Wayfair website was exactly the wrong one, the klibbig och förfallen from Ikea wasn't put together right and it just so happens your prospective buyers are snobby Swedish furniture assemblers and they will notice such things, and let's not get started on those dining room chairs.

First-Time Home Seller, Part II: The Finances

What is your plan financially?

When I teach classes for people on buying their first homes, one thing I would show was a chart for how much money you need and when you need it.  From the point of just thinking about buying (you may need $15-20 for your own credit report) to the costs of inspections, appraisals, earnest money, and the day of closing.  How long does that process go and when do you need money during those stages? Selling a home isn’t free either, and having the same kind of understanding will make navigating that far easier.

Many cities, Minneapolis included, have pre-sale inspection reports as a requirement.  The inspector may be either a city employee or just someone qualified to review your home for code issues.  In most cases, anything below code will then become the responsibility of the new buyer, sometimes to fix within a specified time period after taking ownership.  The idea is to have no items below that grade, which is another good reason to have a realtor who can help spot those before the inspection. The pre-sale inspections tend to cost between $200 and $500, and if you decide to do any repairs and have them reinspect for a cleaner report at the time of sale, plan on a small fee for a second visit. 

When is Your Credit Score not Your Credit Score?

Who has monitored their credit on sites like Credit Karma, only to apply for a loan and have the score vary so wildly that you couldn't get financing?  In my time as a mortgage originator, I lost count of how often applicants would say, "But I just checked my score and it was way higher than that!"

My usual response would be that sites like Credit Karma are sort of like Zillow for your credit profile.  The information is a good estimate of what your score and profile are, but lenders don't use that exact formula.  Realtors use a similar line on some disclosures by saying the "information is deemed reliable but not guaranteed."  That was true enough of an explanation when I was on the corporate side of the desk, but I recently applied for my own financing and found out just how hard it can be to navigate what my credit score really is.  I felt like Alice in "Through the Looking Glass," I knew what my credit score was this morning, but it changed a few times since then.

This post will break down what that meant and what happened.  In that order.  Have you ever looked for a recipe online and seen a long soliloquy before the list of ingredients?  "It all started when I took a year off from college to backpack through Italy.  I met a Tuscan grandmother who told me that the secret to a good marinara was patience..."  And here you are thinking, "Damnit, I'm in the checkout aisle at Costco right now and I'm just wondering how to add some zest to the rigatoni.  I don't need to read 'Eat, Pray, Love' first.  Or if I'm being entirely honest here, again."

So I'm switching things up and doing the useful part first and then the story for anyone who's still reading.

First-Time Home Seller, Part One

I have worked for almost twenty years with first-time homebuyers - either counseling them as a non-profit employee or counseling them AND closing their mortgages as a loan originator.  So I’ve seen that there’s no shortage of advice out there for first-time homebuyers. But when I went to sell my home, I thought about how little guidance there is for first-time SELLERS.  Which most first-time buyers will become at some point in their lives. Now that my home has sold, I want to walk people through that experience and hopefully provide a few helpful pointers of what you might not have thought about before that undertaking.

If it seems, at times, like a piece of advice comes out of nowhere and one thing doesn’t always follow another in any logical sense, that’s because in the process of selling your home things come out of nowhere and one thing doesn’t always follow another in any logical sense.  Selling your home is sort of like if you’re dating someone and the relationship gets to the point where the two of you are finally ready to take the big step and meet one partner’s friends for board game night. And it turns out you thought you knew how things would go but everyone’s got these inside jokes and they bust out the rule book to prove to you that you’ve been playing Monopoly wrong for your whole life and you’re thinking about breaking up with her before the game is even done but they made you be the damned thimble and now you’re determined to win, if only to prove a point.  

In order to give some semblance of order while still allowing for the occasional non-sequitir, I’ve broken this series down into three categories.  The emotional/mental side of things, the physical/practical aspect, and the finances.

Rental Screening Proposals Go Too Far

Minneapolis is proposing a sweeping change to how landlords can screen tenants.  The ordinance is, well, problematic enough to rouse me from my slumber.  I've got a few blog posts left in me on this site and then I'm doing my best to look forward instead of back at my old town.

The proposed changes can be found here and here.

And it's not all bad, to be honest.  But like a lot of what this council does, this proposal takes some good and necessary changes, adds in some trendy left-wing buzzwords, mimics west-coast policies that may or may not apply to the realities of a Minnesota marketplace, tosses those in a blender with some predetermined conclusions and today's ideological purity requirements, and presto!  That's how you get new city code!  Schoolhouse Rock really ought to write a song about this, but it's tough to find words that rhyme with "ordinance."

I do want to break this down into the good, the maybe, and the ugly.  First, the good parts...

On Representation within Neighborhood Boards

Image from Wikipedia.

There is an ostensibly noble push to create more diversity on Minneapolis neighborhood boards.  Noble because the premise is sound; community organizations should at least somewhat mirror the demographics of the neighborhoods they serve.  I characterize the current push as coming from a questionable place though, and that leaves me with doubts about whatever policy might come from any changes.

My entire twelve-year connection to north Minneapolis was spent as part of a neighborhood organization, either as a staff person or as a committee and board member - even two years as board chair.  If there is one thing I learned as an absolute truth for community participation during that time, it is this:

Meetings don't make people come to meetings; issues make people come to meetings.

So when city staff, elected officials, or critics and opponents of these organizations make the accurate claim that some don't have enough people of color, renters, or other demographics in attendance or leadership roles, my first questions are...

Time of Sale Energy Disclosure is the New Regulation Nobody Wants

Photo is of my home in Superior, built in 1900 and getting as much rehab as I can do in 2019 and beyond.  Note the amount of insulation.

In an attempt to address energy efficiency, the Minneapolis City Council is poised to consider adding new burdens on the sale of residential homes.  Specifically, a blower-door test and a two-inch hole drilled on the inside of an exterior wall would tell prospective buyers new information about the home they are purchasing.  If implemented, I worry that this will lead to more difficult real estate transactions, lower home values, and possibly even a net loss in energy output.

While my time living in Minneapolis has drawn to a close and my time owning property there also nears an end, that doesn't mean my connection to the city is severed and never to be restored.  A future job, relationship, or investment opportunity could always take me back to the Twin Cities at some point.  And a regulation like this would make me less likely to make that investment in this fair city.

We'll get into the broader market impacts, but first on a personal note...

Yes, the Tree Was Racist and Here's Why That Matters

Photo from Chauntyll Allen, now widespread.

I saw the racism in the Minneapolis Fourth Precinct tree instantly.

So I did what so many of us do in this social media age.  I took a screen grab from a friend's Facebook account, put it up on my Twitter feed with a demand for our elected officials to address it, and went back to my day.  I figured I'd contribute to the chorus of calls for apologies, consequences, and reconciliation.  As it turns out, that tweet was one of the first to spread the image broadly, and became a focal point for many people and news agencies.

(A quick side note:  once it became clear that this was getting way more exposure than I expected, I went back and found the source of the original post.  That was Chauntyll Allen, a Black Lives Matter activist.  From that point on, I directed all media inquiries to her - both because she was the original poster and because as a person of color in Minneapolis, her experiences with what that tree means are much more direct and visceral than mine.)

But what I want to address in this post is how so many people, mostly but not entirely White, didn't see what I and so many others saw.  The denials on Twitter, Facebook, and the comment sections of news reports ranged from a thinking it was in poor taste but not racist all the way to seeing the racism and enjoying it.  If you're on the latter part of the spectrum, this post is not for you.  If you're curious as to how this was construed as not just offensive but downright racist, read on...

The North Minneapolis Element of 2040 is Finally Here! Sort of.

Stock photo from a previous north Minneapolis 2040 meeting.

Well, it's here.  CM's Cunningham and Ellison have released their joint...plan? proposal? talking points? about how the 2040 Plan will be utilized to benefit north Minneapolis.  It is, without a doubt, a lot of talking points.  But it lacks a certain something.  I will not mince words; this is a series of platitudes that north Minneapolis has heard for years leading up to this plan, and the addition adds nothing of substance to the discourse or concrete actions that may be taken as we move (presumably) forward.  The entirety of the writing can be found in the first link above, and the housing section is quoted here.

The City of Minneapolis will reverse the institutional harms caused to the Northside community by building on the many assets of the community while also prioritizing community wealth building in the form of housing, small business, public safety, youth opportunities, and environmental justice by:
Action Steps
1. Taking actions to stabilize housing stock by increasing homeownership in interior residential areas with a focus on supporting first-time, first-generation homebuyers, and provide “right to return” supports to homebuyers with historic ties to the community, such as those displaced by rising rents or foreclosure or returning home after completing higher education.
2. Increasing access to affordable housing options in neighborhoods, particularly multifamily housing along transit corridors.

To which I respond with the following series of questions...

Star Tribune Editorial Raises Red Flag on 2040 Plan

The above image is an example of a front porch converted to living space.

Today the Star Tribune published an article titled, "Minneapolis 2040 Helps Address Housing Inequality."  In that article was a startling reference to what the author claims the 2040 Plan can or will do.  In fairness, my interpretation of the article's claims may in fact be incorrect.  I have searched the 2040 Plan website again and it remains a planning document equivalent of trying to find a specific item at a TJ Maxx store.

From the Strib, emphasis mine:

What cannot occur under existing law is exactly the process that would most help those working-class renters: organic, small-scale development, mostly conversions of existing buildings. These developments are unlikely to produce high profit margins — the wealthiest renters are unlikely to trade out gleaming lofts for basement apartments — but they give individual property owners the ability to put another unit or two in an existing house. 

This is exactly the development the 2040 plan seeks to spur, by allowing up to three units on all lots in all residential areas.

 Let's break down why this is bad news...

Minneapolis 2040 Does Not Serve North Minneapolis

Public comments are due tonight on the Minneapolis 2040 Plan, so by the time most of you will read this, I'm hoping that enough input has already made it clear that the plan in its current form is unworkable and needs a new draft.  I have serious concerns over the 2040 proposal, but first want to articulate what this is and what it is not, for the sake of readers who may not be familiar with how these long-range plans work.

The best comparison in north Minneapolis would be the West Broadway Alive! plan.  And I remember my first reaction to the vision of what to do with the north Minneapolis segment of West Broadway was that this plan was full of political pablum and had no concrete ideas whatsoever.  A fair criticism, to be sure, but West Broadway Alive! was not meant to put forth specific development ideas.  Rather, it was meant to express the community's long-term values and goals for West Broadway.  Then, when various proposals came forward, we could point back to the document and say one of a few things. "Yes, this follows the WBA; yes, it could follow those values with some tweaks; no it does not follow the plan and deserves to be summarily rejected; or no, it does not follow the plan, but presents some previously unthought of ideas that we should now incorporate into Broadway's development."

In the years since, north Minneapolis residents, business owners, investors, and advocates have used the WBA plan to push back against the location of a Hennepin County Services Center, to keep the MPS from creating more surface parking, to preserve historic storefronts before and after a fire, and to guide multi-family housing along the Broadway curve from James Ave to Penn Ave.  That's how I see the 2040 plan's future use, which is why even after the initial draft phase is closed, we need to keep giving our input to city council members and other officials.  Because once 2040 is adopted - and eventually it WILL BE - then for the next decade or more, people will come forward with their detailed proposals for specific developments in specific areas.  And they absolutely will point to the 2040 plan in its final form as a document that was passed with enough community input that its gravitas and credibility should continue to guide city and community decisions for years to come.

So since this document will be used to justify or oppose how our city develops and grows for decades, the time to make our voices heard is now.  Which leads me to my concerns over the Minneapolis 2040 Plan...

Where Will We Put All Those Fourplexes?

After my initial foray into the citywide fourplex proposal, I began to take a closer look at my own surroundings.  And as much as I want to exercise caution I became quite surprised at how little of north Minneapolis is zoned for multifamily housing compared to how much this part of the city could use such development.

For instance, from my place on 26th and Penn up to 30th Avenue North (which is only three blocks because the 2800 and 2900 blocks get jumbled together here), there are at least twenty-three city- or county-owned vacant parcels of land.  All of them are zoned R1 residential, so without a variance only single-family homes can be built.

Penn Avenue North is a community corridor.  It already has a mix of multi-family and single-family homes along the route, especially in this three-block stretch.  North Minneapolis has bled density and needs to add more people back to our community.  In fact, you can't rightly call Penn a commercial corridor because there isn't enough of a population to drive much commerce here.  When Metro Transit surveys their ridership to see where its ridership is most dependent on busing as their primary mode of transportation, Penn's route (the 19) and its tributaries and parallels (the 5, 22, 14, among others) consistently come out near the top.

When you talk about areas that need density, we're it.  When you talk about building housing for those without cars, the northside is not some trendy place where young college grads use the Uber to Lyft their Car2Go or whatever the kids are doing nowadays.  People are riding the bus to do their laundry and grocery shopping because that's what they need to get by.

So looking at this zoning proposal in terms of racial equity and access to an affordable infrastructure of housing and transit, corridors like Penn and Lyndale, Emerson and Fremont Avenues North absolutely have to be the cornerstone of how communities can benefit.  Because the next carless micro-unit building for college grads making sixty grand is not going to cut it.

With that in mind, my next round of number crunching was centered around this query: Were it not for the R1 zoning restriction throughout much of north Minneapolis, would we see an influx of multifamily investment?  Or as some council members have posited, would that investment be focused in other areas even at the expense of existing housing stock?

Some of what I found seemed to support my predispositions and other data was more than a bit surprising.

Who Would Benefit from Relaxed Citywide Multi-Family Zoning?

Vacant land, multi-family, and single-family homes.

These parcels are likely already zoned for multi-family housing, but there are plenty of vacant lots around me that would benefit from the addition of 3-4 unit properties.

"Well, the cat's out of the bag," said Council Member Lisa Bender regarding a proposal to relax zoning requirements practically citywide.  The change could result in there being virtually no barriers - from a zoning perspective - to building a four-unit house throughout much of the city.  To be honest, the prospective change excites me more than just about anything I've seen from our new council.  But it is replete with possibilities to further exacerbate some of Minneapolis' worst problems even while it addresses rental housing shortages.

CM's Johnson and Gordon raised some of their own concerns, namely that the new ordinance could result in starter homes being priced out certain markets as the land beneath the home becomes worth enough for investors to purchase, demolish, and build anew.  While this would add a net gain of housing units, it would come at the expense of first-time buyers and would not be the ideal way to roll out such a change.

I share those concerns, and worry that otherwise viable housing will be demolished in favor of new construction of fourplexes.  If that dynamic becomes widespread, then I also worry that we will have a housing change that prices more owners out of south and northeast Minneapolis while passing over the swaths of already-vacant land in north.  And then let's talk about who benefits and how.  Obviously renters benefit from having more options available to them at (hopefully) affordable rates for quality housing.  The communities around the new units get the benefits - and let's be honest, the drawbacks such as they are - of increased density.  And the largest beneficiaries would the the new owners of the four-unit housing expansion.

I will be focusing on those two aspects of the proposal as this post proceeds - how to incorporate a zoning change in ways that minimize the demolition of viable homes and how to ensure that the largest windfalls that ownership provides are aimed at people and communities that have been historically marginalized.

Minneapolis Needs a Second DFL Party

As elections get ever closer, the level of vitriol keeps escalating.  The crisis du jour happens to be a set of mailings that have gone out from Minneapolis Works! that have been in support of some of the less liberal candidates for city council.  The hints of big, downtown money swaying the election has even brought out the most dreaded word imaginable in Minneapolis elections.

Republicans.

Now realistically we don't have Republicans as a political force in Minneapolis.  Sure, we had one run for mayor in 2013, but to borrow from the legend of Keyser Soze, and like that he was gone.  Underground.  Nobody has seen him since.  He becomes a myth, a spook story that DFLers tell their kids at night.  Run against a more liberal candidate, and the Republicans will get you.  And no one ever really believes.

So this mailer comes out, and to be honest, the real story ought to be that these really rich political action groups had to crib campaign photos without permission and used poorly cropped Getty image photoshops.  With that much money, if you want to be progressive with an actual 'p' then hire a northside photographer from a minority-owned business or a local arts group to take actual photos, and then get another such business to design the postcard.  Instead, the uproar is that the less liberal candidates were called "progressive," when the new crop of left-wing candidates thinks that word belongs to them.

And the problem with that is that the DFL in Minneapolis is essentially the only path to political legitimacy (Sorry, Cam Gordon, but until we get more Green Party representation, I stand by the assessment).  So ascendancy within the DFL party, and the DFL endorsement at conventions is not a consensus by Democrats of who represents their values.  It is instead a tool to be used to gain the appearance of credibility.

Contrast that with statewide DFL conventions and endorsements...

The Abolish the MPD Poll is Full of Terrible Ideas

Post by Jeff Skrenes, photo is from my front porch.

This post has been edited from its initial publication.  A list of candidates who voted "yes," "yes then no" or "did not respond" has been added, those candidates have been added to the "labels" section, and language was adjusted at the hyperlink to better reflect a narrative flow.

Recently a group called Pollen put out a survey and candidate questionnaire for the upcoming Minneapolis municipal elections.  The questions are pretty standard fare, if a bit left-leaning even for Minneapolis, with two notable exceptions.  "Do you believe we could ever have a city without police?" and the follow-up to that, "What would you do, as an elected official, to bring us closer to police abolition?"  What is exceptional, and not in a good way, is that two DFL-endorsed incumbents and two of the leading mayoral candidates answered the first question in a way that at a different time or place would be considered political suicide.

"Yes."  (With a caveat:  Mayoral candidate Jacob Frey initially answered "yes," and has now retracted that.  His answers now state "no," with an explanation that the initial questions differed from those on the submission form.)

The other candidates that answered yes, as of this posting are:  Ray Dehn (mayor), Ginger Jentzen (Ward 3), Phillipe Cunningham (Ward 4), Jeremiah Ellison (Ward 5), Janne Flisrand (Ward 7), Alondra Cano (Ward 9 incumbent), Lisa Bender (Ward 10 incumbent), and Jeremy Schroeder (Ward 11).

Mohamud Noor (Ward 6) answered the follow-up question about what would be done to abolish the police department, but did not answer the initial yes/no question.

There is a guy running for mayor under the political banner "Rainbows Butterflies Unicorns" and EVEN HE said abolishing the police department is unworkable.

Whether this is an indictment of how much work must be done to reform many aspects of our police force, or it's demonstrative of how far to the left at least some are trying to take our city, this question is not normal or healthy.

I suppose reasonable people - or maybe we don't see each other as reasonable right now - may disagree on the value judgment above, but let's not sugarcoat these two questions.  In many a Facebook comment thread I've seen or participated in, defenders of posing such queries state that the vision is merely aspirational, and asks candidates to envision a city where police are not necessary because everything else is so great.

No.  That is not what the questionnaire is getting at.  One of its authors, Ashley Fairbanks, is quoted in the Star Tribune as stating that the police force is so rooted in white supremacy that it is irredeemable.  Whether that's true or not isn't my immediate point, but rather we need to acknowledge that the people behind this question are very much in favor of dissolving the police force.  Not radically reforming it, but "abolition."  The very next question asks for specific actions that would bring us there.  That should make it crystal clear that the questionnaire is not leading candidates or voters to sing John Lennon's "Imagine" while casting ballots in hopes of a world with no religion, wars, or greed.  The survey and its authors unapologetically advocate for the abolition of a police department, and anyone who answered yes is tacitly supporting that view.

There are more than a few other problems here...

The Conscience of a Moderate

Post by Jeff Skrenes, photo is stock photo from my Facebook profile.


Minneapolis politics have taken a sharp turn to the left and I'm not sure I recognize my own city anymore.

I don't make that statement lightly, and I don't base that sentiment solely on the political positions that seem to have the wind in their sails for the time being.  There is an undercurrent to this shift that feels different than other political differences and disagreements I've seen in the past.  And to be honest, it's the shift in tone that concerns me more than a potential shift in policy.  Politics do make leftward and rightward shifts over time, and in the long arc of history I like to think the push and pull of those tides helps us to get it right.

I still consider myself a liberal and a progressive, certainly a Democrat.  On a national scale I probably favor government regulations and spending more than most, but locally I would be to the right of many of my compatriots in that regard.  Still, this sentiment of a political sea change for the worse does come from an understanding of left-wing activism and tactics.

My first job out of college was working for Minnesota ACORN, the predecessor to Neighborhoods Organizing for Change.  I've been on my share of marches, most recently to protest the Philando Castile verdict.  I've organized a direct action that once got my organization sued - a badge of honor of sorts in that world.  Which is to say I've been in the far-left activist sphere before and I understand its philosophy and methods perhaps more than others who would self-identify as moderates.

I'm not sure exactly when the left-wing meanness started to manifest itself, but I first noticed it during...

"Appointergate" Wakes up NXNS

*post by the Hawthorne Hawkman, stock image from GIFsme.  I was going for a stock photo of "tempest in a teapot," but a shot glass seems a whole lot better.

It's been almost a year since my last blog post, and my writing has been sporadic before that.  I've made several statements that I was returning to regular writing, although this time I can't say if that will be the case.  But I tend to write about things in my neighborhood and city that I want to see changed and that I think may be impacted by writing.  Recent current events have caused me to dust off the blogspot and see what we've got under the hood.

There are two posts in the hopper.  Part One is "What the Hell was the police chief thinking?  No, really, I am honestly baffled because there seems to be no part of 'appointergate' that was handled with any degree of forethought."  Part Two is something of a "I am a political moderate in a city that doesn't seem to have a voice of moderation" manifesto.

Chief Harteau, you're up first...

"Where is BLM After Northside Shootings?" That's a Loaded Question.

One of the refrains I see on social media after shootings in north Minneapolis is the question of why people associated with Black Lives Matter aren't out protesting against that particular shooting, or why BLM isn't speaking out against issues like Black-on-Black violent crime.  I've felt that most of those queries, especially coming from Caucasians or those not affiliated with BLM were misguided at best.

That chorus began again after the tragic shooting death of Birdell Beeks, and I can tell you where Black Lives Matter was...

Moving Houses Can Make Minneapolis "Greener" Than a Plastic Bag Ban

A house on Broadway and Ilion that may be torn down as development comes along.

And the vacant lot immediately across the alley from this house, which is not part of the proposed development.

Four and a half years ago, I was at a Hawthorne environment committee meeting, and the icebreaker was to say our name and the "greenest" thing we did that day.  "I picked up trash around Farview Park," or "I recycled a pop bottle" were common introductions.  When it was my turn, I said, "My name is Jeff, and today I had an offer accepted to purchase and rehab a home that would have otherwise been demolished."  I think I won that round.

On April 1st, the Minneapolis City Council wasn't playing a joke when they adopted a ban on plastic bags that are ubiquitous at most retailers.  They received a fair amount of criticism for taking up the issue in the immediate aftermath of the decision not to prosecute the officers involved in the shooting of Jamar Clark.  Personally, I found the timing to be a bit tone-deaf, but I don't mind an elected body that can focus on more than one hot-button issue at a time.

But if they ban plastic bags, how will I be able to use plastic bags to pick up the plastic bags that accumulate in my yar--ohhhh.

I'm not entirely opposed to a plastic bag ban.  I do use them occasionally, but would just be more conscious of taking tote bags with me if I must.  But there are two main issues I have with this proposal...