[Mpls] This Week in The Minneapolis Observer

[craig]

T H E M I N N E A P O L I S O B S E R V E R
A Weekly Digest of All Things Minneapolitan
Vol. 1, No. 16
December 3, 2001

**********************************************************

THIS WEEK IN THE OBSERVER:
* Local Falun Gong Practitioner Detained in China
* Closing Small Schools May Backfire on District
* The Reparations Movement Goes Local
* The Joys of Scavenging
* Mr. Rybak Goes to the Legislature
* Forget the Ballpark-Why Expand the Convention Center?
Plus: Way cooler than Omaha, a hundred years of committees, save the Hilton, and sucking face on the mall.

(This is a preview edition of The Observer. To subscribe to the full-text version ($12/yr.), e-mail your request to [EMAIL PROTECTED])

**********************************************************

LOCAL FALUN GONG PRACTITIONER DETAINED IN CHINA
John Nania, a local devotee of the Falun Gong meditation movement, was arrested by Chinese authorities last week along with 35 other practitioners from 11 countries, who were attempting to meditate in Tiananmen Square.

SCHOOL CLOSINGS MAY HAUNT DISTRICT OFFICIALS
The school board's budget-cutting decision in September to close three small schools may prove to be a less constructive option than originally thought.

LOCAL GROUP GEARS UP REPARATIONS CAMPAIGN
Chicago City Council Alderman Dorothy Tillman on November 10 helped local leaders in the African American community kick off a campaign designed to generate political support for reparations to the descendants of African slaves.

BRING IN THE SCAVENGERS
It's one thing to demolish perfectly good downtown buildings, says Michael Krause, but it's another thing altogether when you throw out the office furniture.

AFRICAN AMERICAN LEADERS WILL SUPPORT JOHNSON LEE AFTER ALL
Concerns about a split in the local black community after newcomer Natalie Johnson Lee's shocking defeat of City Council President Jackie Cherryhomes may have been overplayed, writes Dwight Hobbes in Pulse (www.pulsetc.com).

.. . . AND WE'RE NOT TALKING WEATHER HERE
Minnesota Monthly reports that Minneapolis was recently ranked as the nation's second coolest city, based on 43 variables, including such things as crime levels, public transporation, and other amenities. The coolest? San Francisco.

FORMER COUNCIL MEMBER WILL CHAIR GUARD AND RESERVE PROGRAM
Former 12th Ward City Council Member Dennis Schulstad traveled to the Pentagon recently to be sworn in as the state's chair of the National Committee for Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve, reports the Longfellow-Nokomis Messenger.

LET'S GET A COMMITTEE TOGETHER TO DISCUSS THAT
"Some of the issues they were talking about in 1901 are some of the same issues we're talking about now."
--Florence Littman, a board member of the city's oldest neighborhood organization, the Prospect Park and East River Road Improvement Association, which celebrated its 100th anniversary last week, as reported by Robyn Repya in the Minnesota Daily (www.mndaily.com).

MINNEAPOLIS CHAMBER OF COMMERCE GOES REGIONAL
The Greater Minneapolis Chamber of Commerce merged in November with the Bloomington Chamber to create the largest such organization in the state, reports Monte Hanson in Finance and Commerce (www.finance-commerce.com).

SAVE THE TWINS, SAVE THE HILTON
Downtown hotels claim they will lose some $700,000 in annual sales if the Twins are contracted out of the major leagues, according to Andrew Tellijohn in City Business (twincities.bcentral.com).
The Hilton alone would lose about $250,000, says general manager George Prine III. "It's a very lucrative business," he says.
But don't expect them to lose too much sleep over it, seeing as how that $250,000 represents about 0.5 percent of the hotel's $43 million in annual revenues.

HAPPIER HOURS
Skyway News (www.skywaynews.net) reports the number of "violent patron" calls to downtown bars through May 17 and percentage change from 2000:
South Beach 61 +17%
Gay '90s 40 -51%
First Avenue 36 -25%
Quest 22 -12%
Tropixx 18 -22%
Fine Line 11 +57%
Rick's 8 +60%

IT'S JUST MY OPINION, BUT . . .
Amid all the swirl and bluster over public subsidies for a ballpark, the city is cranking its way through an expansion of the convention center that could be more of a boondoggle than any Field of Dreams.
The $125 million expansion, designed to upgrade our 12-year-old convention facility so we could compete with second-tier cities like Indianapolis and Seattle for larger events, is scheduled for completion this month. But its success could very well fall victim to a nationwide hospitality industry recession that began well before September 11. A recent study by the Boston-based Pioneer Institute reported that total convention events have declined for the past three years, while average trade show attendance is off 24 percent. Lucrative events are still being held, but they tend to land in top-tier locales such as Atlanta, Orlando, Las Vegas, Chicago, and New York.
Those trends are reflected in the convention center's dismal revenue performance over the past four years, during which net operating losses have risen from $1.3 million in 1998 to $2.3 million last year as operating revenues continue to slide. And the signs so far this year are hardly heartening, as city convention center revenue is running about $8 million below projections. The city is banking on the expanded facility to cure those ills, but bookings for the first five months of next year do not inspire confidence. There are 10 open dates in January, 11 in February, and 13 each in March and April. May shows 21 open dates.
Of course, you can argue, as city officials long have, that losing money on a convention center is the price you must pay to attract people to our fair environs, where they will fill our hotels and restaurants and pay the stiff sales, lodging, food, and liquor taxes that actually keep the whole house of cards from collapsing. Trouble is, those of us who live here and like to frequent our downtown restaurants and bars seem to have been shouldering most of the burden so far, and it doesn't look to me like that's going to change anytime soon.
There's a chance, of course, that the expanded facility will put the convention center in the black some day. But at this point the odds seem about as good as the Twins winning next year's World Series.

BTW: Check out the December issue of Minnesota Monthly (p. 24), for a lovely little write up on The Observer, which the knowledgable folks there call "a steal at a measly $12 a year . . . and it doesn't kill trees."



**********************************************************
The Minneapolis Observer is published 48 times/year by Independent Media, L.L.C. �2001 Independent Media, 4152 Snelling Ave., Minneapolis, MN 55406; www.mplsobserver.com. No part of this publication may be reprinted without the permission of Independent Media. Subscriptions: $12/yr. To unsubscribe, send us an e-mail ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) and we'll get you off the list and refund the unused portion of your subscription.

Editor: Craig Cox
Associate Editor: Sharon Parker
Contributing writers: Mark Engebretson, Leo Mezzrow.
Occasional research assistance: Martin and Nora Cox
Thanks to: Randy Johnson and Steve Kaplan