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 www.mplsobserver.com Vol. 2, No. 8 September 30, 2002
This is a preview issue, folks. Check out a sample issue at www.mplsobserver.com. To subscribe to The Observer ($12/yr.), just hit 'reply' and state your interest and we'll set you up. Thanks. ********************************************************** THIS WEEK IN THE OBSERVER: * Minority Contractors Charge City with Aiding Discrimination * Vikings Stadium Plans Have Southeast Community Leaders Worried * Northeast Gallery Survives Multiple Disasters * New South Side Group Will Fight I-35W Access Project * Say Cheese! Park Board Cracks Down on Football Ringers Plus: Time Warner's payment problem, mediation and the Ashcroft factor, saying so long to the Greens, and remembering Inno Suek. *********************************************************** MINORITY CONTRACTORS CHARGE CITY WITH AIDING DISCRIMINATORY PRACTICES The city may be complicit in the systematic squeezing of minority businesses and workers from government contracts, according to testimony heard at a September 19 City Council Health and Human Services Committee meeting. As Dwight Hobbes reports in Insight News (www.insightnews.com), a number of black business people related stories of bid-rigging and other examples of discriminatory practices by government-funded construction contractors and challenged city officials to enforce their own civil rights ordinances. "We spoke with probably a hundred African American contractors over a series of three meetings this summer and they shared various stories, some horrible stories, of not receiving contracts, of being run off project sites, of not being paid after completing their contracting," said Larry Blackwell, a consultant to the Community Collaborative, a minority business advocacy group. Part of the problem, according to Alice Smoot Gentry, the city's manager of the Small and Underutilized Business Program, is that the program needs updated computer software to adequately monitor potential discriminatory practices by contractors. But there are political problems, as well, said activist Ron Edwards. Two years ago, the Council received a report recommending that the city's Civil Rights Department take action against the general contractor at the Minneapolis Convention Center project for alleged discriminatory practices, but nothing was done. "If you don't turn the right knobs in an election year, the process gets stopped," Edwards said. Committee chair Natalie Johnson Lee (Fifth Ward) said she would ask the Civil Rights Department for a full report on the issue. "We have to look at what systems we currently have set up within the city to support this ordinance," she said. "We have the ordinance but if our departments are not even utilizing it, we got a problem." VIKINGS STADIUM PLAN HAS SOUTHEAST COMMUNITY LEADERS WORRIED Community leaders in Southeast Minneapolis are sounding alarms about the fast-track process for approving a new Vikings stadium on the University of Minnesota campus, reports Mike Mosedale in City Pages (www.citypages.com). PERSEVERANCE AS AN ART FORM Rosalux Gallery, Northeast Minneapolis' newest art spot, has only been open for seven months, but already has become the stuff of legend--not so much for its collection as for its resilience. ********************************************************** The Minneapolis Observer is published 48 times/year by Independent Media, L.L.C. �2002 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 Deputy Assistant Senior Executive Editor: Sharon Parker Contributing writers: Chris Dodge, Leo Mezzrow Online technical assistance: Christopher Pollard Equine consultant and correspondent: Nora Cox Perspective: Martin Cox Thanks to: Steve Brandt, Donna Cassutt, Catherine Leighton ******************************************************* Fight media consolidation! Support the independent press! Pick up your neighborhood newspaper! ******************************************************* _______________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest option, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
