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2 Responses to “Contact Us or Submit a Story”

1. Donna Schmitt says:

   May 19, 2010 at 6:31 AM

   Donald,
   I saw your video and comments about the LRT meeting. I am so glad someone I know went to that as I am busy all week and can’t attend any of the meetings that were scheduled. I am trying to fight a streetcar proposal here in Columbia Heights that Minneapolis is trying to ‘sell’ to our city council. This would be replacing the #10 bus from Columbia Heights to the Nicollet Mall. This is another boondoggle that Minneapolis is trying to pass. The presenter told us at the May 3 work session that Minneapolis is going to build a streetcar line but it hasn’t determined where they will build one first. I thought the LRT line you showed on your video was one of the potential streetcar lines that they had listed in their presentation, though I could be mistaken on that.
   Either way, it is another expensive experiment that the city of Minneapolis will end up taxing the residents for and causing them to lose housing. Streetcars and LRT do not stop as often as buses. The minimum will be every other block forcing people to walk further to a transit stop which will hurt seniors who may have difficulty walking as it is. The streetcar and LRT do not run as often, because they can’t afford to. Presently, we have buses running from Columbia Heights to downtown every 5-15 minutes, be it a 10, 11, 59, 801 or one of the express buses that I can’t remember the number for!
   When streetcars cost $3 million a piece and LRT cost $4 million a piece why would we want to purchase that over a $500,000 bus? You can do a lot of repairs on a bus for $2.5 million. A streetcar will eliminate all parking on Central Ave, hurting current businesses. It will force cars, trucks, and any remaining buses onto the remaining two lanes of traffic. That will cause excessive wear and tear on those two lanes compared to dividing that traffic onto the four lanes as it is now. Part of that reason is because they are looking at adding bike lanes at the same time! Even though a survey was done and it was determined that only 15 bikes commute daily to the downtown areas along Central.
   Thank you for covering this. I am glad to see others are looking in this as well.

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2. Victor Sanchez says:

   February 12, 2012 at 5:26 PM

   Thanks to the great One Minneapolis One Read, Minneapolis’ first-ever community read. The book “The Grace of Silence” by NPR host and Minneapolis native Michele Norris. Norris has encouraged me to speak out about our own experience, the story my wife and I will be telling our two young children as they get older about the racism in Minneapolis which sadly is ongoing as our neighbors campaign of anger is enabled by city agencies.

   You never know when someone is trying to get a favor from a government official, as to whether that someones actions are racially motivated, especially if they have sold you a half story and are seeking sympathy for the problems against a next door neighbor who is Latino that thy can’t fix, problems they themselves created but won’t admit to creating. City of Minneapolis council member Robert Lilligrin’s Aid Elizabeth Mclemore and her husband Russel Raczkowski tore down our 6 foot fence and terracing on our property and all we could do as a biracial family with our two young children was watch. When we scheduled mediation they personal threatened to use their connections in zoning and the city against us if we got in their way. We decided to sue Mclemore and her husband for destruction of our property, and we won the destruction of property suit. Prior, during and after destroying our property they pursued complaints against us through zoning, to city of Minneapolis council members, and the police. Having made the difficult choice to sue knowing they had slandered us to city of Minneapolis council members, neighbors, zoning inspectors, coworkers, and police officials, we maintained our resistance by silence to protect our home, young children, and property as they continued to threaten us.

   City of Minneapolis council member Elizabeth Glidden’s office provided help to council member Robert Lilligrin’s Aid Elizabeth Mclemore to persue a complaint through zoning against us for a light violation. The inspector came out to do a light reading on the eve of national night out who then told me Elizabeth Mclemore and her husband Russel Raczkowski had arranged it then so that they would not be there that evening and that it went through the office of our council member Elizabeth Glidden. No violation was found this time but there was plenty of time for another attempt on another violation, and another, and another, and another until one would stick, they threatened us. We went to see Elizabeth Glidden for an explanation for the use of her office by Mclemore and her husband instead of the standard for all citizens; 311 call, and for the e-mails we received via the destruction of property court discoveries documents, about Elizabeth Mclemore and her husband Russel Raczkowski seeking help from city of Minneapolis council members and their problems they were unable to fix. The courts had required Mclemore to submit documents and findings in her support. Elizabeth Mclemore and her husband Russel Raczkowski then submitted e-mail conversations between them and Elizabeth Glidden, Robert Lilligren, and Gary Schiff pursuing help from them and other city sensitive confidential documents to court approved by the city’s Data Practices Compliance Official Craig Steiner and Senior Inspector Steve Poor about city employees who are working against our property and those city employees disciplinary and behavior problems. We made a similar request and were denied. We believed their existed an ethics violation, but not according to the ethics committee.

   Elizabeth Mclemore screams profanities at us in front of our two young children. Elizabeth Mclemore’s adult son deposits his spent cigarettes into our back yard over the six foot fence where our young children play. The adult son allows their family dog to defecate on our property then leaves it. Elizabeth Mclemore and her husband use the block club to bully us with calls to the police over noise problems that don’t exist. Continue and admit to sending complaints about our property to zoning wile waiting for the results. Elizabeth Mclemore and her husband Russel Raczkowski love to hear themselves argue, so we refuse to talk to them because of all there violent acts against us. Then they mock and jeer us as we work outside our house when no one else can see them. This white couple is trying very hard to drive us out of our house and will use any means to do so. All we can do is ignore them and tell our young children to do the same and stay away from them.

   Using Minneapolis’s powerful and revenue-earning department -zoning- to find or construct a violation on a property owner you want to harass is easy; people boast about it on their blogs. City employees are not immune to bullying. And the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. The adult son sees his parents harass and destroying the property of those neighbors, why can’t he. If you’re a city employee looking for vindication against a neighbor, you can conduct it furtively, your chances of gaining influence are even greater, because revenge happens without accountability even when your angry neighbor admits to it.

   The city’s campaign to expose racism and end bullying does not apply to this special department. This hypocrisy is one that is tolerated by our city council members. Zoning’s power is useful when it can create positive change for violations against public safety with swift accountability. But they are hardly swift and accurate, and the documents I have show that some of the personnel they keep are immature at best. Exposing the zoning department’s behavior will inevitably put one at risk of retaliation, even to the extent of calling us conspiracy theorists, regardless of rules mandated by the city’s attorneys and ethics committee.

   “Every property owner in the city has some sort of violation that can be found,” quoted a city of Minneapolis inspector. And this is evidenced by a north side inspections sweep that took place a few years back that created outrage in the poorest racially and economically segregated communities in Minneapolis. This image failure prompted the department to put on a new look for the then First Stop.

   For many law abiding citizens and those with young children in this depressed economy the zoning and inspections department’s new face has done little to address the problem of inspectors’ and the counter representatives’ ability to be on the same page. Words like cronyism and nepotism come to mind, words most likely thought of in big cities like Chicago in an era were race relation were more then strained; maybe in Minnesota we call it “home grown” and “Minnesota nice.” I once heard that revenge is a dish best served cold, and when best to serve it is in a Minnesota winter. This is revenge a city employee outsources to good city agencies and good council members against a next door neighbor, and a story I should not have to tell my children in this century.

   peace,
   Victor Sanchez

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