BYO Food to the Twins: Target Field Concessions Workers Plan to Strike

Welcome back to The Flyover, your daily digest of important, overlooked, and/or interesting Minnesota news stories.

BYO Ballpark Bites and Bevs

Did you know that Target Field has a pretty generous BYO food and drink policy? You can pack in any outside food so long as it's not in a hard-sided container; a Redditor recently posted about bringing an entire Costco pizza to the ballpark. Some people really know how to live.

We mention this because hundreds of Target Field concessions workers have announced their intent to strike on June 22 when your struggling Minnesota Twins take on the Los Angeles Dodgers. Said workers, who are employed by Delaware North Company, are asking for higher wages and better benefits. Wondering what those greedy cooks, bartenders, and dishwashers have been offered?

"At the last negotiation the company gave us a proposal where concession workers like myself will stay at minimum wage while other workers would only get a 50-cent raise," concessions worker Nariel Green tells WCCO. "We know how much money this company makes and it is a very insulting proposal to bring such small increase."

The Minnesota Reformer's Max Nesterak notes that the company bumped its proposal to 25-cent raises for current minimum-wage workers and 60-cent raises for others, but the one-day strike is still scheduled. It would be the first at a major-league venue in Minnesota.

The Hortman Assassinations, One Year Later

This Sunday marks the one-year anniversary of the assassinations of Melissa and Mark Hortman and the shooting of John and Yvette Hoffman by Vance Boelter.

Boelter, who changed his plea yesterday to guilty, received two consecutive life sentences plus 40 years for stalking, two counts of murder, and two firearms offenses. While this Star Tribune piece bemoans the guilty plea of robbing us of a trial where more info on the manhunt and his motives could be gleaned, Boelter still faces criminal and civil trials. We probably don't need any more info on motives; his pathetic interview with Glenn Beck’s conservative crackpot website, TheBlaze, demonstrates why seeking answers is a waste of time. 

In this Minnesota Reformer piece Michelle Griffith checks in with lawmakers to see if they’ve followed through on promises to be more civil to each other. While most agree that people are friendlier across parties—a gifted cross stitch pillow is photographed as proof—people are expecting vitriol to be on the rise during campaign season. And while Sen. Julia Coleman (R-Waconia) believes she’s doing better, Griffith notes that “her most popular posts, she sorrowfully acknowledged, are those hammering the opposition.”

Concerns about safety still linger. In February, Gov. Tim Walz signed off on an executive order for weapon screening at the State Capitol. Politico notes that many states, including Minnesota, now allow lawmakers to use campaign funds to pay for added personal security. Still, a Princeton University survey found that “75% of local officials are now less willing to engage in key political activities due to concerns about hostility.”

More Peeks Inside the U of M Marketing Mind Palace

We had a lot of fun last week with the timely death of "Leave a Future," the would-be new University of Minnesota tagline that—while very good and liked, the U insists—was killed due to public ridicule.

Ready for some more?

Multiple leakers sent Racket photos of... well, you be the judge of what you're about to see... that were debuted at last week's UMN Communicators Forum Conference. Here's are some cutting observations from a conference attendee who'd like to remain anonymous for obvious reasons.

• In their fireside chat, Provost [Gretchen] Ritter and [VP of Communications] Chris Gade noted that research has shown them that many UMN employees have positive personal views of their part of the university, but are not proud of the university as a whole. They seemed befuddled as to why that might be, but given the fact that UMN staff have never had a chance to provide feedback on the branding process, I'm sure they've never asked why this is either. 
• In their brand activation workshop (not a workshop—no time for feedback or questions), Rise & Shine's Grant Smith shared the next phase of the university's brand implementation via a draft ad campaign. "We're going to focus on hands," Smith said. And proceeded to unveil several slides of ads a la The Creation of Adam featuring hands and text so nonsensical an actual human being could not possibly have written it: "We teach more people to heal more people." See attached photos. The room of several hundred UMN communicators failed to stifle laughter. Was this a joke? It was not. There were more hands. Hands everywhere. Even dog paws and prosthetic hands. Unfortunately mostly white hands but who can say they're surprised about that. Grant Smith then proceeded to read 25 minutes worth of ad spot commercial scripts in such a breathy tone it was clear this work is his magnum opus... even though the best line of it all was, "We keep our state of health, healthy," and described how hands would feature throughout. The message: UMN is an ivory tower, over and over again. And hands. When he finished, his Rise & Shine colleague said, I kid you not, "Wow, you did it. Good job Grant."

It's unclear if this is in fact the officially adopted brand campaign of the University (they've prematurely launched terrible ideas many times already throughout this rebrand), but given it was presented so confidently at this conference, what are we supposed to do—not believe them?

Wow. You did it again. Good job, U of M ad wizards. Let's have a look at those hands—the photo featuring CORN (!?) comes from another leaker.

Nature Still Wants Us Dead

Terrifying news for anyone who leaves their home: An Alexandria, Minnesota, woman was trapped in a mud puddle for several days before two off-roading West Fargo men saw her abandoned minivan and rescued her. Mary McGuire at Bring Me the News writes that the two fellas found 68-year-old Kathryn Jane Woessner submerged in a deep puddle, with only her face visible, saying “Help me.” She was unable to tell them how long she’d been there, but she saw the sun rise and set “a couple times.” The Backus, Minnesota, woman, who was found more than 100 miles away from her home, has since recovered from the ordeal. Physically at least.