Welcome back to The Flyover, your daily digest of important, overlooked, and/or interesting Minnesota news stories.
Poor Little Rich Senate Candidate
This headline over at the Minnesota Reformer is damning enough: "GOP Senate candidate received a tax break for a townhouse she doesn’t live in." As Michelle Griffith reports, Republican candidate Kathleen Fowke, who's running in the November special election for Senate District 45, received a homestead property tax break last year for a property that a) she doesn’t live in and b) is located outside of the district she's running to represent.
What's the value of the home where Fowke actually lives? We're so glad you asked! A cool $4.9 million, according to Hennepin County property records. Now, Minnesota properties valued over $413,800 do not qualify for the homestead tax exclusion. Here's Griffith, pulling no punches in clarifying how the Senate hopeful got a tax break anyway:
Instead, Fowke, via an LLC, declares a Plymouth townhome as a “relative” homestead—meaning a relative lives there—and receives a legal property tax break despite owning millions of dollars in property, underscoring how wealthy people are often able to use the tax code to their advantage with shrewd planning.
Not a good look. So how did she explain this to the Reformer? Why, by explaining that she purchased the townhome for her elderly mother, of course.
“The unfortunate reality is that the high cost of everyday goods is hitting many Minnesotans hard, especially our seniors, who often live on fixed incomes,” she says, presumably straight-faced.
Hey, maybe we should give her a break. Her husband, Ben Fowke—Xcel Energy’s CEO from 2011 to 2021—only made $22 million in total compensation during his last year with the company, the fourth consecutive year that figure topped $20 million.
Did Agape Pay Active Bloods Members?
Yesterday, KARE 11's Lou Raguse provided the latest on the high-profile RICO case that's put several Minneapolis gang members on trial. "[The trial] promises to have a lot of pretty intriguing nuggets," Raguse says, nearing the end of his report. "For example, according to court documents, the Feds are making the allegation that the violence interrupter group Agape funneled taxpayer money to the Minneapolis Bloods, including defendants in this trial."
Now hang on... that's just the kind of intriguing nugget we want to hear more about!
It turns out we missed this August Minnesota Star Tribune report from Stephen Montemayor, who wrote that according to federal prosecutors, active leaders from the Bloods helped start the Agape community group. (The group is supposedly co-founded and led by former gang members, and meant to keep young men out of the gang.) "They are also accusing Agape of paying 'tens of thousands of dollars' from a City of Minneapolis contract to multiple active Bloods members," Montemayor writes, "including one man since convicted of murder for a 2020 killing and now on the eve of trial on federal racketeering charges."
Agape Movement leaders pushed back on the accusations, with co-founder and executive director Reginald Ferguson telling the Strib, “No member of Agape is an active gang member, period.”
Montemayor's story is long and thorough—and there's a good deal of nuance/context we just can't get into a Flyover blurb. Read the whole thing here.
National Nods for Local Chefs
Yesterday, Bon Appétit dropped its list of the 20 best new restaurants of 2024. Among the honorees? Minneapolis's own Oro by Nixta.
(Yes, yes, you savvy Racket readers—Oro was a new restaurant in 2023; don't ask us to explain BA's criteria.)
"Corn is a shape-shifter at Oro by Nixta," Serena Dai writes. "It may blend into a burnt orange molote, a masa-based fried dumpling made of sweet potato and hibiscus, or be nixtamalized for a steely indigo tortilla that cradles celery root batons cut thick like steak fries. Whatever the hue and final form, the corn—an array of colorful heirloom varieties sourced from Mexico—simultaneously satisfies and excites."
But wait, there's more! Just this morning, Food & Wine named Myriel chef-owner Karyn Tomlinson one of the year's best new chefs, praising her food as "restrained and subtle, precise and sophisticated," and "brave in its minimalism."
"It's still sinking in," Tomlinson told Mpls.St.Paul Mag's Stephanie March. "It's a huge honor and it means a lot knowing that others see significance in what we do at Myriel. It makes me excited as I think about the future!"
Wanna Play in Valleyfair's Zombie-Themed Rock Band?
What a silly question. Of course you do!
According to a post in the Twin Cities, MN Music Scene Facebook group, the Shakopee amusement park is looking for folks to play the keys, bass, guitar, and electric guitar in their zombie-themed rock band.
The rehearsal dates are—you know what, we'll just let the post speak for itself:
