Minneapolis: City of Friendly, Affordable, Convenient Protests

Welcome back to The Flyover, your daily midday digest of what local media outlets and Twitter-ers are gabbing about.

No, What Do You Really Think of Us?

Minneapolis has been in the national news more often in the past two years than maybe ever before. So what does the world think of us now? “Cold.” Yes, with 57 mentions, that’s the word that came up most often when Meet Minneapolis asked a slew of meeting planners to describe our town. The aftermath of the police killing of George Floyd has had some impact on how we’re viewed—“riots” came in third, edging out “affordable” and “snow,” but not “friendly.”

The tourism org is working on attracting tourism dollars back to downtown with its biggest campaign to date, Axios reports, but we’re more interested in playing around with the word cloud they made (pictured above). Unrelated words abut one another in odd, fun ways—we’re “Prince friendly” and have “affordable, convenient protests.” Anyway, whatever images of unrest may still linger in the minds of outsiders, the fact that this is a place where it snowed in the first week of March will always be a bigger obstacle to tourism.

Frey Seeks New Police Chief to Stand Behind

Speaking of word clouds, Minneapolis’s text autogenerator of a mayor has some things to say about the search for a new police chief. “The importance of hiring a reform-minded chief of police to lead a culture shift in our department cannot be overstated,” Frey said in a statement. “It has never been more crucial or necessary to bring in a leader who can rebuild our...”—oh, whatever, you get the idea. The city has hired Public Sector Search & Consulting Inc., a California-based company that head hunts police chiefs for cities, to scour up some candidates willing to butt their heads against the brick wall of MPD reform. Frey is also forming a committee, as he is wont to do, composed of "diverse community members" who will be selected this week and will evaluate the candidates for the position.

Minneapolis Public Schools’ Advice for Scabs

With a strike possible as soon as tomorrow, the Minneapolis Public Schools would like to remind teachers that hey, you could always cross a picket line. An email went out last Wednesday informing teachers of their “right to work,” according to the Minnesota Reformer. The email went on to say that members of the Minneapolis Federal of Teachers "who do not participate in the strike are welcome to report to work as normally scheduled,” and gives some tips on how to cross a picket line. Just some from friendly advice from your bosses, who always have your best interests in mind.

Skating by in Duluth

Last weekend, while the Twin Cities was getting a snow dump, people in Duluth spent their time at the lake. For the first time in nearly 15 years, Lake Superior both froze thick enough and was also snow-free enough for people to take to the ice via skates, fat tire bikes, or just on foot with their dogs and a drone. This yielded some really cool pics and vids from our friends up north, including this super trippy clip where you can watch a kid skate with the Aerial Lift Bridge in the foreground.