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So About that $21M...
On Tuesday, Minneapolis Police Department leaders appeared in front of the City Council to answer pressing questions regarding how the department managed to blow its budget to the tune of $21 million.
Just kidding! MPD didn't show up to the meeting. Here's the report from KSTP's Renée Cooper:
“Is anyone here from the Minneapolis Police Department or the Office of Community Safety to answer questions today?” Minneapolis City Council Member and Committee Chair Aisha Chughtai said, moving to the anticipated agenda item.
The roughly 20 seconds of silence that followed, without a presenter appearing, surprised news crews in the room and at least Council Member LaTrisha Vetaw, as the presentation was set to begin.
A city spokesperson, responding on behalf of MPD and Mayor Jacob Frey’s office, tells KSTP that the mayor has directed the department to answer questions about the budget fiasco in a memo, and that this decision had previously been communicated to the council. But Council Members, including LaTrisha Vetaw, say they're united in wanting answers; they feel they've been getting a vague account of the situation from the police department and the mayor's office.
A lot of that money was spent on overtime, but not all of it. The overspend includes $5.3 million for “contractual services,” along with $1.3 million for the “unbudgeted” purchase of an “armored Chevy Suburban,” KSTP reports.
HmongTown Marketplace in Financial Peril
Minnesota has many breweries; it only has one HmongTown Marketplace. That's not to diminish the news of Summit Brewing's financial woes, which became public over the weekend—that's a big deal, and the loss of Summit, should it come to that (it might not!), would be a major one. But the loss of HmongTown Marketplace, the sprawling Asian market located just a few miles away from Summit's St. Paul brewery, would also be colossal, and it, too, is facing foreclosure.
According to a report from the Pioneer Press's Frederick Melo, Stearns Bank has named marketplace founder Toua Xiong and his wife, Nou Vang, along with their seven limited liability corporations, in a lawsuit citing $6.5 million in unpaid loans and other associated charges. Xiong's lawyer, Tim Maher, says the money troubles actually stem from a decision the bank made to withdraw from a related project at Maplewood Mall.
The story is complicated. Xiong actually tried to open a HmongTown 2 at Maplewood, in the former Sears department store, but in December Maplewood's owners sued him, alleging "a dozen counts of breach of contract, unjust enrichment, negligent misrepresentation, and fraud," per the PiPress.
“Stearns Bank promised they would finance the build-out of the Sears property, and after he spent hundreds of thousands of dollars, they backed out,” Maher tells Melo. “Stearns back is the cause of his financial problems, and now they’re [filing legal action].” He sounds confident that his client "will be able to address Stearns Banks’ concerns."
Make Some Noise! OK, That's Enough.
Just last week in this very publication, Keith Harris made the case for making Minneapolis louder.
Now, Keith was talking about live music, which does enrich our city streets. For MinnPost today, Trevor Mitchell takes a look at noise pollution—the 6 a.m. leaf blowers and motorcycle engine revvers of the world. Mitchell's story gets into the nitty-gritty (noisy-groisy?) of ambient sound: Lawnmowers and leaf blowers are fully allowed to run from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m., and homeowners can make construction noise until 8 p.m. on weekdays and 6 p.m. on weekends.
Why now? Well, Minneapolis City Council will vote Thursday to amend the city’s noise ordinance to say that private-property motion sensors like Ring doorbell cameras or other video devices can't make a noise that's audible beyond that property. (Perhaps you have neighbors whose property cams regularly and loudly inform everyone on the sidewalk that YOU ARE BEING RECORDED.)
Writes Mitchell...
Officials at a recent meeting said in some cases residents are complaining about hearing noises from such devices dozens or even hundreds of times a day, which led to a discussion among Council members questioning the neighborliness of surveilling passers-by at all. But it also spun into arguments about noises from snow blowers, fire alarms, crosswalk signals, and car alarms—how loud they should be, whether it’s good for others to hear them, and how often constituents are complaining about it all.
RAMSAY WATCH: Where in MN Has Gordon Ramsay Been?
Angry-presenting but by all accounts lovely British celeb chef Gordon Ramsay is currently in Minnesota filming for... something. A few sources suggest it's for the upcoming season of his Fox reality TV show Kitchen Nightmares; others believe it's for a new show. More importantly, where has he been filming, exactly?
Big Lake, for one: Fox 9 reports that Ramsay has been at The Lake Cafe, which has been closed for production for several days. Superfan Brianna Lund tells Fox she camped out for three days in hopes of meeting Ramsay, and she did, bless her heart.
"He actually came out, and he was like, 'Oh, you girls are so beautiful.' And then he said, 'I'm so sorry to keep you waiting,'" Lund tells Maury Glover. "Very personable, everything I thought he would be as a celebrity."
(When I meet Gillian Anderson someday, you can bet that in my retelling of events she will also tell me that I'm beautiful.)
The chef has also been spotted outside Pizza Factory in North St. Paul, according to Bring Me the News, where he may be recording another episode—the restaurant posted about a brief closure on social media ahead of Ramsay's appearance.
And it sounds like the chef is making some time for non-nightmarish dining while he's in town as well. A little bird tells us that he's been spotted eating elsewhere in Minneapolis this week, including at a certain Northeast Hmong fine dining establishment...
