Welcome back to The Flyover, your daily digest of important, overlooked, and/or interesting Minnesota news stories.
Remembering Jack Jackman
An important bit of Keith Harris lore is that the first job I got when I moved to Minneapolis in 1997 was at a newspaper for high school kids called YouthSpeak. And my first boss, the man who hired me, was Wallace “Jack” Jackman, then co-publisher of the Minneapolis Spokesman and St. Paul Recorder (now the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder).
I mention this because my friend Jack just died of a long-term illness at the age of… well, he was always a little cagey about that detail so let’s say in his 70s. “Our dad touched countless lives with his kindness, wisdom, and quiet strength,” his daughter Tonya Jackman Hampton wrote on Facebook today. “We will forever carry his love—and remember his humor and signature sarcasm that always made us smile.”
Born in Des Moines, Jack moved up to Minneapolis with his mother Launa and sister Norma. Launa married Spokesman founder Cecil B. Newman, and took over the reins after his death. When she retired, Norma and Jack became co-publishers, with the sister handling the day-to-day decisions and the brother set on modernizing the newspaper’s equipment. (You can read more about the Spokesman-Recorder in this piece I wrote last year.)
Jack always had a side hustle, but he was never just looking to make a buck. All of Jack's business ventures had a positive, community-oriented angle. When I met him, he was a distributor for Pride, a company that sold potato chips and soda with Black history facts on the packaging. One of these endeavors finally panned out for him: The Minnesota Black Pages, a directory of Black-owned businesses in the state.
After Jack retired and his niece Tracey Dillard-Williams took over the publisher’s chair, he remained involved in the community. He got involved in urban gardening and was part of a project that brought state-of-the-art firefighting equipment to Kenya. You can read more about him in this 2024 tribute from the Spokesman-Recorder.
A little Jack anecdote to round this out: A week after hiring me, he drove me to Mason City, Iowa, to buy a $1,000 Plymouth Horizon. And, when he learned that I couldn’t drive stick, he taught me in the Mall of America parking lot after we made it back to the Cities. No doubt thinking the entire time, this is the guy I hired to run my newspaper?
Next time you're driving on 38th Street in south Minneapolis, passing 4th Avenue, glance over at the mural at the side of the Spokesman-Recorder building and you'll see Jack there among other notable figures of Black news publishing in Minnesota. It's where he belongs.
MN Reports Drop in Overdose Deaths
How about some good news for a change? According to the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH), overdose deaths have declined in the state for the second consecutive year.
"In 2024, Minnesota recorded a 26% decrease in drug overdose deaths, dropping from 1,338 to 994 deaths statewide," the MDH's latest report on statewide trends in drug overdose reads. While the largest decrease (31%) was seen in Greater Minnesota counties, there was also a decrease in the Twin Cities metro (23%), mirroring a national trend, per the MDH, that suggests "ongoing prevention and harm reduction efforts" are working.
Overdose deaths decreased in all categories last year, both opioids and stimulants, a stat that gets an emphatic "hell yeah" from us.
Equity Still a Big Problem for Weed Biz
When Minnesota legalized adult-use recreational cannabis, people of color and other folks disproportionately impacted by its prohibition were promised steps would be taken to put them at the front of the line when time came time for business licensing. Two years later, hopeful entrepreneurs are saying efforts have been a disaster and it’s too late to get a head start.
So what happened? Shubhanjana Das lays out a great, detailed timeline in this very thorough piece for Sahan Journal. While criminal records are slowly being expunged, the equity-based lottery for licenses has been a series of missteps. The Office of Cannabis Management shut down after a flood of applicants; then a lawsuit ensued, with applicants winning their case. Only after a massive delay is the lottery is back on.
Then came the surprise licensing of medical cannabis businesses Rise and Green Goods, who were up and running and filling shelves with product much faster than a start-up business.
“Feels like it was misleading for the state to say that social equity got the leg up, but it was the MSOs who got the leg up,” says cannabis entrepreneur Alysha Bellamy. “I don’t see any social equity advantages.”
In other baffling weed news, Attorney General Keith Ellison has joined a coalition asking Congress to ban hemp-derived cannabis products. A spokesman says this isn’t about making it illegal again, but unless there are plans for a carveout for Minnesota, that’s exactly what it would do. “If [Congress] said ‘no intoxicating hemp-derived cannabinoids,’ that’s all of the THC market,” cannabis attorney Carol Moss tells Matt DeLong at the Strib. “This would kill our industry.”
MN Senate? Up for Grabs.
Did you know they have elections in places beside Minneapolis? And I’m not talkin’ ‘bout St. Paul. There are currently 33 Democrats and 32 Republicans in the Minnesota Senate, and two seats are being contested in a special election. The more mathematically adept among you can see how important those races are, and MPR’s Dana Ferguson serves up the details here.
DFL Sen. Nicole Mitchell’s burglary conviction opened up a seat in Senate District 47, which typically breaks for the DFL. Here, Democratic state Rep. Amanda Hemmingsen-Jaeger is vying against Republican Dwight Dorau, an Air Force veteran.
In Senate District 29, which favors the GOP, Republican Michael Holmstrom Jr. and Democrat Louis McNutt are facing off to win the seat that Bruce Anderson vacated when he died. “I am honestly running as almost an independent,” says McNutt. I see.
