Welcome back to The Flyover, your daily midday digest of what local media outlets and Twitter-ers are gabbing about.
Scientific Solidarity
Late Thursday, workers at St. Paul's Science Museum of Minnesota went public with their unionization campaign. "[We've] been working (so hard) to organize a union and we're finally going public," paleontologist Nicole Dzenowski wrote via Twitter. "I am SO EXCITED for what this means for us, our museum, and our fellow cultural institutions." Interested in any/all further details? So were we, but we've not heard back from the aspiring union or AFSCME Council 5, whose ranks it would apparently join. The playbook is pretty boilerplate, in most instances: Workers demand union; company says no; workers vote in NLRB-officiated election. Should worker yeas outweigh the nays, blammo, Science Museum of Minnesota is union. Perhaps the museum bosses have already voluntarily recognize the union, but those odds are as small as an Eodromaeus. Gutted by decades of globalization, the historically unionized U.S. manufacturing sector offers few new leads for organizers. So labor is getting creative. You might not have expected museum workers to unionize, but it happened last fall at Minnesota Historical Society and at museums around the country. Same for the Twin Cities craft-beverage sector, local Half Price Books locations, and, of course, multinational food/drink companies like Starbucks.
GOP AG Candidate to Face Alleged Campaign Finance Violations... in December
Did the campaign of Republican Attorney General candidate/large-skulled boy-man of indeterminate age Jim Schultz violate campaign finance rules? The state campaign finance board has answered with a resounding “Maybe!” The DFL alleges that Schultz’s campaign collaborated with Super PAC Minnesota for Freedom (these fuckin’ PAC names) to spend $800,000 in attack ads against current AG Keith Ellison. The evidence? The agreements for some of the ad purchases were signed by Steve Syckes as "agent for Jim Schultz for Minnesota Attorney General." What happens now? Well in just 45 short days, long after the election is over, the board will decide… if there needs to be a formal investigation into the possible violations. So the lesson here is clear: If you’re gonna cheat, wait till the last minute. Speaking of last-minute! Making heavy use of multiple anonymous sources, the Strib ran a piece today that sorta, kinda, maybe, not really suggests Ellison fumbled the Feeding Our Future scandal. Typically, newsrooms avoid those types of stories this close to an election, as it can appear like they have thumbs on the scale.
Who Are the Non-Walz/Jensen Oddballs Running for Guv?
The final Tim Walz vs. Scott Jensen debate today on MPR News illuminated several things, but mostly the fact that Jensen, who said "word salad" at least three times, doesn't seem to know what that phrase means. If you came away unimpressed by both gubernatorial candidates, alternatives technically exist. (Just don't tell that to Kang and Kodos.) Who are the other four names on the ballot? The Duluth News Tribune's Alex Derosier profiled three of 'em—Hugh McTavish (Independence-Alliance), Gabrielle Prosser (Socialist Workers Party), and Steve Patterson (Grassroots-Legalize Cannabis)—who appeared at the so-called "other guys" debate last night in Fairmont. (James McCaskel with Legal Marijuana Now didn't show up.) Among Derosier's findings: McTavish wants to implement a concept known as "jury democracy" and hopes to "convert half the state to nature"; Patterson is "pro-guns, pro-weed, and pro-choice" and concocted a tax incentive to work 40+ hours per week; Prosser is a union baker from north Minneapolis who champions abortion rights, single-payer healthcare, and nationalizing private land to help create good-paying jobs.
KG Just Sold His Massive Lake Minnetonka Mansion
NBA legend Kevin Garnett likely hasn't lived longterm at 3400 Fox St. in Orono for years. So KG decided to unload the four-bedroom, seven-bathroom, 12,129-square-foot Lake Minnetonka mansion for $9 million, the Star Tribune's ace homes reporter Jim Buchta reports. That makes it the most expensive single-family home to change hands this year, according to the Strib. The glass-covered contemporary estate is due for "an extensive renovation," the listing reads, though it is situated on "one of the most phenomenal peninsula parcels on Lake Minnetonka... It has sunset views and it's private; it's all about the [seven acres of] land." Built in 1999, the home was purchased by KG for $6.45 million in 2006, according to county records; he'd leave the Wolves in '07 and win a Finals championship the following year with Boston. KG, the hyper-competitive nutjob we'll always locally love, sold his half-finished Malibu mansion for $16 million last year, the L.A. Times reports.
