Welcome back to The Flyover, your daily digest of what local media outlets and Twitter-ers are gabbing about.
Hoops House Hits Market
Welcome to a special fun-size edition of our popular Wanna Buy real estate series. This installment didn’t graduate to a proper, standalone article on account of our inability to... add any meaningful insight to the neato photo you see above! If you’re standing out front of 3828 Clinton Ave. S., a south Minneapolis home which recently hit the market for $370,000, you’d be forgiven for not suspecting it contains an indoor basketball court. But peek around back you’ll see the hulking exterior of a gymnasium that, at some point, was built off the rear of the 1916 house. (The sport of basketball had been invented 25 years earlier by James Naismith.)
Googling the address brings up connections to Dr. Mel Coleman, a basketball star at University of Wisconsin-Stout who’d later become a Minneapolis-based psychologist. He died two years ago at 72. Seeking additional intel, we reached out to the listing agent to ask: a) for any stories about the basketball court; b) confirmation on whether Coleman once owned the place. Sadly, Eric Heard of Banneker Realty says his client doesn’t have any anecdotes or history to share about the gym. (The current owner purchased 3828 Clinton for $100,000 this past April, according to county records.) As for the possible connection to a Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Hall of Famer…
"Maybe, I never met any of the previous owners or their family," Heard says. "It is a unique and amazing property; the gym and the finished garage are special features of a very nice home."
And that’s all we got! Invite us over for some H.O.R.S.E. if you end up moving to the Bryant neighborhood hoops house behind the ol' Friendship co-op.
Talkin' Transit, Talkin' TDM
"To glimpse the future, a world where cities take action on climate change, look at the campus of the University of Minnesota." So writes Bill Lindeke for MinnPost today, in a story about the U's “universal transit pass” system. Two years ago, the U made it so that every undergrad's university ID card gave them the ability to access all buses and trains in the city. Those 50,000 easy-ridin', free-farein' undergrads were joined by 20,000 more potential transit riders this year when the school extended universal transit passes to its staff members. Ridership among staffers has since boomed by tenfold, according to the U's Parking and Transportation Services department. Lindeke argues this "seemingly subtle shift, from individual sign-ups to universal, near-automatic enrollment, is a model for how corporations, government offices, hospitals and others should do travel demand management (TDM)." We agree with him, of course—but it's worth reading the whole column here.
School Board Elections: Still a Breeding Ground for Crazies
It’s no secret that school boards have long been a Triple A farm club for the far-right ranks of the GOP, where future culture warriors try out the latest arguments against progressive ideas, often on their way to becoming state or federal officials. Today at the Minnesota Reformer, Michelle Griffith looks at this year’s elections and notices the overwhelming presence of candidates backed by the Minnesota Parents Alliance, which is technically non-partisan but is partially funded by the conservative Freedom Club and targets progressive school platforms. “Our current government leans Progressive, and they are incentivizing single-parent families, sex outside of marriage, promiscuity, abortion, and a gender fluid lifestyle,” says Jamie Kokaisel, a South Washington County School Board candidate and typical MPA candidate. The phrase they’re using these days to defend their ideas? “Parental rights.”
Sahan Journal Founder Mukhtar Ibrahim Steps Down as CEO
In 2019, Mukhtar Ibrahim launched Sahan Journal with the goal of better representing the concerns, issues, and daily news impacting communities of color that were not getting covered by bigger media outlets. These days, the nonprofit newsroom is thriving with a 20-person staff and a $2.5 million annual budget. (Click here for our talkin'-shop convo with SJ managing editor Chao Xiong.) The leader of that staff will soon change, however, as Ibrahim announced today that he's stepping down from his publisher/CEO role after nearly five years. An award-winning journalist with a resume that includes gigs at both MPR and the Star Tribune, Ibrahim will now attempt to better tune the ratio that haunts us all: work/life balance. “My family situation has changed since founding Sahan in 2019,” says the father of three in a statement released this morning. “As a father of young children and the founder of a growing nonprofit organization, I have experienced firsthand the challenges and rewards of balancing my professional and personal life.” In the short term, he won't exactly be taking it easy: Ibrahim is currently wrapping up his MBA at the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management.
