Welcome back to The Flyover, your daily digest of important, overlooked, and/or interesting Minnesota news stories.
Wolves Haul Out Same Old Boring Anti-Union Tactics
As we previously reported, the in-house audio and video crew for the Minnesota Timberwolves and Minnesota Lynx is seeking to organize. And as expected, management is now trying to convince workers that unions are bad. Bring Me the News has acquired emails from Wolves/Link brass reciting the same tired anti-union sentiment that the folks in charge always resort to. For instance, "While we respect that it is an employee's decision, we believe that maintaining the existing direct relationship with our team is in everyone's best interest" is what Timothy Jones, senior manager of broadcast and game day technology, wrote to his staff. Jones later added, “Blah blah blah blah blah.”
"They're doing what we call union busting," Charlie Cushing, business representative for IATSE Local 745, said flatly. "They try to convince people why it's not good to have a union... It's disappointing, but unfortunately, we expected it from [Glen Taylor] and the Timberwolves." According to BMTN, we can expect election results on December 10.
What Was the Affordable Housing Preservation Ordinance?
On Thursday, the Minneapolis City Council failed to override Mayor Jacob Frey’s veto of a proposed affordable housing ordinance, and Council Member Jeremiah Ellison is not happy. Ellison co-sponsored what he calls the Affordable Housing Preservation Ordinance, which would have given local community groups, including smaller developers, first crack at buying affordable housing when it went on the market. The assumption is that this would prevent larger, out-of-town developers from swooping in.
Though the ordinance initially passed a majority of the council, Frey vetoed it, saying, in that irritating way of his, “I appreciate the intention behind this ordinance, and in a different housing market when investment was more free-flowing, I may have a different perspective.” The council could not muster the two-thirds vote needed to override the veto, and, in fact, Linea Palmisano, a yea previously, flipped to a nay. “City Hall is no longer a place that embraces intelligent and innovative policymaking, but instead fights it vigorously,” Ellison wrote, calling the veto “flimsy and anti-intellectual.” Click here to read his full response to Frey and those council members who did not support the ordinance.
Will Clean Energy Investment in MN Survive Trump?
The Inflation Reduction Act, passed by a Democratic U.S. Congress under President Joe Biden, pumped billions into utility companies via grants and tax credits, with the intent of providing incentives to ditch fossil fuels. Xcel Energy alone will have received $5.7 billion by 2040 in the upper Midwest if the current provisions stay in place. Staking out a very sensible pro-climate-apocalypse position, President-elect Donald Trump (what a stupid world this is...) has threatened to cut off that flow of funds.
Today in the Strib, Walker Orenstein writes about where the money has gone already, what projects are underway, and the likelihood that funding will dry up. Thing is, much of the IRA-earmarked investment is in heavily conservative areas, and GOP representatives have little incentive to defund projects in their districts. “The clean energy transition is happening whether Trump likes it or not,” says Beth Soholt, executive director of Clean Grid Alliance.
Nobody Likes Steve Grove
What a long, annoying week this has been, as I believe the Grateful Dead once sang. Was it really only last Sunday that Strib Publisher Steve Grove wrote an op-ed begging for donations in which he shrugged off the president-elect’s comment that he didn’t mind if journalists got shot? When I read that piece, my first thought was “The Strib union’s got to do something about this.” (My second thoughts? Those you can read here.)
So I’m happy to read from J. Patrick Coolican, in the Minnesota Reformer newsletter today (no link—ya gotta sign up for it), that the union has been in touch with management, “requesting an internal note that apologizes for not clearly rebuking violent rhetoric and actions against the news media" and noting “the growing number of threats and harassment we’ve faced over the years.” Personally, I’d demand a public apology, but, hey, not my union anymore.
Coolican, whose spouse works at the Strib, has been charting staff annoyance with Grove for months. “I’m told some folks think everyone should take a deep breath and move on, but others were absolutely livid,” he writes of the latest dustup.
And here’s what I’m even happier to read: According to Coolican, someone printed out my Flyover screed against Grove’s piece and tacked it to the union’s newsroom bulletin board.
UPDATE: And there we are.
