Welcome back to The Flyover, your daily summary of important, overlooked and/or interesting Minnesota news.
What did we learn from last night’s primaries?
In case you haven’t noticed, there was a lot of voting yesterday. When they added it all up last night, this is what we found.
- The big story last night is Rep. Ilhan Omar’s decisive 13-point victory over Don Samuels, and the numbers add a whole new dimension to that story. Omar clearly ran a more intense campaign than she did in 2022, when Samuels finished just two points behind her, and won two districts (3 and 7) that she didn’t have last time (the fine folks of District 13 went for Samuels anyway), picking up 10,000 more. But what’s interesting is that Samuels’ numbers actually down nearly 4,000 as of 2022. Maybe people liked the idea of voting for him better when they thought he had no chance of winning. Will Samuels return for a third round? He’ll be 77 in 2026, which would make even the wealthiest Ilhanophobe think twice about throwing money down that well again. Besides, Jacob Frey might (groan) be looking for a new job by then.
- We should not portray yesterday’s House election in District 61A as a rejection of loudmouth Twitterer Will Stancil. We can argue about whether Twitter is “the real world” if we want, but I hope we can agree that it is not the quite world, and his online notoriety may not spread as far as online conspirators imagine. It’s entirely possible that voters simply viewed Katie Jones as the more qualified candidate and worthy successor to retiring Rep. Frank Hornstein.
- Minnesota will almost certainly have its first Kenyan-American representative next year, as Huldah Hiltsley defeated Liberian-born Wynred Russell to become the DFL nominee for Representative District 38A. Since this is a safe DFL seat, Hiltsley will likely easily fill retiring Representative Michael Nelson’s seat next year. You can read more about this race, which reflects the changing demographics of Brooklyn Center, which makes up most of the district, in this Sahan Journal primary report.
- Voters in the primary spoke out to the Minnesota Reformer staff, and their quotes are … pretty special. Some reasons to vote against Omar: One man claimed she cares too much “about Ethiopia,” while another saw a picture of her posing with a gun, though he thinks it might be fake. (“TikTok lies a lot,” he added.) An Omar supporter said she may be “sweet as a button” and a “little, little girl,” but she’s “tough as steel.” How did one voter in District 61A vote? “I just happened to vote.” Nobody said democracy would be pretty.
- As Briana Bierschbach reports at the Strib, the opposing candidates have been chosen for two seats that may determine who controls the Minnesota House of Representatives next year. DFL candidate Sarah Kruger will face Republican Winona City Councilman Aaron Repinski for the Winona-area seat currently held by outgoing Democratic Rep. Gene Pelowski. The seat is also a top target for Republicans, who have chosen fellow Republican candidate Stephen Doerr as their candidate for the seat. The candidates to replace allegedly deposed former Sen. Kelly Morrison are former DFL Sen. Ann Johnson Stewart and Republican Kathleen Fowke.
- Finally, voters in neighboring Wisconsin rejected two ballot proposals introduced by the gerrymandered Republican legislature that would have limited Governor Tony Evers’ ability to spend federal funds.
A local urban researcher’s science-changing discovery
When we discover an Atlas Obscura story with local relevance, the chances of it appearing in the flyover are nearly 100%. Such is the case with this story by Sarah Scoles about a “strange heat island” “lurking” beneath downtown Minneapolis.
The story follows Greg Brick, an urban explorer who spent years searching for an underground cave called Schieks Cave. In 2000, he finally found a way in, but when he entered the cave, he was in for a surprise. As he approached the underground waterfall (jokingly called “Little Minnehaha Falls”) and pulled out his thermometer (he is a hydrogeologist) And an urban explorer, thank you very much) he found that the water was about 20 degrees warmer than it should have been. It should have been about 46 degrees – why was it closer to 66? He made it his mission to find out.
In 2008, a team from the University of Minnesota predicted that heat from the city’s surface would drift deep underground, heating the groundwater “like a microwave in the city,” Scoles writes. Brick’s ongoing research would eventually prove them right; unfortunately, it also showed that they had significantly underestimated the actual warming of the water. And Extra Unfortunately, these results are seen in urban areas around the world, which is bad because the heat promotes the spread of bacteria and pathogens, many of which exist underground due to leaks in the sewage system.
Twin Cities budget proposals: tax relief for everyone!
Do you live on property? Prepare to pay more in property taxes over the next two years. That’s one takeaway from Mayor Jacob Frey’s 2025 budget address today. For the proposed $1.88 billion budget, tax revenues will increase 8.1% in 2025, followed by a 9.8% increase in 2026. “The average household worth $329,000 can expect to pay an extra $207, for an estimated total of $2,098 in 2025,” Susan Du writes for the Star Tribune. (Renters will have to wait and see how much that will cost them; we all know landlords are unlikely to cover the difference.)
With Minneapolis depleting its pandemic relief funds, Frey says the city will need more from residents to maintain basic services, pay for upcoming raises for police and public service employees, and complete upcoming projects, like the Nicollet Avenue connection and the new Community Safety Center at the former 5th Precinct site. “The way property taxes are collected is changing, and we need to find new revenue streams that don’t disproportionately burden low-income residents, our neighbors,” Frey says. (He does realize landlords are going to raise rents to cover property taxes, right?)
St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter is also hoping for a financial injection from property owners. Earlier this week, he presented a budget of $855 million that includes a 7.9 percent increase in property taxes.
During Frey’s 35-minute speech, a few other interesting points were raised:
- $3.2 million has been allocated for a traffic enforcement initiative. (Let’s hope it’s better than 2007.)
- Frey on the $550,000 being used to “activate” Nicollet Mall: “Let’s open the floodgates of ideas. We could have ice cream drinks, zip lines, block-length ice bars, dog parks, a Ferris wheel — these are just ideas I’m thinking up! — and we could have art.”
- On the mega-upgrade of North Commons: “We’re talking Disney World-level stuff here.” (OK, it actually looks like it’s going to be pretty awesome.)
You hate reading? In this video you will learn more about the history of the labor movement.
As mentioned at the beginning of this week’s Spokesman-Recorder post, this year marks the 90th anniversary of the 1934 truckers’ strike. In case you don’t know what I’m talking about, the good folks at Workday Magazine, in partnership with Unicorn Riot, made a 10-minute video about this pivotal moment in Minneapolis labor history. In response to unprecedented labor action in the area, police actually shot strikers in the streets of North Loop. On July 20, 1934, which became known as “Bloody Friday,” cops shot 67 strikers, killing two. The strike also played a role in national labor history, as it helped prompt Congress to pass the National Labor Relations Act. Watch all about it here.
