City briefs

Aug 15 was the last day for candidates for any of the 13 city council wards to file to be on the Nov. 7 municipal ballot. The following candidates, listed by ward and in order of filing date, have filed to be on the ballot in wards that are in the greater Longfellow Nokomis area.  For ward 8: Andrea Jenkins, Soren Stevenson, Bob Sullentrop and Terry While. For ward 9: Jason Chavez and Daniel Orban. For ward 11: Emily Koski and Gabrielle Prosser. For ward 12: Luther Ranhiem, Aurin Chowdhury and Nancy Ward. Write-in candidates will still be an option. 

 

The Early Vote Center at 980 E. Hennepin Ave. opens at 8 a.m. Sept. 22 for voters who wish to cast their ballot early and in person. Also on Sept. 22, Minneapolis Elections & Voter Services begins mailing ballots to voters who have requested to vote early by mail. Learn more about voting this year at https://vote.minneapolismn.gov/voters/ 

 

The city staff, and a planning commission committee have recommended approving the sale of the city-owned property at 1860 28th St. E. and 2717 Longfellow Ave. for use as a community-owned urban farm and the property at 2931 - 2937 Bloomington Ave. for use as a community garden. 

 

The Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board will hold a public hearing on amendments to Chapter 17 of their code of ordinances on Wednesday, Sept. 6, 2023, at 5:45 p.m. in the Board Room of the Mary Merrill Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board Headquarters, 2117 West River Road. That chapter describes the criteria-based system for capital and rehabilitation scheduling for neighborhood park projects, also known as the “neighborhood equity metrics.” Learn more at  https://agendasuite.org/iip/mprb/file/getfile/15432. 

 

The city is proposing to pilot a series of events in 2024 as a part of the As You Go MPLS campaign to encourage walking, rolling or biking. The series is intended to ensure that “Open Streets Minneapolis continues to be a sustainable program and evolves; explore different route types, lengths, frequency and repetition, including ideas like ‘car free Sundays’, low-programmed open streets, partnering with the parks for events on parkways, and finding other ways to encourage and give people the opportunity to envision Minneapolis streets in a different way.” The 2024 projects and locations will be determined later this year, and are proposed to include 1-2 project demonstrations on streets planned for redesign, such as neighborhood greenways or Safe Routes to School (SRTS) projects and 1-3 grand opening celebrations for newly constructed street projects that encourage people to take more trips by active transportation.

 

In July the city health department put up 29 new AQMesh air sensors on streetlights around the city. The sensors will measure ozone (O3, nitric oxide (NO), nitrogen dioxide (NO2), carbon monoxide (CO) and volatile organic compounds (tVOCs). By measuring these pollutants, they will provide information to help improve air quality.