It's the inaugural Minneapolis Truck Parade, hosted by Taylor Dahlin and John Edwards. Big trucks, little trucks, honking trucks, police trucks, horse trailers, fire trucks, street sweepers, rental trucks, Plowy McPlowFace, Margaret Anderson Kelliher, Mayor Jacob Frey, Latrisha Vetaw, Michael Rainville, are just a few of today's special guests. You've never heard parade commentary interrupted by so much honking.

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We're headed to Saint Paul for conversations with all four candidates to fill the vacant Ward 4 seat on the City Council. Our guest for this episode is Chauntyll Allen. Special election is August 12, 2025.

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We're headed to Saint Paul for conversations with all four candidates to fill the vacant Ward 4 seat on the City Council. Our guest for this episode is Molly Coleman. Special election is August 12, 2025.

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We're headed to Saint Paul for conversations with all four candidates to fill the vacant Ward 4 seat on the City Council. Our guest for this episode is Cole Hanson. Special election is August 12, 2025.

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We're talking about the saga of Saint Paul's Summit Ave with Melissa Wenzel. I mean it's one street, Melissa. How much controversy could it inspire? Turns out, an endless amount. Lies about bikes threatening trees; a misunderstanding of why streets are reconstructed (it's about infrastructure deep underground as well as on top); and the bottomless bank accounts of some very wealthy neighbors. It all means they could potentially tie this project up in court for years. We talk about why the Summit Ave controversy will look silly in retrospect to future generations who take all its benefits for granted.

Read more about Melissa and her work as a board member of Sustain Saint Paul: https://www.sustainstpaul.org/melissa-wenzel

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I'm joined by my authoritative bald-headed friend Josh Martin and Taylor Dahlin (aka Rondi Arradondi) for an examination of the wildest, weirdest Minneapolis DFL convention in recent memory. Omar Fateh is your DFL endorsed candidate for mayor. This convention hit so hard that the most normal thing to happen all day was Scott Graham (congressional district 5 DFL chair) getting kicked out of for allegedly calling a Jewish arena worker a "Nazi" after Graham attempted to smuggle food into the arena. Electronic balloting difficulties, delay tactics, and a mind-numbing series of speeches from 20 park board hopefuls took the convention to the 11th hour before everything fell into place for mayoral challenger Omar Fateh and a slate of progressive, union-backed park board candidates. Helping things along was a disastrous strategic decision from Mayor Frey's campaign to pull all their delegates in a last ditch attempt to deny quorum (or simply cast a cloud over the legitimacy of the proceedings). This tactical decision devastated the chances of a bunch of park board candidates who are Frey's ostensible allies -- because his campaign pulled their delegates from the convention, all of the remaining park board endorsement votes went against the Frey faction. One of the DFL endorsed candidates for park board, Jason Garcia, joins us in this episode.

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John is joined by David Brauer for an assessment of this year's campaign for mayor of Minneapolis as we head into this weekend's Minneapolis DFL convention. We also discuss key city council races and who David likes for Minneapolis Park & Recreation Board.

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Michael Wilson is running for an at-large seat on the Minneapolis Park & Rec Board. Hosts Taylor Dahlin and John Edwards spoke with him about his campaign and the issues facing Minneapolis parks as he gave us a sailboat ride on Lake Nokomis.

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Dan Engelhart is running for the Minneapolis Park & Rec Board in District 1. We took a bike ride through NE Minneapolis and talked about why he's running for such an unpleasant, low pay elected office.

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Tom Olsen is running for re-election to the Minneapolis Park Board. While paddling a canoe together, we talk about his first term; why Minneapolis has such a hard time attracting and electing good Park Board candidates; what he hopes to accomplish if elected to a second four-year term; why he forced me to use the short paddle; and so much more.

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