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🍞 Cole Hanson 🥬

@colewritesalot.bsky.social

JFK Profile in Courage Award winner, 2026 Dad, neighbor, dietitian and local man. Socialism is good for you. Ask me about horses or food. Find all my writing at forksandfigures.org

562 Posts416 Follower260 Folgt
🍞 Cole Hanson 🥬@colewritesalot.bsky.social · 45m ago

Sure is disappointing to see our city, which has touted its adherence to the law In the face of federal occupation, flout its own charter thanks to bullying from @mayorher.bsky.social

Daniel Suitor@danielsuitor.com · 47m ago

The St. Paul City Council just voted to refuse to put the Tenant's Right to Repair law on the ballot for voters, claiming it conflicts with state law even though Duluth passed a nearly identical law last year. A press release from the Safe Homes coalition which has pushed for the law:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE August 5, 2026 St. Paul City Council Blocks Certified Right to Repair Petition, Coalition Says City Broke Its Own Charter Saint Paul voters collected over 8,000 signatures to put Right to Repair on the November ballot. Ramsey County Elections validated 5,440 of them against voter registrations, after duplicates and errors were accounted for, and submitted their report to council. Today the St. Paul City Council chose not to send the measure forward anyway. Safe Homes St. Paul (SHSP) considers this a breach of our city's charter and protocols that have guided ballot measures in our city for years. The St. Paul city charter is not ambiguous on this point: section 8.03 requires the council to determine "the sufficiency of the petition" by resolution. Section 8.04 gives the council exactly two options once a petition is sufficient: enact the ordinance as written within 60 days, or place it on the ballot. There is no third option where the council simply declines because the Mayor and her attorney found a new legal theory weeks after the deadline to act. We have seen the Mayor's approach to public disclosure over the past week, and are not surprised to see the everyday residents of our city who signed our petition treated with similar dismissal. As our democracy faces unprecedented threats at a national level, it is the responsibility of our local leaders to demonstrate not just that democracy can function, but that it can deliver results for everyday people. This decision does the opposite by choosing fear of wealthy interests over the actual residents of our city. As has been communicated to SHSP organizers, City Attorney Irene Kao's office told council members this week that Right to Repair conflicts with state law and is "too broad", even though it is nearly identical to language passed in Duluth nearly one year ago. The same office had several months to raise that argument while the campaign spent it gathering signatures. Instead it surfaced on…
🍞 Cole Hanson 🥬@colewritesalot.bsky.social · 24h ago

The right call and just in time. Our council members are saying enough is enough - will the mayor take the hint?

Molly Coleman@mollycoleman.bsky.social · yesterday

Based on the overwhelming consensus that I’ve heard in both public feedback and private conversations from government officials, service providers, encampment residents, and public health experts, I do not believe we are prepared to responsibly close the encampments beginning tomorrow.

🍞 Cole Hanson 🥬@colewritesalot.bsky.social · yesterday

Hi folks! Here's our email petition link urging the St. Paul City Council to vote "yes" and send @safehomessaintpaul.bsky.social's Renter Right to Repair to the ballot! Make sure to sign asap - vote is tomorrow! actionnetwork.org/letters/tell...

Tell the St. Paul City Council - Put Safe Homes Saint Paul on the Ballot!

Safe Homes Saint Paul gives renters a tool to get timely, quality fixes for needed repairs in their homes. No one wants to get stuck badgering their landlord about a simple repair or end up having to ...

actionnetwork.org

Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani@mayor.nyc.gov · 2d ago

When Uber Eats and DoorDash hid the tip button, delivery workers paid the price. Tips fell by 79%. In January, we changed that. Since then, more than $104 million has gone back into the pockets of the delivery workers who keep New York City fed.

Title: Deceptive design. A graphic meant to look like a color-blindness test obscures the number of”550” Uber Eats and DoorDash hid tip buttons on their apps. As a result, delivery workers saw reduced income of almost $550 million The tipping point. A graphic meant to look like a color-blindness test highlights the number of”104” In January, we required billion dollar tech companies to make the tip feature visible. Since then, $104 million dollars have gone back into the pockets of workers who keep this city fed.
🍞 Cole Hanson 🥬@colewritesalot.bsky.social · 3d ago

My piece in @pioneerpress.bsky.social: "A mayor without a vision doesn’t just make bad decisions — they make unpredictable ones. Six months into Kaohly Her’s term, St. Paul has learned the difference." www.twincities.com/2026/08/02/c...

Cole Hanson: St. Paul mayor’s lack of vision shows in her bad, unpredictable decisions

“She won last November not because she offered St. Paul a compelling vision but because Melvin Carter didn’t run a meaningful campaign,” Hanson writes.

twincities.com

Daniel Suitor@danielsuitor.com · 2w ago

From HOME Line, a tale of two cities and their response to the ICE occupation. The mayor of Minneapolis refused to allow a temporary 60-day notice requirement and Council centrists refused to get on board with overriding the veto. Meanwhile, St. Paul's City Council passed their law unanimously.

June saw a notable decline in eviction filings in St. Paul following implementation of the city’s temporary 60-day pre-eviction notice requirement. St. Paul recorded just 74 eviction filings in June, a 69.8% decrease compared to June 2025, while Ramsey County overall saw filings decline by 49.7%. It will take additional months of data to determine the long-term impact of the ordinance, but the initial decrease is significant.
HOME Line@homelinemn.org · 2w ago

Additionally, a brief written overview of eviction filings trends during the first half of 2026 is available here: homelinemn.org/11955/evicti...

🍞 Cole Hanson 🥬@colewritesalot.bsky.social · 3w ago

Stickers newly appearing on Midtown Greenway light poles - probably does a good job of dissuading thieves. Meanwhile, St. Paul calling it quits on replacing lighting in our parks is disappointing to say the least. Aluminum is the way!

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@yblent.bsky.social · 3w ago

I know it was an impossible time for thoughtful decision making, but god I wish more of that Covid had been spent on installing high quality HVAC in schools sites. We could have hundreds or thousands of filtered and air conditioned spaces for people to shelter in from this smoke.