My conversation with Damla Erten, owner of Sencha Tea Bar and founder of the Uptown Community Coalition, about her opposition to the creation of a business improvement district for Uptown. The push for a BID comes from the Uptown Association, which represents their member businesses in the area. Damla says the problem with a BID is that it gets voted on only by property owners, not by renters or businesses that lease their spaces, and amounts to an extra tax smaller businesses can't afford. And even if the services live up to what's being advertised, some of them are so basic they should already be covered by regular property taxes. We also get into Uptown transportation politics and the Hennepin Avenue reconstruction.

For more on the Uptown Community Coalition: https://www.instagram.com/uccmpls/

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It's your favorite syndicated tabloid entertainment TV show that's actually a podcast: Loring Stories with Taylor Dahlin.

On today's episode, an attack on the first amendment - Taylor captured exclusive video of herself being physically assaulted by a smaller, much older woman in Loring Park. Plus a tree fell down. Then, executive producer John Edwards bids farewell to the mayoral campaign of Emily Koski.

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A harrowing personal story from Curt Myran of Whittier, who talks about how his life changed the day they rearranged the Aldi at 26th and Lyndale.

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Minneapolis Caucus Night 2025 is in the books and if anyone is qualified to draw premature conclusions, it's the Wedge LIVE news team. Taylor Dahlin and Jason Garcia are in studio. Josh Martin is here via his landline telephone. Which city candidates have the edge heading into DFL convention season? Who needs a little help? Does Ward 8 candidate Josh Bassais really drive a Mustang with the vanity license plate "BAA SAY"?

Plus: Minneapolis DFL Chair Conrad Zbikowski makes a special appearance in the hot seat for a local news quiz (via the encrypted Signal app).

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A conversation with three founders of a group called "Seniors for All." After becoming increasingly dissatisfied with the way they were being represented by the Minneapolis DFL Senior Caucus, they decided to do something about it. They organized for change. This grew into a movement that swept new leadership into power. Along the way, they were falsely accused of infiltrating the Senior Caucus. The truth is, their only crime was trying to make the city a better place for themselves, their children and grandchildren.

Cara Letofsky, Susan Lynx, and Jim Davnie are founders of Seniors for All and members of the Minneapolis DFL Senior Caucus.

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A conversation with Paula Chesley, who's running for Minneapolis City Council in Ward 7.

https://www.paulaforward7.org/

You can participate in the Minneapolis DFL caucuses on April 8, 2025. For more info: https://minneapolisdfl.org/

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For years Mark Lanterman has been a go-to expert on tech-based crimes and scams, both on local news and in courtrooms. Now people are asking, was Minnesota's king of digital forensics sitting on a throne of lies?

In an exclusive interview, I spoke with Wisconsin-based lawyer Sean Harrington, who's turned up a trove of evidence calling into question Lanterman's credentials and affiliations. To list just a few of Harrington's discoveries:

-"Lanterman didn’t complete postgrad studies at Harvard University. Rather, he attended an 8-week 'Online short course' administered through GetSmarter® in 2018."

-Lanterman claimed to “serve on the Sedona Conference’s Steering Committee on Artificial Intelligence and the Law" before that particular committee even existed. And the executive director confirmed Lanterman currently holds no leadership position.

-Lanterman's biographies and sworn statements claim affiliation with the US Secret Service for periods ranging from 3, 5, 8, 11, and 29 years.

Perhaps most damning of all: Lanterman's sudden interest in his old personnel file from the 1990s. After being challenged about his credentials in a deposition on February 11, Lanterman traveled to a suburban Philadelphia police station on February 14, told the police chief he had a terminal heart condition and needed to view his old employee file. He took the file home and never sent it back, much to the consternation of the police chief. What was in that file?

There's more in Harrington's thoroughly documented write-up on his website:

https://seanharringtonlaw.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/2025-03_deepfakeexperts_.pdf

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Bill Lindeke says there is no trash emergency in St Paul. Pay no attention to Mayor Carter's declaration of a state of emergency. We talk about disagreement over the future of a piece of land that Mayor Carter and the city's trash hauler say must be used for a garbage truck staging facility. We talk about why the council sided with neighbors who say the city should stick with the plan to designate the land for housing at the site on West 7th and Randolph near the Mississippi River. Then we check in on St Paul politics in a mayoral election year. Finally, we talk about the persistence of transportation resentment in local politics.

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