Tom Nordyke

A handful of financial reports from Minneapolis political committees and candidates remain as imaginary as the just-pretend primary election that was supposed to make them mandatory by Sept. 8.

Although Minneapolis held no primary election this year, candidates for city office still had to file “pre-primary” campaign-finance reports under a new ordinance passed this summer. Yet for two weeks after the Sept. 8 deadline, confusion and other delays kept a couple dozen candidate and political committee reports from reaching the public.

A flurry of candidate filings on deadline day brought to 22 the number of city races that could, in theory, be decided by instant-runoff voting (IRV). Last-minute filers included John Malone, a plaintiff in an anti-IRV lawsuit that the state Supreme Court rejected in June.

Every couple of years, the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board makes headlines for violating citizens’ right to free speech. The latest example? The board’s president, Tom Nordyke, and superintendent, Jon Gurban, are banning the Minneapolis Charter Commission from holding public meetings at park buildings because the commission’s topic is a proposed charter amendment that would [...]

Minnesota law is supposed to protect the state’s natural and historical resources, but enforcing those protections often falls to local units of government that have other priorities. Case in point: Since last year, an immense pile of dirt has obscured part of Minnehaha Park in Minneapolis, one of the state’s most popular parks, and neighbors [...]

The Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board has told residents who requested public data that at least two top staffers — superintendent Jon Gurban and general manager Don Siggelkow — now make a policy of regularly deleting their e-mail correspondence.

“I don’t know anything about that,” park board president Tom Nordyke tells the Minnesota Monitor. “I don’t [...]