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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A bike ride conversation with Jazz Hampton, candidate for Mayor of Minneapolis.

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With John sidelined by legal wrangling, Josh Martin becomes the first ever fill-in host of the Wedge LIVE podcast.

We start by discussing the recent targeted attacks on DFL state legislators and the assassination of House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark.

Then Josh gets the full story from Taylor and John about being exonerated in campaign finance court. Ward 12 City Council candidate Becka Thompson and her sidekick Carol Becker thought they could bully Taylor and John by falsely accusing them of creating a website making fun of Thompson's campaign. But the state Campaign Finance Board wasted no time in deciding there was nothing to investigate.

Plus, Taylor has the scoop on the latest campaign finance filings from PACs aligned with Mayor Frey.

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We're on location in Kenwood Park for a conversation with Andrew Gebo, who's running for the District 4 seat on the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board.

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Support the show: https://patreon.com/wedgelive

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