Landlordpolitics.com

The Archives of Minneapolis Property Rights Action Committee

(See information about current meetings at the bottom of this page.)

What's this group all about?

From a landlord's perspective, the political fault line runs not between landlords and tenants (who are their customers) but between landlords and predatory elements within local government.

Facing abuse from local government, most landlords try keep a low profile, hoping that they will not be singled out for further punishment. This only encourages the abusers. In Minneapolis, a group of inner-city landlords tried another approach: They picketed and protested and generally became a thorn in the side of the city administration. In the process, they changed public opinion. The payoff was that in 2001 the mayor and half of the City Council were defeated.

This web site is about the Minneapolis group: their tactics, history, and grievances that landlords had. It describes types of experiences which, perhaps for reasons of social class, pass under the radar of public attention and understanding. Click on the following to explore areas of interest:

site directory - 144 links to sub-pages

Minneapolis landlord "horror stories" - 19 links

Property owners in St. Paul & their "horror stories" - 13 links

History of Minneapolis Property Rights Action Committee (MPRAC) - 29 links

MPRAC - its issues & activities - 31 links

What others have said of MPRAC - 1 link

Articles written about housing - 33 links

Media bias: Our "love-hate relationship" with the news media - 9 links

Email Wars - 7 links

Links to other web sites, landlord reports from other places - 1 link

The Watchdog newspaper's website - 1 link

contact: mailto: 2wmcg@earthlink.net

Note: This landlord organization, renamed Metro Property Rights Action Committee, meets monthly (3rd Wednesday starting at 6:30 p.m.) at the Martin Luther King recreational center, 40th and Nicollet Ave. S. in Minneapolis, to discussion issues relating to housing and crime. It is associated with a free-circulation monthly newspaper called the Watchdog. Recent issues are posted on a website, http://www.watchdog-news.com.

 

 

The videotaped meetings of Metro Property Rights Action Committee air in Minneapolis in half-hour segments on the Comcast cable-television channel 17 each Saturday at 7:30 p.m.; and again, irregularly on weekends.

The Watchdog newspaper is a bimonthly free-circulation newspaper.

 

 

 

Our meetings are free and open to the public. We feature a free-speech forum on housing, crime, and other issues related to local government, often involving invited speakers. The meeting place is the Martin Luther King Neighborhood Center, 4055 Nicollet Ave. S., Minneapolis, MN. Meetings take place between 6:30 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. on the 3rd Wednesday of each month. The meetings are videotaped and shown weekly on the Minneapolis public-access channel, MTN, on channel 17.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

map showing location of Martin Luther King center

Where you can find racks for Watchdog newspaper (It's free.)

Several pages in this website have been translated by machine into French, Spanish, German, Portuguese, and Italian. Along with the English originals, they appear in another website, http://www.goldparty.org. To see the translations, click on the following links and then click on the links at the bottom of the page for whichever language one wishes to see:

http://www.goldparty.org/communitypolicing.html Condemnation of William McGaughey's apartment building
http://www.goldparty.org/czaplewski.html Sam Czaplewski's triplex condemned and hospitalized tenant becomes homeless.
http://www.goldparty.org/divasbar.html City of St. Paul and St. Bernard's church put pressure on Diva's bar after a shooting
http://www.goldparty.org/kelly.html Landlords picket St. Paul city hall and Mayor Kelly is defeated in the next election.
http://www.goldparty.org/landlords.html Picketing landlords disrupt meeting of Minneapolis city council after rental license revoked
http://www.goldparty.org/leehelgen.html Some embarrassing questions asked at Council Member Helgen's neighborhood meeting
http://www.goldparty.org/mattson.html The racial "lawsuit from Hell" brought against Rey and Pat Mattson
http://www.goldparty.org/osterman.html City of St. Paul demolishes Nancy Osterman's house after she refuses to sell to inspector's friend
http://www.goldparty.org/progressive.html Can landlords be "progressive" or are they inherently selfish and evil?
http://www.goldparty.org/ruggles.html Minneapolis officials refuse to accept Floyd Ruggles' tax payment and take his building.
http://www.goldparty.org/speaker.html St. Paul officials condemn Betty Speaker's house while she is in the hospital near death.
http://www.goldparty.org/sundberg.html Minneapolis officials condemn Dave Sundberg's mansion for lack of a full basement
http://www.goldparty.org/wu.html Vagrants overrun Jim Wu's apartment buildings as nonprofit schemes to take them away.

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