Steve Cwodzinski (pronounced Swodzinski) has long been a man in love. For 33 years, he loved teaching history and government to Eden Prairie High School students. In 2018 and again in 2020, the Eden Prairie Democrat was elected state senator for Senate District 48 (redistricting has rechristened Senate District 49). He now says he loves coming to his legislative job every day. He also loves a beautiful lady: his new home, the Minnesota Capitol building. In his book, “Beyond the Lesson Plan,” he declares, “I believe that an educated, informed, enlightened and engaged population is a necessary ingredient for every democracy…
Author: Frank Malley
Frank Malley
Frank graduated from Stanford University and did graduate study at Princeton and the University of Wisconsin toward a Ph.D. in English. He also took graduate business courses at the Illinois Institute of Technology and Illinois’s North Central College. He taught college English and British literature at a two-year University of Wisconsin Center System campus in Marathon County, Wis. For 26 years he worked in purchasing, product development, and general management at light manufacturing companies in the Chicago area. He later owned a company that imported custom-made products from China. In 2016, Frank and Pamela, his wife of 50 years, moved to Minnesota to be near their son, who lives in northeast Minneapolis.
Minnesota’s five-judge panel has released the 2022 redistricting map they have created and approved for congressional, state senate, and state legislative districts. Representative Mary Murphy, DFL – Hermantown, who chaired an unsuccessful House effort to create a Minnesota Legislature redistricting map, has said that generally, the courts follow the principle of “least change.” Old Senate District (SD) 48, which covered Eden Prairie and southern Minnetonka, certainly has lived out the idea of least change. Modest redrawing changed SD48 into new SD49, with Congressman Dean Phillips, State Sen. Steve Cwodzinski, State Rep. Laurie Pryor, and State Rep. Carlie Kotyza-Witthuhn still representing…
It is the year 1517, and furious over the church’s selling of indulgences — passes that supposedly get dead loved ones out of Purgatory — a grim Martin Luther is walking down a street in Wittenberg, Germany. Hammer in hand, he is prepared to nail 95 Theses to the door of the Schlosskirche (Castle Church). Well, all right. Researcher Erwin Iserloh writes that Luther did not need a hammer. Luther simply enclosed the 95 Theses in a letter he wrote to his superiors. Among Luther’s present-day legatees are Eden Prairie’s five Lutheran churches. There is Christ Lutheran Church, part…
Every 10 years there is a U.S. census which in turn requires that each state review the boundaries of its congressional districts, state senatorial districts, and legislative representative districts to see that they are configured so as to preserve the concept of one-person, one-vote. And so we begin to accumulate newly redrawn maps of Minnesota’s political districts. The House redistricting committee under Rep. Mary Murphy (DFL-Hermantown) has produced a map, as has the Senate redistricting committee under Sen. Mark Johnson (R-East Grand Forks). If the Minnesota Legislature cannot agree on one map by Feb. 15, 2022, the redistricting will be…
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In 1860 there was a flyspeck on the map of Minnesota — the town of Eden Prairie with its population of 304 people. Ninety years later, in 1950 — according to the U.S. Decennial Census — the town’s population had struggled to become 1,384 people. Then the population doubled in 1960, more than doubled to 6,938 in 1970, exploded to 16,263 in 1980, 54,901 in the year 2000, and 64,198 in 2020. Pundits such as bigcommerce.com provide a partial explanation: “With cars available to the masses, more people were leaving cities and commuting from the suburbs.” Eden Prairie did have three…
How do very conservative Christian denominations view a congregant’s choosing to take his mental and spiritual problems to a secular psychologist? Pastor Dale Hummel heads Eden Prairie’s Wooddale Church, which is an evangelical church. His answer might surprise some observers. Pastor Hummel feels that a mentally ill person can benefit from spiritual counseling by his pastor but also from professionally trained therapists. He would offer spiritual counseling and if there were a need to plunge far deeper into the person’s mind and emotions, he would refer the person to a professional counselor – with the proviso that the person consult…
Amid challenges for many local retailers, the JLL management company has announced that Eden Prairie Center is making progress with its tenants on several fronts. JLL is the professional services firm that manages the 1.4 million-square-foot Eden Prairie mall. Ted Gonsior, executive vice president of JLL, stated that the mall is experiencing significant investment and a high level of inventiveness by its tenant stores. According to Gonsior, the long COVID-19 siege has stimulated a renewed desire in the consumer to have a brick-and-mortar life, to go where goods can be seen and touched, and to have a more social kind…
In past Eden Prairie Local News articles, Eden Prairie Muslim Pakistanis have praised American openness and at the same time clung to a number of traditional Pakistani values and Eden Prairie Russian-Americans have loved America and yet treasured their Russian heritage. Numerically, the Pakistanis and Russians are small parts of the Eden Prairie population. Continuing a push to know Eden Prairie, what is the pattern for the much larger ethnic group of Swedish Lutherans? Ole Olsson might not be the manager of your friendly Eden Prairie grocery store, and your shopping cart might not just miss colliding with a cart pushed…
In an Eden Prairie doctor’s office, a sign reads, “Russian Spoken Here.” A random list for a community door-knocking campaign yields a sprinkling of names like Svetlana, Vera, Yury, Olga, and Leonid. It turns out that the administrative office for the Russian Educational Center of Minnesota is (where else?) in Eden Prairie. Established in 2002, the center is a non-profit organization offers classes to anyone on Russian language, culture and traditions. Maria Luzhansky, the center’s director, provides insight on the Russians who now call Minnesota home. According to Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota’s Russian population is about 12,500, with more…
Though only a medium-sized town, Eden Prairie has a big-idea institution on Martin Drive. Founded in 1986, Pride Institute, 14400 Martin Drive, specializes in treatment of addiction in LGBTQ+ patients. Terri Hayden, who has a master’s degree in psychology and many years in treating addiction, is the chief executive officer of Pride Institute. Hayden answered questions about her facility, its programs, and its patients. The logo for the Eden Prairie-based Pride Institute. On why treatment is restricted to gay addicts, Hayden said that gives patients a chance to focus on themselves and feel safe. The patients do not have to…