Skip to Content

craig furguson

Minneapolis, MN
Commenter for
2 years 42 weeks

Recent Comments

Posted on 02/06/13 at 12:09 pm in response to An evolved transit city: Portland’s lesson for Minneapolis

When I visited Portland, I loved riding that bike lane in the middle of the street. It made so much more sense than sharing a lane with turning and parking cars.

Posted on 01/30/13 at 11:28 pm in response to Obama's Minneapolis trip will focus on gun violence

MPD has recently started releasing their shot spotter, gunshot and guns collected stats all in one place ytd weekly. It will be interesting following those statistics and it will add to the conversation. The shot spotter data in particular should be a pretty reliable measure of the amount of gunfire in the city. see www....

Posted on 01/30/13 at 11:22 pm in response to What Dayton’s budget guru learned from Mike Tyson

Has a pass on paying their share.

Posted on 01/30/13 at 09:57 am in response to Qualities every city should have: Grading the Twin Cities

"Unsatisfactory, not necessarily because the Twin Cities are crime-ridden but because we believe they are." An important point, crime statistics mean much less to the public than a feeling of personal safety. Lately, concern about crime has been less than worries about the economy. We always worry, it's just what catches politicians attention is whatever is at the top of our worry list.

Posted on 01/24/13 at 08:32 am in response to Sheriffs want better gun screening of the mentally unstable

"Hennepin County Sheriff Rich Stanek said that gun control alone will not solve the complex problem of gun violence" We have gun control?

Posted on 01/18/13 at 12:03 pm in response to Minimum wage: Minnesota falls behind other states

MIT has some pretty detailed statistics on living wage by county and city in MN at livingwage.mit.edu/states/27/locations

For a single adult, they say that $5.21 is a poverty wage and $9.11 is a living wage. For an adult with two children $8.80 is a poverty wage and $25.25 is a living wage. The $25 seems high until you consider the increased costs of food, child care and health care.

In some cases we end up subsidizing portions of families with food stamps, child care and...

Posted on 12/27/12 at 11:32 am in response to Unemployed in a weak economy: ‘I found myself in a shelter’

I'm trying to understand how this project is different from 211UnitedWay, the Alliance for the Streets Manual, or the Council on Crime and Justice's resource list. I think that what is really needed is a cell phone app for services, since that seems to be the way that many of the homeless in the community stay in contact with the world.

Posted on 11/15/12 at 12:19 am in response to Food Stamp Challenge: Try living on $31.50 for food for a week

Interesting article, but how many people on food stamps are depending on that source for their entire food budget? Poverty statistics are kind of odd and do not take into account food stamps, Medicaid, and housing and child care assistance as a part of income. We also do not know use of food shelves or places where someone can get a meal. I've been to shelters where they actually throw out food. Housing cost seems to be more of an issue.

Posted on 11/09/12 at 12:51 pm in response to Hennepin Commissioner Jeff Johnson among potential '14 gov candidates

The golden fire hydrant guy in charge of the fiscal disaster that is the MN GOP, a Sheriff that had to step down from DPS and an unknown? None of these guys would would have stepped in front of the bus and run against Klobuchar. Have they been looking at the demographic trends? They should be recruiting and running Jim Graves. Or get a women's name out of the binder.

Posted on 11/08/12 at 02:09 pm in response to Advocates for needy are hopeful DFL Legislature will support ‘poverty agenda’

MN projects a $1.1 billion deficit so far in the next biennum, we'll see for sure when the November forecast comes out. This is mostly because the last budget was balanced on one-time borrowing from schools and the tobacco settlement. Dayton's previous proposed increased tax on the top 2% of earners would bring in about $1.8 billion. This tax would not necessarily be harmless, as pointed out in previous MinnPost article liberal Harvard economist Richard Musgrave contends companies will have...