Welcome back to The Flyover, your daily digest of important, overlooked, and/or interesting Minnesota news stories.
Is Nicollet Mall Ready to Potty?
Talking about bathrooms sure brings out the snickering 12 year old in even the most ma-choor of us. Take this headline (please!) from Susan Du’s Strib story on the lack of facilities in downtown Minneapolis: “No. 1 problem downtown: Where to go No. 2.”
Or savor these fine puns from outgoing Ward 7 City Council Member Katie Cashman, who introduced an amendment to allot $700,000 for six to eight public bathrooms for Nicollet Mall in the council’s proposed 2026 budget. “I would hate ‘toi-let’ this funding opportunity go to waste,” Cashman said yesterday, adding today, “Let’s relieve ourselves of this budget amendment.” Not sure what she’s got planned after she leaves office but she may have a future at Racket.
Still, all potty humor aside, the lack of facilities for this universal need is a problem, as Red Hot Chili Pepper bassist/human cautionary tale Flea has told us and local entities as varied as the Downtown Council and Street Voices of Change can attest. Perhaps Minneapolis is ready to finally address this issue: The amendment was adopted today…