Minnesota United vs. Vancouver Whitecaps: Keys to the match, projected starting XI and a prediction

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Minnesota United vs. Vancouver Whitecaps

When: 7:30 p.m. Wednesday
Where: Allianz Field
Stream: Apple TV Season Pass
Radio: KSTP-AM 1500 ESPN
Weather: 82 degrees, mostly sunny, 9 mph east wind
Betting line: MNUFC plus-105; draw plus-275; Vancouver plus-205

Series history: Almost dead even over seven seasons. Since joining MLS, Minnesota is 5-4-4 against Vancouver with a zero goal differential. This is their first matchup of 2024.

Form: MNUFC (8-7-6, 29 points) have lost four straight matches and one more defeat would break a five-way tie for the club’s worst losing skid in MLS play. Vancouver (7-7-7, 28 points) lost two in a row before a 4-3 home win over St. Louis on Saturday.

Absences: Dayne St. Clair, Tani Oluwaseyi, Carlos Harvey and Alejandro Bran (international duties) are out. Teemu Pukki (knee), Franco Fragapane (knee) and Hugo Bacharach (knee) are also likely out. Wil Trapp (leg) is doubtful.

Projected XI: In a 5-3-2 formation, CF Sang Bin Jeong, CF Bongi Hlongwane; CM Joseph Rosales, CM Hassani Dotson, CM Robin Lod; LWB Devin Padelford, CB Micky Tapias, CB Michael Boxall, CB Zarek Valentin, RWB DJ Taylor; GK Clint Irwin.

RELATED: Loons’ ‘Brilliant’ midfielder Robin Lod selected for MLS All-Star Game

Player to watch: Vancouver forward Brian White poured in a hat trick for a comeback win over St. Louis City. White’s performance contributed to St. Louis head coach Bradley Carnell losing his job after 1 1/2 seasons on Monday.

Scouting report: Loons coach Eric Ramsay’s baseline expectation is for a strong and compact defensive team, but his side has allowed 2.75 goals per game in this four-game lull. Ramsay should tighten things up with a veteran such as Valentin; Taylor at center back did not work last weekend. Vancouver, meanwhile, has scored 1.5 goals per match this season, so if MNUFC will need to a handle on White (eight goals) and Ryan Gauld (nine).

Key stat: MNUFC is tied for third-lowest possession (44.6%) in MLS this season, and this deficit forces the Loons to defend more often. This directly contributed to Portland scoring a stoppage time winner on Saturday. Timbers had three goals, but 4.0 expected goals.

Storyline: With the weekend victory, the Timbers jumped over Minnesota in the Western Conference standings; now another club from the Pacific Northwest can move past the Loons in a similar way Wednesday.

Prediction: With another shorthanded squad, it’s difficult to see how the Loons get out of this dark wilderness. But there is light through the trees with an ugly-but-slightly-better 1-1 draw.

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NYC Budget Closes Gap for NYCHA Senior Security Program

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After weeks of negotiations, the unarmed security program that was poised to end on June 30 will continue.

Adi Talwar

The lobby at NYCHA’s Bronx River Addition, one of the housing authority’s senior buildings.

A security program that has provided an extra layer of protection for New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) senior tenants for a quarter century is here to stay.

NYCHA, which has 55 senior-only buildings, has long funded unarmed security guards to be posted there for eight hour shifts, seven days a week.

The near $7 million program was slated to end on June 30 to help NYCHA close a $35 million gap in its operating budget, but Mayor Eric Adams and the City Council announced Friday that the service will remain and has been baked into the larger $112.4 billion city budget for fiscal year 2025.

“When I heard we were cutting this and I heard from councilmembers, we said, it cannot happen,” said Adams during the budget announcement. “Our seniors must be safe.”

City Limits spoke with senior tenants in the Bronx, Brooklyn and Manhattan in recent weeks about the proposed cut. All expressed support for the program, though some, including tenants at Vandalia Avenue in East New York, had differing beliefs about whether a guard had been present to-date.

Brooklyn Councilmember Justin Brannan, chair of the Committee on Finance, told City Limits in an email exchange Monday that city councilmembers were “puzzled” by the proposed cut.

During the executive budget hearings, he said, there was testimony from residents who talked about issues such as not having a functioning intercom system, and that taking away human security would be “dangerous.”

“Removing security guards at NYCHA senior buildings just made zero sense,” Brannan said. “The Council, through the leadership of Speaker [Adrienne] Adams and Public Housing Chair Chris Banks, drew a line in the sand and were able to restore $6.8 million to keep these guards working and keep our seniors safe.”

Though the funding was not baselined for future budgets, Brannan expressed confidence that it will not be cut again. Reached for comment Monday, NYCHA praised both the Adams administration and the City Council.

“NYCHA is so pleased that the city’s arrangement of necessary funding will allow for the unarmed security guard program to continue at all senior buildings across the portfolio without any interruption in services,” a spokesperson said.

Terry Campuzano, the tenant association president at Meltzer Tower in the Lower East Side, said he was “thrilled” that the senior security program will remain in place.

“We have fob keys so we have electronic doors and there’s been a few times when nobody has been around at night and they’ll pull and pull and pull on those electronic doors until they pop open,” Campuzano said.

Meltzer Tower is in the process of converting from a Section 9 public housing development to the Permanent Affordability Commitment Together (PACT) program under Section 8.

Under PACT, units are managed by private developers who handle day to day operations such as maintenance and rent collection.

Metzler’s hope, he said, is to expand security service beyond the standard eight hours. But he but is relieved that security will be in the building from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m.

“I’m thankful that they put us in the budget,” Campuzano said. “We feel better about that because I’m telling you it would have been a tragedy had we not had this security there.”

To reach the reporter behind this story, contact Tatyana@citylimits.org. To reach the editor, contact Emma@citylimits.org.

Want to republish this story? Find City Limits’ reprint policy here.

St. Paul homicide: Man found shot in yard in Payne-Phalen

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A man died after he was found shot in a yard of a home in St. Paul’s Payne-Phalen area Monday night, police said.

Someone called officers just before 8:30 p.m. to a home in the 800 block of York Avenue and reported a person had been shot.

Officers located a man with apparent gunshot injuries in the yard and provided first aid, but St. Paul Fire medics pronounced him dead at the scene, said Sgt. Mike Ernster, a police spokesman.

Police did not immediately announce an arrest, and said they’re looking for evidence and witnesses. Investigators are asking anyone with information to call them at 651-266-5650.

The police department plans to release the victim’s name after it’s confirmed by the Ramsey County Medical Examiner’s Office.

The homicide was the 14th of the year in St. Paul. There were 17 as of this time last year.

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Current, former residents of St. Paul’s West Side Flats call for redress for historical displacement

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Given the area’s poor infrastructure, heavy flooding along the Mississippi River in 1952 swept through homes and nearly devastated the Mexican-American community that lived between what is now roughly U.S. 52 and Robert Street, along the St Paul’s West Side Flats.

In the next few years, the city, St. Paul Port Authority, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and others cleared the area of homes. Then, the same authorities installed a major flood wall, followed by new infrastructure for industrial businesses.

Larry Lucio, 74, remembers that time with sadness. The dozen members of his family shared a duplex, and when it came down, they received $6,000 from the Port Authority for the double lot in 1961, which would be the rough equivalent of $63,000 today — nowhere near the actual value of the property. Renters he knew fared even more poorly, some pocketing just $35 after being forced to move from one of the more affordable areas of St. Paul.

Larry Lucio, 74, points out what the streets near his St. Paul childhood home once looked like before having to move out in 1961 on Monday, July 1, 2024. (Devanie Andre / Pioneer Press)

Homeowners who complained that their property assessments had been undervalued soon found their homes condemned. One woman came home to a bulldozer in her living room. Families scattered. A newspaper survey in 1963 found that more than half of some 334 displaced households had left the West Side, and at least a couple dozen former residents had left the city.

Still, those who were able to stay connected to the West Side neighborhood found it “was a great experience,” said Lucio, a former director of the West Side Youth Service Bureau, youth guidance counselor, youth sports coach and school principal. “I wouldn’t have changed it for the world. On the West Side, everybody was family. When I got a directive from one of the elders in the community, it was ‘yes, ma’am’ and ‘yes, sir.’”

More than 2,100 displaced

In all, more than 2,100 residents were displaced, spanning some 436 families, according to the West Side Community Organization and neighborhood researchers. Not long after the population of the West Side Flats had fallen by half, the Port Authority saw its asset values double, according to neighborhood advocates.

Where homes had once stood, the Port Authority installed a business park, which drew a flurry of industrial users — including a metal shredding company — near the Holman Field airport. Prepping the infrastructure for their arrival cost the city and Port Authority more than $8 million from 1963 to 1965 alone.

West Side advocates say more than just an apology is overdue to the residents and descendants of the area, which is still 35% Latin. Decades of lost home value would have added up to millions of dollars in equity today.

After convening a community advisory group for a year and a half, the West Side Community Organization and consultants with Research in Action are putting the finishing touches on an 80-page report on the history of the flats, which will include 13 recommendations for redress for historical displacement, or potential efforts to prevent future displacement in the face of gentrification and rising housing costs.

Five of the most general recommendations were shared Monday when WSCO advocates released an early draft of the report, which will be issued in its final form to the public on July 18.

Five recommendations

They’re calling for an official public acknowledgement and memorialization of the history of the West Side Flats and its displaced families, as well as “economic remedies” and “economic justice for the entire West Side community.”

WSCO Executive Director Monica Bravo said her organization was still determining what the scope of those financial remedies might be.

The report calls for promoting “neighborhood belonging” for historically displaced families, their descendants and current residents, and for organizing against displacement while advancing affordability on the West Side. It also calls for “environmental justice” for hazards and contamination caused by industrial development.

For new housing developments, instead of studio and one- and two-bedroom apartments, “do you have four- or three-bedroom apartments for families?” Bravo said. “We’ve talked to developers who say they’re marketing to young professionals across the river.”

Todd Hurley, president and chief executive officer of the St. Paul Port Authority, said Monday he had not yet received a copy of the report and could not comment on its specifics, but he would review it when it became available.

Too often, said Bravo and other advocates, efforts to bring housing back to the community has resulted in ironic consequences. A Sherman Associates building dubbed the West Side Flats apartments at 84 Wabasha St. bills itself as luxury housing, with two-bedroom apartments currently renting for $2,100. Among its ground-level commercial tenants is a Starbucks.

Another developer, Buhl Investors, just opened two apartment buildings on Water Street and Plato Boulevard in the Farwell-on-Water development, across the street from the river, propped up by some $27 million or more in tax incentives known as tax increment financing. One of the buildings spans more than 220 units of market-rate luxury housing, with one-bedrooms starting above $1,800.

The other building, the Harbourline Apartments, includes 63 one- and two-bedroom units for renters earning no more than 50% area median income, including seven units for residents who were previously homeless.

Bravo called that a start, but she said the area needs equally affordable housing for families. Her organization sent the city a letter opposing the use of tax increment financing, which she said would be better suited to propping up struggling corners of Robert Street.

The developer has “renamed that area Farwell-on-Water,” said Bravo on Monday. “Actually, it’s the West Side Flats. They’ve renamed the district. That never went to the district council.”

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