Don Allen Files Public Disclosure Request, No Doubt At The Bidding Of His CIA Puppet Masters

Flickr.com Photo


First, a correction to a previous post: I made fun of the notion IBNN blogger Don Allen works for the CIA or FBI, as Al McFarlane (reportedly) asserted during some kind of breakfast meeting.

Well, my superiors in military psy-ops and the NSA got back to me, and it turns out Don Allen really DOES work for the CIA. So (under orders, here) I'm supposed to say so. Why? Because if I say so, nobody will believe it.

And I think that's the whole point.

(Just to be clear, I'm only UNDER CONTRACT with the NSA. Psy-ops still owns by army green butt to the end of my enlistment, or longer if I get stop lossed)

In any case...

Don Allen--who knows his way around state public disclosure laws well enough, since he stayed awake during that particular training at Langley, it would appear--just filed a public disclosure request to try to obtain the following info:

1. The amount NRRC spent on Advertising or outreach for the years 2005-2009.

2. The names of the advertising venders with amounts spent.

3. If any, the amount of dollars given to Mr. Al McFarlane as a person; Media outlet or any collaborative efforts from 2005-2009.

4. The number of articles you have had published in Insight News w/titles.

5. The current status of the Un-wed Mothers program and the balance of the prisoner re-entry programming funds.

It's too arcane to be ironic, but here it is: even though Don Allen is a blogger, I can get this stuff on my blog FASTER...which causes Don to just send out emails with links that say, "Read all about it on Johnny Northside."

ADDENDUM: February 6, 2011. This blog post was written before I and many others in North Minneapolis discovered what a disreputable con man character Don Allen is. I would advise anybody: Do not trust Don Allen. Seek further information about Don Allen from various online sources before having any contact with him.

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Mayor Rybak: NoMi Is Waiting To Welcome You!

Photo By John Hoff

I will never forget where I was when I first heard Mayor Rybak was selling his house. It was right after the Hawthorne Executive Board Meeting last night, in the front seat of Connie's little red sports car, in the parking lot of the "Secured Gas Station" (Winner Gas) at West Broadway and Lyndale...

A cop car was in plain sight, the officer apparently working security inside, but Connie was still hesitant to leave the safety of her vehicle. So she sent ME inside to buy two packs of Camels. Yeah, great, the brand that killed my Dad of lung cancer, pancreatic cancer, liver cancer, and prostate cancer.

All at once.

(Hey, at least he outlived all the shrapnel left in his body)

Anyway, I came back outside with the two packs in hand, and Connie was all, like, MAYOR RYBAK IS SELLING HIS HOUSE!!! She'd just read it off her Blackberry.

"Where's he moving?" I asked, casually.

"HE DOESN'T KNOW YET!!!!" she answered.

"Oh...my...god!!!!" we said, pretty much together. And then: WE HAVE TO GET RYBAK TO MOVE TO NOMI!!!!!!!!!!

Mayor Rybak, here are some of the many advantages of moving to NOMI. First of all, you won't get better housing bargains anywhere in the city on classic homes with character.

You can take that $700k or whatever you're getting for your OTHER house, and use it to retire in style. (No time soon, though)

Meanwhile, you can buy a house in NoMi for very little money, fix it up, and watch your equity grow as all the grand plans you've told us about--and they are grand, they are glorious, they are the bright utopia upon which we fix our tired gaze in moments of gritty urban struggle--come to fruition.

Imagine what people will say! THAT MAYOR RYBAK, HE WALKS THE WALK. Mayor, your mere PRESENCE will decrease crime within--I estimate--a four block area. There will quickly be a "ripple effect" of like-minded people copying your example, reasoning that if it's good enough for Mayor Rybak, maybe now really is the time to buy, buy, buy in NOMI. (Also, houses here are so affordable you can easily buy one BEFORE selling the other one)

Now, truthfully, so far you don't have much of a political opponent this year. A ham sandwich could beat Al Flowers on election day, even with wilted lettuce and no mayo.

But I say NO MERCY IN THE POLITICAL ARENA, at least not for a nut job like Al Flowers who heckles, disrupts, literally shoves from behind.

Mayor Rybak, now is your once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to rack up the election day vote score as high as possible for the history books. Sure, you've got the rest of Minneapolis sewn up, as long as you don't murder somebody before the election, but why not take all the votes in North Minneapolis, too? Now THAT would be a political mandate.

Consider: If Al "I Am The Community" Flowers can pick up a few stray votes anywhere, it's probably in NOMI. He's got FOUR VOTES FOR SURE up here, not counting his own.

Well, I say take away even those four votes: move to NOMI so the residents of this neighborhood--who have hung on for so long, endured so much, dreamed such big dreams for so long--will vote for a mayor who boldly walks the walk, throwing in his lot with the muddy troops fighting the revitalization battle here at "Ground Zero."

Personally, I'm partial to the Hawthorne Neighborhood and since I've got this blog, well, I can shout ALMOST as loud as Al Flowers.

But I'm not going to shout. I'm going to sing!!!!

Well, sort of. Here's a little song for you, Mayor Rybak. Click here for video. (Check out what the star of this video is carrying in his hands!)

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THE STORY IN PICTURES: Recent Intense Discussions About Marketing North Minneapolis/NoMi

Photos By John Hoff

Here are images from recent intense (but informal) discussions about marketing North Minneapolis/NoMi which took place at the offices of the Carney group, as described in the two previous blog posts.



First, this is a booklet produced by the Carney Group with North Minneapolis/NoMi marketing material. It is slick and well done. Luckily, nobody spilled wine on it. (Well, I'm sure they made more than one)



Second, ...



Jules Inda, Pat Carney's wife. Next, realtor and NoMi member Connie Nompelis (No-bell-iss) who is probably laughing at something said by Anderson Mitchell.

Fourth, Anderson Mitchell (right) clowning around for my camera, next to Hawthorne Housing Director Jeff Skrenes. Next, Lisa Mitchell. It turns out Lisa Mitchell and I both grew up in the same part of the sticks. The bottle in the foreground--which looks like it is stuffed with lawn trimmings--is exotic Honduran guifiti.

Next, Pat Carney. Look at the size of his camera. Normally, I don't give a lot of credence to beliefs that a camera can steal your soul, but...well, just look at the SIZE of that thing!

The last picture was not taken at the Carney group event, but rather just before a recent meeting with Don Allen to talk about North Minneapolis marketing efforts, which I mentioned in this blog post, click here.

Nobody wanted me to take pictures at that meeting, so this image of Connie feeding the meter is all I have. Her cute little silver coin purse is made from HAND WOVEN POTATO CHIP BAGS.



Now all the women will want one.

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PART TWO: Recent Intense Discussions About Marketing North Minneapolis/NoMi

Photo By John Hoff

First and foremost, Pat Carney of the Carney Group doesn't want his marketing expertise to be "conflated" into the reputation of Northside Marketing Task Force, which is merely one of many clients. Some of Carney's super HAPPY clients include Mitchell Construction, click here for an example of a website. (I love the use of "safety orange" in the design)

Carney stated, in so many words, he had NO FREAKING IDEA what he was getting into when he accepted a relatively simple assignment from NMTF to produce a website to market North Minneapolis, a neighborhood which is, er, COMPLICATED, to say the least.

NMTF turned out to be a toxic hornet's nest of intense interpersonal conflict and endless committee this, committee that, and oops now the committee makeup has changed. AGAIN. Try being a contractor under such circumstances.

However, instead of sending me a ticked-off email about my mentions of Carney's efforts in the same bloggy breath as the efforts of the NMTF, Carney invited me and some friends to wine and cheese at a semi-regular Friday "salon" held at their 837 Glenwood Office.

Carney is like that. He is open and communicative, happy to let things flow in spontaneous and creative directions, like a conversation with clever people flows, especially when lubricated by much wine. Carney takes enormous numbers of pictures, then casually tosses the pictures up on a website and doesn't really mind, he says, if somebody uses the picture for blogging or news coverage.

Hey, it's all good. Pat Carney is just LIKE that. He's fun and open and communicative. Unlike SOME people.

The offices of the Carney Group are...

...eclectic and spectacular and remind me, oddly, of Thomas Jefferson's Monticello.

I've been there, like, FOUR TIMES. A law professor once asked me why I had toured Monticello FOUR TIMES and I answered, "To engage in worship of Thomas Jefferson to the point of idolatry." She told me how FLAWED Jefferson was and I said, well, that was part of my attraction: that a flawed and imperfect person could be capable of such sublime thought and creativity.

Like Jefferson, Carney's creativity is one with his building. Like Jefferson, he participates in his local government: he's a member of the Harrison Neighborhood Association.

"You've got to be!" he told me. To get ANYTHING done in a neighborhood, he said (and I agreed) you have to be involved in your local neighborhood association. From a window, Carney pointed to a property across the street and outlined visions of a farmers market. He pointed to International Market Square and mentioned how that place IS IN NORTH MINNEAPOLIS. North Minneapolis (NoMi) needs to claim a place like that, as part of its image.

Now how shall I put this, without violating any confidences? I told Pat Carney if he showed me the website he'd designed for the Northside Marketing Task Force--without formal, written permission to do so--there could be some kind of legal trouble. And I had a duty to tell him that, I thought.

Well, Pat Carney didn't want any TROUBLE. He is creative, but also a businessman and therefore instinctively prudent. But this was a case of "mi casa es su casa." If guests wandered around and LOOKED at things, what was he supposed to do? Intensely police his guests? That's really not his style. (Laughing hysterically, THAT might be his style)

So I wandered around. I looked at things. Other people may have looked at things, too, but I will only be responsible for MYSELF and I'll keep others out of the heat unless those individuals (who may be hypothetical and imaginary, who knows?) want to come forward on their own... which, if they are figments of my imagination, THEY CAN'T.

Yes, I think now I've sufficiently de-clarified matters.

So, in regard to the website designed for the NMTF: it's a good-looking website. The images do more than document, they celebrate the neighborhood. Relatively ordinary (but fun) get-togethers become photographic art, icons of neighborly good feeling. There are many things to click on and explore, a feature which will hopefully hold the attention of the casual browser who will get caught up and wonder, "Is there more...what's over here? Oh, that topic sounds interesting..."

The website needs more CONTENT but that's not really the job of the Carney group. They've got the house built, as it were, now people just need to move in and live there.

Could one make criticisms of the website? Oh, undoubtedly. But the mild criticisms of one of my (possibly imaginary) companions that evening were completely different than the stuff I would jump on. For example, saying "MY North Minneapolis." Well, my (fantasy?) friend thinks the whole "my thing" is "worn out."

Huh, I thought. THAT never would've crossed my mind. Yeah, put something like this cool website in front of a committee, and they will pick it apart, piece by piece. And that's the problem: this is not a new kind of soft drink. This is a neighborhood, older than any of us who are alive, a community with overwhelming levels of complexity and innumerable strong opinions.

How do you MARKET an entity like that? I say: If you want to market it, somehow you need to be able to say: here is money. Here are some broad criteria, which we've miraculously managed to agree upon. NOW JUST DO IT.

If you decide on marketing details by a committee, the (expletive) thing will NEVER get done. Somebody will say, "Let's put the nice older lady who has been here umpteen years on a billboard" and somebody else will say, "Well, if you're going to have a billboard of her, then you need a billboard of a certain young man who stopped being in a gang, and pulled himself up to assistant manager at a fast food place." And then somebody else says, "But that's your nephew!" And then the response is, "You have a problem with that, BITCH?!"

Academic studies must exist on the marketing of cities and neighborhoods. This is the kind of thing one should study, intensely, before wading in thinking, "They will greet us as liberators and throw flowers in the street."

This is what I said to Carney: Let us suppose, hypothetically, EVERY CRITICISM EVER MADE ABOUT THE WEBSITE IS TRUE? OK, I'm still left with SO WHAT?

A website that markets our neighborhood, into which content can be poured to compete with the negative messages in the media, is still better than nothing. Consider: In 1939, some units of the Polish cavalry used HORSES and BICYCLES. But which is worse: going up against Panzer tanks with horses and bicycles, or just throwing up your hands and surrendering?

At the table--amid bottles of wine and platters of cheese--I viewed a booklet passed around with crisp, concise, expressive writing and great photographs of the history of North Minneapolis, which flowed naturally into some exciting developments in the present moment. I was excited to see things I recognized and knew well, like the Hawthorne Eco Village.

Evan Reminick of Amalgam put his laptop in front of me and showed me a presentation he'd put together about ideas to market North Minneapolis--a MASSIVE amount of material, and he had done this FOR FREE, it wasn't even part of the CONTRACT.

I saw a particular line of text in his presentation and thought how that idea was very similar to my thesis of "Market and Romanticize The Struggle." Evan said he'd read my ideas about marketing North Minneapolis. (NoMi)

"Did my ideas influence you?" I asked.

"Everything I read influences me," he answered, nimbly, but he followed up by saying I was one of a very few people who had done any substantial theorizing about approaches to marketing North Minneapolis beyond merely "Let's accentuate the positive."

At some point--long after we'd consumed shots of exotic guifiti, both straight up and altered with "sugar in the raw"--long after exploring the website, (maybe that was just me) and flipping through the booklet, and checking out Pat Carney's amazing office which screams success, competence, creativity--I tried to figure out how to put all the NoMi marketing pieces together, all the players I'd outlined in Part One of this blog post.

And this is what I came up with:

NMTF pays Carney the $5,000 he is owed for services rendered. NMTF then turns over the completed website, (lock, stock, barrel and password) to the ad hoc group NoMi. NMTF then disbands. Why? Because NMTF has managed to negatively brand ITSELF, mostly by inaction and an inexplicably paranoid attitude about controlling information.

So...

NoMi uses the Carney-created website to market North Minneapolis any way it sees fit, since NoMi appears to be the group most well-situated to do this, at least at present, but time is a-wasting.

Don Allen could play a role by using his considerable geeky technical skills in driving web traffic. If NoMi wants to become a formal organization, they can approach Don Allen, who also has experience in putting together non-profits.

Yes, other entities could be approached other than Don Allen, but Don Allen is a PLAYER and he is at the table. So to keep everybody happy, Don Allen should play a role. Don Allen has talked about a highly-developed ability to shake funds loose from business entities. For goodness sakes, give him (or his new organization) an opportunity to do what he says he can do.

NoMi should retain its current cohesive structure--which is the only freaking thing getting any effective Northside marketing done--but could open itself to contributions by members of the community, Don Allen, Johnny Northside blog, and any members of (the former) NMTF who want to contribute efforts, ideas, and resources.

Johnny Northside is pretty adamant about GETTING PAID if his writing is going to be at somebody else's direction. That's the only thing. Beyond that, my dance card is free and open to NoMi, Don Allen, or even the NMTF.

Individuals who have a BETTER plan, or who want to discuss aspects of the Friday night salon that I missed are free to use the comments section.

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PART ONE: Recent Intense Discussions About Marketing North Minneapolis/NoMi

Photo By John Hoff

ADDENDUM: February 6, 2011. This blog post was written before I and many others in North Minneapolis discovered what a disreputable con man character Don Allen is. I would advise anybody: Do not trust Don Allen. Seek further information about Don Allen from various online sources before having any contact with him.


In the past several days, I've been present at two ad hoc, informal conferences to discuss marketing ideas for North Minneapolis, or NoMi. Before discussing the specifics of these two conferences, it might be helpful to run down who some of the "players" are in attempts to market North Minneapolis...

First, but not necessarily foremost, is the Northside Marketing Task Force. NMTF started with high hopes, but has seen endless internal infighting and--more more importantly--relatively little actual marketing efforts. Creative, intense individuals have splintered off from NMTF and pursued their own efforts.

NMTF is kind of, sort of a non-profit. (Apparently, some paperwork needs to be filed) NMTF is arguably the most "official" of the marketing groups and has been able to obtain some dollars to apply to marketing efforts. Recently, however, there has been talk of "reformulating" NMTF which is, arguably, highly dysfunctional and badly structured. Some personalities at NMTF include Mike Kestner and Jerry Moore.

Second, the Carney Group is a professional marketing agency headquartered in the Harrison neighborhood of NoMi. (Another entity, Amalgam, has a close working relationship with Carney and put blood and sweat into the website project for NMTF)

Pat Carney completed a website for NMTF, but has yet to get any go-ahead to unleash the completed website and--more importantly, from a business perspective--has yet to get paid the $5,000 balance of their contract, according to Carney. (Mike Kestner of NMTF may see it differently and is welcome to submit commentary, like ANYBODY is welcome)

Recently, through this blog, Pat Carney has been much more public about his dissatisfaction with the current situation (not getting paid, very little North Minneapolis marketing effort hitting the street) but he is a businessman seeking to make money, not a charity.

Third, Don Allen. Allen is known for his IBNN blog which focuses on civil rights issues and often advocates that the way to promote prosperity for black people is through business enterprise. However, IBNN is merely a hobby and a side project for Allen. The company Allen works for makes money by helping companies achieve higher Google rankings and disseminating press releases for pay. They even work for entities in CHINA. It's all about paying the bills, baby.

Don used to be vice chair of NMTF, but left NMTF and has made no secret of his disaffection with Mike Kestner and Jerry Moore. Despite Allen's strong business orientation, Allen has assisted in starting up non-profits. Allen is currently more-or-less in control of a relatively new non-profit entity which could receive public dollars and market North Minneapolis or, for that matter (in light of its mission) other areas underserved by media and marketing.

Fourth, there is NoMi.

NoMi is an ad hoc group made up of realtors. They are not a non-profit or a formal organization, yet. NoMi came up with the clever slogan "Get to NoMi" and has tried to brand North Minneapolis with the "NoMi" label, which shares similarities with the popular "SoHo" brand.

One of the members of NoMi split off from NMTF. NoMi has some helpful allies in the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender community, and yet NoMi is not a GLBT organization. Their primary concern is making "NoMi" a cool neighborhood in the public eye which, naturally, helps sell houses and raise the value of homes. NoMi has organized some successful home tours.

Despite the fact NoMi is just starting out, and lacks a website, NoMi has generated great excitement and expectations, quickly eclipsing any hope or excitement which once existed for NMTF.

Reason number one is the extreme cohesiveness of the group; in stark contrast to NMTF. The second reason is their slick, spot-on slogan, in contrast to NMTF's inexplicable leaf design and clunky slogan, "Forget marketing the f***ing neighborhood, we want justice and equality NOW!"

(OK, that's not really an exact quote, but it's close enough)

Another acceptable way of writing "NoMi" is in all-caps, "NOMI," based on artwork promulgated by this ad hoc organization. One hopes the name may evolve to the simplified "Nomi."

Fifth, this blog is a player. Though only an ad hoc, unpaid effort by a lone volunteer, JNS blog consistently cranks out content and has developed a reputation as a quick conduit for information dissemination. In terms of marketing NoMi, JNS blog's contribution has been a hypothesis called "Market and Romanticize The Struggle."

Sixth, Insight News is a player. This newspaper, published by community activist Al McFarlane, is primarly by, for and about North Minneapolis though it strives to be an "African American newspaper serving Minneapolis and St. Paul."

Insight appears to be speaking primarily TO readers in North Minneapolis rather than speaking ABOUT North Minneapolis.

Insight News puts out relatively little web content and is closely tied to its "dead trees" paper medium, but does have a website, unlike NoMi. The main concerns of Insight News are tied to social justice issues, click here for an example.

Last, but hardly least, the mainstream media is a player in the marketing of North Minneapolis. Newspapers and television stations follow the principal of "if it bleeds, it leads." Stories can be categorized and consumed easily by the public if these stories fit into preconceived mental channels, such as "North Minneapolis as a scary theme park of criminal violence and social decay."

Thus the most powerful "marketer" of North Minneapolis is not deliberately marketing at all, but merely reporting on newsworthy events but--in so doing--creating a self-fulfilling marketing and branding effort.

Arguably the only way to counter the "background noise" of this mainstream media "non-marketing marketing effort" is a principle this blog makes every effort to apply: CRANK OUT CONTENT.

Tell every positive story that can be told. Game the Google rankings with tricks like "RSS feeds." Hire marketing firms with whatever dollars can be obtained. Vigorously engage in the difficult work of revitalizing the neighborhood, and then publicize those efforts, encouraging similar efforts to take root.

So there you have the players. Now, what has been happening lately?

Number one, NMTF members have been talking intensely to Johnny Northside blog about the future of North Minneapolis marketing efforts. That's really all that can be said about THAT, except it's on the phone and by email, mostly, not so much in person.

Number two, Don Allen has been talking intensely to JNS blog and, recently, had an informal meeting with JNS, a member of NoMi, and a member of the Hawthorne Neighborhood Council. That's really all that can be said about THAT, except--once again--the discussions have been about the future of North Minneapolis marketing efforts.

Number three, the Carney Group and Amalgam have been talking intensely to JNS blog, a member of NoMi, and members of the Hawthorne Neighborhood Council. (Two of the individuals there were both former members of NMTF) More can be said about these discussions because not so much was "off the record."

The photo above shows Anderson Mitchell looking, intensely, at some rehab photos shot by Evan Reminick of Amalgam at the offices of the Carney Group, last night, at a "salon" gathering featuring wine and cheese.

More wine than cheese, actually. OK, a LOT more wine than cheese. Some exotic Honduran guifiti was consumed, too.

So that outlines the marketing players and some recent interactions between the players; to the degree much can be said at all.

Part 2 will cover what can be said publicly about last night's informal meeting at the offices of the Carney Group, including a "sneak peak" at the much-discussed, not-yet-released website for the Northside Marketing Task Force.

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JNS Blog "Goes NoMi" (And You Should, Too!)

Photo By John Hoff

In the future, this blog will use the term "NoMi" instead of "North Minneapolis" in stories about my neighborhood which are generally positive in tone. However, for stories about colorful political controversy, crime, mortgage fraud--basically the negative stuff--I will continue to use the term "North Minneapolis" with my preferred capitalization of "North."

Normally I don't go out of my way to state my blog policies, which are always evolving. Instead, I just do what I do. But in this case...

I believe the grassroots neighborhood marketing efforts being attempted by groups like NoMi are important enough that NOT ONLY should this blog jump aboard the NoMi bandwagon, but I should make a public point of it.

The picture above shows Kip Browne, the new chairman of the Jordan Area Community Council. Kip and his new wife Kelly live just two houses down from Council Member Don Samuels, on a block which used to be rough but has now become beautiful, revitalized, livable, ALMOST perfect and perfection seems quite within reach. A piece of NoMi artwork--which I hope will be one of many more issued in the coming years--hangs prominently in Kip 'n' Kelly's house.

I should point out, though, that "negative" can be a very subjective judgment. There are people who read stories on this blog about political controversies in neighborhoods and tell me things like, wow, they wish their neighborhood politics were so colorful and exciting. It has long been my position that we must not only market the positives, but also market our fulfilling, and continuously SUCCESSFUL struggles against the negatives.

Certain personalities want to do more than just live in a calm, sedated cocoon of suburban domesticity; they have some cowboy blood in them, some pirate personality, a desire to do heroic deeds. They sense a gold rush a-coming, and want to stake their claim, then reap the rewards of their boldness for years, decades. They are visionaries, who look at present difficulties and see the first green shoots of urban utopia pushing above the ground.

The trend is clear; North Minneapolis is becoming NoMi. I intend to get on board with the trend.

Also, for the record, the term "NoMi" has been out in the public domain for a while, in free usage. It has NOT been successfully trademarked. So I am free to use the term and so is anybody else. If somebody wants to tell me different, well, the comment threads are open.

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