- [Announcer 1] Funding for this program is provided in part by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the citizens of Minnesota.

(bright music) - "R-Town," the show about Rochester gets us ready to cast our vote for the March 5th presidential primary, and we learn how local Black entrepreneurs are advocating for change.

And we catch up with a local author and the inspiring true story behind her book.

All that and more coming up next on "R-Town," the show about Rochester.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) - [Announcer 2] Coming to you from 125 Live in Rochester, Minnesota, "R-Town."

(upbeat music) - This year's presidential primary elections will be held nationwide on March 5th.

Here to get us ready to cast our vote in the upcoming elections is Olmsted County Elections Manager, Luke Turner.

Welcome back to "R-Town," Luke.

- Thanks for having me.

- So can you remind us how we register to vote and update our registration information?

- Sure.

In Olmsted County, you can register in a few different ways.

Register by paper application, that can be done at our office or mailing it to our office.

Email or paper work just fine.

Or MNVotes.org is a quick way to register online.

- Is there a deadline by which we should register?

- Yeah, there's a 20-day cutoff before the election to make election day rosters.

In Minnesota, we always have election day registration, so if you miss that deadline you're still able to vote, but you may have to bring some of those proof of residence and identity to vote on election day.

- Okay.

And what are voters going to be seeing on their ballots on the March 5th presidential primary?

- Sure, so the main difference with this one, as with other elections, is that we actually have three separate ballots.

One for each of the participating major political parties.

Voters will first have to select which party they most agree with the principles of.

Once they select that ballot, they'll see only one race, and it's the presidential candidates for that party.

- So how do voters request the specific ballot for the party?

- So for absentees, it's done on the application itself.

And whether you're doing that online or by paper or in our office filling out the application, question one will request which political party.

For election day, it's slightly different.

When you're right there at the poll pads checking in, the election judge will ask you to make that selection there.

- And if you haven't made a selection, are you still gonna be able to vote?

- No, for this primary, this is a feature of the presidential primary that's very unique to it, and it's once every four years you must make a party selection, unlike every other election in Minnesota.

- Thank you for that.

Why is it important to participate in presidential primary elections, and how can voters learn a little bit more as they're getting ready to vote?

- Sure, so a couple things in the presidential primary are the voter selection does inform the parties on the direction of the party's future.

So even if the candidates or the races are pretty well settled, it's still a good way to provide input on your opinion and your view of which way the party should be going.

Voter participation is always encouraged.

It helps the parties decide the future of their party, potentially.

One of the things to consider as you're entering the polls, some of the candidates may have already withdrawn and they'll still be on the ballot.

So it's very important on this one, more so than any other, to do your research ahead of time.

You'll need to research the party which you most agree with, as well as the candidates, as some of the names you see there are no longer running.

- So staying informed is a really important part of this process.

- [Luke] Absolutely.

- And you mentioned that there were gonna be three, the three major political parties.

Can you remind us what those are?

- Sure.

It's the DFL, the Republican, and the Legalized Marijuana Now party.

- Okay.

And can you share a little bit more about the absentee voting process and early voting for the March 5th primary?

- So absentees available 46 days before every election, and we're open now.

Requesting a ballot by mail can be done online for this one, or by submitting your application to Olmsted County Elections mail or email.

We'll mail the ballot out to you.

You'll have to fill it out and have a witness review or watch as you complete that process, and return it to the elections office.

We must receive those back by election day, 8:00 PM on election day, for them to be counted.

Or in person.

We're open Monday through Friday, eight to five, at the campus office, 2122 Campus Drive.

Any voter can walk right in, we have minimal lines right now, so there's no wait time.

Feel free to fill out the applications, we have 'em available, and we'll get you in and out pretty quick.

- And how do voters find out where their polling place is?

- So, on election day, the best way to find out where to vote there is MNVotes.org.

We have links on the county website that will direct you to the proper state website.

So Olmsted County's website will get you there, or directly to the state's MNVotes.org will get you to the same location.

- Great.

And what steps is the county taking to ensure that voting rights are protected, and that these elections are voting smoothly and equitably?

- So we always look at different ways to vote, and we encourage all ways to vote.

So different voters can participate in the process differently, and that all of them are encouraged.

Whether that's election day voting, whether that's absentee by mail, absentee in person.

We always offer as many options as we can and discuss with each and every voter how to find the solution that works for them.

Whether that be the agent delivery to deliver a ballot to their house, or encourage them to utilize curbside voting if they would like to use that process.

One of the biggest things that we do is just communicate all the different ways that you can participate, and choosing whichever one meets your need best.

What we've done this year, as with every year, is we have election judges from both political parties in the county elections office reviewing ballots for the ballot board.

This helps ensure the integrity of the process.

As far as testing the equipment, it's a pretty thorough process, and it's also available publicly.

So actually, next Tuesday at 2:00 PM we'll have our public accuracy test.

Any voter is able to come in and watch us test the equipment and see the accuracy for themselves.

- Wonderful.

Well thank you so much for joining us, Luke, and getting us ready to vote.

- All right, thank you.

(funky music) (funky music continues) - Be sure to stick around.

We have much more coming your way on "R-Town."

We learn about the inspiring true story behind a local author's new book.

We also hear how local black entrepreneurs are advocating for more support and visibility.

(gentle music) - I see myself as a sculptor and a participatory public artist.

The name of this exhibit is Bio Terrains, and I'm looking at biomedical aspects of it, small parts of it.

It's a very large encompassing field, and I picked terrains because it's landscapes, but they're landscapes with very particular physical structures.

Well this, I got to work with a curator.

Usually that doesn't happen so it was a very interesting process of, I have the pieces in my mind and I see the interconnection, but she had a story, so she wanted to have a story that flowed.

So we really looked at three aspects of some of my work.

Starting out with the whole body, the exterior of the body.

And you know, there's potential for healing, also for augmenting the body.

And in in that field I'm looking, it really kind of goes into the sci-fi field.

You've got posthumanists who are trying to reinvent the body in some ways.

And so I have some pieces that are imagining, well, with some of the work that's going on, could we create our own exoskeleton, like a spinal cord?

We could use that as a statement of beauty, but it also, maybe we can find a function for it?

So that's one of the themes that's going through here.

Another theme that I've really focused on is xenotransplantation, because the availability of organs that we have is just not enough.

So there's efforts trying to work, particularly with pigs, because their organs are close in size and function to ours.

So that's another theme, is looking at issues around the ethics of that.

'Cause we're moving from, you know, we eat pigs, you know, we've used their hides, but now we're going another step.

And so we're working into, there's a piece over here that is called Urban Farmstead.

So you know, we factory farm pigs, but if we are gonna use pigs for editing to go into the human body, they're gonna have to be hyper sterile.

So perhaps in our urban areas we'll start to have lab farmsteads and things, so.

The third theme that's echoed here is getting down to the cellular level.

'Cause this work is happening, the stem cell work is all happening at the microscopic level.

And one of the ways was actually thinking of, when I think about my body, I don't think about, you know, all those cellular structures.

So I began to think, there's one piece here called Imagining my Microscopic Self, you know?

So it has this sort of structure more like bone.

But, you know, can we visualize as that other deeper internal part?

- My first impression of Jane Power's work was immediately being drawn in.

The porcelain is beautiful.

The pigs have kind of a cute characteristic.

And Jane intentionally also has a realistic kind of biomedical pig.

I describe it as sci-fi, a little futuristic.

Jane's work is also very beautiful, very engaging.

(bright music) - These are very complex issues.

They involve culture.

I try to leave the work open enough that people can have a discussion.

- [Announcer 2] For more information about this story and other "R-Town" features, connect with us on Facebook, Twitter @KSMQ#RTown, or ksm.org/rtown.

(funky music) (funky music continues) - Hi, I'm Danielle Teal, this is "R-Town Spotlight," where we cover happenings, organizations, businesses, and really cool things occurring in Rochester.

Here with me today is Sweta Patel.

Welcome.

- Thank you.

- And you are a new and upcoming author, because you took the story and really captured it in such a beautiful way.

"A True Story: Should've Been Dead: Lessons From a Crack Addict Who Broke Free," by Sweta Patel with Rory Londer.

Can you share a little bit more about this book?

What was the journey to becoming an author?

- Of course.

So I'm a teacher at the Rochester Alternative Learning Center, the ALC, and I met Rory when he'd come and speak with my students and he'd share his story.

He was addicted to crack cocaine for 17 years.

He was living homeless in Minneapolis, here in Rochester.

And then he found, or he'd find this laundromat off of 12th Street and he'd scoot really close to it, up to a dryer just to stay warm, and that's how he was living.

And he ended up buying that same laundromat, turned it into a million dollar home improvement business.

- Wow.

- And that's exactly what my students said, you know, that's the feeling that they would walk away with.

Like, here's this person, a local person standing in front of them, proving to them that at any point any one of us can say, "This is not how our story ends."

And they would walk away pretty empowered.

- What I appreciate about that is that, you know, experiences do not define the ultimate outcome of a person's trajectory in life.

What inspired you to take a sabbatical and write a book?

- So in 2020 with social distancing, I actually invited Rory to be a virtual speaker.

And that's when I found out that he was diagnosed with stage four lung cancer, which is devastating in itself, but more so because of everything he's already survived.

And I felt for a year that I was supposed to write his story.

And when I approached Rory about it, he said he was ready.

And so I'd bring my camcorder, not knowing what I was doing, every Saturday to his business, recording a story.

And two and a half years later we have this book.

- And Rory could not be with us today.

He did wanna be here, but we know that you capture his experience and his story in such a beautiful way.

How's it been since you've started rolling this out and sharing more broadly?

The book is complete, it's ready, people can get it off of Amazon and other platforms.

How's that been?

- The feedback has been amazing.

People are connecting with his story, as I have.

So it's a story about addiction.

How it can become something so powerful that it can turn on us until it's something that we need every single day.

And to break out of that cycle, just how hard of an internal battle it is.

But it's also a story of human connection.

There were people along Rory's journey who showed him compassion and kindness, and that helped lift him little by little till he felt like he mattered, and that changed everything for him.

- All we need is that bit of kindness, right?

In our daily lives.

Where can people find out more information about this?

- So it's available on Amazon, as you said.

And then we also have a website, shouldvebeendead.com.

And we donated a copy to the public library as well.

- Oh my goodness.

Thank you so much for being on the show.

- Yeah, thank you so much.

- Thank you.

This is Danielle Teal with "R-Town Spotlight."

(funky music) - Hello Rochester, this is Michael Wojcik with your "R-Town Legislative Rundown."

And we've made it to the 2024 legislative session.

I was holding my breath that maybe Taylor Swift would arrive for the opening day by private jet.

It did not happen.

But something that got me similarly excited, did.

And that was KSTP has some scientific polling data done with Survey USA, about issues that passed in 2023, and some that might be up for discussion this year.

And what we found, is that Minnesotans tend to be more united on these issues than even our political representation is.

For example, marijuana legalization.

55% say yes.

21% say no.

Paid family leave.

61% yes.

20% no.

Free school lunches for all kids.

72%, and that's an astonishingly high number, yes.

28% no.

Sports betting, which did not pass, but might be up for discussion this year.

55% yes.

21% no.

The Social Security tax, or what remains of it, that is at 16% say keep it.

69% say get rid of it in its entirety.

Obviously, there's a lot of nuance that goes into all of these, but it does show that Minnesota can coalesce around where we wanna stand on these issues.

Understanding the state financial picture is incredibly complicated.

One thing that we've heard from both parties is there's not gonna be a lot of new spending this year, with the possible exception of a bonding bill.

And part of the reason it's so complicated is 2023 spending was up quite a bit, but that was a lot of one-time spending based on one-time revenue.

We know that we're still projected to have a very sizable state surplus, and that we have pretty substantial budget reserves going forward.

But there may be a structural imbalance and that's something that we're looking forward to learning more about in the near future.

And of course whether Senator Matt Klein will really get 3.2 alcohol off our grocery store shelves.

This has been Michael Wojcik with your "R-Town Legislative Rundown."

(funky music) (funky music continues) (funky music continues) (funky music continues) (funky music continues) (funky music continues) - Hi, this is Danielle Teal with "R-Town Walkabout," and we are here at Purple Goat with the General Manager, Charles Morris.

Hello.

- Hello.

How are you?

- Good.

So there's an awesome event happening, share a little bit more about this event.

- Yeah, so on Saturday is our Bock Fest event.

This is the third year we've done it.

Basically, it's an event centered around a certain style of beer, which is Schell's Bock which is a strong lager beer.

What we do is, we take, they're called loggerheads, and we put 'em into a ripping hot fire.

And then after they get nice and hot, what we do is we poke 'em into the beer, and then your beer gets really like toasted and kinda like marshmallow.

It gets sweeter, a little smokier.

It's really cool.

It's a lot of fun.

- I'm really fascinated by this.

And let me just snag one of these really quickly so you can share a little bit more about it.

So as you were explaining, you get this situation and you stab the beer?

- Yeah, yeah.

Basically.

So what you do is you have this, these are called lagerheads.

- Okay.

- So you have the point of it just sitting into a fire.

We use real wood, so it gets kind of nice and smoky.

Then what you do is you drink half of your beer, and then you poke this into your beer and you'll see it kind of smolder and kind of bubble up and get warmer, it gets a little bit warmer.

And then, like I say, it changes the flavor dramatically.

It gets a lot more sweet, a lot more smoky.

We always relate it to like a marshmallow, basically, when you toast a marshmallow.

- I'm really fascinated.

I've never heard of this before.

So what will the event entail other than the beverages, whether it be music, you know?

- Yeah.

Yeah.

So we're not doing music this year.

- Okay.

- It all just depends on the weather.

If it's warm enough, we do music, but we have our speakers going outside.

- [Danielle] It'll be bumping.

- [Charles] Oh yeah.

- I'm all about this.

I'm ready to rock it out.

- It'll be fun.

- Awesome.

This is Danielle Teal with "R-Town Walkabout."

(bright music) - A group of Black entrepreneurs recently met to discuss challenges they face in the city.

At the end of the month they plan on visiting the Minnesota State Capitol to share their concerns with legislators and policy makers.

Here to tell us more about the local Black entrepreneurship community is Donyale Johnson.

Welcome to "R-Town."

- How you doing?

How you doing?

Thanks for having me.

Thanks for having me.

- So before we get into some of the work that you all are doing as a collective of Black entrepreneurs, can you tell me a little bit just about your own journey as an entrepreneur and business owner?

- Well, my journey, it's been somewhat up and down, because what I do is entertainment, music entertainment.

So for me personally, it's not really a big, big avenue for us Black businesses as far as the entertainment goes.

So for me it's been kind of like the stereotypes that comes along with Black music and rap and stuff like that.

So that's what I've been personally dealing with, with being a business owner of a recording studio, that also houses photography and videography of urban music.

So it's been kind of up and down trying to get the community to understand, like, how big the music is and for them to, you know, open the doors for the artists that comes through my door, to be able to perform around town and stuff like that.

- So in terms of some of the other challenges that the Black entrepreneurship community is facing, can you tell us a little bit about that, as you think about what your other colleagues have been talking about as you've been getting together?

- Probably the funding, the backing of people who control the funds and the money that's given to other small businesses.

Like, a lot of conversation is why can't we get those cuts of the money that the other businesses are getting?

So, I don't know, we've been striving though.

Like, we don't get the funds, but, you know, our fight and our passion for the businesses that we are each in, I think that's what keeps us going and going and going.

And it's like, okay, we got, if we can and when we do receive the help, that's just gonna be like the icing on the cake, but it's not really, like, stopping the movement of what we're trying to do.

- Definitely.

And I do think there has been a culture in this community too, specifically with Black entrepreneurship and business owners, of coming together despite some of those obstacles.

- Yeah.

Exactly, exactly.

- But those obstacles are real, those financial obstacles.

- Yeah.

- And in terms of the funding that you're talking about, is that federal, state, local funding?

- Federal, state and local.

It's some hurdles that we have to jump in order to get that stuff.

So I just think like, it should be easier for us to get that, but nothing's really easy these days.

- And as part of that, some of that, do you feel equipped, as business owners and entrepreneurs, in like, filling out those forms and, you know, putting out those proposals for different things?

Do you feel like you have, like, the tools that you need to do that?

- Somewhat.

Somewhat.

I don't think they are available to you, for just to say, "Okay, this is what I need to be done.

Let me go do this."

I think it's more of about people seeing the business that you're in and being able to come and say, "Okay, well these are the steps that you need to take in order to get these type of funds and everything."

A lot of us, well I'm not gonna say a lot of us, me personally, I jumped out there on my passion for music and my love for music.

So the far as the business part, I was basically learning that as I was going.

And still is learning that as I go.

So I feel like that part of it, you have to basically go out there and find out those resources.

- For sure.

- Yep.

- And in terms of those resources, I know the Black entrepreneurship community has been starting to kind of support each other around some of those resources.

- [Donyale] Yeah.

- Can you talk a little bit about what those resources are for people that may not be in sort of a business space, knowing kinda what is it that you're seeking?

- Right.

Maybe, like what I would say, like, I know a couple people that you could really, like, go to and get those resources.

But you have to, like, really be, like, serious about it.

The people have to, like, see how serious you are before you get to start seeing the people saying, "Oh, well I can help you do this," or, "I can help with this," or, "I can help with that."

So to me, a lot of the Black businesses now, I think we are taking it a lot serious, more serious these days with our businesses and how we're trying to be looked at in the community.

Like, we wanna be taken serious about what we're trying to bring to the community.

- And I imagine a lot of that is visibility.

I know it's Black History Month, I think there was recently a list of local Black businesses.

- Right.

Yeah.

- There's gonna be the local Black Business Expo later on.

- Right, right.

- But just continuing that beyond the month of February, of course, is important.

- Exactly right.

Exactly.

- So I know you're in the entertainment business, what are some other fields that the Black business community is in, that you know of?

- Well, entertainment.

We have restaurants.

I know a lady who's doing her thing with as far as the cooking.

So she needs to be recognized.

We have clothing designs, fashion designers.

Man, we have the youth gyms.

We have a lot of different things going on.

- Because there's diversity in different businesses, for sure.

- Yeah.

It's so many different businesses right now.

And, me personally, I support all of 'em.

And I think that everybody should be supporting these businesses, not just the Black culture supporting the Black culture.

I believe that the whole community should be supporting these businesses.

- 'Cause they are for the community.

- Because they are for the community.

And that's another thing, like, it's kind of like slowing down the Black business.

'cause the title "Black business," you know what I'm saying?

So, like, some people... - Interact with labels.

- Yeah, yeah.

That label, it kind of like throws off the consumers with that title, "a Black business."

And they kind of like, sometimes feel like, "Oh well, that's just for the Black community, when actually these businesses are so broad and so needed that it's for everybody, you know?

Not just for our community, but for the whole community.

- Okay, well we're wrapping up here.

I know you all are going to the Capitol later this month to advocate.

That's something that you do annually.

So we wish you luck with that.

- Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

- And I'd love to hear an update on how that goes.

- Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you so much for having me.

Thank you so much - - Yes, - for having me.

- thank you for joining us.

- Yes.

- Thank you for joining us today.

I hope you learned as much as I did about all that's going on in our city, and the people making it happen.

For more wonderful content produced right here in Rochester, please be sure to check us out on Facebook and Twitter at #rtown.

I'm Nicole Nfonoyim-Hara, host of "R-Town," the show about Rochester.

We'll see you next week.

(bright music) (bright music continues) (bright music continues) (bright music continues) - [Announcer 1] Funding for this program is provided in part by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the citizens of Minnesota.