(upbeat music) - [Narrator] Funding for this program is provided in part by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the Citizens of Minnesota.

♪ Put that sugar sweet ♪ ♪ You got what I need ♪ ♪ Sippin on the potion ♪ ♪ All that good emotion ♪ ♪ Just my kind of heat ♪ ♪ Keeping on the ♪ - Coming to you from Rochester, Minnesota, ♪ Loving is the potion ♪ - R-Town.

♪ Living living that sweet emotion ♪ - So it's the Halloween season fully upon us.

We're joined by Misha Johnson, executive director of the Rochester Civic Theatre, here to tell us all about some spooky fun currently happening at the theater.

Welcome back to R-Town.

Misha, it's always a pleasure to have you.

- Yes, thank you so much for having me.

- The rumor has it, that the theater is currently haunted.

Can you tell us a little bit about the haunted theater and what audiences can expect?

- It's true, we actually put the haunted theater on our season, for our 70th season.

We truly have turned the entire campus into a haunted attraction.

So it's a very new experience for patrons who have been to the theater before.

- So when, how does it work?

How are people going to be experiencing the theater?

- Yeah, so right at the box office, you will purchase your tickets and then you meet your guide right at the front door and they take you on a guided tour trying to find the theater specters and ghosts throughout the space.

So we go through the entire top floor of the theater.

- Are there and I mean in terms of like other actors or their cast members that are part of this?

- There are, it's very theatrical.

So it's not your traditional haunted house where there's just jump scares popping out at you every which way, there is a storyline, there are scenes, there are things that happen, I don't wanna give too much away.

It's very technical so it's a very theatrical experience, a really good time, it is scary.

So we are not recommending this for young kids, but 10 and up, if you like to be scared, you will have a good time.

- Fantastic, can you tell us a little bit about how community members can either get tickets or just how they can participate in the hunted theater tours?

- Yeah, absolutely we're definitely recommending you get your tickets ahead of time.

We're only doing 10 per tour and they're every 10 minutes.

You can go to www.RochesterCivicTheatre.org to reserve your spot.

And it's Thursday through Sunday, tour starts at seven and go until about 9:00 p.m. - Oh yeah, so it's just a short little timeframe left here for people to participate.

And you did mention that it was the 70th anniversary, it's part of the 70th anniversary.

And so it looks like things have been happening throughout the year now to celebrate that and commemorate that.

So that's awesome.

And beyond the hunted theater, can you tell us a little bit about what current and upcoming productions you're excited about or are coming up that you'd like to share with us?

- Yeah absolutely, we have our Christmas production, which is the best Christmas pageant ever, which opens December 3rd and then I'm personally excited about our spring show, which is into the woods and still magnolia.

- So where can people find more information about the Rochester Civic Theatre and if people don't have season tickets and things like that, how can yeah, how can they get involved.

- Yeah, you can go to our website.

Everything is on there at RochesterCivicTheatre.org, and we're doing something different this year, which is a flex pass, which means it's four tickets for any show in the season.

You can use it as a season ticket and purchase one per show, or you can actually just buy one and bring three of your closest friends to any shows.

So flex passes are available throughout the year.

- Is there anything else you'd like to share with us Misha to close up here in the last few minutes.

- We're partnering with the Rochester Trolley and Tour company for haunted trolley tours that happen after your haunted theater experience on Thursdays and Fridays.

So those are selling out, so definitely you're gonna want to get those quickly before they sell out.

- So can people get those at the box office or is that a separate thing through the trolley-- - It is through our box office.

So you can get them at the door if you're lucky enough to have some leftover, but I would definitely go online to RochesterCivicTheatre.org to secure those seats on that haunted trolley.

- Well we're so excited about this update and about future things that are coming up for you all at the Civic Theatre.

Thank you so much for joining us and we will certainly see you back here in a little while.

- Sounds good, thanks Cole.

(upbeat music) - Be sure to stick around, we have much more coming your way on R- Town.

We take a short tour of the Rochester Art Center and we sit with Rochester management analyst, Heather Heyer to discuss redistricting in the city.

But coming up first, we get our groove on at the downtown roller disco in this week's R-Culture segment.

(upbeat music) - [Jamie] Disco as we are presenting at this event is joy, exuberance, moving your body, dancing, having a good time, bright colors, glitter, really good energy.

DMC is really excited to support the Rochester Downtown Alliance and the first Roller Disco in downtown on Peace Plaza.

It's a great event and we're really excited to support it, 'cause it's bringing so many people to experience downtown in a whole new way.

- The Roller Disco is two days of outdoor rollerskating for free on a rink that we are bringing in from a national company that actually travels around the country.

This has been featured in Boston, Philadelphia and at Coachella.

So if it's good enough for Beyonce, it's good enough for Rochester.

We'll have a DJ, we'll have disco lighting, we'll have tinsel, we will have a photo booth.

We will have a very good time, but the important thing to understand is that we're actually bringing everything to you.

We're gonna have the rink, we're gonna have the skate rentals.

All you need to do is show up.

We are bringing in a lighting designer.

We don't want just the off the shelf lighting, we got to take it up a notch.

We absolutely wanted an event that could appeal to different audiences.

Saturday is more focused at our younger crowd.

So we're gonna have a teen hour when we first get started and then we'll go into an adult open skate in the evening with a DJ, we'll have some vendors here, some will be vending adult beverages.

On Sunday, it's more of a family day-- - Sunday fun day.

- And that one we're really kind of looking back to the rollerskating birthday parties of our youth.

Maybe celebrating that vision a little, so there will be some competitions, there will be pizza and different kinds of vendors.

MedCity Roller Derby is coming to give instruction on both Saturday and Sunday.

- MedCity Roller Derby has been in Rochester since 2012 and we are the local roller Derby team.

We're just gonna be normal roller skating at the event this weekend, no contact, yep.

The roller derby team are volunteering as event staff and we're gonna be there to give tips and tricks for roller skaters.

Any beginners, if you've never been on eight wheels before, we're there to help.

It's really just giving instructions as far as you know how to give yourself better balance and learning how to fall.

We give tips like fall small, and as long as you're there and you're having fun, it doesn't matter.

- So we've got a lot of fun vendors that are also gonna bring their energy to the event.

We have Taco Lab, Carroll's Corn, the Rochester Art Center Neon Green Studios and then of course, a number of our brick and mortar restaurants are just a few steps away.

Roller skating is fun, it's being with your friends, it is celebrating some of the simpler joys of life.

It is exciting to kind of see our community and the public in general get excited about roller skating again.

I think it's the way that lots of generations can come have fun together.

We're really excited that we're able to present this for free this year.

We're very grateful for our supporters and sponsors and partners on this event that we're able to help us make that happen.

- [Jamie] A vibrant downtown is extremely important for every community and part of the DMC initiative is to help her grow that vibrancy.

And when we heard about the Roller Disco and other events that have been held here this summer, those types of events are extremely important to draw people downtown to the center of gravity, to share an experiences, to create memories together.

And those are the types of things that we continue to look for, to partnership in, to continue to create a downtown that is welcoming and inviting for all.

(upbeat music) - Roller skating for me is my biggest outlet whenever I get to go out and skate with my teammates.

It's really amazing for like my physical health, but also my mental health.

Our team really wants us to be an opportunity for people to discover the love of skating that we have and who knows maybe it'll lead to the potential for a permanent roller rink somewhere in Rochester, that would be our dream.

- [Narrator] For more information about this story and other R-Town features, connect with us on Facebook, twitter, at KSMQ#RTown, or ksmq.org/rtown.

(bright upbeat music) - Hello, I'm Danielle Teal, your moderator for R-Town Spotlight.

This segment covers organization's events and happenings across Rochester.

We'd like to thank 125 Live for hosting today.

Today we have Terry Greiss from Rochester Community Food Response.

We're gonna learn a little bit more about that and how things are going.

Hi, Terry.

- Hi, how are you?

- Good, glad to have you on the show.

The Community Food Response is such an important initiative.

Can you share what your role is and a little bit more about Community Food Response for people that are not aware of it.

- Yeah, absolutely and thanks so much for having us.

Community Food Response was started 29 years ago, in response to shortage of food or food insecurity in Rochester.

And I'm a board member for Community Food Response and our goal is to take unused food, ready to eat meals, maybe you have to heat it up and give it to those in need at Rochester.

- Which actually, it's quite a popular offering in Rochester.

So can you tell us even with the pandemic and everything that's going on, what the attendance and need has been like?

- Oh, absolutely and as I'm sure you're aware of the need over the last year and a half, it's certainly gone up for a lot of people.

Right now about one an eighth Minnesotans are food insecure, have a need for food and so right now, during the pandemic in 2020, we collected roughly 190,000 pounds of food and distributed over 100,000 meals.

- That's amazing and just to be clear for other people, this is in partnership with organizations and restaurants in the community, correct.

So you have drivers that go out and pick up this food and then it gets packaged up and put together and given to, to those that need it.

Correct?

- Correct, yeah we have some wonderful organizations that donate the food in Rochester and the surrounding area.

I mean, I can't say enough for the volunteers that we have.

We have one full-time employee that's pretty new, beyond that, it is all reliant on volunteers and they do a wonderful job.

- That's perfect and we'll share a little bit about how people can get involved, but just to kind of give some context around it, who's eligible to access this food?

- Anybody.

- And do they have to show proof or-- - They don't have to show proof, they don't have to explain, there's no questions asked, no income requirements.

You just show up and tell us how many meals you need.

- It really is a beautiful process, the thought of dignity and providing the food for those that really need it is a such a well thought out one.

Are there any barriers with COVID-19?

Are you still doing the three days a week and then you have two locations?

- We were going to one location, which I appreciate you bringing that up.

Starting, we don't have an exact date, but probably right around the 1st of December, we gonna be moving to a new location downtown.

- Oh great.

- Yeah, so the address is gonna be 120, 1st street, Northeast, it's in the Salvation Army building on the first floor.

As far as restrictions for COVID-19, we are asking people, we just have them drive up, they'll tell us how many meals they need and then we just hand the food to them in their cars.

So no need to get out, no need to come into the building.

- Terry that's quite convenient.

Thank you so much and how can people get involved?

I know you need volunteers.

- I always need volunteers.

communityfoodresponse.org is the website, or you can call, the number is 507-281-5061 and retell and ask how you go to become a part of it.

And we'd love to see some new faces.

- Wonderful, Terry thank you so much for being on the show.

- Thank you.

(upbeat music) - Hello, again, this is Michael Wojcik with your R-Town Rundown.

Going on this weekend at Mayo Civic Center is Rochester On Tap.

This is a beer festival where you can sample local or regional and national beers.

And in addition to that, the City of Rochester is piloting a zero waste event and part of the reason why this is important is greenhouse gases from our waste stream, whether it be through landfills or incinerators they've actually have been going up in the City of Rochester since 2014.

While we're doing better in some other areas, a lot of areas have been successful doing these zero waste events.

And basically what it means is you're thinking about the kind of materials that you're using and how you dispose of them.

And the goal is to divert 90% or more of the waste from the traditional places where they'd ended up that being a landfill or the incinerator that we have here in Rochester.

So that's an opportunity to get out and enjoy some beer and see a new way of doing things here in the City of Rochester.

Lot of events going on.

One of the ones that caught my eyes is the Union Church is hosting donuts in the park on Saturday morning at 10:00 a.m at Cook Park.

CS Lewis will be coming, that event is going to be held at the Mayo Civic Center on November 5th.

There are still tickets available for that.

Charlie Parr will be playing in Rochester at the Castle Community on November 4th and Clay Fulton & The Lost Forty will be opening up that event as well.

Also going on, is some spooky art is going on at Canvas & Chardonnay downtown on the evening of October 30th, Luke Hendrickson is having an album release party at Pure Rock Studios also on the evening of October 30th, and finally, there'll be '70s Halloween party, the evening of October 29th and that is going to be with Soul Train, which is one of my favorite new bands that I found at Rochester.

They're not that new, but they're new to me and that's gonna be going on at the Castle Community.

So hope to get out there and enjoy some of these events and that's just a little bit of what's going on in Rochester.

(slow piano music) - My name is Zoe Cinel, I'm the curator at the Rochester Art Center.

And today we're doing a Walkabout with R-Town and I'm gonna show you some of the exhibition that we currently have at the art center.

Here we are with Katayoun Amjadi artwork and exhibition, "The Names We Change," Katayoun is an Iranian artist based in the Twin Cities and this exhibition is about names.

The way names talk about cultural identity, personal identity, and the ways in which immigrants and people identified as queer sometime have to change their name to kind of adapt to a new cultural context.

(slow piano music) This is a project that makes us very proud and happy.

It's Counterspaces, is partnership with UMR, and it's a space for BIPOC community members to share their stories and talk about how they cope with the growing racism and inequality in a safe space.

As an art center, we want to give a space for all those different stories and voices.

This is Jocelyn Suzuka Figueroa solo show.

She is an American Japanese artist and Jocelyn creates these paintings starting from images, pictures that her great-grandfather took during the war, the invasion of China by Japan.

He was a Japanese soldier that was sent to take pictures of the war scenes and then now she's creating paintings, starting from those pictures.

(slow piano music) (upbeat music) ♪ All I want all I want is satisfaction ♪ - So we are joined today by Heather Heyer, management analyst for the City of Rochester to share more with us about the redistricting process and the city's role in facilitating this process.

Welcome to R-Town Heather.

- Thank you so much for having me.

- So to kick us off, could you just tell us a little bit about what redistricting is, why we're doing it and why it's important?

- Certainly, so redistricting is required following every decennial census.

So that just finished up in the 2020 Census and following that there are requirements in the US Constitution, that we redraw our electoral districts, so that we're equal in population.

The city's role in that is to redraw our ward boundaries and precinct boundaries, which are those smaller political divisions within the city that we have.

And we start that after the state finishes their process, which they redraw the boundaries for the legislative districts and the congressional districts.

So we start in February or March, depending on some kind of deadlines there and we kick it off and then the county takes over and they do their redrawing for commissioner districts at the end of March of next year.

- Awesome, thank you so much for that overview.

You mentioned wards and precincts, and I was wondering if you could tell us just a little bit more about what the difference between wards are and precincts and also there's this other sort of term about community of interest.

Can you talk to us a little bit about what those are.

- Yes, absolutely, so in Minnesota, there's only about 70 cities that have wards within them.

These are all home rule cities and they have their own charter that they operate under.

So eight out of the 10 largest cities in the state have wards, Rochester being one of them.

And then the precincts are really more of an administrative functionality within those, but the smaller cities that don't have wards just operate at the precinct level.

And then we know the term precinct polling place, for example, so they kind of are drivers in that sense.

And then communities of interest is a term that's been around for a while, but it's certainly getting more attention during this redistricting cycle.

And it's the idea that there is something other than, let me see, there is potentially a group of people that have ties that are outside of their city necessarily.

So it could be a, let's see a neighborhood that has a specific community of interests.

A lot of conversation is around going about Indigenous communities as well, being specific communities of interest, but you can go very broad and very small with those communities of interest.

Minnesota doesn't have a specific definition in law right now, but I believe there's debate going on at the state level about that definition.

- Awesome, thank you so much for clarifying that.

And then you started off your comments in the segment talking about, I mean, this is part of an editorial process and procedure.

Can you tell us a little bit more specifically about how this process impacts our governance?

So like who's running for office, how we vote, how this sort of impacts all of that too.

- Yeah, definitely, so with this equal population requirement that there is, that means more boundaries will be changing.

So we have seen population growth throughout the city and to every ward has grown.

And to make all the wards about equal in size, they need to have about 20,233, is exact number of residents within them to be equal.

So that means lines will need to shift to accommodate those changes, to make them equal in population.

And similarly, county commissioner districts also will need to shift to be equal in population.

- Of course, unfortunately we know that redistricting practices across the US have historically been really unequal, inequitable.

So they're often impacting low income communities or communities of color.

What steps is the city taking in the county in partnership with the county to ensure that there's equity and that they're centered in this process?

- Absolutely, the State of Minnesota has a pretty good track record in this regard.

And there's a lot already built into the state statute, which we're required to follow.

But again, this is where communities of interest come into play and their voices in this process will be instrumental in how we create our boundaries.

So we are requesting feedback from the community.

We will be launching some listening sessions coming in the next couple of months that we'll do in conjunction with Homestead County to get the feedback from the community about how we do the redrawing of these boundary lines.

- So that actually segues nicely into my question just about how community members can one, just learn more, but then also just be involved in this process.

How can they get their voices heard?

Absolutely, so we will be doing a study session with the Rochester City Council on November 15th, about a redistricting principle or policy that we will look to adopt towards the end of this year.

So tune in for that.

And then we will have public hearings and information sessions about that listening sessions so we can also collect feedback there.

There will be a way on our redistricting web page where people can provide feedback and then we will also be launching what we're calling a redistricting toolkit.

There will be a digital version of that and a physical version that can be picked up throughout the community that kind of gives the basics of here's what is required with redistricting and then providing an opportunity to give feedback on maps or draw your own map and tell us what you think.

So we are looking to engage with the public and get their feedback on that.

- Fantastic, you mentioned a little bit just about sort of your timeline in relation to the state, as well as the county.

Can you just walk us through that?

Just kind of clarify that a little bit more for us about what the timelines have been like.

- Yeah, it's confusing and every state of course does this differently.

Minnesota is unique.

There is a deadline of February 15th for the legislature to complete their maps.

However, in the last four decades, the legislature has failed to meet that deadline, which means the judicial branch has drawn the maps.

So that's kind of why there's a little bit of wiggle room, but all three branches currently are doing this process and so we still anticipate, even though the legislature may miss their deadline of February 15th, that the judicial branch will have something available shortly after that.

So we will start as soon as we get the maps from the state.

So between February 15th and March 1st.

As soon as we get those maps, we essentially have until the end of March to draw the ward boundaries and precinct boundaries in Rochester.

So once we're completing that piece with redistricting in the city, then it goes to the county and they're allowed to begin redrawing the commissioner districts.

- That is very helpful.

You know, I know I looked up my ward obviously when I vote and things like that.

But for folks out that they're sort of like, I don't even like, I don't know where I am.

Like, where's my ward.

Like what does this all mean?

Is there a place where they can just sort of get a little bit more information and just some tools to kind of just get people to know kind of yeah, what their role is and kind of where they are within sort of the mapping of the city.

- Definitely, so we do have maps that you could look if you know Rochester really well and can identify where you live on this map.

We have some maps on our website that you can check and see.

But the Minnesota Secretary of State website also has a precinct finder that you can use.

And it'll give you all of your, you know, who's your congressional delegation and all the way through the state level to your local.

It will tell you what your ward is, it won't tell you who your council member is, you can find that on our website.

So it gives, the secretary of state's site also gives you that information.

- Awesome, well, thank you so much, Heather for joining us such awesome information.

We're gonna continue to stay up to date with this process as it goes forward into the 2022, but thank you so much for this.

- Thank you very much.

- And thank you all for joining us today for our wonderful content produced right here in Southeast Minnesota.

Please be sure to follow us on Facebook and Twitter at #R-Town.

I am Nicole Nfonoyim-Hara for R-Town, the show about Rochester, I will you next.

♪ Put that sugar sweet ♪ ♪ You got what I need ♪ ♪ Sippin on the potion ♪ ♪ All that good emotion ♪ ♪ Just my kind of heat ♪ ♪ Keeping on me ♪ ♪ Destined for the potion ♪ ♪ Loving is the potion ♪ ♪ Put that sugar sweet ♪ ♪ Just my kinda sweet ♪ ♪ Put that sugar sweet ♪ ♪ Sippin on the potion ♪ ♪ All that kind of motion ♪ ♪ Put that sugar ♪ (upbeat music) - [Narrator] Funding for this program is provided in part by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the Citizens of Minnesota.