My Son Alex--Active And Involved NoMi Citizen (Every Other Weekend, Some Holidays, And Six Weeks In The Summer, Anyway)

Photos By John Hoff

On Christmas Day shortly before going to a delightful dinner at the Jaramillo residence in the Jordan Neighborhood, my son Alex and I spotted an abandoned, trashed up crib right in the middle of an intersection near my house.

And, actually, the crib had been there for several hours but I had made the mistake of thinking, "Well, somebody will come along and get it--after all, they dropped it there."

But it was looking like the crib was just going to remain in the street forever, so finally Alex and I did the good citizen thing and fetched it out. The mattress was trashed--otherwise I would have given it to the Salvation Army--so I set the mattress out in the alley. But I ended up giving the metal frame to somebody who scraps metal. The wooden components, well, they're wood. Enough said.

After we took care of the crib, I looked down the street and...

Oh, great. There was still a shopping cart from Cub Foods parked in front of the house I call the "shotgun shack," right out on the sidewalk.

Sigh.

Our work is never done.

(Do not click "Read More.")

Oh, I Remember This Pamiko Property Well...

Photo By John Hoff

The house pictured above is at 2400 Lyndale Ave. N., right across the avenue from the infamous Wafana's grocery. If you check the city and county's property records information as of today, December 27, 2009, the records will show the last sale was in July of 2005, for the nice sum of $178,000.

That is NOT how much Pamiko paid for the property. The city and county records simply are not up to date by, oh gee, a full year. In fact, other online real estate data shows Pamiko bought the property on November 13, 2008. Care to guess how much Pamiko paid for it?

Wait for it...

Wait for it...

Pamiko paid $7,700 for this roomy duplex. It's certainly not the only spectacular bargain in the Hawthorne neighborhood but, all the same, it's quite a bargain.

And, actually, I remember when 2400 Lyndale Ave. N. went on the market. For one thing, I personally made a couple 311 calls on the place--it's hard to remember the details, since my 311 calls literally number in the thousands--and I also remember when the house was "trashed out" before hitting the market. In fact, I specifically recall how the dumpster sat by the property, day after day, filled to overflowing...and some of the items inside the dumpster included really good quality roast eggplant dip in cans from, like, Europe.

I have reason to believe it was very yummy.

Anyway...

A couple days ago an active and informed member of the neighborhood called me up, saying he'd been reading about the Pamiko scandal on this blog and he was all, like, "I know these properties...I know EVERY ONE OF THEM." The uncomfortable closeness of the story to the fiber of our neighborhood...to our collective neighborhood memory...it is amazing and infuriating. I remember seeing house after house hitting the MLS lists, and thinking how I'd like to buy ANOTHER house in addition to my own, and hoping some good owner occupants would get the houses. Instead, so many of the vacant, boarded up bargain houses were snapped up by Pamiko (Expletive) Properties, and now many are going vacant AGAIN.

I can remember calling 311 on litter at the $2.5 million "slum dog millionaire" house. (And, believe me, a yard has to be really bad before I'll stoop to calling 311 on mere LITTER) I remember 1547 Hillside Ave. N. as the property "almost across from Kip 'n' Kelly and right near Dave 'n' Amy," visible from the front yard of Council Member Don Samuels. And, of course, 621 26th Ave. N. is right in the middle of all the interesting revitalization action happening around Farview Park, next to the house where slumlord Bashir Moghul caught a bullet.

It is indeed a revelation to see a list of houses and think: THAT house? THAT one? I know that house. I have history with that house. Pamiko was involved with THAT house?

By the way, it appears "Pamiko" is a combination of letters from PAul, MIchelle, and KOenig. Marklee Construction appears to bear the middle names of both Paul MARK Koenig and Michelle LEE Koenig. The Koenigs do not appear to be particularly creative people, just narcissistic slumlords who put their names on everything they screw up.

One can't help but hope that, with Christmas and the long post-Christmas weekend ending, the first order of business for some public officials will be getting to the bottom of the Pamiko fiasco.

Paul Koenig Reportedly Doing "Snow Blower Penance" In North Minneapolis...

Photos from the Koenig blog, used under First Amendment fair comment and criticism

At least one person in the Hawthorne Neighborhood has a kind word about Paul Koenig, mastermind of the Pamiko Properties scandal which this blog has been extensively reporting. The following was circulated by email among some "neighborhood types" in Hawthorne:
-------------------------
Well Pamiko had someone Snow blow all of the members of our Block Club on December 24th. What a nice gesture, Thanks Paul we are not quite sure what he's hoping for in return. Yes that was sidewalks and driveways. Here he has been a good Landlord, at 2211 6th Street. It was a nice Christmas Eve Present.
------------------------

JNS Blog suspects this is some kind of minor Koenig effort to appear "part of the solution, rather than part of the problem," and launch a minor PR effort. In the meantime, above, here for readers' viewing pleasure are some photos of the Koenig lifestyle, supported by sucking the life out of North Minneapolis.

From top to bottom: Dessert at Disneyland, just a small part of EXTENSIVE vacations all over the country. Second, a horse named L'etoile du Nord takes a little swim. L'etoile is one of the "barn mates" of the Koenig horses, of which several are named in the blog and even have their own blog categories. Third, Paul Koenig takes in a Twins game. The blog even documents their family vacation to Florida where they watch the Twins in spring training.

Fourth, the "rock star size" recreational vehicle of the Koenig family.

Last, the Koenig swimming pool in winter. Why, think of the sacrifice of Paul Koenig...coming to North Minneapolis to clear sidewalks while all these fun trinkets of his lifestyle are waiting for him. (Sarcasm font)

Please keep in mind, these five photos are just a little sampling of the exquisitely well-documented life of affluent gluttony documented on the "Majestic Farms" blog, supported on the bleeding back of North Minneapolis.

But, hey, I should talk! If Paul Koenig doesn't try to slap me with legal paper in the next couple days, I will win a steak dinner!

(Do not click "Read More")

From Bankruptcy To The Horse Racing Crowd--More Details On The Paul Koenig/Pamiko Properties Scandal...

Photo Of "Little Big Time" From The Koenig Blog, used under First Amendment Fair Comment And Criticism

With invaluable help from friends, this blog has come into possession of a bunch of online documents about the legal woes of Paul Koenig, who somehow managed to go from bankruptcy to being part of the ooh la la horse racing crowd within a relatively short span of years.

The Koenig blog--known as "Majestic Farms"--contains 38 posts which are tagged under the subject of horse racing. The blog was set to "private" some days ago, but not before every scrap of information was captured in a "mirror site" for use as evidence. You might say the horse is already out of the barn.

By way of comparison, the same Koenig blog had five posts on the subject of "church" and one about potty training before the blog "went private." The category of "horse racing" has more posts than any other category.

Their blog documents in extensive detail how--while creating more vacant houses in North Minneapolis and sucking down big fat lines of credit--the Koenigs constantly engaged in a form of high-stakes gambling called a "claiming race," click here for a technical explanation, in which horses that race are also, in effect, up for sale to other participants in the race.

There will be more time to digest and analyze this information later. For now, I just want to put the documents out on the internet in the form of PDFs. So, without further ado, here are the documents on the JNS PDF Support Site, click here to your heart's content.

(Do not click "Read More")

Great Deals at Rusty's Tires!

Guest post and photo by the Hawthorne Hawkman

During the first snow emergency of the season, I was driving around and checking out certain properties in Hawthorne. Somehow I managed to get stuck and need help getting pushed out of a mere two inches of snow. This was a MAJOR blow to my pride as a Yooper who KNOWS how to drive in this stuff. But it was also a wake-up call that I needed new tires.

My dilemma is that I drive an 11-year-old Malibu. It's a decent enough car but new tires were expected to be pricey. I went to one spot in NoMi and was quoted $411 for four tires. Granted, that's a bargain when weighed against certain death, but I needed something cheaper. So a good NoMi friend recommended Rusty's Tires on 26th and Broadway, and they charged...

$84 for two (they didn't have a full set on hand). Not only that, but the service was great, and they finished the job within fifteen minutes. I was floored at the price, courtesy, speed, and quality of the work here. Best of all, when I drove my car away, there was an actual correlation between what I did with the steering wheel and how the car moved on any kind of snow. I had kind of forgotten what that felt like.

Since my car was no longer a moving death trap, I was in such a good mood that I was reminded of fellow Yooper and former NoMi resident Jonathan Rundman's fun little jingle, "Bob's Tires." No video link exists just yet, but the words (I think) are:

Here at Bob's you're number one, number one, number one,
Here at Bob's you're number one; we will fix your tires.
We got white walls, blue walls, all at a reasonable price.
Our tires are the best around, they are very nice, Whoa!
Here at Bob's you're number one, number one, number one,
Here at Bob's you're number one; we will fix your tires.
We got white walls, blue walls, all the latest parts.
Our tires are the best around, they are better than Art's, Whoa!
Here at Bob's you're number one, number one, number one,
Here at Bob's you're number one; we will fix...your...tires.

Paul Koenig Fails To Respond On The Record To Three Simple Questions About Pamiko Properties Scandal...

Photo By John Hoff

In the photo above, Jeff Skrenes--The Hawthorne Hawkman--uses bar glasses to demonstrate a point about Paul Koenig and two lines of credit covering many of the same properties. Not shown in photo: me losing consciousness as Jeff makes his scintillating observations about interest rates. 

In any case...

In the last couple days, Paul Koenig--whose Pamiko Properties fiasco has been exclusive blog candy for JNS readers lo, these many days and now Christmas, too, woo hoo--spoke to a third party about the oh-so-negative coverage he has received recently right here on Johnny Northside Dot Com. This third party assumed informal intermediary role between this blog and Paul Koenig. It seemed for a while like Koenig wanted to tell things from his side...

Well, this blog is always happy to print the responses of individuals and/or corporations which this blog has criticized, either in a blog post or by providing a fair, reasonably open comments forum. So if Paul Koenig would only make some kind of PUBLIC response, I'd be happy to publish it.

Well, word comes about how Paul Koenig DID respond to my email and three pointed questions, however, he forwarded the response to the third party with great big OFF THE RECORD caveats on the lengthy email. Well, what am I supposed to do with THAT, Paul, you horse-hugging slumlord dirt bag? I prefer to not even tread near something that would involve violating "off the record" confidentiality.

Anyway, dear readers, here is the email I forwarded to Paul Koenig yesterday with the three questions he refuses to answer ON THE RECORD.

Let the reader judge whether this man is a bad character who has victimized our neighborhood.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Dear Paul Koenig via (name of third party)

My understanding is you will get answers to these questions back to me by noon tomorrow. I will publish the questions and answers verbatim, without commentary within that individual blog post. (Of course, readers are still free to add their commentary)

If you don't answer the questions, that's fine, I will just publish the unanswered questions and say what I will. Nor is this email itself secret or confidential. I'm NOT going "off the record" with you.

But Paul, I will be very happy to publish your side of things, verbatim. Frankly, it's good and informative blog content, even if I may personally disagree with or doubt what you're saying. Plus I'm sincerely interested in your side of things, and so are my readers.

Here are the questions. They are easy. There are only three.

1.) Tell me your side of things, in detail, at length.

2.) Why is there so much crossover between these various properties and on
the lines of credit?

3.) Why do we see this pattern of a foreclosure only a few months after
modification and increase in the credit line?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So that is where things stand, with Paul Koenig refusing to respond on the record, and the questions hanging in the air like a joke which falls flat.

My 2009 Christmas Dinner With Jordan Neighbors...

Photos By John Hoff

It was another divorced daddy (with visitation) magical NoMi Christmas as my son and I were taken in by kind neighbors and treated to a wonderful dinner. This year, we went to the Jaramillo residence in the Jordan neighborhood. Tyrone and Alexandra Jaramillo are very active and involved citizens who have given a lot of time to JACC, including that really tumultuous period of time when the "Old Majority" was making as much trouble as possible.

But who wants to think about THAT on Christmas?

These photos show the...


opulent Christmas dinner shared with my son. We had (let's see if I can remember it all) ham that was lovingly baked for a little more than 7 hours, with an orange and brown sugar glaze, plus pineapples. The collard greens had bits of smoked turkey. Tyone is incredibly fond of authentic homemade Hmong fried rice made by his friend "Fuji," so this dish was featured at the table as Fuji came to visit. Another family favorite is "whiskey dogs," which are "Little Smokeys" sausages cooked in ketchup, brown sugar and a small bottle of whiskey.

(The recipie called for a cup of whiskey, but Alexandra says, "I always tend to add more.")

Though mostly an abstainer from alcohol--MOSTLY--Alexandra loves to include alcohol in various dishes to add flavor. The pecan pie had a tiny splash of bourbon, and so did the WHIPPED CREAM. A cranberry ambrosia had no alcohol in it, but a lavish berry trifle had blackberry brandy "made specially to the Polish taste," according to the bottle.

Some other dishes I wouldn't want to neglect to mention--mashed potatoes, gravy, pumpkin pie, and a sweet potato casserole lavishly decorated with pecans. (Alexandra calls it a "casserole" because it's in a casserole dish, but I found it a lot like a sweet potato pie)

Not wanting to appear empty-handed, on the way to dinner my son and I stopped by Good Deal Grocery on Lowry Avenue North and picked up a selection of four Asian candy-like items, including blueberry mochis. We'd never been to "Good Deal" before and found it comparable to Bangkok Market, though bigger and more impersonal. I used to joke when I drove by the place, saying, "Why would you shop at any OTHER store besides 'Good Deal?' Think about it. Nowhere else is a good deal." There's a tattoo parlor in Stadium Village called "Steady Tattoo" which is another example of an extraordinarily good business name.

But I digress...

Luckily, it turns out Alexandra loves to sample interesting Asian desserts. In fact, she is something of a foodie and tries all kinds of things. Tyone and Alexandra are from the Bay Area of California--an amalgam of various cultures--and say they picked up the habit of serving collard greens from their time in North Minneapolis, but everything else came along with them.

After dinner came my son's favorite part of Christmas--playing new video games like "Call of Duty: Modern Warefare 2."

Here's the delightful berry trifle with Polish blackberry brandy.

One of the Jaramillo family dogs is named Chupacabra, or "Chupi" for short. The Chupacabra is a mythical animal in Latin America, known as the "goat sucker." After watching Chupi endlessly eying my ham with his big, googly eyes, I can see why this is a good name for the dog.

In case you're wondering, Chupi is a designer dog called a "bug," half boxer terrier and half pug. Some young couple paid $350 dollars for the dog and took it to Plymouth, but they didn't have time to care for the dog, so they just gave Chupi away when he was 12 weeks old. Nobody remembers what Chupi used to be called. Now Chupi's life is in NoMi, just like my life and--for certain regular, frequent periods of time--my son's life.

Thank you to the Jaramillo family from the guy behind the Johnny Northside Blog and his son.

Hawthorn (Sic) Crossings Strip Mall Fails To Clear Sidewalks Of Snow...

Photo By John Hoff

The nasty and notorious Hawthorn (Sic) Crossings strip mall, where drug dealers constantly congregate, has apparently stumbled upon an innovative way to fight the narcotics traffic: just don't clear the sidewalks of snow!

This photo was snapped a couple of days ago, before the new foot of snow which just got dumped on Minneapolis. Reporter Andy Mannix is pictured, click here for an example of a story he helped write. In the photo, the sidewalk might appear cleared because of all the (narcotics dealing) foot traffic but, actually, the sidwalk was not clear and had merely been packed down into a super-slick icy mass.

Naturally, I called 311 on this blatant violation of snow removal rules, and that's when--suddenly, unexpectedly--I won the Diamond Jubilee Golden 311 award. Yes, as it turns out...

The reference number for this particular complaint--which I tacked upon 916 West Broadway, the McDonalds restaurant--was 311311.

That number has never come around before. And it will never come around again.

And it's mine, mine, all mine.

Here's a reminder from JNS blog: thug stores and empty buildings owned by banks are supposed to CLEAR THEIR SIDEWALKS OF SNOW WITHIN 24 HOURS. If they don't, be sure to get the city on their butt. How else will we pull our neighborhood upward except to enforce commonly-accepted city norms?

Wafana's Moving Toward Demolition...(Recycled Headline)

Photo By John Hoff

The infamous Wafana's "inconvenience store" located at 2326 Lyndale Ave. N. continues to ride the greased-up skids toward demolition, as previously reported, click here.

A couple days ago I was going by and saw activity inside...

Naturally, I stopped by to make sure everything was OK and nothing unsavory was happening. I found a crew inside stripping out the useful components prior to pending demolition. (So you have to wonder, gee, if the city could salvage scrap metal--pictured above--and old refrigerators out of the thug store Wafana's, why couldn't they save Pauline Fjelde's TRUNK?)

The foreman of the two-man work crew told me "about twenty people" had stopped by just like I did, to see what was happening and then express their delight that, finally, Wafana's was coming down.

However, there's nothing actually WRONG with the building. And, after reading recently about the Dream Homes fiasco, I have to wonder if anything nice will actually get built on any particular vacant lot in North Minneapolis or whether some kind of fly-by-night developer will somehow get the lot and erect who-knows-what shoddy CRAP. More bothersome still is the fact a couple of great guys named John and Edwin were interested in buying the old Wafana's to put in a hip, trendy restaurant but had to back away due to all the scary political complications associated with the building and its zoning variance issues.

I don't know the answer to this conundrum and I feel torn in half by it. Naturally, I'm going to be happy to see Wafana's come down...but how unbearably long before anything good replaces it? And will it actually be something GOOD? Or yet another development fiasco?

On the bright side...somebody was actually looking for a location in the Hawthorne Neighborhood to locate a hip, trendy restaurant. As the neighborhood continues to turn around, hopefully we'll see more of that. A lot more.

Researching The Farview Park Historic District...

Photos by John Hoff

Brian Finstad, a South Minneapolis (SoMi) neighborhood activist who has become increasingly involved in North Minneapolis (NoMi) affairs, was recently doing some research about the Farview Park Historic District. Brian found out that 621 26th Ave. N., pictured above, once had a tower. The tower was removed in 1920, according to old city records.

Brian and Connie Nompelis--who is totally into historic houses--believe the tower was Victorian in style and removed during the 1920s because, during that period of time, Victorian seemed old and icky kind of like a 1970s avocado fridge. However, as Connie put it so well, if you wait around long enough...avocado makes a come back.

Right next to 621 is 623 26th Ave. N., where slumlord Bashir Moghul caught a bullet recently, click here for that story.

Oh, the photo of Brian is taken inside my house on Bryant Ave. N. Brian is expressing how much he loves French glass doors.

(Do not click "Read More")

Artistically Painted Utility Boxes? Great Idea!

Photo By John Hoff

I spotted this great utility box in downtown Minneapolis and I thought, wow, why can't ALL utility boxes be made into expressive, beautiful works of art?

More to the point, why can't that happen in North Minneapolis (NoMi)?

(Do not click "Read More")

JNS PHOTO EXCLUSIVE: Senseless Destruction Of The Historic Pauline Fjelde House...

Photos By John Hoff

Here are pictures from today's Christmas Eve surprise demolition of 3009 Park Ave. in South Minneapolis, the former home of renowned textile artist Pauline Fjelde. Above, the license plate on the truck of a member of the wrecking crew. Click "Read More" to check out more photos...


Above, this appears to be the bundle of lumber which was dropped through the roof--whoopsie daisy!--BY ACCIDENT (cough, cough) and supposedly this ruined the structural integrity of the house. Uh huh. I wonder if it was dropped "by accident" one time or SEVERAL times. I mentioned in my previous blog post that James Schoffman is a scum bag, and the point needs to be reiterated.

Here, above, you can see some of the historic trim on the house...which was not saved, but just smashed to smithereens while committed neighborhood activists and preservationists watched.

Above, the face of Connie Nompelis (No-bell-iss, it's Greek) shows sadness as the house meets its fate before her eyes.

Note the green mark on the side of the building. Somebody had painted "We're sorry, Pauline" before the words were covered over. Geez, even when I do vigilante graffiti abatement, at least I make an effort to MATCH THE COLOR. But, hey, the property is owned by scumbag James Schoffman, so what can you expect?

Above, this is what the roof--already scorched from the mysterious arson--looked like after the bundle of lumber oh-so-accidentally fell through.

Reporter Sheila Regan of TC Daily Planet talks to one of the workmen, click here for a previous article she wrote about the Pauline Fjelde house.

Note how the backhoe operator had his machine completely supported by the beams of the first floor. Lack of structural integrity, indeed. This place was built like a Sherman tank and went down fighting.

While the backhoe did its work, a little boy watched from a neighboring house. He appeared fascinated and having a good time, but was this child's future made better by the demolition of this building? Definitely not.

It was a sad day, but the house did not go down unloved, unnoticed, and undocumented. Now, neighbors appear to be turning their attention to requesting investigation of the oh-so-mysterious circumstances of the damage and IMMEDIATE demolition, plus they'd like to make sure James Schoffman never never never gets his precious parking lot.

JNS BLOG VIDEO EXCLUSIVE: Senseless Destruction Of The Pauline Fjelde House At 3009 Park Avenue...

Word came mid-morning that the historic Pauline Fjelde house was facing an "emergency demolition" on Christmas Eve. Though this house is in SOUTH Minneapolis (SoMi) and this blog normally concentrates on NORTH Minneapolis, (NoMi) the public policy questions and preservation issues are important enough--pressing enough--to merit coverage. As it turns out, this blog is the first media entity to report the story of today's senseless destruction of the house, in a blog post which Jeff Skrenes managed to post all the way from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, click here.

The way the story goes in broad outline form, disgusting slime ball owner James Schoffman had an order to repair the roof and secure the building against the weather after a fire had broken out in the house and damaged the property, click here for a story about the fire. This oh-so-mysterious fire came after the city refused to grant a demolition order so Schoffman can build a parking lot.

So after leaving the house open to the elements, the owner finally got an order to secure the roof against the weather. Today--supposedly this happened TODAY--a massive bundle of lumber was being hoisted up for roof repair when--oops, the bundle of lumber slipped and damaged the structural integrity of the house. Somehow, an "emergency" demolition managed to happen on CHRISTMAS EVE. Yes, somewhere in North Minneapolis 1564 Hillside sits day after day, not getting demolished even though there has been a raze order up for months, but somehow a massive backhoe shows up the very day of the (oops!) "accident" and razes the house. ON CHRISTMAS EVE.

It was the opinion of bystanders that some kind of "fix is in" when had nothing to do with fixing houses, but tearing them down.

As a backhoe moved toward the house, one neighborhood activist named Madeleine (spelling unconfirmed) rushed up the front steps and hugged a house pillar, refusing the move. Workmen called police to the scene. Madeleine yelled for other sympathetic bystanders to join her in an act of spontaneous civil disobedience, but nobody among the onlookers felt able to follow through and take such action. As a police car drew near, Madeleine walked away from the house. Two police stood near to keep order, but did not intervene or question anybody about what Madeleine had done.

The house--which had been designed by a renowned architect--resisted the backhoe to an amazing degree. Each individual component of the house seemed to stand all by itself, even when other components were removed. The house fought all the way down and appeared--in the words of one bystander--"as solid as a brick (expletive) house." The house was so solid the driver of the backhoe was willing to trust the beams of the house and drive directly inside, poised over the basement area on the floor of the first story.

Most horrifying of all was the fact no attempt was made to save historic or architectural components from the backhoe. WItnesses saw--and actually videotaped!--Pauline Fjelde's trunk in the third story area exposed by the backhoe, and then smashed to bits. Missing soffit had revealed pretty corbels, which were also smashed and lost. Over $3,000 worth of old radiators were destroyed without the slightest attempt at preservation. Clearly, something is wrong with city policy if an event like this can take place. Salvaging the components would have been cost-free, as there are individuals and companies willing to do it for free. The loss of the trunk was particularly inexplicable and is well-documented.

A crime took place today in South Minneapolis, and there is no way James Schoffman should get permission to build a parking lot after the stunt he pulled with this house.