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Mercado wants images removed from Jensen ad
Mercado Central’s board say they didn’t authorize Republican candidate to film campaign ad inside their marketplace.
MINNEAPOLIS — Republican gubernatorial candidate Scott Jensen has been asked to remove images of an iconic Latino mall from one of his campaign ads.
The Mercado Central on East Lake Street is run by a cooperative that is politically neutral. The Mercado president and other members of the governing board say nobody asked for permission to film a campaign ad there.
“Our customers may see this ad and believe that we are taking sides in an election, which is against our rules,” Isis Gastelum, who runs a clothing store in the Mercado and serves as board president, told KARE.
“We, as a cooperative Mercado Central, are nonpartisan. We’re not partisan, we’re neutral.”
In the ad, Jensen and a young Latina woman named Alondra are seen walking on the sidewalk outside the Mercado Central and then walking through the interior spaces of the mall. The Mercado Central’s board, working through business attorney Miluska Novota, asked the Jensen campaign to delete the scenes that customers would recognize as the Mercado.
“The Mercado Central has 39 different businesses, with 39 different opinions. We can’t take sides. We have to remain neutral,” Lisette Moraga, a Mercado Central employee, told KARE.
Moraga said anyone wishing to film a commercial inside the market would need to get advance permission, the same way someone would need permission to film an ad or news report inside places like the Mall of America in Bloomington or the Galleria in Edina.
“We are open to the public, but we’re privately owned,” Enrique Garcia Salazar, the owner of La Loma Tamales, told KARE.
Garcia Salazar and his wife Noelia opened their shop in 1999, the same year Mercado Central opened on 1515 Lake Street East. He said that he doesn’t recognize the young woman in the ad and wasn’t aware anyone filmed anything in the mall until the ad popped up on social media.
“Everybody’s welcome, but if they want to film something they’ve got to ask for permission.”
The Jensen campaign didn’t respond Friday to requests for comments on the controversy.
The campaign is running both Spanish and English versions of the ad, which features a young woman named Alondra saying she’s a lifelong Democrat from south Minneapolis who is voting for the Republican Jensen.
She tells viewers that incumbent Democrat Gov. Time Walz abandoned the Lake Street corridor during the riots of 2020, and “after this, Tim Walz didn’t even bother to show up.” The riots followed the murder George Floyd, an unarmed Black man, by then-Officer Derek Chauvin.
Emilia Gonzalez Avalos, who heads Unidos Minnesota, disagrees with the premise of the ad, saying there was immediate outreach by the governor’s staff while the rioting was taking place.
“The lieutenant governor was here the day after the uprising. There was no press, she didn’t make a political scene of it,” Gonzalez Avalos recalled.
Avalos’s organization is an upstairs tenant at the Mercado Central, but she made it clear she wasn’t speaking on behalf of the cooperative.
“Lieutenant Governor Flanagan came here the next morning when many of us were sleep deprived, trying to make sense on how to clean up and what was next for the corridor. She was right here in our parking lot.”
Walz toured the destruction on Lake Street just days after the Minnesota National Guard brought the rioting under control. Since then, he has visited the corridor multiple times and hosted meetings at the Mercado Central with business owners and other stakeholders.
Garcia Salazar of La Loma Tamales said that his business and several others inside the Mercado have received grants from the state to help with the recovery, which was also happening in the midst of the COVID pandemic.
Isis Gastelum said that Walz’s appearances at the Mercado both before and after the riots were done in his official role of governor, showing support for the merchants, celebrating Mexican Independence Day and the 20th anniversary of the Mercado.
Governor Walz’s responses to the riots will continue to be a major theme for Jensen, who has repeatedly asserted Minneapolis burned because “Walz froze” and delayed deploying the National Guard, acting on the advice of his “leftist” constituency.
Walz has pointed out that the Guard members are citizens in private jobs, that need time to assemble with their units and prepare for a mission. Mayor Jacob Frey has stated he asked Gov. Walz to bring in the National Guard May 27, a day before the city felt compelled to surrender the 3rd Police Precinct.
Officers from the Minnesota State Patrol, DNR and other state agencies were already on the ground across the Twin Cities by then working in support of local police, but they were outnumbered.
Most agree that pharmacy benefit managers entered the market in the 1980s as Americans started using more drugs than ever before.
MINNEAPOLIS — Editor’s Note: The above video was first published on 6/7/2024.
As the election draws nearer both former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris — the Republican and Democratic nominees for president, respectively — are speaking up about their respective plans for making health care more affordable for Americans.
Vice President Harris has specifically named PBMs or Pharmacy Benefit Managers as a target for more oversight and transparency and Trump issued an executive order calling out PBMs back in 2020.
PBMs primarily run prescription drug coverage for insurers, large employers and other clients. They also set up formularies, or lists of covered drugs, and negotiate rebates off drug prices.
Most agree that pharmacy benefit managers entered the market in the 1980s as Americans started using more drugs than ever before. The presence of the PBMs initially let pharmacists focus more on their businesses by handling backend tasks and saved insurers money through bargaining with drug manufacturers.
The heightened scrutiny comes as the Federal Trade Commission announced a lawsuit against the three largest PBMs in the country, Caremark, Express Scripts and Optum Rx. Those three companies process roughly 80% of prescriptions nationwide, according to the FTC.
The FTC said the rebating practices of the three companies have led to artificially inflated list prices for people. List prices are what a drugmaker initially sets for a product and what people who have high deductible plans or no insurance are sometimes stuck paying for prescriptions.
Harris’ campaign promises that, if elected, Harris “will increase competition and demand transparency in the health care industry, starting by cracking down on pharmaceutical companies who block competition and abusive practices by pharmaceutical middlemen who squeeze small pharmacies’ profits and raise costs for consumers.”
The Pharmaceutical Care Management Association, which lobbies for PBMs nationwide has long argued that their work is imperative in saving consumers money on drugs.
“PBMs support transparency that empowers prescribers, plan sponsors, policymakers, and, most importantly, patients, with the information they need to lower costs while improving access to needed medications. What we don’t support are measures that would empower drug companies to raise costs.” Greg Lopes, vice president of public affairs., for the PCMA.
Lawyers are preparing opening statements in the trial of Adam Fravel, who is accused of killing the mother of his children, Madaline Kingsbury.
MANKATO, Minn. — After a week and a half of selection, jurors have been chosen for the trial of Adam Fravel, and opening statements could potentially begin this week.
Fravel is accused of killing his longtime partner and mother of his children, Madeline Kingsbury.
While the alleged murder took place in Winona County, the trial will unfold in Mankato, the seat of Blue Earth County. A judge supported a defense motion to change the venue for the trial, saying it would be difficult to select an impartial jury in Winona County due to extensive pre-trial publicity.
Kingsbury went missing on March 31, 2023. Authorities say she was last seen dropping her kids off at daycare. For weeks, a massive search effort was conducted, with hundreds helping in the search. Her remains were found on June 7 in a remote location close to where Fravel admitted to being on the day she disappeared.
Fravel was the last known person to see her. He said he had nothing to do with her disappearance and fought for custody of the children while Kingsbury was missing.
Fravel is charged with two counts of first-degree murder – one for murder while committing domestic abuse and one for premeditated murder – along with two additional counts of second-degree murder.
The jury consists of 12 jurors and five alternates. A court spokesperson told KARE 11 they seated 11 men and six women, with opening statements starting this Thursday morning at the earliest.
Financial advisor Ayo Idowu visited KARE 11 News at Noon to talk about an emergency nest egg and how much you should consider putting away.
GOLDEN VALLEY, Minn. — It’s no secret that Americans are increasingly challenged when it comes to making financial ends meet. With the rising cost of food, housing and other necessities – combined with the impact of inflation – many are living from paycheck to paycheck, without a cushion if something were to happen.
According to financial planner Ayo Idowu, that underlines the importance of establishing an emergency fund. Just how much that is depends on whether you are single with few financial responsibilities, or someone with a family, kids, a mortgage and car payment.
- Those who are younger with fewer responsibilities should aim for having enough to cover three months of living expenses (not income)
- Folks with homes, cars, kids and other obligations should shoot for an emergency fund that can cover six months of living expenses
If you’re wondering where to find money to fill that fund, Idowu suggests being creative. He is currently in the midst of an “October Fast” with fewer social outings, eating at home instead of out, putting travel on hold and putting all the money saved into his emergency fund.
If you have questions, check out Ayo Idowu’s web page at Integrate Wealth Management.
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