From the role of money in politics, to the future of ranked-choice voting, to deep frustrations about racial inequities and North Minneapolis, this is a raw look at the candidates who want to replace Jacob Frey.

Omar Fateh — the leading challenger — was invited but did not attend, leaving an empty chair and questions about his record.

Watch this to hear unfiltered perspectives on the biggest issues facing Minneapolis.

Chapters:

00:00 – Introduction & Empty Chair: Why Omar Fateh didn’t show up

01:10 – Setting the stage: A dinner table debate, not another forum

05:00 – Who are you ranking #2? The games of ranked-choice voting

15:00 – Narratives of crisis: Is Minneapolis “at the bottom of the barrel”?

25:00 – Policing, safety, and the city’s trust deficit

35:00 – The role of money: Jacob Frey’s massive fundraising advantage

45:00 – Political identity: race, representation, and the mayor’s role

55:30 – The question I would have asked Omar Fateh about Uber/Lyft

01:00:00 – Closing thoughts: Leadership, trust, and who actually runs this city

This episode of One Hour Detours goes deep into what it means to serve a divided city, how national issues clash with local responsibilities, and the personal costs of being in public life.

Chapters

00:00 – Intro: Who is Latrisha Vetaw?

02:00 – Running for office vs. serving

05:00 – Mentors, training, and how to start in politics

08:00 – Facial expressions, performance, and being “real” on the dais

09:20 – Northside representation and standing her ground

11:00 – How an idea becomes law at City Hall

14:00 – Tobacco policy, coupon bans, and city attorneys

18:00 – Is City Council “broken”? Division and dysfunction explained

19:30 – Who represents constituents vs. themselves

20:45 – The encampment debate: healing camps or public danger?

23:00 – Talking openly about homelessness and addiction

27:00 – Third-term mayors, incumbents, and political fear

31:00 – Political violence, safety, and threats to electeds

36:00 – Why some people won’t run for office anymore

41:45 – Life in the spotlight: sports games, fans, and recognition

42:00 – The Usher cherry story

44:30 – Public vs. private life: when you’re always “the councilwoman”

47:00 – Drinks, social life, and the human side of City Hall

48:00 – Closed sessions and what really happens behind the scenes

50:00 – Can council members be friends? Division by voting block

52:00 – Dinners with colleagues and broken trust

54:00 – Why the council feels like “cosplay”

55:00 – Generational divides at City Hall

57:00 – Wrapping up

MJ also helps me workshop my own stand-up material about Minneapolis vs St. Paul — and things get unexpectedly emotional (and hilarious).

Chapters:

00:00  Intro – Meet MJ Matheson

02:30  Art, aesthetics & the set design

03:00  Crying at Wisconsin Dells during a break-up

05:10  The music that hurts so good

07:00  How MJ started in comedy

08:40  Open mics, sociopaths & surviving the scene

10:50  Love Island UK vs American reality TV

11:40  Catholic mass in a football stadium

13:00  What it takes to be a comedian day-to-day

16:00  Why open mics can be brutal (but essential)

20:00  Hosting Easy Speak at Volstead Emporium

24:00  When MJ called me out in the crowd

26:00  Workshopping my bit on Minneapolis vs St. Paul

35:00  The suburbs are the real enemy

40:00  Comedy as therapy and math equation

45:00  Holding for laughter & timing the beat

46:00  Laughter as a way to break tension

49:00  Collaborating on bits & ending the hour

Wall art by Genel Jumalon (https://www.jumalon.art/)

Filmed at Kickernick Building (https://www.kickernick.com/)

Hosted by John O’Sullivan (One Minute Tours, Hidden Middle)

Filmed at the One Hour Detours studio in beautiful downtown Minneapolis

To see the stand-up set that was performed later that night, see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJ7dOl5ZwBM

In this conversation, I finally got to ask him the questions on the record: the role of billionaire owners in journalism, whether local news can survive the digital age, what really happened inside DEED during Covid, and why he chose to write a memoir that reads suspiciously like a political launch.

Steve is the CEO and publisher of the Star Tribune and former head of DEED, and he spent years at YouTube shaping the early creator era. This isn’t a surface-level media interview. It’s a deeper look at how journalism actually works, how power moves behind the scenes, and what’s at stake for Minnesota.

If you want more conversations like this, subscribe to One Hour Detours. And if you want more of my regular Minnesota stories, you can always find them on One Minute Tours.

You can purchase Steve's book, "How I Found Myself in the Midwest" here: https://amzn.to/49efESL (affiliate link).

⸻

Chapters

00:00 Who Steve Grove is and how long we’ve been talking

01:03 Writing a book while running the Star Tribune

04:20 The accidental political energy of his memoir

07:53 What government service really looks like from the inside

10:14 Why bureaucracy frustrates people but still matters

12:19 How polarization affects Minnesota differently

17:15 Has our culture actually recovered from Covid

20:10 The Minnesota paradox and the gaps we don’t talk about

23:23 Steve’s move from government to running the Star Tribune

24:31 Closing the printing plant and what that means

27:01 How digital subscriptions changed the business

29:00 The value of print, serendipity, and the E-edition

33:48 How the Star Tribune sets the agenda

36:03 The Pete Hegseth text messages story

39:47 What a publisher actually does inside an investigative scoop

41:14 The editorial independence question

41:35 Is it good for America to have media owned by billionaires

43:33 Conflicts of interest and whether they matter

44:31 Who should own the news in the future

46:09 How creators changed the landscape

47:20 Should creators be doing the job journalism used to do

49:04 What Steve learned from the early YouTube era

In this conversation we cover:

00:00 – The Jason Cam & innovating early in media

07:00 – Ego vs. arrogance: why Minnesotans hold themselves back

12:00 – Skyways, tourism, and why Minneapolis struggles with growth

20:00 – The origins of Good Question and what he learned from it

30:00 – Living with a public persona vs. being yourself

41:00 – Social media, sponsored content, and the authenticity trap

50:00 – The business of being a media personality

57:00 – The future of local news and digital creators

Jason shares stories about buying his own billboard, why ego isn’t a dirty word, and how Minnesota could better tell its own story to the world.

Art by Megan Moore - you can see her works at https://www.meganmoore.com/

If you enjoy thoughtful conversations with people shaping Minnesota’s culture, subscribe for more episodes of One Hour Detours.

In this conversation we speak about: 

Chapters:

00:00 – Introduction & running for a third term

01:18 – From “best job in the world” to “crisis bingo”

11:09 – Parenting, school safety & the Minneapolis shooting

14:15 – Why St. Paul is pushing to ban assault rifles

19:05 – The Second Amendment & political rhetoric

29:23 – Florida 2000: arguing the right to vote

33:38 – Public engagement & governing differently

39:16 – Race in Minnesota vs. the South

42:02 – Guaranteed income, rent control & medical debt relief

47:14 – Homelessness, downtown St. Paul & foot traffic

49:53 – Skyways, safety perceptions & downtown competition

We talk about his viral beginnings, the transition from indie comedy to blockbuster streaming action, and what it means to represent Native voices on screen while raising a family of six.  

Chapters:

00:00 – Intro & Dallas Goldtooth’s Hollywood leap

02:00 – Growing up on the Lower Sioux Reservation

07:30 – Comedy as survival: The 1491s & viral sketches

13:00 – Minnesota history, monuments, and reckoning with the past

20:00 – Landing roles in Reservation Dogs and Rutherford Falls

25:00 – Breaking down The Last Frontier

29:00 – The “copaganda” question and conflicted roles

34:00 – Representation, identity & Native roles in Hollywood

41:00 – Acting in Fallout with Walton Goggins

45:00 – Family life with six kids while acting

55:00 – Reflections on culture, comedy & the future

New Album: Little Old You — out now
Album debut show: Ordway Theater January 10 & 11. Tickets available at https://ordway.org/events/the-okee-dokee-brothers/

Learn more at https://www.okeedokee.org

📍 Chapters:

00:00  Intro — Why The Okee Dokee Brothers matter

03:00  “Nature’s Music” (live performance)

06:00  The art of family folk

08:00  When kids’ music makes adults cry

14:00  Faith, simplicity, and the folk tradition

20:00  Saint John’s Abbey, brutalist architecture, and belief

31:00  Parenting, spirituality, and emotional honesty

38:00  Turning down a Grammy nomination

46:00  Fatherhood lessons and “Little Old You”

57:00  “Through the Woods” (live performance)

I sat down with Hope Walz just hours after her father announced he would not run for re-election as governor of Minnesota. It was a strange moment to talk. The decision was still fresh, and the reasons behind it were still settling.

We talked about what it’s actually like to grow up in a political family, how the last year changed her life, and what happens when politics stops being abstract and becomes personal. Hope opens up about receiving threats, briefly living with Secret Service protection during the national campaign, and what it felt like to lose that safety overnight.

She also shares how the decision not to run came together inside her family, why her dad believed stepping aside might lower the temperature around Minnesota, and how she thinks about media, social platforms, and responsibility now that she has an audience of her own.

00:00 Recording on the day of the announcement

02:43 What family conversations around stepping away actually looked like

04:36 Threats, harassment, and stepping back from social media

06:34 Living with Secret Service during the national campaign

09:43 Choosing life without security afterward

16:37 Being part of the decision not to run again

18:38 Minnesota as a national political target

37:08 Dating and having a normal life under Secret Service

44:24 Becoming a content creator after the election

I went into this conversation thinking we were going to talk about billboards.

If you live in the Twin Cities, you already know the image — arms out, face everywhere, so many billboards they’ve become a regional inside joke. Kris Lindahl built one of the most recognizable personal brands in Minnesota, and I wanted to understand how that actually happened.

But once we sat down, the conversation went somewhere else.

It turned into a discussion about obsession, control, grief, and the strange psychology of becoming unavoidable. At times, Kris drove the conversation with sheer force of personality. At other times, I tried to slow things down and get into the weeds — sometimes successfully, sometimes not.

Did I do a good job pressing where it mattered? I’m genuinely curious what you think.

This episode goes into trauma, rumors, early hustle, and the parts of success that don’t fit cleanly on a billboard.

🎙 One Hour Detours is a long-form conversation series with exactly one rule: one hour, no edits.

Chapters

00:00 – Why Kris Lindahl Is Everywhere

03:45 – How Billboard Saturation Actually Works

10:30 – Selling Wristbands for Spring Break Trips to Mexico

18:55 – Building a Business Around Pure Visibility

26:40 – The Murder of His Father and How It Shaped Him

35:20 – Grief, Healing, and Personal Responsibility

43:10 – Did Kris Lindahl Swindle His Ex-Wife to Pay for Billboards?

51:40 – What Comes After Total Visibility