News & Views of Phillips Since 1976
Saturday April 4th 2026
Native American Community Clinic
Where Health and Home Meet
By ERIK KELLY
The Native American Community Clinic’s new building at 1213 East Franklin Ave. reflects years of vision, planning, and community partnership. Construction began May 2025 and it will open Fall, 2026.
More than simply a larger clinic, the project is a different way of thinking about health and wellness. It will bring expanded health services together with affordable housing in the heart of the American Indian Cultural Corridor. By placing health care below and stable housing above, the project recognizes something Native communities have always understood:
wellness is shaped by the environments we live in and the relationships that surround us.
Health care for NACC has always been about more than treating illness. It’s about restoring the balance between body, spirit, family, and community. The new clinic reflects those values. Relatives will find welcoming spaces that connect to culture, tradition, and the natural world. People will feel grounded and at home with the cultural design elements, and gathering spaces inside and outside.
The expanded Clinic will grow the services it already provides, including medical, dental, behavioral health, and community-based care.… Read the rest “Native American Community Clinic”
Agnes Frier: Unwanted? Or Family Couldn’t be Found?
245th in a series from Tales from Pioneers and Soldiers Memorial Cemetery…
By SUE HUTNTER WEIR
Agnes Frier’s story has been a challenge to research. She was one of the 250 adults (only eight of them women) buried in the cemetery whose remains were unclaimed by family or friends and became the property of the county coroner. He, in turn, was required by law to turn them over to the University’s Anatomy Department to be studied by medical students. When Agnes died in 1915, very few people, primarily for religious reasons, donated their bodies for research.
Agnes died in Anoka State Hospital on September 5, 1915. She was born in Germany around 1860 and emigrated with her husband Joseph in 1887. Their oldest son, Sam, was born in New York in August 1887. They had five more children: Mollie was born in Pennsylvania, Alma was born in Illinois, Daisy in Minnesota, George and Frank were born in Wisconsin.
Agnes’ death certificate listed her occupation as “gypsy,” which at first seemed like a reference to her having run away (which she did) from the hospital in Fergus Falls. She had been declared insane and institutionalized around 1909. When the 1910 Federal Census was taken, she was described as one of the hospital’s “inmates.”… Read the rest “Agnes Frier: Unwanted? Or Family Couldn’t be Found?”
Keep citizen journalism alive!
Pouring Gasoline on the Fire
from the series Something I Said…
By DWIGHT HOBBES
ICE’s approach in South Minneapolis has been to douse the fire by pouring gasoline on it.
In the aftermath of Renee Good’s murder by agent Jonathan Ross, instead of reining ICE in, more were dispatched. Just as prone to gunplay. Two of whom, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officer Raymundo Gutierrez and Border Patrol agent Jesus Ochoa, assigned to Operation Metro Surge, killed Alex Pretti.
To make things worse, both deaths were falsely accounted for. Department of Homeland Security Secretary DHS Secretary Kristi Noem claimed Renee Good “attempted to run a law enforcement officer over [in] an act of domestic terrorism.” Video footage shows Good simply trying to wend her way through chaos as Ross shoots her through the driver’s window as he stands next to the car, in no danger of being hit at all, much less run over.
Alex Pretti was helping a woman to her feet when an agent shoved them both to the ground. Unprovoked, several agents held him down, one confiscating his legal firearm. Whereupon for no apparent reason an agent shot the unarmed man at point blank range. Then shot Pretti three more times.… Read the rest “Pouring Gasoline on the Fire”