Business
It starts this week! Plenty planned for summer season on the Ross Street Patio
Plans are quickly taking shape for an exciting and entertainment-filled summer season on Red Deer’s Ross Street Patio. Starting this Thursday, April 7, and every Thursday for the rest of the month, the Downtown Business Association is bringing live music to the Ross Street Patio between 4:30 and 7:30 p.m., explained Amanda Gould, the DBA’s executive director.
Jeremy Doody and Dom Benzer are slated to hit the stage April 7, followed by Stephen Scott and Guests on April 14. Kayla Williams brings her engaging musical stylings to the Patio on April 21 and Jay Bowcott and Syd Zadravec round
out the month on April 28.
Gould also noted the next few weeks are still considered to be ‘spring’ programming – not quite the official launch of the patio’s summer programming.
But it certainly promises to be an engaging taste of what is just around the corner.
“It will be great to see people, as the weather warms up, come downtown to explore everything that we have to offer, and then to relax at one of the restaurants on the Patio and enjoy the music,” she said.
Another annual favourite, the Downtown Market, kicks off on Wednesday, May 25. An accredited farmers’ market, folks are invited to come down and purchase all their fresh fruits and veggies between 3:30 and 6:30 p.m. each Wednesday.
“We are also looking forward to more vendors and visitors this year now that the pandemic restrictions have lifted,” she added. Live music on the Ross Street Patio is also a key feature on Wednesdays as well.
“Wednesdays are a very popular day on the Patio because people come downtown, do a bit of shopping, go to the market, and then head to the Patio to have dinner and watch some live music! So, it’s absolutely jumping on Wednesdays – and we are really looking forward to that coming back.
“And based on how busy it was last year during the pandemic, we expect it to be crazy this year,” she said, adding that the Market runs through to the first week of October.
Gould added that Friday, May 27, is the official kick-off to summer on the Ross Street Patio.
“To celebrate, we have partnered with Sawback Brewing to introduce a limited-edition Ross Street Patio beer which is super exciting,” she explained.
“Free samples will be available at 5 p.m. that day (May 27), and there will also be music and other activities, too. The special beer will be available through the summer and will also be featured at several downtown restaurants.
“It just continues to solidify the Ross Street Patio as an entertainment location.”
Looking into June, performances on the Patio will run Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays.
Meanwhile, the DBA’s mission is to build an engaged downtown community, develop a downtown brand and to enhance the downtown experience.
And that is indeed a year-long mission.
Over this past winter, programing was featured on the Patio, and it proved to be quite the draw as well – weather permitting of course. “We had ice sculptures which people loved – they were an absolute treat. We also offered a lot of free hot chocolate which also really did attract a lot of people.”
Folks were certainly pleased to have outdoor things to do on the milder days, so the awareness about the year-long appeal of the Patio is building.
“I’m really excited about all this activity on the Ross Street Patio because we are making it a proper entertainment location now, and I think that is really becoming solidified more in people’s minds,” Gould explained, adding that she’s very confident more locals will discover over the coming months all that downtown Red Deer really does have to offer.
“Because of the pandemic, people are feeling desperate to get out and enjoy what is being offered. We are also continuing to work on a brand for the downtown. That should be happening later this year, or the beginning of next year,” she said, adding that is a project happening in partnership with the City.
“I think it will help to promote downtown as a destination, too.”
For more information about all things downtown, visit www.downtownreddeer.com.
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
A resurfaced 2018 video from a Minneapolis-area TV station shows how Somali scammers allegedly bilked Minnesota out of millions of dollars for services that they never provided.
Independent journalist Nick Shirley touched off a storm on social media Friday after he posted a photo of one day-care center, which displayed a banner calling it “The Greater Learing Center” on X, along with a 42-minute video that went viral showing him visiting that and other day-care centers. The surveillance video, which aired on Fox 9 in 2018 after being taken in 2015, showed parents taking kids into the center, then leaving with them minutes later, according to Fox News.
“They were billing too much, they went up to high,” Hennepin County attorney Mike Freeman told Fox 9 in 2018. “It’s hard to imagine they were serving that many people. Frankly if you’re going to cheat, cheat little, because if you cheat big, you’re going to get caught.”
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Democratic Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota was accused of engaging in “systemic” retaliation against whistleblowers in a Nov. 30 statement by state employees. Assistant United States Attorney Joe Thompson announced on Dec. 18 that the amount of suspected fraud in Minnesota’s Medicaid program had reached over $9 billion.
After Shirley’s video went viral, FBI Director Kash Patel announced the agency was already sending additional resources in a Sunday post on X, citing the case surrounding Feeding Our Future, which at one point accused the Minnesota government of racism during litigation over the suspension of funds after earlier allegations of fraud.
KSTP reported that the Quality Learning Center, one of the centers visited by Shirley, had 95 citations for violations from one Minnesota agency between 2019 to 2023.
President Donald Trump announced in a Nov. 21 post on Truth Social that he would end “Temporary Protected Status” for Somalis in the state in response to allegations of welfare fraud and said that the influx of refugees had “destroyed our country.”
Business
Disclosures reveal Minnesota politician’s husband’s companies surged thousands-fold amid Somali fraud crisis
Rep. Ilhan Omar’s latest financial disclosures reveal seemingly sudden wealth accumulation inside her household, even as Minnesota grapples with revelations of massive fraud that may have siphoned more than $9 billion from government programs. The numbers, drawn from publicly filed congressional reports, show two companies tied to Omar’s husband, Tim Mynett, surging in value at a pace that raises more questions than answers.
According to the filings, Rose Lake Capital LLC — a business advisory firm Mynett co-founded in 2022 — jumped from an assessed range of $1 to $1,000 in 2023 to between $5 million and $25 million in 2024. Even using the most conservative assumptions allowed under Congress’ broad valuation ranges, the company’s value would have increased thousands of times in a single year. The firm advertises itself as a facilitator of “deal-making, mergers and acquisitions, banking, politics and diplomacy.”
Archived versions of Rose Lake’s website once showcased an eye-catching lineup of political heavyweights: former Ambassador to Bahrain Adam Ereli, former Sen. Max Baucus, and prominent Democratic National Committee alumni William Derrough and Alex Hoffman. But as scrutiny surrounding Omar intensifies — particularly over whether her political network intersected with sprawling fraud schemes exposed in Minnesota — the company has quietly scrubbed its online footprint. Names and biographies of team members have vanished, and the firm has not clarified whether these figures remain involved. Omar’s office offered no comment when asked to explain the company’s sudden growth or the removal of its personnel listings.
Mynett, Omar’s third husband, has long been a controversial presence in her political orbit, but the dramatic swell in his business holdings comes at a moment when trust in Minnesota’s oversight systems is already badly shaken. Federal and state investigators now estimate that fraud involving pandemic-era and nonprofit programs may exceed $9 billion, a staggering figure for a state often held up as a model of progressive governance. For many residents, the revelation that Omar’s household wealth soared during the same period only deepens skepticism about who benefited from Minnesota’s expansive social-spending apparatus.
The financial story doesn’t stop with Rose Lake. A second Mynett-linked entity, ESTCRU LLC — a boutique winery registered in Santa Rosa, California — reported an assessed value of $1 million to $5 million in 2024. Just a year earlier, Omar disclosed its worth at $15,000 to $50,000. Despite the dramatic valuation spike, ESTCRU’s online storefront does not appear to function, its last social media activity dates back to early 2023, and the phone number listed on its website is no longer in service. As with Rose Lake, Omar’s office declined to comment on the winery’s sudden rise in reported value.
The House clerk has yet to release 2025 disclosures, leaving unanswered how these companies are performing today — and how such explosive growth materialized in the first place.
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