My Streets.mn co-chair, Christy Marsden, and I are excited to have José Antonio Zayas Cabán and Tim Marino join the 2023 Streets.mn board of directors. They join 11 other board members who volunteer many hours to keep our organization not just running day to day but moving forward to become a better place for more people to talk about the streets and landscapes we all use and share.
In Streets.mn’s second decade, the board has committed to improving our outreach to groups not usually heard in the urbanist space, relaunching the podcast and implementing action steps from our racial equity analysis of the organization.
We want to make sure you know who’s doing this great work behind the scenes.
Glen Johnson, 2020–23 (2nd term), co-chair; executive and events committees
Glen Johnson (he/him) has lived in the Twin Cities nearly his whole life and more recently moved to the downtown Minneapolis area. He thinks a lot about land use and the policies and incentives that shape where and how we live. He’s currently a member of the Transportation Advisory Board at the Metropolitan Council and recently joined the Minneapolis Bicycle Advisory Committee.
Christy Marsden, 2022–23, co-chair; executive committee, and social media and events committees
Christy Marsden (she/her) lives in Minneapolis, where she tries to bike, bus or walk wherever she can. Christy works in horticulture, teaching others how to grow and enjoy plants. As one of the two 2023 Streets.mn board co-chairs, she aims to ensure that Streets.mn continues to be a place to share people-forward stories about the places where we live.
Mike Allen, 2022–23, treasurer; executive and finance committees
Mike Allen, treasurer, is a former copy editor and first-time board member at Streets.mn. He lives on St. Paul’s East Side with his family. His favorite park — in the city recently voted as having the No. 2 park system in the nation by the Trust for Public Land — is Phalen Regional (“no contest!”), and his favorite article ever is about the Sneaky Trail.
José Antonio Zayas Cabán, 2023–24, finance committee
José Antonio Zayas Cabán is executive director for Our Streets Minneapolis, where he has worked on developing reparative justice campaigns across the Twin Cities. He recently served as co-convener and advisory board member in a climate- and mobility-justice campaign that aims to increase multimodal transportation, reduce vehicle miles traveled and improve equitable access to transportation infrastructure across Minnesota. In addition:
- As a 2022–23 Mapping Prejudice Project Community Fellow, José is researching the intersections among racial covenants, transportation, housing and land use, and developing a workbook on an integrated approach to advocacy.
- José will be contributing an essay for the upcoming book Human Tolls: Public Histories and Community Responses to Twin Cities’ Freeways in collaboration with Associate Professor Greg Donofrio and Dr. Ernest Lloyd from the University of Minnesota.
- José is a GRAMMY® Nominated Artist. He was awarded a McKnight Artist Fellowship for his production of albums with music focused on present day social issues and the relationship between Puerto Rico and the United States Empire. Click here to learn more about José’s music projects.
Francesco Di Caprio, 2021–24 (2nd term), secretary; executive and anti-racism committees
Fran Di Caprio (he/him) is a St. Paul resident and architectural designer, working on his Master of Architecture at the University of Minnesota. He enjoys catching up on his reading while riding on transit.
Martha Grant, 2022–23, finance committee
Martha Grant grew up in St. Paul and finally moved back during the pandemic. She’s a big fan of off-road bike paths, eliminating stroads and working on her tiny urban permaculture food forest.
Tim Marino, 2023–24, podcast committee
Tim Marino is passionate about improving transit in the Twin Cities. He loves visiting other cities and seeing the differences in how they are designed. If it’s warm out, you can catch him on his bike.
Brian Mitchell, 2022–23, technology and podcast committees
Brian Mitchell (he/him) is a car-free resident of Minneapolis, working as a front-end software engineer. He loves to bike and walk throughout the Twin Cities, dreaming of safer streets, fewer cars, better transit and higher density. For other fun, he likes science fiction, electronic music and jigsaw puzzles.
Andy Monserud, 2021–24 (2nd term), editorial and anti-racism committees
Andy Monserud (he/him) is a South St. Paul native and new Minneapolis resident with a passion for bike and train travel and a habit of talking loudly about both with anyone who will listen. He joined the Streets.mn board in 2021, around the time he started getting into Deep Space Nine. He also plays and listens to bad folk-punk and is a sucker for tabletop and video RPGs. He writes about courts for money and other things for fun.
Jeb Rach, 2022–23, events committee
Born and raised in rural Minnesota, Jeb Rach (he/him) has been an avid transit geek since he first discovered it trying to save money on parking in the Twin Cities. He now lives in St. Paul and works in Roseville. As chair of the events committee, he helps ensure that members of the Streets.mn community have ways to socialize and advocate together.
Erik Ruthruff, 2020–23 (2nd term), editor-in-chief, editorial committee
Erik Ruthruff (he/him) is a project manager and previously worked as a content editor for several companies. He has worked in the Microsoft stack software development community since the mid-1990s in technical education, project management, publishing and conference production. In his spare time, he cycles and does nonprofit work. Erik was a volunteer on the Edina Transportation Commission from 2017 to 2020.
Jenny Werness, 2019–23 (3rd term), content manager; executive and editorial committees
Jenny Werness (she/her) is a car-free, year-round bicycle commuting, tree-loving St. Paul resident with a Ph.D. in organic chemistry. She believes that our rapidly changing climate should be of utmost concern to all of us.
David Zeller, 2018–23 (3rd term), finance committee
As the longest-serving board member of Streets.mn, David Zeller is a past treasurer of the organization and more recently helped to relaunch the podcast. A St. Paul native, David lives in the Midway neighborhood, where he’s a soccer podcaster and the father of two young kids.