The Minnesota Daily has an informative article on NRP and future funding for neighborhoods that people might find helpful.

I does a good job of explaining and presenting different sides about a rather complex issue.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Affirmative Action Plan up for approval

I wanted to call people's attention to a report coming up at the Executive Committee this Wednesday. Unlike years passed this committee now meets in the chambers and the meetings are televised and saved for web viewing.

The only agenda item is our Affirmative Action Plan and it is full of good information about well and how poorly we are doing in terms of diversifying our own City of Minneapolis work force and plans to improve.

There are some interesting charts showing how each department and job classification does in comparison to the Relevant Labor Market (qualified folks who live around here). We seem to be doing worst in terms of the lack of females in a number of job categories (this is shown most clearly in some of the charts around page 40 and then clearly outlined in the next 5 to 10 pages.)

I will also be looking into how this compares to the make up of the City's population.

Still Number Two

The 2008 Census data on commuting has been released, and Minneapolis has retained our second-place slot in terms of bicycle mode share. We increased our ridership by about 12%, going from a 3.8% mode share in 2007 to a 4.3% mode share in 2008. However, our chief rival for the title of "bike friendliest major US city," Portland, increased even more rapidly, from 3.9% to a full 6%. That's a pretty staggering one-year increase of more than 50%.



To put Portland's achievement in perspective, it helps to look at our proposed new sustainability indicator for bike mode share, which calls for us to reach a mode share of 6% by 2014, with a milestone of 5% in 2011. If we keep that goal, we'll catch up with Portland's 2008 achievement five years later.



Perhaps this means that our goal isn't high enough. My staff has looked at the trend line over the last few years, and it's pretty clear that the increase we've seen is actually faster than our goal - if we keep adding mode share at the same rate, we'll reach a mode share of over 7% by 2014. I'll be keeping this in mind as we adopt the sustainability indicator and targets later this year.

Hennepin and First

A date has been set for the conversion of Hennepin and First avenues into two-way streets: the weekend of October 10-11, weather permitting.

This change will take some getting used to for all road users - drivers, cyclists and pedestrians. Drivers going through downtown from north to south will be able to stay on Hennepin for their whole trip. Cyclists will have options. The old bike lanes in the middle of the road on Hennepin will go away, having been replaced by two, significantly more attractive, bike facilities.



For certain riders, a shared bus/bike lane both northbound and southbound on Hennepin, right on the curb, will work just fine.



For less experienced riders, the City is installing a truly innovative set of bike lanes on First, that I'm pretty excited to see in action. They will run along the curb, which in my opinion is the ideal place for bike lanes. During peak hours, they'll have a traffic lane to their left. But during off-peak hours, that next lane will be for parking, creating a physical barrier between bikers and cars. The lanes will use a different pavement color, to make them stand out to drivers (and discourage people from parking in them). If this facility is as successful as I think it could be, it could be a model that we replicate elsewhere.

University Sues Central Corridor

Despite reports that the University and Central Corridor project (with help from the City and the County) have been nearing an agreement on vibration, noise and electromagnetic disruptions to U research on Washington Avenue, the U has decided to sue the Metropolitan Council over the project. They claim that this is due to the timing – if they don’t sue now, they’ll lose the chance, along with whatever leverage it brings.



The University appears to be the most significant potential obstacle to this important piece of environmentally sustainable transportation infrastructure. While I find it especially problematic that the University chose not to communicate with any of its partners on the Alliance – the City, the neighborhoods, or the business community – before taking this extraordinary step, I have asked for a meeting with a University Vice President to better understand the U’s perspective. I will continue to work to be a cooperative partner with all the neighborhood, community, business, governmental and institutional partners concerned with the Central Corridor.

Drazkowski's Fishing Expedition

Conservative Republican state legislator Steve Drazkowski, who represents Steve Sviggum's old seat in rural southeast Minnesota, has filed a Freedom of Information Request for some that's got me wondering why. I wonder what he is after anyway. Here's some text from his request:

"Dear Mayor Rybak,

"This is a formal request under the Minnesota Data Practices Act, Minnesota Statutes Chapter 13, for access to inspect all memos, documents, files and emails in your or the City of Minneapolis' possession related to any expense reimbursements over the past five years, since January 1st 2005, to you as mayor and also to your chief of staff and any or all city council members.

"In addition, I wish to inspect any and all public data related to Community Planning and Economic Development grants to any nonprofit entities during those years.

"Finally, I am requestiong access to inspect any and all data related to the 'climate change grants' referenced in the city's 2009 budget."

My staff worked an hour this morning on this broad request, and we're not done yet. I shudder to think of the hundreds if not thousands of Minneapolis tax dollars that could be taken up by the time the City's response is complete.





I am concerned that this request, written on House of Representatives stationary, is political opposition research to use against Mayor Rybak, who has been accurately and effectively criticizing Governor Pawlenty's mismanagement of the State and misrepresentations about Minneapolis. (Speaking of misrepresentations, Rep. Drazkowski's campaign site states that "the last session of the legislature began with a $2.2 billion surplus.")





And then there's the content of the request. Is he trying to lay the groundwork to attack the City for partnering with nonprofits, which I'm proud to say we do all the time? Our nonprofit partners - including neighborhood groups, community development corporations, and service and advocacy organizations too numerous to mention - help us deliver vital services and work on some of the most intractable problems facing our communities. For instance, as part of our ongoing youth violence prevention program, we're partnering with nonprofit organizations throughout the city to prevent young people from killing one another. Is this the sort of partnership that Rep. Drazkowski will attack us for in the coming weeks and months?





Is he gather information to attack the city's extremely successful climate change grants? For very little money - one to ten thousand dollars each - these grants have mobilized Minneapolis residents to decrease both their expenses and their carbon emissions through simple actions like installing compact fluorescent light bulbs. This shouldn't be controversial.




But Rep. Drazkowski, according to his campaign website, believes that nuclear power should be considered renewable energy, so I can understand why it would be difficult for him to understand.

I fully support the Minnesota Data Practices Act and try to push the City to make sure that allour information is easily and readily accessible and am happy to comply with these kinds of requests, but I am also willing to share my reactions when such a requests gets me wondering and this one certainly did.

September 15th Comes and Goes Without Primary

On Tuesday the 15th, voters across Minnesota went down to their polling places to vote in municipal primaries. In many of these primaries, turnout was at its usual abysmal level (an appallingly low 5% in St. Paul), allowing a tiny minority of voters to winnow the choices for the general election.

But not in Minneapolis.

Instead, the people of Minneapolis have decided to use (and the City has worked very hard to implement) ranked choice voting, which combines the primary and general election into one event on November 3. Every candidate who filed gets to run all the way to the general, and voters get to choose among the whole field.

In order to prevent minority (or plurality) winners, voters may rank up to three candidates for single and multiple seat municipal offices. When polls close, the first choice votes for all candidates are sorted and counted. If no candidate receives the required number of votes to win in a particular race, a process of eliminating candidates and considering subsequent choices begins. If you want to know more about how the system works and see a sample ballot, go here.

I've been a supporter of ranked choice voting for more than a decade, and worked to get it on the ballot, win approval from the voters, and get it implemented, and I'm thrilled to let Minneapolis voters go to the polls on November 3rd without bothering with the expensive, low turnout primary.

Target Center Green Roof is Complete

Earlier this week, the green roof on the Target Center was officially unveiled. Every year, these 2.5 acres of native plants will capture a million gallons of storm water and prevent it from entering the storm sewers and Mississippi river.

This green roof is the fifth largest extensive green roof in the US, at the time of design, and the largest in Minnesota. It's also the first green roof on a sports arena in North America. In addition to storm water drainage prevention, the roof will also help in mitigating the heat island effect in downtown Minneapolis.

The roof is planted with a variety of Sedums and Minnesota prairie plants, including Columbine, Prairie Coreopsis, Wild Strawberry, Dotted Blazing-Star, and Lupine. It includes lupines to target the Karner Blue Butterfly, a federally listed endangered butterfly that needs lupines to survive.

I'm proud to have made the motion in Community Development committee to pursue only green roof options for the Target Center, and I'm glad to see this come to such successful fruition.

Police Policy Manual

For about a year now, my office has been working on issues relating to the Minneapolis Police Department (MPD) policy manual. It came to my attention last year that the MPD had made at least two changes to the manual that, in my opinion, reduce the safety of Mpls residents and make it harder for us to hold officers accountable.



The taser policy that the Council, MPD and Civilian Review Authority (CRA) crafted together in 2006 was basically unilaterally scrapped by the MPD in 2007, and replaced by a reference to the training manual (which does not seem to include the language that was deleted from the policy manual). Later, in September of 2008, a new policy was added that essentially prohibits MPD supervisors from using evidence on squad car videos (like the beating of Derryl Jenkins in February of 2009) to proactively start disciplinary investigations. It is unclear to what extent the City Attorney's office had a role in assessing either of these changes before they were made, and the Council and CRA were not even notified that either of these changes had taken place.



Working with Council Member Schiff, in April I got the Public Safety and Regulatory Services (PS&RS) committee to pass a staff direction to MPD, requiring them to come back to committee by July 22nd and "propose a process for seeking input" from the Council, Mayor and CRA. This report back was delayed until yesterday, and even then the MPD had not prepared any sort of printed report until the day before the meeting.



I favored, and nearly had the support of the Police Cheif and Mayor's office, a process that would have the MPD send drafts of proposed policies (at lead those dealing with sensitive topics like use of force and use of video cameras) to the Council, Mayor and CRA at the same time that they distribute them to the Attorney's Office and Police Federation. I was also very interested in ensuring that the Attorney's Office must sign off on a policy before it is adopted.



Unfortunately, I was unsuccessful. Instead, the committee chair moved a more cautious direction, which requests that the MPD inform the members of PS&RS and the CRA Manager when a given policy has been adopted. It also does not require that the Attorney's Office sign off on any proposed change.



Council Member Schiff attempted a substitute motion that would have required the Mayor to make an affirmative decision in support of a given policy change before it could go into effect. I supported this motion, but it failed (rather unsurprisingly) on a 3-2 vote. Don's motion then passed unanimously.



I'm disappointed that we couldn't get more opportunities for input and feedback inserted into the process for changing the policy manual. On the other hand, I'm hopeful that this is not the end of this discussion, but the beginning. It seemed that Chief Dolan left the door open to future conversations about how to get more buy-in from the Council and CRA, especially on the most controversial policies that the MPD adopts (such as use-of-force, vehicular chases, and squad car video). I look forward to continuing to work on this.

Policing Shake-Up in Ward 2

The retirement of Deputy Chief for Investigations Valerie Wurster (who ably commanded the Second Precinct during my first year in office) has set off a cascade of promotions within the police department with some significant effects on the Second Ward.



Deputy Chief Rob Allen will take the Investigations position Wurster is leaving. First Precinct Commander Janee Harteau, whose work on crime issues on the West Bank I have appreciated very much, has been promoted to Allen's old job as Deputy Chief of the Patrol unit.



She will be replaced as Inspector of the First Precinct by Kristine Arneson, who has headed the Fifth Precinct in Southwest Mpls. Janee will be a tough act to follow, but I'm hopeful that Kris is up to the challenge and look forward to working with her.



In other MPD staffing news, longtime Crime Prevention Specialist (CPS) for the First Precinct Luther Krueger is moving to the MPD's Strategic Information / Crime Management unit. It's a good fit for him; he's done great work through the Virtual Block Club and other organizational tools to share crime statistics with residents and businesses. Renee Allen, who has already been working as CPS in the West Bank, will serve the whole precinct.

Park Board Amendment Kept Off Ballot

This morning, I voted against a motion to keep a charter amendment off of the ballot this fall. The amendment, if placed on the ballot and passed by the voters, would have likely given the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board independent taxing authority, contingent on being granted that power by the State Legislature.

I voted against keeping this off of the ballot for a number of reasons, none of them having to do with the merits of the charter amendment itself. As I said this morning, I am not sure that I would vote for this charter amendment if it was on the ballot. More importantly, I am a strong supporter of the agreement, reached by Council Members Benson and Johnson, Mayor Rybak and Park Board President Nordyke, to establish a blue ribbon commission next year to study the relationship between the City and the Park Board. In fact, I had put forward a very similar suggestion earlier this spring calling for further study before any amendments considering the elimination of our elected boards were put before the voters. I would have preferred to have kept the amendment to eliminate the Board of Estimate and Taxation off the ballot and wish that the Park Board and supportive citizens had not felt they needed to move forward with a charter amendment this year until after such a commission could have been formed and study completed.

However, as some of my colleagues on the other side of this question noted several times, the decision before the Council this morning had nothing to do with the merits of the charter amendment itself. It was both a narrower question about the constitutionality of the amendment, and a broader question about how we respect direct democracy in Minneapolis. My reasons for voting “no” are as follows.

The petitioners followed the process. Minneapolis has an established process for citizens to place charter amendment questions on the ballot by petitioning. The advocates of the Park Board charter amendment followed this process – that is not in dispute. They submitted more than enough signatures. It is my strongly held belief that we, as a City Council, must meet a very, very high bar, both legally and philosophically, to prevent a legally certified petitioned question like this from being placed on the ballot.

The City Attorney did a very good job making the case that we did have the legal authority to not put it on the ballot. However, the fact that we have the power to do something does not mean that we should. My basic position is to always err on the side of respecting the will of voters, who have followed legal, established processes, and not let my own feelings about a given charter amendment rule.

Some of my colleagues questioned the level of knowledge of those who signed the petitions, or the honesty of those who gathered them. In my opinion, this is not relevant and the argument shows disrespect for the voters of Minneapolis, a sort of disrespect that is corrosive to the very idea of democracy.

I disagreed with the City Attorney’s opinion. The first three points of the City Attorney’s opinion are that 1) the amendment is unconstitutional, 2) it is preempted by state law, and 3) it is contrary to state policy. The fourth is that it is essentially a waste of time, because it would only take effect after an affirmative vote of the Legislature enabling it to take effect. In my opinion, the fact that the matter is contingent on legislative action negates the first three concerns. The legislature will not pass something in violation of the constitution. This makes our decision this morning purely about one question: should we place questions on the ballot that would change our Charter dependent on action by another unit of government? The City Attorney and Council majority clearly believes we should not. I disagree.

There were several key examples given by my colleagues to prove their point. One dealt with the medical marijuana charter amendment that came before the Council before I was elected. Again, in that case the Council clearly had the power to keep that question off of the ballot. If I had been on the Council at that time, I likely would have disagreed with the Council majority on that question as well. A group of petitioners followed the rules, gathered enough signatures, and the Council’s belief that it’s inappropriate to put something in our charter that would be dependent on state action is simply not a compelling enough argument. Another key example given was the City of Saint Paul’s decision in 2008 to keep ranked choice voting off the ballot, because they received a very similar City Attorney’s opinion telling them that a) they had the power to keep it off the ballot and b) there were constitutionality questions. I strongly disagreed with this decision by the Saint Paul Council as well, and felt that they overstepped their authority.

One more extremely important point to note is that, according to our City Attorney, absolutely nothing required the Council to keep this question off of the ballot. It was clear to me that we had the clear legal authority to allow this to be placed on the ballot.

We must not base these decisions on our personal positions on the merits of a charter amendment question. There is an established process for the Council to choose to place a question on the ballot because we decide it is a good idea. We followed this process to place ranked choice voting on the ballot. However, there is another process that exists for citizens to place a question on the ballot whether the Council thinks it’s a good idea or not. When responding to these sorts of petitions, we must be extremely careful not to allow our own personal positions on the question to motivate our actions.

For example, I strongly opposed the question that Council Members Ostrow, Remington, and Samuels brought forward earlier this year to abolish the elected Park Board. I would have voted against placing it on the ballot by a majority vote in the Council. However, if they had gathered enough signatures to place a question on the ballot, I would have voted to place it on the ballot.

I am concerned that many of the reasons my colleagues had for voting to keep this question off of the ballot had to do with the merits of the amendment. They think it’s a bad idea. In my opinion, this puts the Council in the unenviable and potentially dangerous position of appearing to have seized upon a convenient legal argument to kill an amendment that we wanted to kill for other, more policy-driven reasons.

There is a disturbing trend towards asking the Legislature, not Minneapolis voters, to make these sorts of governance decisions. Several years ago, I was the only Council Member to vote against asking the Legislature to abolish the Minneapolis Library Board. Similar to my reasoning today, my reasoning then was not based on my opinion that the Board should not be abolished – that wasn’t the question. The main question, for me, was whether these sorts of questions should go to Minneapolis voters, through the charter amendment process, or should be resolved by legislators from places as far away as the Iron Range.

I was also one Council Member to publicly call for a referendum on the imposition of a new sales tax for the Twins Stadium, rather than allowing the Legislature to decide the question without any input from Minneapolis voters.

I strongly believe that questions about Minneapolis governance should go to the voters first. This is what the amendment the Council majority voted to keep off of the ballot would have done. I see a clear pattern of this Council preventing the voters from deciding these sorts of issues, and I find it profoundly antidemocratic.

As I said above, I wish that we had not been in this situation. I wish that Council Members Ostrow, Remington and Samuels had not raised the specter of abolishing the independent Park Board earlier this year. I wish that the Park Board had not responded by gathering signatures to attempt to grant itself fully independent taxing authority.

This year the Council and Park Board have behaved like ships miles apart at sea, lobbing poorly aimed cannonballs towards one another. As we do so we make no progress solving the real problems and issues at hand. In my opinion, very little of what has divided us has been about a constructive vision for the future of our parks; on that question, everyone basically agrees. We want great parks and green spaces. No, the questions that have divided us have been about power: who’s got it, who wants it, who should have it, who can be trusted with it.

We can’t keep on like this.

It is time to call a cease fire. All of us on both sides of this divide need to come together and find a more constructive solution. As the likely lawsuit plays out and the November election concludes (with or without a Board of Estimate and Taxation remaining) I hope that both sides will return to the spirit of the agreement from earlier this year, and form a blue ribbon commission next year to study various options for working better together.

I also strongly hope that the results of this commission’s work, if they include any charter amendments, are then put before the Minneapolis voters, not simply the Legislature, before any changes are implemented. I will fight for this to be the process we follow.