Finding a Green Way to Govern

In other good news from the meeting today, this blog you're reading has now been officially authorized by a resolution of the City Council. Robin and I (with Robin really playing the more active role to be sure) have been working on this since January, when I took office. I promised in last year's campaign to blog, as part of my commitment to communicate with residents of the Ward, thinking that it would be easy. Someone on the Council must already be blogging, I thought. Some system must exist. Wrong. We had to invent the system ourselves. Robin took part in a number of meetings starting in late January with the City Clerk , Merry Keefe, (who was extremely helpful throughout this process) and staff from the Attorney's Office, the City's technology folks, the Communications department and sometimes representatives from the Mayor's office. That group decided that Elected Official's blogs would have to be authorized by a resolution, which Robin and the Attorney...

It's an amazing, historic day. Today the Council referred Instant Runoff Voting to the Charter Commission to be placed on the ballot this November. Going into the meeting, we IRV supporters knew we had just enough votes: seven Council Members (myself, Samuels , Glidden , Schiff , Remington , Benson and Hodges ) had signed on to the measure to refer IRV to the Charter Commission. Amazingly, the final vote was 11-1. The seven supporters were joined by CMs Hofstede and Colvin Roy (neither of whom voted for the measure in the IGR committee) and Goodman . Only President Johnson voted against the measure. Congratulations to Jeanne Massey, Tony Solgard, FairVote Minnesota , the Better Ballot Campaign and the Minneapolis/5th District Green Party, which has been advocating for this for years. It was great to see Jeanne, Tony, Bill Barnett, Jim Cousins, Tim Jordan, Leif Utne and others from the campaign and the Green Party at the Council meeting today. When the final vote was taken t...

To bring this blog into compliance with the resolution enabling Elected Officials' blogs that passed the Council today (more on this later), here's our new and improved disclaimer (from the new Elected Official Blog Site Procedures document): BLOG DISCLAIMER This blog is supported by the City of Minneapolis through City funds, supplies, equipment and/or personnel. This blog is created as a limited public forum. The purpose of this limited public forum is to allow for an open discussion of issues related to the governance of the City of Minneapolis. Comments not within the purpose of this limited public forum will not be placed onto this blog. Further, comments will not be placed onto this blog if they fall into any of the following categories: · Defamatory comments · Profane language · Comments that promote, foster, or perpetuate discrimination on the basis of race, creed, color, age, religion, gender, marital status, status with regard to public assistance, national orig...

At the 5-11-06 CRA Work Group meeting (see this post for more information on the Work Group's creation) Working with others, I succeeded in convincing the body to reject the recommendation that the CRA Board (the “ Civilians ” in “Civilian Review Authority”) only rule on complaints originally “sustained” by CRA staff. I consider this an important win for police accountability in Minneapolis. The Board must continue to have the authority to rule on every legitimate complaint – the credibility of the process rests on this. I’m excited to delve into what I consider the real problems with the CRA system: what happens to complaints after they are received by the Police Department. I am increasingly hopeful that after this Work Group is finished the CRA process will be the best system for police accountability that Minneapolis has ever seen.

I submitted the following Op-Ed to the Star Tribune earlier this week and they have not printed it yet. I'm putting it out where people can see it before the issue is moot. *** Let Us Vote As a City Council Member it would be easy to just ride this one out. After all, this Twins stadium proposal is the County’s deal. Now it’s up to the Legislature. It isn’t “City” business. Right? Wrong. I feel it is my duty as a Minneapolis elected official to stand up and add my voice to the chorus calling for a referendum. As the stadium proposals work their way through the final days of the Legislative session I call on our legislators: please don’t thumb your noses at either state law or the will of the people of Minneapolis. Don’t impose a local sales tax without voter approval. The Legislature decided, with statute 297A.99, that voters should approve the imposition of local sales taxes. Minneapolis voters decided in 1997 that no more than ten million dollars should be given in corpor...

Cam just heard a presentation in the PS&RS committee from Interim Chief Dolan And Mayor Rybak about the MPD's Safe City Initiative. The presentation is available online here .

I attended the last Transportation and Public Works committee (which is notable because I'm not on that committee) to speak in favor of my motion to remove this ordinance from the City code: “ 427.240. Dancing on streets. No person shall dance or engage or participate in any dancing upon any public street or highway in the city; and no person shall provide for, promote or conduct any dance or dancing upon any public street or highway in the city, except at a block party. (Code 1960, As Amend., § 583.340)” (Look it up here by its number.) My arguments were these: a) This law is outdated and embarrasses the City when it’s used. b) This law is used to discriminate against persons experiencing homelessness and mental illness. c) There are other laws that hold people accountable for doing generally disruptive things in the street: 385.65, Interference with pedestrian or vehicular traffic; 427.220, Congregating on streets or sidewalks; 466.240, Assemblies obstructing pedestrian or veh...