Finding a Green Way to Govern

Today the Minneapolis City Council unanimously removed the question requiring disclosure of past criminal records on applications for employment with the City. The Council on Crime and Justice has been working with Council Members Glidden and Samuels on this for months. (I have been supportive as well, but they took the lead.) The reason to "ban the box" is that otherwise qualified applicants are discouraged from even applying for work with the City if they know that they will be asked this question. State law prohibits the City from making the answer to that one question the sole basis for refusing to hire someone, but it's understandable that folks are less likely to apply when they see that question asked right on the front of every application. There are some positions that require background checks. If and when a background check is needed, it will still be performed. All we've done is remove a question that doesn't provide meaningful and useful information ...

Months ago, the Civilian Review Authority (CRA) Work Group recommended that the City put subpoena power for the CRA on our Legislative Agenda. The purpose is to increase the quality of CRA investigations by giving them more access to information. City staff, including police officers, are already required to participate with CRA investigators, but there is obviously information concerning alleged incidents of police misconduct outside the City's enterprise: surveillance tapes, witnesses, documents, etc. There was some back and forth in the group about how broad our request for subpoena power should be. Should we ask for full powers, like the EEOC, Civil Rights Commission and others use, or should we ask for a narrower, limited power to subpoena just documents and not witnesses? At first, the Police Federation said they would fight us at the legislature if we asked for full subpoena power, but might not fight us if we asked for the narrower version. Partly for this reason, the subpo...

Several weeks ago, my office started getting calls from concerned Mpls chicken owners. They had noticed a proposed ban on roosters in the city, and wanted to know whose idea it was. My office asked Council Member Don Samuels' office about this, as Don was listed as the author. They pointed us to the Animal Care & Control staff, who had included the proposed ban in a list of amendments to the animal ordinances. Don was listed as author by dint of being Public Safety & Regulatory Services Committee ( PS&RS ) Chair. When we asked staff what the rationale was for the proposed ban, we heard it was about crowing. Staff had received some complaints about roosters crowing, but felt that they could not respond if the rooster is permitted. However, they could not provide me with the number of complaints, which had not been tracked. Additionally, the current ordinance requires chicken owners to get 80% of their neighbors within 100 feet of their property to sign a petition expre...

There has been a great deal of justified community concern and involvement about Library funding in recent months. Libraries are a vital public investment. Their health and welfare are intrinsically linked to the overall health and success of our residents and our City. I believe that we should be working to improve and expand library services and that we are right to resist closing libraries or limiting services in any way. I also appreciate the enormous pressure on the library board to make responsible decisions based on the funds they have available. Clearly this is a complex situation and serious issue worthy of the most informed and careful decision-making. All of this came into focus for the City Council this month during our budget deliberations and at our final budget meeting where we approved the budget on December 11. Throughout that process, and for the meeting on the 11th, there were three major goals I wanted the Council to accomplish: 1. Allocate enough "emergency...

A new Community Engagement Report , which reviews and summarizes a variety of reports and recommendations on the City’s current community engagement system and activities, is now available for public review and comment. The City Council plans to discuss the Community Engagement report early in 2007. I encourage you to review this report and get your comments in as soon as possible to Clara Perrin , Community Engagement Coordinator. It was brought to my attention that the timing of the comment period was just about the worst possible - releasing the report in late November and asking for comments by the beginning of January, coinciding with the holiday season. Many neighborhood organizations skip their December meetings, or hold more celebratory and less business-focused gatherings, or conduct annual meetings whose agendas are already full enough without a discussion of the City's Community Engagement Report. I forwarded these concerns to Steven Bosacker , the City Coordinator, alon...

Recently, I've gotten involved in another air quality issue (see the Morningstar post below for the first), this time up in Southeast Como. Southeast Como Improvement Association ( SECIA ) staff have recently learned that the air pollution permit for Greatbatch Globe Tool is coming up for renewal in December. They had earlier been told by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency ( MPCA ) that they would be notified of the renewal and have a chance to make public comment. This didn't happen. They found out on their own. This is problematic for several important reasons. First, because according to SECIA staff, Globe Tool emits 26,000 pounds of trichloroethylene (or TCE, a known endocrine disruptor and carcinogen) per year, or 15% of the annual Minnesota TCE emissions. The facility is the 4th greatest emitter of known endocrine disruptors and 3rd greatest emitter of known carcinogens in Hennepin County. It's reasonable that not all air pollution permits require hearings, but ...

Since about June, my office has been receiving complaints from neighbors about nuisance odors originating from Morningstar Coffee Company , which operates a facility on Snelling Ave, near the Franklin LRT station. The smell of roasting coffee (for those of you who haven't experienced it) is surprisingly unpleasant, reminiscent of badly burnt toast. The odor is pervasive and widespread - you can smell it during certain morning hours at the LRT station, and it gets into people's houses and lingers. Those with chemical sensitivies and asthma find the odor particularly problematic. I have learned that this is an ongoing issue that neighbors, the company and staff have been working on for over a year. The company has installed a "scrubber" technology to deal with the odors, which passes the smoke through water. This technology is clearly not working well enough. Many residents believe that the only technology that will fully address the odor is what most of the other coffe...