Finding a Green Way to Govern

For the second year in a row, I'll be leading a bicycling commuter convoy from the Seward and Cooper neighborhoods on Bike/Walk to Work Day , May 14. We'll leave the Birchwood Cafe at 7:30, after having some free pastries that Birchwood is graciously providing, and bike into downtown via this route . In downtown, we'll join the celebration in Hennepin County Government Center's north plaza. Due to the success we've had on Bike/Walk to work day in recent years, this year we've decided to extend the event to a week. For other Bike/Walk Week events, see here .

Canada is poised to declare that the chemical Bisphenol-A (also known as BPA) is toxic, laying the groundwork for a ban similar to what the Minneapolis City Council, at my urging, supported last month. The tide appears to be turning against this ubiquitous estrogen-mimicking chemical, and that's a very good thing.

Today, the Council voted to apply for the 2008 round of Non-Motorized Transportation grants. Our list of projects includes some important opportunities for the Second Ward: A better pedestrian connection between Seven Corners and Downtown along Washington Avenue, across the I-35W trench. Pedestrian upgrades to three important intersections on the West Bank, including Cedar and Washington, Cedar and Riverside (one of the worst intersections in the city for pedestrian/auto crashes), and Cedar and 5th. This last idea is especially exciting, because it will include a long-awaited new public sidewalk connecting Cedar to points east on vacated 5th. Turning 29th Ave S into a "bike/walk street" between E Franklin and Minnehaha Ave. This could include some modifications to the physical layout of the street, including “throating” and traffic circles, and would likely include extra signage, reduced speed limit, and could potentially include removal of stop signs. This facility will conn...

I'm participating in Dining Out for Life again this year, by hosting a lunch on Thursday, April 24, at noon, at Tam Tam's African Restaurant at 605 Cedar Ave S in the Cedar Riverside neighborhood. Tam Tam's will donate 20% of proceeds to the Aliveness Project, a community center for people living with HIV/AIDS. Other Second Ward restaurants participating in Dining Out for Life include: Birchwood Cafe, Cliquot Club Cafe, the Cupcake, Pi Bar and Restaurant, the Seward Pizza Luce, St. Martin's Table, and the Seward Cafe. Today, the Council passed a resolution honoring the Aliveness Project and endorsing this event.

The Elections Committee has passed a Request for Proposals for equipment and/or services to allow us to conduct the 2009 election using Ranked Choice Voting. The Election Department, led by Cindy Reichert, did a great job of putting together an RFP on a fast timeline - they were directed by the Council to do this work on March 7. The RFP is great, just what I was looking for. It offers flexibility on the question of error notification, making clear that we want full notification of all errors (overvotes, skipped rankings, ranking candidates more than once), but that it is not a hard requirement. The committee also passed an ordinance establishing our ranked choice counting rules. This ordinance was based on the output of Mark Ritchie's Ranked Choice Task Force that met last year, and was initially drafted by my Aide Robin and Jeanne Massey of FairVote Minnesota, along with Cindy Reichert and others. There was one small edit that I felt needed to be made, dealing with Normalization ...

As you can read here , here and here , the first trial of an August, 2007 Critical Mass arrestee has ended in an acquittal. For a day-by-day recap of the trial, look here . I continue to have serious concerns about both the MPD response to this event (see my previous post in this blog), and the subsequent decision to bring these charges forward to trial. This verdict strengthens my concerns, especially given the very short jury deliberation time before returning an acquittal. It's clear that the defense (led by the skilled civil rights attorney Jordan Kushner ) was able to successfully put the MPD response on trial. Testifying officers made claims that were very clearly contradicted by photographic and video evidence - perhaps one of the reasons that officers last August targeted those with cameras and video-enabled cell phones for enforcement action and physical force. This whole episode is an embarrassment to the City of Minneapolis, the Minneapolis Police Department, and now...

The planned City Open House on the Bicycle Master Plan has been postponed from April 16 until June.

Today, I won unanimous approval for a resolution I sponsored supporting the Human Rights Torch Relay . This is part of an international effort to help raise awareness about and change the inhumane, unjust and oppressive practices of the Chinese government. This group, which is advocating human rights in China and using the Olympic games as way to focus international attention on this issue is made up of a broad coalition including The Human Rights Torch Relay began months ago in Athens . The Relay will be in the Twin Cities on Thursday 4/16/2008. Here is a statement from the coalitions coordinator and an outline of the activities planned for that day. I hope to present out littel resolution of support at Coffman Union around noon. "As the Beijing Olympic gets closer Human Rights violation by the Chinese Communist Regime is in escalation. Chinese military forces opened fire to Tibetan protesting monks and civilians in Lhasa on Friday, March 14. Hundreds of Falun Gong Adherents Arre...

Seward Redesign and Seward Neighborhood Group are sponsoring two “Walks on the Avenue” this month. Small groups will walk down Franklin Ave, identifying and photographing aspects of the Avenue that work well or present a problem. Everyone who works, lives or owns property in Seward is invited. Walk #1 will take place Thursday, April 17, 4:30-5:30 , meeting at Pizza Luce (2200 Franklin). Walk #2 will take place Saturday, April 19, 10-11am , meeting at Second Moon (2225 Franklin). A Community-wide Workshop will be held on April 26th, 10:30-noon at Matthews Center, 2318 29th Ave S, to review the results of the walks and identify areas and topics that will be the focus of work in the weeks ahead. You can go here for more information about these events, and about the Great Streets kiosks that have gone up along Franklin in the past few weeks. I'll be attending the second walk and the workshop, and I hope to see you there!