Finding a Green Way to Govern

Please join me and West Bank residents and business owners for the first West Bank Safety Walk tomorrow, June 24th, at 7pm. We will meet at the Brian Coyle Center. This sort of proactive neighborhood organizing is especially important in the wake of the murders of Joe Sodd III and Abdullahi Abdi on the West Bank this year, and a number of non-fatal shootings. Thanks to the West Bank Safety Committee who, with help from the First Precinct, have organized this walking group. I hope to see you there.

Well, we got to within a single vote. Joining me in voting to repeal the Lurking ordinance were Council Members Benson, Glidden, Hodges, Remington and Schiff. I thank them for taking this courageous stand with me to repeal this bad law. Voting to keep it were Council Members Colvin Roy, Goodman, Hofstede, Johson, Lilligren and Samuels. CM Ostrow was not present, but voted against the repeal in committee. I thank all of my colleagues for investing time and energy into this valuable public discussion. I'm proud of the good points that we raised, and the elevation of the citywide conversation about racial and economic disparities in general and in our criminal justice system in particular. I also believe that Lurking will be used more sparingly and carefully in the near future, as both the MPD and the Attorney's Office know that it is under the microscope. Perhaps we'll get there next time. In the meantime, I look forward to hearing the UN Special Rapporteur's report on wh...

As you've likely heard, there was a tragic murder of a young man, Joe Sodd III, on the West Bank earlier this week. I know that he was a close friend to many people in our Ward and our City. His death is the second time this year a young man was killed in City Riverside and I hope we can all offer support and sympathy to the family and the community for the grief, pain and fear that they are feeling. There is more about how friends remember Joseph Sodd III here . There will be a public memorial event to Joe Sodd III this Sunday , at 3pm at Augsburg College's chapel followed by a gathering at Murphy Square Park at 4:00. There is also a memorial between 6 th and 7 th Streets S on 19 th Ave S, where neighborhood volunteers and people who know and love Joe brought flowers and left sidewalk chalk and ribbons that people can write messages on. Everyone is welcome at the the memorial and also to visit the plaza and express your wishes for peace and safety in the neighborhood,...

I recently crafted a statement on the lurking repeal which served as the foundation of a commentary in tomorrow mornings Star Tribune. Since they did not have room to publush the entire piece I decided to share it here. In it I have tried to capture what I think are the most important points and relevant facts. It will also serve as the basis for the comments I will make at the City Council meeting Friday where this will be considered. --------------- Since the Brooking Institute’s Mind the Gap report first made headlines in 2005, Minneapolis has done a lot we can be proud of to help close the significant racial and economic disparities the report identified as detrimental to the region’s future economic well being. When the new City Council took office in 2006, it pointed the City in a new strategic direction where “all Minneapolis residents will have a better quality of life and access to housing and services.” It called for “one Minneapolis” where “there will be living-wage jobs ...

The City's open house to get public input for the new Bicycle Master Plan is today. I wish I could make it but it looks like I will be too busy elsewhere. The 2008 plan will include goals, policies, and design guidance in addition to a map of future facilities. It focuses on what folks are calling "the 6 E's of making a city bicycle friendly:" Education, Enforcement, Engineering, Encouragement, Evaluation, and Equity. The plan reportedly includes a prioritized list of projects and initiatives. Public ideas and suggestions will be solicited at this event. A brief presentation will be given at 5, 6, and 7 p.m. Members of the City of Minneapolis Bicycle Advisory Committee will be present to answer questions. The open house will be held from 4:30 - 8 p.m. in Room 319 of the Minneapolis City Hall. If any of you get to go I would love to hear some feedback directly about what you think.

It looks like we've finally achieved a sense of unity on the Central Corridor LRT project that has been eluding us for months: the University is moving towards support for the Washington Avenue alignment. U President Bob Bruininks is quoted to say that "the university does not want to be in the position of bringing this project to a grinding halt or jeopardizing its possible future." I'm glad to see the University taking this position, after the data on their preferred Northern Alignment clearly indicated that it couldn't meet the federal funding formula. The City, County and University are making good progress on a Memorandum of Understanding outlining the mitigation that should be done as part of the project, betterments to the area that should be done outside of the project, and issues about design control on Washington Avenue. In the months ahead it will especially important for the City, County and University to work with neighborhoods to be sure the lin...

We had a very interesting and, in the end, disappointing Committee hearing and discussion today regarding the Lurking repeal effort. We heard outstanding public testimony with some 20 people speaking in favor of repealing lurking, some supporting the repeal but not with any expansion to loitering and one person speaking in favor of keeping lurking. In the end however, Council Member Paul Ostrow finally put forward a motion to return the item to author. This will go to the full Council for a vote on June 20 because it passed the committee 3-2, with CM Samuels abstaining. I do not expect this repeal effort to succeed at the Council. I will continue to make my case however. It would not be the first time the majority of the Council overturned something from the Public Safety Committee, but it will not happen without some significant work from both within and from outside City Hall. As disappointing as the vote was today and as hopeless as I feel about winning this one, I also feel ...

My office has gone through data on Lurking arrests and convictions in 2007, provided by the Minneapolis Police Department ( MPD ) and City Attorney's Office ( CAO ), and here's what we've found: 231 people were arrested in Lurking incidents in 2007 The race of arrestees is as follows: 118 African American 61 White 22 Other 14 Indian 8 Asian 8 Unknown This means that 51% of Lurking arrestees in 2007 were African American and 70% were people of color. These reflect the 2006 pattern pretty well. In '06 there were 167 people arrested or cited for “lurking” in the City. 133 of these people were people of color. 21 were homeless If you look at it from how effective these arrests are in terms of actually leading to a conviction it gets more interesting. Of the 231 involved in incidents, at least 150 people were arrested for Lurking in 2007, 136 of them adults. Only 77 cases (or 56% of the 136 total) have been tried by the City Attorney's Office. 19 of these individua...

The final day of the Public Hearing on the Lurking Repeal will occur at the Public Service and Regulatory Services Wednesday, on June 11. The meeting starts at 1 and this item is listed as "time certain" to begin at 2 pm.The matter will likely be decided on by the full Council at its next meeting, Friday, June 20. To accomplish this repeal effort, I am also proposing to add more behaviors to the loitering ordinance, making it cover crimes related to vandalism and theft. As I have said before about the Lurking Ordinance, I believe that this poorly written, old law is an example of how our city government participates in a larger criminal justice system that is racist and criminalizes poor people. I have become convinced that the Lurking ordinance in particular, and laws like it, play a subtle, but very real, role in the criminalization of Black, Latino and Native American men in particular. I oppose this law on practical as well as moral grounds. It is a waste of resources an...

The Remington/ Ostrow protest registration policy passed the Council last Friday. Only CM Gary Schiff and I voted against it. Before it passed however we we able to successful divide it into two proposals. The first, which included the registration provisions, is the only section that passed. The second, which included all the police conduct provisions, was referred back to the Public Safety Committee where it will be taken up again on Wednesday June 11. Before the registration portion passed, however, we managed to win an important victory with the help of CM Elizabeth Glidden : this resolution will not become a permanent policy of the City, but will only be effective during the week and a half around the RNC . Interestingly, I put forward the exact same amendment in committee, and it was voted down 3-2. We're not sure exactly what changed Council Members' minds, but the support for our position of the Minneapolis Regional Labor Federation, Minnesota Civil Liberties Uni...

The Governor and legislative leaders made an end of the session deal that includes $70 million in state funding for the Central Corridor LRT project. Lawmakers also passed a measure that will exempt the Central Corridor from state sales tax, which will save the project about $9 million. Additionally, the Metropolitan Council has voted to proceed with the Washington Ave alignment, rather than the Northern alignment alternative. This decision was driven in large part by the data that showed that the number of anticipated riders did not justify the cost of Northern Alignment and it would not fit into the federal government’s Cost Effectiveness Index. I am hopeful that this decision will now allow this project to go forward. The central corridor has the potential to be of great benefit to the neighborhoods in the area, the city of Minneapolis and to the larger region. Thanks in part to the studies of the tunnel, at-grade on Washington and the Northern Alignment options, we now have a clear...

The City is hosting an open house to solicit public input for a new Bicycle Master Plan on Wednesday June 18 , 4:30–8pm, in City Hall room 319. Unlike the last bicycle plan, approved in 2001, this new document will include policies and design guidance in addition to a map of future facilities, and a prioritized list of projects and initiatives. A brief presentation will be given at 5PM, 6PM, and 7PM. Members of the City of Minneapolis Bicycle Advisory Committee (including yours truly) will be present to answer questions.

Partly due to a request by my office, Representative Phyllis Kahn has introduced a bill, for consideration next year, to substantially improve the traffic laws with regards to bicycles. For cyclists, the proposal would make stop signs function like yield signs, and stop lights function like stop signs. I am very interested in exploring this further and will be working within the City to support this on our legislative agenda. I'd appreciate finding out what you think about this and what possible concerns you think people might raise to it and how we might address these. To read the bill, look here .

At today's press conference, Council Member Schiff and I were joined by Chuck Samuelson, director of the Minnesota Civil Liberties Union, and representatives of Women Against Military Madness, and Minnesota ACORN and OutFront Minnesota in opposing the proposed Ostrow/Remington protest registration process. We have also received a letter from Bill McCarthy, President of the Minneapolis Regional Labor Federation that states, in part, the following: "It remains our position that the proposed Resolution is a solution in search of a problem. We do not need it." Bill goes on to state that Labor remains "concerned... about provisions in the Resolution that appear to give broad discretion to the police to restrict First Amendment activities in the event that a particular organization chooses not to register... Thus, although there is no formal penalty for declining to register, it appears that in at least two places the Resolution grants to the police undefined discretion to...

The Longfellow Community Coalition has received one of the City’s Graffiti Innovation Grants and will be using this funding to create murals on sites often blighted by graffiti and vandalism this summer. Local youth will work with a contracted artist to design and paint the murals. They are currently seeking volunteers and youth ages 12 – 16 to make this project a success. Youth will attend two afternoon sessions the week prior to the mural to learn about muraling and graffiti from an arts instructor and to develop a concept for the mural. The following weekend will be spent painting the mural with a celebration afterwards. They are also looking for adult volunteers to assist at the mural sites including priming the site ahead of time, being part of our arts advisory council to work with the artist and determine themes that reflect our neighborhood, and assisting our youth muralists on painting days. If you are artistically inclined or have a desire to work with youth in our community,...