Finding a Green Way to Govern

My office has received multiple contacts about the Minneapolis Police Department's response to the bike ride and fundraiser organized by the supporters of the RNC8 this past Saturday. Forty to fifty cyclists, who rode peacefully and obeyed traffic rules, were trailed by at least four bike cops, one marked and one unmarked squad car, and two booking vans. One person was arrested for disorderly conduct. After the morning ride, the group met, as planned, at Walker United Methodist Church for lunch. They declined to continue with their First Amendment-protected, peaceful and legal assembly, because they were intimadated. It sounds like MPD officers waited around the church for about two hours, waiting for the ride to resume. Yesterday I asked for more information from Minneapolis Police administration. I was concerned, given the evidence I had seen so far, that the MPD's actions last Saturday were in violation of the Council's "Police Policies for Public Assemblies" ...

This morning, the Council voted on a significant overhaul of the City's Heritage Preservation ordinance. Though everyone is relatively clear that these changes are a step in the right direction, there has been a certain level of controversy in the neighborhoods and among heritage preservation experts. Many of the questions that have been asked are about whether the proposed changes go far enough. Folks wanted to have a better idea what is included in a new definition in the code: 'destruction' of a historic resource. Neighborhoods also wanted to have more notice about demolitions. Yesterday, I was prepared to bring two amendments to what staff had proposed. The first, which had full support of staff, was a better definition of destruction: "the removal, damage, or enclosure of architectural, mechanical, or landscape features that may have an adverse effect on the historical integrity and significance of a property including, but not limited to, the removal of the prima...

The Police Department has created an interesting new tool: a web page that makes it easy to share your feedback - positive or negative - on police officers and the work they do. It basically repackages in one place the intake forms for the Civilian Review Authority and Internal Affairs Unit, along with a new form that you can use to compliment an officer for a job well done.

Starting at 7am next Monday March 30, Como Ave SE from 22nd Avenue SE to 24th Avenue SE will be closed to all traffic to complete the Como Avenue road and bridge project. It's proposed to reopen in late May of 2009. The detour will be 18th Ave SE to East Hennepin to 29th Avenue SE to Como Ave SE in the eastbound direction and 29th Avenue SE to East Hennepin Avenue to 18th Avenue SE in the westbound direction.

The third annual Minneapolis Teen Job Fair will take place on April 25, from noon–4pm at the Hennepin County Library. Teens 14 and up will have an opportunity to attend workshops, meet employers, and get information about jobs, volunteering and internships. This event is sponsored by the Hennepin County Library, the City of Minneapolis Employment and Training Program, the MN Department of Employment and Economic Development, AchieveMpls and others. Contact Pat Behrend at 612-673-6220 for more information.

I'm pleased to have been joined by a new Minneapolis blogger: Mayor RT Rybak. Check out his new blog here . It looks great. I've heard from his staff that the SecondWard blog was an inspiration to jump in the blogging waters, and I'm happy to have been able to blaze this particular trail. Though there are some potential pitfalls - and we've found them - I strongly believe that blogging is a good tool for elected officials. We can get into more depth on this blog than in any other public communication (newsletters, for example), delving into the complexity that each issue demands. I think the public is well-served to know not just what issues are before us, and not just how we vote on them, but why . What's the background information, what principles motivate us, what arguments do we find most persuasive? Blogging lets elected officials address these questions much better than any other medium I've found. I think the city would be better off if more policymakers ...

For the second year running, Minneapolis will be participating in Earth Hour . From 8:30-9:30pm, local time, people all over the world will turn off their lights to call attention to global climate change. This Friday, the Council will vote on a resolution that commits us to participating by turning off the lights on the Stone Arch Bridge, the City Hall clock tower and all other uses of electricity "not required for life, safety or operations." Thanks to all of the downtown buildings that are also participating: 701 Building Accenture Tower Hennepin County Central Library Hennepin County Government Center Plaza Hennepin County Century Plaza Hennepin County Environmental Services Building Hennepin County Family Justice Center Hennepin County Juvenile Justice Center IDS Center Target Corporate Offices US Bancorp Center US Bank Plaza Wells Fargo Center Wells Fargo Home Mortgage Center Xcel Energy – Nicollet Mall Many of these same buildings are also participating in the Lights ...

There was news story about violent youth crime that shares some of the work the City has been doing. While they did not mention to work of our Youth Violence Prevention committee and staff coordinator, it is this work that has led to many of the improvements in policing and criminal justice practices that are mentioned in the story. Here some of the story and the link: "Minneapolis juvenile crime continues downtrend Minneapolis police arrested a 15-year-old Wednesday for a shooting near Fairview Park that left two kids wounded. The shooting got us thinking about young people and crime in the Twin Cities…That's why we took a look at the very latest numbers on juvenile crime in Minneapolis…Juvenile crime is down 17 percent from 2007 to 2008. Violent juvenile crime is down 25 percent.Trisha Volpe, KARE11, http://www.kare11.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=542706&catid=2 " Even if we are making progress we must do more to keep guns away from our kids and to prevent more...

To celebrate Public Health Week, the Minneapolis Department of Health and Family Support is offering an open house on Wednesday, April 8 from 11 am-1pm at their offices in the Public Service Center (250 South 4th Street) on the 5th floor. The public is invited to come see our efforts to build a healthy city. Staff will be available to discuss our current programs, initiatives and our partnerships with the community. If you have any questions, contact Hattie Wiysel here .

As you can read here , the Minnesota Supreme Court has decided to expedite their review of the appeal that the Minnesota Voters Alliance brought to the City's courtroom victory on Ranked Choice Voting. Briefs from the City, FairVote Minnesota (which is intervening on the City's behalf) and the Alliance are due in mid-April, with a hearing scheduled in May. This is great news.

To build on the great success we've had in 2007 and 2008 , the City is again offering grants to organizations that want to help people in Minneapolis take steps to fight climate change. Any Minneapolis nonprofits, including neighborhood groups, business organizations and churches, are eligible to apply. The results of these grants have been pretty impressive. Small amounts of City funding have been translated into significant reductions in carbon emissions - and energy costs to residents. For instance, last year's participants committed to saving about 2.7 million pounds of carbon dioxide and $647,220 annually on their energy use. Minneapolis was the first city in the country to offer this sort of program, and a number of other cities are now following our lead. We're offering two different types of grants this year: Grassroots Climate Change Micro Grants of up to $1,500. The application deadline is 4pm on April 16. Climate Change Innovations Grants of up to $10,000. The...

This Sunday, there will be a forum at Faith Mennonite Church to talk about affordable housing in general, and proposals for the Bystrom site in Seward near the Franklin Station in particular. Representatives from Touchstone, PPL , Redesign, and MICAH will be there. I have been asked to help spread the word and think this offers the area a great opportunity to learn and more and discuss important issues and a particular proposed development in the area. Here is the official notice I got today: Forum on Affordable, Supportive Housing in Seward , Sunday, March 15, 5:30 - 6:25 pm at Faith Mennonite Church (2720 E. 22 nd St., Mpls ) The Community of St. Martin and Faith Mennonite Church are offering an Adult Education session about a new affordable housing project that is proposed in the Seward neighborhood. Please come join this discussion to learn more about this project. MICAH, the Metropolitan Interfaith Council for Affordable Housing, will be presenting a program on the impact of th...

The City of Minneapolis is hosting two open houses to give property owners an opportunity to learn more about their property taxes, as well as programs that may provide some property tax relief. Folks can get information on subjects ranging from homestead credit and market value to lead abatement rebates, senior citizens deferrals and disabled veteran programs. UNDERSTANDING YOUR PROPERTY TAXES Wednesday, April 8, 2009 4:30 to 7 p.m. Webber Park Community Center4400 Dupont Ave. N. Thursday, April 9, 2009 4:30 to 7 p.m. Pearl Park Neighborhood Center 414 E. Diamond Lake Road Staff from the City Assessor’s Office will be on hand to provide you with information about Minneapolis property taxes, and to answer your questions. Cookies and refreshments will be served. This flyer has more details on the open houses, including information on translation services.

Today I received a letter from the Minneapolis Public Housing Authority (MPHA), thanking the Minneapolis Fire Department for some great work on Saturday, February 28. Sometime that afternoon, a water main broke in the basement of one of the Cedars highrises on the West Bank. Four feet of water flooded the boiler rooms, damaging both of the building's boilers and shutting off heat to the building. MPHA couldn't solve this problem on their own, so they called the Fire Department. Engine #8, Ladder Truck #3 and Rescue #1 responded, and our firefighters helped to remove the water quickly enough that the boilers could be repaired and restarted by early Sunday morning. Without their work, the building may have sustained serious freeze damage, resulting in serious disruptions to the lives of a large number of low-income residents of the ward. I wanted to take this opportunity to thank both the Minneapolis Fire Department as a whole and those who responded to this situation individuall...

I was glad to join Mayor Rybak, University President Robert Bruiniks and Transit for Livable Communities Director Lea Schuster and a number of others for a celebration of the most recent Nonmotorized Transportation grant recipients: the Minneapolis bike sharing system and a new U of M Bike Center. The bike sharing system, which I've written about before, is an incredibly exciting opportunity. People in downtown, uptown, midtown, the University area and the West Bank will be able to pick up a bike at one kiosk and ride it to another, either by preregistering or on a one-time basis. The Bike Center will feature a first-of-its-kind rider frequency measurement program, a great way for individuals to log their miles and for the U to measure its progress towards increasing the percentage of students, faculty and staff getting to campus on bikes. The event took place this morning, March 10, at the MN Oak Street Parking Ramp at the corner of Oak & Delaware Streets - where the new Bik...

This Friday, the Council will hold a study session I've sponsored on the Cradle to Prison Pipeline . The Cradle to Prison Pipeline campaign is a national effort of the Children’s Defense Fund to engage families, youth, community leaders, institutions and policy makers in the development of healthy, educated children. It promotes policies that put children on track to productive adulthood and opposes those that punish and criminalize children at younger and younger ages. The report, issued in 2007, served as a foundational document for Minneapolis’ Blueprint for Action: Preventing Youth Violence in Minneapolis . At the study session we will be joined by Marian Wright Edelman , president and founder of the Children's Defense Fund. She is on town from Washington DC and we are inviting her to share her thoughts on the progress of the campaign, how our Youth Violence Prevention Plan supports it and how we, as local policymakers, can work better together to focus more attention on ...

I've heard that the Seward Coop has been selected as a finalist for the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal's 2008 Best in Real Estate awards. I'm proud that the City was able to play a role through the Great Streets program in bringing this great project to fruition, and I'm pleased that my office was able to play a role in helping it navigate the City's approval process. Congratulations to the Coop, to Redesign, and also to the Seward residents who helped design this project through their participation on the Riverside Market Task Force.

I'm disappointed by another action taken by the Council this morning, related to the decrease in taxi fares. This goes back to the action the Council took last year to lift the cap on taxi licenses. Drivers asked the City to institute a process to change the fares every year, rather than every two. The Council wanted to depoliticize the process - which I completely support - and we established a formula for staff to use in coming up with a new fare rate. Unfortunately, the first time we used this process the fares dropped precipitously from $2.35 to $2 per mile, a decrease of almost 15%. Try to imagine a 15% in your own wages, to see how this feels to cab drivers. I asked drivers to talk to Ricardo Cervantes, the Licensing staff person in charge of the rate formula. He came up with an elegant solution: delay the fare change until March 1, 2010. In the intervening year, we can come up with a formula that will be less dependent on the price of fuel, and therefore less subject to vola...

Over my strong objections and dissenting vote, the Council has voted to put in place the Commercial Property Registration program and associated fee that many, many Second Ward business owners have contacted me to oppose. This finally passed the Council, after kicking around in committee for months, in large part because Mayor Rybak proposed using the revenue it's expected tol raise from businesses – approximately $950,000 every year – to prevent laying off about 21 firefighters. I have opposed this program since it first came to the Council, for a number of reasons: No one has been able to make a convincing case that this program is necessary to prevent fires. This makes it very clear that the program is being put in place simply to fill an existing budget hole, and I do not believe this is responsible or fair. I am opposed to the increasing reliance of government on fees and fines for our revenue, rather than relying on progressive taxation. These are the sorts of gimmicks that G...

The City has been quietly working on a number of important initiatives that will help us reduce the amount of energy we use, decreasing our costs and our carbon footprint. I wanted to let folks know about some of these great projects that you probably haven't heard much about. We began offering paperless utility billing in October. You can sign up here to get your utility bills electronically instead of in the mail. We purchased two electric fleet cars, a ZENN and an e-ride, in November. The Convention Center has made investments in sustainability, including computer-controlled lighting that dims or shuts off whenever possible to save energy. We have three solar arrays producing a total of 11.8 kilowatts of power, and in 2006 they saved the City $1,250 on its electricity bill and reduced carbon dioxide output by 21,400 pounds. We are continuing to pursue a major solar installation - the largest in the upper Midwest - on the roof of the Convention Center. The idling ordinance we pas...

I'm happy to see Mayor RT Rybak openly challenging Governor Tim Pawlenty's false assertions regarding the Minneapolis budget. For instance, Pawlenty charged that the Mayor's proposed budget would lay off police officers. It's not true - no police layoffs are proposed. In fact, the Mayor would spend more and provide a larger police force than ever. Pawlenty also went after a nonexistent “department that relates to the cultural and artistic affairs,” which has not been in place since 2002. It does not seem that the Governor's budget advisors are keeping him well informed. As RT points out, we balance our budgets in Minneapolis, and we plan for the next five years, unlike Pawlenty's strategy of one-time fixes and budget gimmicks that have helped produce this more than $5 billion deficit. Moreover, our spending has increased by a much slower rate (3.5%)than the State's (11%) over the past five years, adjusted for inflation. More importantly, Pawlenty has the fis...

I learned today that the City's Community Planning and Economic Development has fully committed $50,000 to our portion of the University District Partnership Alliance's Homebuyer Incentive Program. This program will offer $10,000 in down payment assistance to people seeking to buy and homestead properties in one of the University District neighborhoods: Cedar Riverside, Southeast Como, Prospect Park, the West Bank and Marcy Holmes. This was one of my major goals for the City's participation in the Alliance, and I am glad to have been able help the City match the amounts contributed by the University and the state legislature through the Alliance . I'm optimistic that this investment will not only help us increase the home ownership rate in the U District, but also send a signal that the City is dedicated to preserving the character of the U District neighborhoods.