Finding a Green Way to Govern

The Charter Commission has adopted a new ward map .  I appreciate all the time and effort put into this and the involvement of the community. The new map also creates some problems. Let me review and explain. Before beginning to draw any maps, the Redistricting Group of the Charter Commission adopted a set of key principles for its work.  These principles included a) creating compact and contiguous wards, b) changing the existing ward boundaries as little as necessary , and c) keeping communities of interest whole to the extent possible. As far as I can tell, the Redistricting Group then essentially disregarded these principles. For an example of a non-compact ward, see the new Ward 6  (scroll down), especially in contrast with the old Ward 6 .  Indeed, Ward 6 seemed to become less compact with every iteration of the Redistricting Group's work - the February 15th map  featured a Ward 6 that was roughly as compact as the existing. The c...

Starting this spring, the City will no longer pick up yard waste in plastic bagsResidents may use compostable bags, paper lawn bags, or sturdy reusable containers. Using compostable plastic bags, Kraft paper lawn and leaf yard waste bags, or a reusable container, eliminates the need to debag yard waste before composting. This results in an improved collection program with lower yard waste processing costs and higher quality finished compost. From April 9 to May 7 there will be a four-week transition period for folks who have plastic leaf bags from last season. Through collection day the week of April 30, you may set out plastic bags of leaves from last fall or early spring for collection. Your yard waste crews will debag and collect your yard waste placing the empty plastic bags in your garbage cart and information about the new rules will be left behind. After May 7, 2012, all yard waste in conventional plastic bags will not be picked up but will be left and tagged to be repacka...

There's a great article in the TC Daily Planet detailing my office's work with Russ Henry on the compost ordinance amendments.  MinnPost also has a good description of the Urban Ag Text Amendments passing  the Zoning and Planning Committee last Thursday.

My colleagues Betsy Hodges and Elizabeth Glidden have coauthored a great op-ed on the problems with the stadium proposal that the three of us do not support.  I agree with their points, and would especially underline the sixth: a proposal that relies on legalese and loopholes to get around the referendum requirement written into the Minneapolis charter is fatally flawed from the outset.

This morning, the Urban Agriculture Text Amendments unanimously passed the Council's Zoning and Planning Committee, and in very strong shape. On hoop houses : their height will be limited to 6.5' on parcels with 1-4 unit residential buildings.  Everywhere else, they will be able to be 12' tall.  This would allow properly-sized hoop houses not only on market gardens, community gardens and urban farms, but also as accessory uses to institutions (schools, churches, etc.) and large apartment buildings. On market garden sale days : market gardeners will be allowed to sell directly to the public 15 days per year (down from staff's recommended 25 days, up from CM Tuthill's proposed 2 days).  They will not be restricted to one sale day per week, as staff recommended, but will have to post contact info on their farm stand each day they're open and notify their neighbors at the beginning of the season. And on raised bed materials : CM Tuthill moved a version of her ...

This morning, the Council unanimously passed the compost ordinance I authored.  This is a big deal for Minneapolis, in two important ways. First, it fits into the broader Homegrown Minneapolis initiative to grow more food in our city.  Much of our soil is compacted, depleted, or contaminated from decades of urban use.  If we really want to grow more healthy local food, first we have to grow more healthy local dirt .  Composting is the best way to do that. Second, this ordinance fits into the City's broader environmental initiatives.  We have aggressive goals to create less waste - for instance, by burning less garbage.  One of the key ways to increase our diversion rate will be to get the reusable organics out of the waste stream.  And if we're going to compost that material, there is literally no better place to manage it than in our backyards and community gardens, where it's generated. This ordinance makes major progress on both of those go...

The Council has again adopted a resolution supporting Earth Hour.  On March 31, from 8:30pm-9:30pm, the City will participate in Earth Hour by turning off all uses of electricity in municipal buildings not required for life, safety or operations, and will turn off the decorative lighting on the Stone Arch Bridge for the entire night as a symbol of the City’s commitment to being part of the solution to climate change. The resolution also honors the major downtown buildings that are participating in Earth Hour.  See a list below the fold.

I am adding my voice to the growing number of those speaking up to support CeCe McDonald and call for fairness, transparency and expediency in her case. Chrishaun CeCe McDonald’s case started with a tragic incident that occurred last summer that left one person dead. The basic facts don’t seem to be an issue in this case that now centers on CeCe, a 23 year-old African-American transgender woman charged with second-degree murder. According to Outfront Minnesota, “CeCe and several of her friends, who are all African-American, were walking by a bar in South Minneapolis early on the morning of June 5, 2011 when the incident occurred. A group of much older bar patrons standing outside the bar verbally assaulted CeCe and her friends with transphobic and racist slurs: “faggots,” “niggers,” “chicks with dicks” and more. That group, led by 47-year-old Dean Schmitz of Richfield—a man with a swastika tattooed on his chest, remarked that Cece was dressed “like a woman” in order to rape him. A...

The Governor, Mayor Rybak, and the Vikings have come out with a deal.  Unfortunately, it changed very little from the previous proposal that the Mayor and Council President presented several weeks ago to the Council's Committee of the Whole.  I had hoped that the fact that seven Council Members had gone on record at that meeting opposing the plan would have inspired some compromises and changes on key objections, including the refusal to put it to a referendum, but, regrettably, it did not. I continue to oppose any scheme for the City of Minneapolis to contribute hundreds of millions of dollars ($338.7 million in this proposal), to a private enterprise without a referendum.  It is also worth noting that the City Finance Director estimates that that $338.7 in present day dollars will actually amount to $650 million by the time everything is paid off in 2046. I will not vote for this plan. One reason why I oppose this plan is because I th...

At the end of a record-breaking Zoning and Planning committee meeting (five and a half hours long!) the committee continued the Urban Agriculture zoning code text amdendments until its next meeting on March 22nd.  Before tabling it, the committee received some possible amendments that will be voted on on the 22nd.  You can find them here  under item 6. I'm going to briefly describe the four amendments and one motion below, and then offer some reaction and analysis of each.  The first three are from Council Member Tuthill: 1) Limit Hoop Houses to six feet, everywhere in the city .   (Hoop houses are temporary season extension structures that are often constructed in half-cylinder shapes from metal braces and covered in transparent plastic sheeting.) Analysis: this is a bad idea, for many reasons.  Growers have been very clear that six foot tall hoop houses will not meet their needs, making this effectively a ban on hoop houses in the city.  As s...

I want to thank Governor Dayton for vetoing the terrible Shoot First bill yesterday.  As much as we might disagree about the City's role in financing a stadium for the Vikings, I'm glad he's there to block bills like this from becoming law. Bottom line: this bill would have made Minneapolis residents much less safe.  It would have increased the risks to Minneapolis police officers.  It would have done away with any expectation that people in threatening situations seek to leave the situation before resorting to deadly force.  It would have opened Minnesota up to a flood of guns from other states with much less stringent licensing requirements and made it harder to remove guns from households with domestic violence problems. And it's just not necessary . Even the bill's most fervent backers admit that no one in Minnesota has been unfairly prosecuted for shooting someone in self defense.  So if there isn't actually a "castle doctrine" problem to b...

The Minnesota Legislature is considering a terrible bill that would dramatically weaken the Minneapolis Civilian Review Authority by preventing it from making findings of fact (as authorized by the Minneapolis CRA ordinance).  As someone who has fought to strengthen the CRA, I strongly oppose this awful idea.  It’s interesting to note that it is not supported by any members of the Minneapolis legislative delegation.  I find it very disappointing that some any members of the legislature have signed on as supporters of this.

The Republicans in the state legislature have introduced yet another ill-conceived bill that would impose an unnecessary and destructive moratorium on rulemaking by state agencies.  Among other things, this would stop work on the Pollution Control Agency’s amendments to their composting rules which would, ironically, significantly loosen the existing regulations on composting businesses both large and small.  So in an effort to prevent government from getting in the way, they're inadvertently keeping government from getting out of the way.  That’s the kind of unintended consequence that results from this sort of broad-brush anti-government extremism, and shows what happens when the Legislature is controlled by folks who seem to have no real interest in governing.  It's good to see that no DFLers have signed on to this one.

In light of the concerns I heard at the most recent meeting about the Riverside Plaza renovation project, my office has scheduled a public meeting for West Bank residents regarding tenants’ rights on Tuesday , March 27 at 7pm at the Brian Coyle Center. City staff and legal experts will be there to help people understand their rights as tenants and what they can do if they have concerns about their housing, maintenance, management or landlords.

In February new solar installation was put on Fire Station 19 to provide electricity and hot water to the building. The station is one of six Minneapolis buildings that have new solar installations funded by a grant from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act through the Minnesota Department of Commerce, and using Xcel Energy rebates. The roof of Fire Station No. 19 features 58 new solar electric panels, which will provide 9.83 kilowatts of power, and three solar thermal panels, which will provide the fire station with 50 to 70 percent of its hot water needs.

Seward resident Becca Vargo-Daggett, who was one of my appointees to the Capital Long Range Improvement Committee (or CLIC), has moved out of Minneapolis.  I thank her for her years of service on CLIC and wish her well. I need a new CLIC appointee, and I am looking for someone from the west side of the river – Seward, the West Bank, or Cooper.  CLIC makes recommendations to the City Council and Mayor on capital improvement program development and annual capital improvement budgets, and has tremendous influence on the infrastructure investments the City makes.  If you are interested, please contact my office, or apply here .

As I’m sure you’ve heard, the Martin Olav Sabo bicycle and pedestrian bridge over Highway 55 suffered a critical failure of two of its support cables on Sunday, February 18 th .   Public works staff presented an update to Council yesterday that you can read here . The Sabo bridge's problems disrupted traffic on Highway 55 and operations on the Hiawatha LRT for a little more than a week.   Public Works staff have responded quickly and professionally to this unexpected problem, shoring up the bridge and getting traffic and LRT service reopened as soon as possible.   Problems with other cables and their connections to the bridge have been discovered, and the City has hired a contractor to investigate what caused these failures.   These cables are a little over five years old, and were inspected just last year and found to be in good condition.   The bridge itself is closed to bicycle and pedestrian traffic indefinitely.   I support this important an...