Finding a Green Way to Govern

Minneapolis has coasted down to the #2 spot on Bicycling Magazine's Top 50 Bike Friendly Cities list, from being named the best bike city last year . This is a good thing, in my opinion.  It encourages us to keep working, stretching, trying new approaches, implementing the recommendations in the bike plan. Also fun: the Bi cycle Advisory Committee is called out as one of the things that makes Minneapolis a great bike city.

The city has lost a landmark: Walker Church burned down on Sunday after being struck by lightning.  It's a devastating loss to the members of the Walker community, many of whom put hours and hours of their own labor into maintaining the 100+ year old church.  It's also a blow to the many community groups who used the building for office and meeting space, including Communities Unitied Against Police Brutality and Occupy MN. I'm writing about this because it's also a loss to me and my family.  Though I'm not a member of Walker, it's the church my father served until his death in 2005, the church that filled to capacity for his funeral.  My sister and mother - clearly singing her heart out - appear in the Star Tribune's front page photo of the Walker congregation. Walker was a beautiful building.  The sanctuary had a stage, seating and acoustics so good for live performance that a group of friends and I organized a short-lived cabaret there in ...

On the expected, razor-thin 7-6 vote the City Council today voted to fork over hundreds of millions of dollars for the Minnesota Vikings, in violation of the Minneapolis Charter.  This represents the largest act of corporate welfare in Minneapolis history. Future generations will look back on this deal as a terrible day for Minneapolis, and will have a hard time cleaning up this mess. Voting with me against this deal, and to uphold the Charter: Robert Lilligren Lisa Goodman Elizabeth Glidden Gary Schiff Betsy Hodges Voting to nullify the Charter for this unprecedented corporate giveaway: Kevin Reich Diane Hofstede Barb Johnson Don Samuels Meg Tuthill John Quincy Sandy Colvin Roy We will all be held accountable by the voters in our wards for our stances on this issue, but the damage has been done.

One of many details that makes the Vikings stadium deal a bad deal for Minneapolis: the lost property taxes from the stadium site itself.  Earlier this month I learned that with the new expanded site eleven property tax paying addresses would become tax exempt.  That would result in the City, State, County and School will losing a total of $476,000 a year.   We also get some property taxes from the Target Center basketball arena and that the Timberwolves actually make annual payment of $1,381,656.10 in luie of propty taxes. Another 178,266.29 in property taxes comes form the Health Club paid by Lifetime Fitness and another $1,291.39 from the Arena sign that is also paid by the MN Timberwolves The stadium itself will be worth somewhere around $975 million.  According to the Minneapolis Assessor, a building valued at $975 million in today's market, suing today's formula, would pay $41 million in ...

I am very supportive of t his : keeping our energy options open by exploring creating a Minneapolis municipal utility for electricity and/or natural gas. It's clear to me that Minneapolis residents want to wean ourselves from fossil fuels and nuclear power, and to use energy more efficiently.  The existing utilities are not moving us towards that goal as quickly as we could if we took democratic control of our utilities. The City runs a very successful water utility, so successful that we sell water to other surrounding communities.  Water is one of the highest-rated services provided by the City.  We can clearly run a utility well, at a reasonable cost.  Along with the fact that many other cities - including both small communities and major metropolitan areas - already have municipal utilities, this gives me the comfort to move towards creating a municipal utility. As the energy utility franchise agreements expire, it's the right time for us to ask t...

The AARP has registered a ballot question fund to fight the Republican-led constitutional amendment to require voters to show a photo ID.  This is good news - the AARP has 650,000 members in Minnesota. This news also highlights the basic problem with this amendment: it will make it harder for certain types of Minnesotans, including the elderly, college students and immigrants, to vote.  And that is not an unwanted side-effect, that's the purpose of the amendment.  At some point, the Republican Party of Minnesota appears to have decided that it's a better electoral strategy to turn people who disagree with them away from the polls than to earn their votes. Keep fighting the good fight for a fair and open democracy, AARP!

This is cool: a new tool called Bike Score that gives a composite 'grade' for cities and neighborhoods on how bikeable they are.  The score is based on bike lanes, hills, biking destinations and the number of bike commuters. The kicker?  Minneapolis ranks highest among major cities in the US, with a composite score of 79 out of 100.  We beat out other great bicycling towns like Portland (which got only a 70), San Francisco (70), Seattle (64), Chicago (62), and New York (62). Some of that is pretty clearly due to our lack of hills relative to some of these other cities.  However, we also have a better spread of bike facilities throughout our community than one sees in most other similar cities, and a good spread of bike commuting. On that last note, I find it very interesting that the Second Ward is one of the "greenest" spots in Minneapolis on the bike commuting map.  The University likely has a lot to do with that, but high levels of bike commuters exte...

The Solid Waste and Recycling Division of Public Works has returned with their recommendation on the Minneapolis recycling program: we should move to a single sort system.  You can read the executive summary here and a very interesting powerpoint here . Some of the key findings: A single sort system will allow us to increase the amount of waste being recycled from our current, rather dismal 18% up to 32% .  That's still not as high as I'd like it to be, but it's a major improvement.  According to the study, a dual sort system would also increase waste diversion, but only to 25%. Processing for commingled recycling has gotten better, and processing costs are basically equal between single and dual sort. Staff are projecting that a single sort recycling program will cost the City 20% less to operate than the current multi-sort system, even taking the upfront costs for a new recycling cart for all Minneapolis residents into account, while increasing the amount ...

Just like in the House, the majority of Minneapolis State Senators voted against the stadium bill. Voting yes: Linda Higgins Ken Kelash Voting no: Scott Dibble Kari Dziedzic Jeff Hayden Patricia Torres Ray Again, if this is a good deal for Minneapolis, why couldn't stadium boosters convince two thirds of our senate delegation to vote for it? The numbers are now in, and they're not pretty: House: nine out of eleven opposed. Senate: four out of six opposed. Council: six out of thirteen opposed. Maybe the stadium deal really is a bad idea for Minneapolis residents?

As you can read here , the Minnesota Department of Public Safety has launched a criminal investigation into the allegations that police officers participating in the Drug Recognition Evaluator program gave drugs to Minneapolis residents.  This investigation was sparked by the allegations made on the Occupy video.  In particular, an officer from Hutchinson, MN is under investigation for giving drugs to DRE subjects. Public Safety Commissioner Mona Dohman has also suspended the DRE program until the investigation is complete. This is a very big deal.  I look forward to getting more information from this investigation, but it clearly indicates to me that the allegations made in the Occupy video were legitimate (and not, as some have asserted, some sort of left-wing conspiracy to make the police look bad). I commend these individuals for having the courage to come forward and testify at a City Council Public Hearing.  I also applaud the Public Safety Commissioner for...

Senator John Marty has amended the Minnesota Senate's Vikings stadium bill to prohibit the Legislature from exempting the stadium from the Minneapolis Charter's provisions on publicly funding stadiums.  Way to go John! With the 1997 Charter amendment becoming a major focus for folks on both sides of the stadium debate, I thought it might be a good idea to give a little context on it. The amendment passed with 70% of the vote back in '97.  That's huge in itself, but it's also interesting to point out that more than 62,000 people voted for it. That's more people than have voted for any candidate or ballot question in any Minneapolis municipal election in almost 20 years . Mayor Rybak hasn't gotten 62,000 votes in any of his successful mayoral bids.  He scored 57,739 in 2001, 43,198 in 2005 and 45,157 in 2009.  His predecessor, Sharon Sayles Belton, never scored over 62,000 votes either, netting 59,269 in 1993 and 52,222 in 1997 (a little under 10,...

The Minnesota House of Representatives has passed a Vikings stadium funding bill.  The changes that were made before it passed do not substantively change the impact on the people of Minneapolis, and I continue to oppose it. One of the clearest indications of how flawed this plan is: only two members of Minneapolis' House delegation voted for it, with the rest voting no. Those voting yes: Bobby Champion Paul Thissen Those voting no: Susan Allen Karen Clark Phyllis Kahn Jean Wagenius Diane Loeffler Jim Davnie Joe Mullery Marion Greene Frank Hornstein If this stadium is a good deal for Minneapolis, why did the vast majority (81%, by my math) of our elected officials in the House vote against it? I applaud the courage of the Representatives who stood up to the lobbying pressure of the NFL, the Vikings, the Governor and the Mayor and sided with the people of Minneapolis by voting no.

Here are some more details about Hassan Aden. On Saturday, a jogger found a body near the Franklin Avenue bridge.  As you can read here , the Medical Examiner has positively identified the body as that of Hassan Aden, the young Somali man who has been missing for over two weeks.  A cause of death has not yet been released, and will be available in another 4-6 weeks. My heart goes out to Hassan's family.  I can only imagine how difficult it would be to lose a child in this way.  It sounds like he was a wonderful young man, and his loss hurts not just his family but the community as a whole.

Late Monday evening, the police responded to a stabbing call at 512 Cedar Ave S.  They found Abdurahman Warfa dead from a stab wound to the neck.  Minneapolis Police arrested and the Hennepin County Attorney's Office has now charged Abdirahim Hahmed Jama with two counts of Second Degree Murder. It seems the two were roommates, and the stabbing occurred in the apartment they rented together.  There are several explanations for what happened, and I look forward to getting more information as the case progresses. This is the only homicide in the Second Ward in 2012.

Mayor Rybak has nominated his Chief of Staff, Jeremy Hanson Willis, to be the next director of the City of Minneapolis Department of Community Planning and Economic Development (CPED). Hanson Willis has served as Mayor Rybak’s chief of staff since 2009 and has been the Mayor’s primary liaison with CPED.   Prior to making the formal permanent appointment, the Mayor has appointed and the Executive Committee (with my support) has confirmed Hanson Willis as interim director for 3 months.   I am disappointed that a new CPED Director with a Planning background and more experience managing large budgets and staffs was not found.  The fact that Hanson Willis is the Mayor's Chief of Staff also gives me some pause.  However,  I intend to be open minded and think that the interim period will give Mr. Hanson Willis an opportunity to demonstrate his capacity to be successful in this very important position.

An 18 year old Somali man named Hassan Aden has been missing for more than a week. Monday, April 23rd, on his way back from school at Higher Ground Academy in St. Paul, he got off the school bus earlier than usual. He lives at 7th and Cedar, but exited the bus at Seward Tower East. The last time anyone saw him, he was walking towards the condo building on the northeast corner of East Franklin and 30th Ave S. He has not been heard from since. His family is understandably quite worried about him, and are asking anyone who may have seen him last week to call them at 651-855-8909, as well as contacting the police department.

The Council's Public Safety, Civil Rights and Health committee heard some disturbing testimony yesterday about how the State's " Drug Recognition Evaluator " program is being implemented in downtown Minneapolis.  The purpose of this program appears to be to train police officers from outstate areas on what people look and act like when they are under the influence of a given street drug. A video has been released on independent media that seems to show police officers from non-Minneapolis jurisdictions (Rochester, Mora, etc.) picking up young people from Peavey Plaza and returning them under the influence of marijuana and other drugs.  Some of the participants claim that the police actually provided them with the drugs they consumed.  One of the people on the video appeared to be close to the age of 18 and reported about how he was recruited, transported, given illegal drugs and asked to used them in a secluded location by government employed public safety employee...

Minneapolis Police Chief Tim Dolan, who has led Minneapolis’ police force since 2006, announced April 25 th that he will not seek a third full term as chief and will retire at the end of 2012 after a 29-year career with the Minneapolis Police Department.    Mayor Rybak first nominated Dolan to serve as interim chief in 2006.   The City Council confirmed Mayor Rybak’s nomination of Dolan to three-year terms as chief in 2007 with my support and in 2010 without it.    Before becoming chief, Dolan served in numerous command and leadership capacities in nearly every part of the city, including as deputy chief, inspector and commander of the 4th Precinct in North Minneapolis, commander of narcotics, commander of emergency response and director of training.    I am grateful to Chief Dolan for his years of service to the people of Minneapolis and despite some differences I have enjoyed working with him as Council Member.   He has been very hel...