Finding a Green Way to Govern

I am grateful and humbled to have been reelected to a third term as Second Ward Council Member.   I thank the voters of Ward 2 for your continued confidence.   As I have over the last eight years, I will do my best to represent all the people of the Ward on the City Council, and work to make Minneapolis a more just, democratic, sustainable and peaceful city where everyone can enjoy their lives and thrive. I consider it a great honor and a great joy to be able to continue to serve you and all of Minneapolis as a City Council Member. We can more effectively improve our community and support one another if we work together. So please feel free to share your hopes, concerns and ideas with me anytime. I also encourage you to get involved with your neighborhood and business associations and with the work you see in the community that you support. If you think of any way that I, or Robin or Nancy from our office, can be of assistance to you, please don’t hesitate to contact us an...

Below is an open letter from me and five of my Minneapolis City Council colleagues to National Football League Commissioner Roger Goodell and Washington Redskins team owner Dan Snyder expressing our disapproval of the team’s name in advance of the November 7th game against the Minnesota Vikings in Minneapolis and the planned rally, march and rallies to be held on the same day. For more details please look here and here . An Open Letter to National Football League (NFL) Commissioner Roger Goodell and Washington, D.C. NFL Team Owner Dan Snyder November 4, 2013 Dear Commissioner Goodell and Mr. Snyder, We, the undersigned members of the City Council of the City of Minneapolis, are writing to express our disapproval of the Washington Redskins team name and mascot. The Redskins are due to play the Minnesota Vikings in Minneapolis on November 7, 2013. We join those Minnesota residents who will be protesting outside Mall of America Field in condemning the racism inherent in the “...

Minnesota Public Radio has run a story  with James Norton from the Heavy Table about the Seward neighborhood being increasingly viewed as a place to get a great meal.  Tracy's, the Seward Coop, Birchwood Cafe, and Verdant Tea get shout-outs.  The closing of True Thai is also mentioned. Among the other great restaurants in Seward that didn't get mentioned: the Seward Cafe, the Blue Nile, Pizza Luce, Himalayan Restaurant and Shabelle Restaurant, as well as Precision Grind coffee shop. It's great to see folks from the whole Twin Cities recognizing the special food scene in Seward.  I hope it will generate an upswing in business for Seward small businesses.

Earlier today, I voted with all of the rest of my colleagues to allow the demolition of the former Gluek's Tied House / Rainbow Gallery building.  I see this as an unfortunate outcome, but the only decision I could make. It is important to place this development in a broader philosophical context.  As I see it, the Green perspective on density is that the more good-quality housing we can build in the right places – with good access to jobs, non-motorized transportation infrastructure, cultural, educational and recreational amenities, and transit – the more we fight the urban sprawl that destroys farmland and encourages auto dependency.  Greater density doesn’t just have environmental benefits, either.  We live in a city that was built for a population of 500,000 people (the peak that we hit in the 1950s), but which has a current population of less than 400,000 people.  That means that we have fewer people paying into maintaining our infrastructure and suppo...

The Journal has run an op-ed I wrote answering some frequently asked questions about ranked choice voting.  I encourage you to go read it, but here are the main points: You can't help your most-preferred candidate by "bullet voting" for him or her, and you can't  hurt your most-preferred candidate by using all three of your rankings RCV is not responsible for the huge mayoral field - that's the fault of the low filing fee and no incumbent on the ballot RCV is not confusing to voters, according to research conducted on the Minneapolis municipal election in 2009 Voters should use all three rankings, if there are three candidates they support RCV has produced a mayor's race without the low-turnout primary and without the rancor and divisiveness of past races, and that's a good thing

In 1923, Jack Trice was a star African American football player for Iowa State College, located in Ames, Iowa.  Trice and the Iowa State team played the University of Minnesota Gophers on October 6, 1923, on Northrup Field in what is now the Second Ward of Minneapolis. The night before the game, Trice was forced to stay at a different hotel than his teammates, due to the unjust racial segregation then in effect in Minneapolis.  In his hotel the night before the game, Trice wrote the following: “My thoughts just before the first real college game of my life: The honor of my race, family & self is at stake. Everyone is expecting me to do big things. I will. My whole body and soul are to be thrown recklessly about the field tomorrow. Every time the ball is snapped, I will be trying to do more than my part. On all defensive plays I must break through the opponents' line and stop the play in their territory. Beware of mass interference. Fight low, with your eyes open and...

This morning, the Council unanimously adopted a new policy on adopting “power breeds” of dogs like pit bulls and Rottweilers.   It allows Animal Care and Control to adopt out these dogs if they pass a behavioral assessment. This policy is likely to substantially reduce the number of dogs euthanized by the City, as 45% of dogs euthanized last year belonged to power breeds.   The Council will have to increase the funding for Animal Care and Control by about $50,000 per year to pay for the behavioral assessments, but we may also save money in the long term by not having to house as many dogs for as long a time. I was very supportive of this policy change, and appreciate the focus by Animal Care and Control on reducing the number of animals they put down each year.   I also added a staff direction to this policy change for Animal Care and Control to come back to Council early next year and share their plans for screening both dogs and potential owners.  One con...

This morning, the Council passed amendments to the residential density standards in the Zoning Code.  I was very supportive of this change, and disagreed with my colleagues Meg Tuthill and Robert Lilligren about the impacts that it will have. Here's what it does: it removes the minimum lot area per dwelling unit for high-density residential uses.  It won't affect the low- and medium-density residential districts R1 through R4. Here's what it doesn't do: it doesn't let developers build bigger buildings.  Nothing in this amendment would allow additional building height or bulk in any zoning district. The amendment may allow for more dwelling units per acre.  For example, before this change, a development with R5 zoning on a 70,000 square-foot could lot incorporate 100 dwelling units.  This theoretical development might build all two-bedroom units, for a total of 200 bedrooms.  Under the new rules, a developer could now construct the same building with...

I have organized a Roundtable Discussion about the threats and opportunities facing our urban tree canopy, for October 7 , 7-8:30pm, at Longfellow Park, 3435 36th Ave S.  We will discuss the tree loss from this summer’s storm, Emerald Ash Borer, the importance of watering trees, and the Longfellow Trees program.  You can find out more about Longfellow Trees here . That pro-pesticide poll might also be a topic of discussion.

For months, we have had a public conversation about the type of bicycle facility that should be installed on Minnehaha Avenue.  This is part of a broader community conversation about how public agencies can change our streets to make them safer and more welcoming for bicyclists and pedestrians.  In turn, this is part of a much broader set of discussions about how we can increase public health, reduce our impact on climate change, and reinvigorate our commercial corridors. Unfortunately, Hennepin County has decided to reject a physically protected cycletrack option for Minnehaha Avenue and to instead pursue a more traditional on-street painted bike lane option. Few people I have spoken to supported the cycletrack layout that Hennepin County presented to the public, because it had several major problems: It required the loss of approximately fifty additional trees It required the loss of approximately fifty additional parking spaces It did not include any of the ...

A new poll, conducted by Public Policy Polling, purports to show that the people of Minneapolis love pesticides and want the City and Park Board to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars injecting said pesticides into ash trees, rather than removing and replacing them. Guess who paid for the poll?   Arborjet , the manufacturers of one of the pesticides in question. If that's not reason enough to take these results with a shaker full of salt, here are some of the not-at-all loaded questions respondents were asked: "Do you believe the city should remove 40,000 otherwise healthy ash trees before Emerald Ash Borer kills them, or do you think an environmentally-sound ash-protection option should be pursued?" "If you knew residential and city ash trees could be confidently protected with a small amount of insecticide sealed inside the tree using trunk injection, would you support or oppose that option?" "Would you expect city leaders to adopt an environ...

This is good news: Congress is poised to close the Saint Anthony lock.  This will effectively stop the spread of invasive carp species to the rest of the Mississippi and related watersheds north of Minneapolis.  It will also save taxpayer money, because this lock now sees much less use than comparable facilities. I realize that there will be some impact on industry, and some of that impact will be in Minneapolis.  But the job and other economic losses from the lock closure - 72 jobs, according to one report - are nothing compared to the economic impacts of the invasive carp taking over the waterways north of our city.  And this closure may also aid the efforts of North and Northeast Minneapolis to redevelop the riverfront, which will create different kinds of jobs and housing opportunities. A note on the risks posed to waterways in northern Minnesota: they're not "exaggerated," no matter what the Army Corps of Engineers says.  While there are dams north of M...

The Star Tribune is out with a blog post that asserts that Minneapolis elections officials "project 75 percent voter turnout." I am concerned that there may have been some miscommunication because I don't think that's not quite right.  As the Council's Elections chair, I have been in many conversations with our Elections staff about this fall, and I can say with certainty that the Elections department has not made a prediction for voter turnout.  Rather, staff have set the staffing levels for precincts based on a 75% turnout, because it's far better to have too many election judges on election day than too few.  They based that decision on the factors cited by Elections Director Wachlarowicz in the article: the open mayor's race, past trends, etc.  But this is intended to be a conservative, high-water-mark estimate that will ensure that we don't create problems for voters this November. My concern is that this misleading headline - "Minneapo...

At this morning's Council meeting, a motion to create a moratorium on development in Dinkytown failed on a 6-6 vote.  I voted for imposing the moratorium. As I predicted when the Council was discussing the Opus project, our decision to grant the rezoning for Opus has been taken as a signal by the development community that it is open season in Dinkytown.  At least one additional developer has brought forward a project that will demolish existing commercial buildings and replace them with new student housing.  This development is on 4th Street, the heart of Dinkytown, one of the corridors that works very well today.  It is vibrant, pedestrian friendly, and home to an eclectic, welcoming mix of small, independent businesses.  By the time the Dinkytown small area plan is finished later this year, a substantial chunk of Dinkytown will already be slated for demolition, and I fear that the pattern will be set: the Council will support any and every redevelopment pro...

This past weekend, Ward 2 lost two men who worked hard to improve their communities: Hussein Samatar and Clem Engen. Hussein led the African Development Center (ADC), a lender and financial services company specializing in meeting the needs of  African immigrant communities in Minnesota to sustain successful businesses, build wealth, and promote community reinvestment.   Hussein built ADC into a significant force for good, helping immigrants access capital for small business investment and buying homes.   It was due to a great partnership with ADC that the City was able to create a program for Sharia-compliant small business lending, to ensure that immigrant entrepreneurs can start, maintain and expand businesses serving their communities.    In addition to its broader work, ADC has added to the vitality of the West Bank business corridor, creating a beautiful building and open space at the corner of Riverside and 20th  Ave S. Hussein was the first Somal...

Today, MinnPost published an opinion piece I coauthored with Council Member Betsy Hodges on the Energy Framework the Council passed last week.

I am working on a resolution with several of my colleagues on the Council that will, if passed, put the City on record as supporting a cleaner, more affordable, more reliable energy future for Minneapolis. It's very exciting to me that energy has become a priority issue in Minneapolis.  Both Xcel Energy and CenterPoint Energy have come to the table, offering some specific commitments and - more importantly, from my perspective - a commitment to partner with the City meet the energy goals the City has laid out through the Climate Action Plan and elsewhere.  The Minneapolis Energy Options campaign has made clear that they support working with the utilities to translate those commitments into tangible action, rather than putting the question on the ballot this year. The resolution commits the City to doing five major things: Developing a comprehensive energy vision for our city, as part of the Energy Pathways Study, that will incorporate the great work of the Community En...

Many of the people who attended the public hearing on Minneapolis' energy future last week wore these little red stickers that said "don't mess with success," and one of their key messages was that Xcel Energy provides much more reliable electrical service than a municipal utility could ever match. Tell it to small businesses on Franklin Avenue today: How much revenue will this local restaurant lose today?  How much of their inventory will have to be discarded due to this power outage? This is not an isolated incident.  I am aware of four electricity outages in the Seward neighborhood so far this year , and only one was the result of a major storm. We can and must do better.

In yesterday's Zoning and Planning Committee, I voted against the rezoning for the Opus development in Dinkytown, in Ward 3.  I wanted to take the opportunity to share some of what motivated this vote. First, a little background.  I think we need more density in Minneapolis, especially in our most walkable, bikeable and transit-friendly areas.  Increasing density has many co-benefits: a greater percentage of trips made by foot, bike and transit; less suburban sprawl; more economic vitality; a healthier tax base.  The edges of the University of Minnesota are good places for more density, and the neighborhoods around the U have recognized this.  Marcy Holmes and Prospect Park have been especially strategic about supporting density in the parts of their neighborhoods closest to the U.  This is why I have supported many, many developments in the Second Ward that have substantially increased density - after downtown, Ward 2 saw the most growth in housing units...

  What Will Our Options Be?   Introduction The City  of Minneapolis has adopted aggressive goals for dealing with the most pressing environmental problem of our time, global climate change.  But our current electricity provider is not doing enough to help Minneapolis residents and businesses to reduce our energy use and increase the percentage of our energy we get from clean, renewable energy sources.  They are continuing to raise rates even as consumption falls, and those rates are going in part into questionable investments in outdated nuclear plants, private jets and corporate profit.  Reliability is not improving, and the electrical grid is more sensitive to external shocks than it needs to be. It would be irresponsible for us not to seize this moment to put our energy economy on a different path, either by improving the behavior of our existing utilities or by forming one of our own.  Other cities have their own energy utilities, and...

Last Friday, the Council approved (on a 10-3 vote) my motion to bring forward 3 actions related to putting the question of becoming a municipal utility on the ballot in November.   These actions set a public hearing date within the timeframe required by state law to get the matter of authorizing the City to become  a municipal utility on the ballot in November.  The specific actions are below the fold. I have pushed this forward because I believe that now is the most appropriate time for the City of Minneapolis to consider forming a municipal energy utility. Human beings are changing our climate.  We are already seeing the impacts, including larger and more powerful storms.  This morning, the Council unanimously passed a Climate Action Plan that commits us to work towards a 30% reduction in carbon emissions by 2030 - and I do not think even that aggressive goal is enough.  I believe that future generations will judge those of us alive - and especially th...