Finding a Green Way to Govern

At the Gay Pride celebration today, I was struck by the momentous change we've seen from just one year ago. A year ago, we were fighting to prevent anti-gay bigotry from being written into our most fundamental document.  A year ago, we were forced to defend a status quo in which marriage was not open to all, but at least it was not constitutionally forbidden to all.  A year ago, we were shouting "no!" to a tide of intolerance, and sometimes felt like we were swimming upstream. Today, we came together to celebrate, to join with one another in a joyful yes , an affirmation of our community's inclusiveness, an affirmation of our commitments to each other - whether in marriage, or in the kind of civil society that cherishes and respects our differences - and an affirmation of love. Today, we celebrated not only the defeat of that terrible attempt to write marriage inequality into our constitution, but the knowledge that in a month and a day, Minneapolis City Hall w...

The Climate Action Plan  that I wrote about when it passed committee unanimously passed the Council this morning. It's difficult to overstate the importance of this document.  It lays out specific, targeted, achievable strategies for reducing our city's impact on climate change.  As I have said elsewhere, I think this is the critical challenge of our time, the issue on which future generations will judge us. I want to publicly thank a few people for the success of this document, starting with Sustainability staff person Brandon Slotterback .  He put in a tremendous amount of time, effort, and skill into this planning process, and it shows.  He was supported by his boss, Gayle Prest , and intern Anders Imboden (who did much of the very impressive graphics work in the plan, among other things). Sustainability staff worked hard to make this plan possible, but it's important to note that the goals and strategies were not crafted by staff, but by a large and d...

This summer, Centerpoint Energy is replacing a natural gas main in the West Bank and Seward neighborhoods.  They are installing 1.4 miles of new steel pipe under 19th Ave S from the 10th Ave Bridge to I-94, and 20th Ave S down to Franklin.  Work is planned to occur until August.  After construction, streets, sidewalks, boulevards and lawns will be restored to their original condition, typically within five to seven business days after construction is completed.  You can find out more here . 

I am very excited about the Climate Action Plan that was reviewed and unanimously supported at the Regulatory Energy and Environment Committee this week. It is set to come to the full Council on Friday June 28 where it may be amended. The Plan, subtitled “a roadmap to reducing citywide greenhouse gas emissions," offers goals and potential strategies to help achieve a 15 percent reduction in emissions by 2015 and a 30 percent reduction by 2025 from 2006 levels. It contains a wealth of information and specific strategies in three broad areas of 1.buildings and energy, 2. transportation and land use, and 3. waste and recycling. You can read the full plan here. To get you started here are four categories within which the goals and strategies fall: Significantly improving the energy efficiency of our commercial, residential and public buildings. Strategies are identified to improve energy efficiency in commercial and residential buildings 20 and 15 percent respectively from a ba...

Minneapolis residents are right to be grieved and outraged about the death of 22 year-old Terrance Franklin, who was fatally shot by Minneapolis Police in a Minneapolis home on May 10. Terrance was one of our own. He grew up in Minneapolis and attended our public schools. My thoughts and prayers go out to the grieving family members and friends and I add my voice to those who are calling for a complete, fair and open investigation into his death. The investigation is now in the hands of the Hennepin County Attorney’s office and evidence is being gathered to be presented to a grand jury. As the investigation unfolds, it will be essential that the family as well the public have faith and confidence in it. To ensure that, I encourage the County Attorney to use all the resources at his disposal and consider calling on our state and federal partners to make sure that in appearances, as well as in reality, the investigation is impartial, complete and fair. The grand jury must hear all th...

We had a wonderful presentation on One Minneapolis One Read this morning at the City Council Committee of the Whole meeting. It included a nice promotional video looking back at the first two years. This effort to build community and help us all face tough issues has exceeded my expectations so far and I look forward to an amazing third year reading “A Choice of Weapons” by Gordon Parks. Special kudos goes to 8th Ward Council Member Elizabeth Glidden for her steady strong leadership on this. Please join me in reading the book and joining the conversation.