Finding a Green Way to Govern

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.