Second Ward May 2015 E-newsletter

News from Cam Gordon, 

Minneapolis Council Member, Second Ward

Rail Safety Meeting. In response to growing concerns about the significant increase in dangerous rail traffic in Minneapolis, Council Members Reich, Frey and I are co-hosting an Eastside Minneapolis Rail Safety Forum on Thursday, June 18, from 6:30 – 8pm, at East Side Neighborhood Services, 1700 2nd Street NE.  Panelists will include Congressman Keith Ellison, Rep. Frank Hornstein, Sen. Kari Dziedzic, Minneapolis Fire Chief John Fruetel, Grant Hosmer from City of Minneapolis Emergency Management and representatives from BNSF, CP Rail and MN DOT.  The forum will allow the community to learn more about strategies in place to ensure public safety, as well as an opportunity to share questions and concerns with local, state and federal officials as well as railroad representatives.

Clean Energy Partnership Sets Work Plan.  The Clean Energy Partnership between the City and our energy utilities approved its first two-year work plan on May 29th.  This plan calls for the City and utilities to increase energy efficiency, increase renewable energy, and develop strong City-utility coordination.  The work will be done in five key segments: 1-4 unit residential, multifamily residential, small commercial buildings, large commercial buildings, and the City enterprise.  I’m especially excited that we will be doing more to increase energy efficiency in rental housing, increase renewable energy use in all segments, get the City to adopt some new policies like energy transparency at time of sale or rent of housing units, and move the City towards more sustainable practices like using renewables ourselves, transitioning to LED streetlights, and supporting innovative pilot projects like district energy in large redevelopment areas.  I look forward to working on implementing this plan over the 18 months and I thank the members of the Energy Vision Advisory Committee (EVAC), and the City and utility staff Planning Team, who did a lot of work in a compressed timeframe to develop this work plan.

Better Regulating Tobacco Products. A public hearing has been schedule for June 8^th at 1:30 pm in the City Council Chambers regarding the ordinance Council Member Yang and I are co-authoring that would restrict the sale of flavored tobacco to adult-only tobacco shops, and establish a minimum pack size and price for cigars and cigarillos. Late last year, we heard from the Youth Congress – echoing data our Health Department staff has garnered from national studies – that these products are a principal ‘point of entry’ to nicotine addiction for youth smokers.  We hope that making it more difficult for children to get access to low-cost candy-flavored tobacco products will assure that thousands of kids never become addicted to tobacco, which is one of the leading causes of death and disease in our city.

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New Facebook Page

In order to better communicate with you and others I have added a “Cam Gordon - Minneapolis City Council Second Ward” professional Facebook page to my menu of communication tools. Find and “like” it at https://www.facebook.com/camgordonward2 to stay better informed about my work as Council Member. This compliments my use of email, e-newsletters like this one, my web log and my twitter account (@CameronAGordon), as well the website, phone calls and face to face conversations to keep communication lines open and flowing.