Finding a Green Way to Govern

I was very heartened by the decision by Judge Susan Robiner on Monday that the minimum wage charter amendment should be placed on the ballot in Minneapolis. It was a powerful decision, and echoed many of the arguments that I made when opposing the Council majority's decision to keep this amendment off the ballot. The City of Minneapolis is doing a real disservice to our constituents and our democracy in appealing this decision as reported in the paper . I want to be clear: there has been no formal Council vote to authorize the appeal. The City Attorney has decided to move forward with the appeal under the authorization of the Council vote on August 5th. I would strongly prefer that we leave this precedent in place. It's a good, pro-democracy ruling that clears up something that seems to have been confusing: the people do indeed get to decide whether a given issue is appropriate to address in the Charter or not, through the process established by state statute (which the c...

This month's conversation about the minimum wage charter amendment has been interesting and sometimes intense and contentious. Despite being on the minority-end of the decision, and having the City Attorney's opinion arguing against my opinion, I still strongly believe that the City Council reached the wrong conclusion when we voted 10 - 2 to block the proposed minimum wage charter amendment from being on the ballot. While in the end we may have moved a little closer to the ultimate goal of raising wages for the lowest-wage workers in Minneapolis through a promising staff direction, if the action on Wednesday is formally approved by the full Council on Friday, the fair, democratic process set out in state law is not being honored. If the committee recommendation is ratified, the voters of Minneapolis will be wrongly prevented from having the chance to vote on an issue that they should have been able to in November and we, as a Council, did not fulfill our responsibility and du...