Finding a Green Way to Govern

I’ve recently been hearing concerns about the staple food ordinance I was proud to author back when it passed the Council unanimously in 2014. Specifically, those concerns have to do with dairy and other animal products, and cultural practices and personal preference about those specific food items. I’ve asked City staff to continue to give stores the flexibility to meet the intent of our standards with culturally-appropriate foods, as they have been in enforcing the ordinance to date. It’s important for everyone to know that in the last three and a half years, according to inspection records, no store has received a citation for failure to stock dairy or cheese (only two fines have been given so far, both for failure to provide cereal), no Asian ethnic market has been given a violation notice of any kind, and over half of the 28 violations since April of 2016 have gone to large corporations like CVS, Walgreens, SuperAmerica, Holiday, and various dollar stores. But despite that, I ...

This Star and Tribune editorial comes pretty close to reflecting my view on what may have been one of the more disconcerting and disturbing votes I took in 2017 as a Minneapolis City Council Member. Moving forward I will be proposing and pushing for a new ordinance that will require future Council and Mayoral salary increases to go through a formal and public committee process. This will likely include the establishment of an appointed commission, similar to that set up for the state legislature, to make recommendations. For now, though, I would like to share some of my thoughts about the Mayor and Council Member salary vote taken this December. First let me say that I have always felt that my compensation for working as a Council Member has been fair and generous.  I am grateful for the opportunity to do this work and have always felt that I was, and am, well compensated for it. The increase that was approved this year was not my idea or my initiative. This came fro...