City Government Restructuring On the Fast Track

 The mayor and city council are moving quickly to restructure city government.  Perhaps too quickly.

Substantial ordinance amendments, which have yet to be shared with the public, could be approved by the end of August. The timeline presented by Mayor Jacob Frey in June called for the public hearing on August 4 and approval on August 20.

Some of it is already underway.

On June 30, the Council approved two new executive positions: a Community Safety Commissioner and a Chief Operation Officer to replace the City Coordinator

Ordinances amendments were approved to create the position of City Operations Officer, with a salary of $269,943 to $320,000 and the position of Community Safety Commissioner, with a salary of $295,250 to $350,000. Both salaries exceed the cap of $192,144 imposed by state law and will require a waiver. Both positions will report to the mayor. 

The City Operations Officer will oversee the proposed new Office of Public Service which would include the 311/Service Center, City Assessor, Civil Rights Department, Communications, Community Planning & Economic Development, Finance & Property Services, the Health Department, Human Resources, Information Technology, Intergovernmental Relations, Minneapolis Convention Center, Neighborhood & Community Relations, Public Works and Regulatory Services.

Then, on July 7, Mayor Frey announced his nomination of Cedric Alexander for the new position of Community Safety Commissioner.  As proposed, the commissioner would oversee the new Office of Community Safety, which would include the fire and police departments, 911, the office of emergency management, and a new office of neighborhood safety that will replace, or possibly include, the office of violence prevention now housed in the health department. Alexander will be considered for the position by the City Council at their August 4 meeting following a hearing on the 2nd. 

The Council also approved adding a City Auditor position to the Audit Department and increased the department’s budget by $75,000 to do so.

When Frey announced his selection of Cedric Alexander for the safety commissioner, he said that government restructuring is “the most important thing I will probably ever do as mayor.”

Council Member Linea Palmisano (Ward 13) has given notice that she is authoring the restructuring amendments to repeal Chapters 17, 21, and 25 that relate to the offices of City Attorney, Internal Auditor, and City Coordinator and adding new chapters to “provide for the government structure and its Executive and Administrative Departments, including the offices of Public Service, City Attorney, and Community Safety” consistent with the mayor’s plan.

Presently, and historically, 10 departments have reported jointly to the Mayor and Council. The proposed reorganization reduces the number reporting directly to the mayor to 4 and limits the departments reporting directly to the Council to two. The City Attorney is one of the 4 who will report to the mayor but their relationship to the council is unclear.  

Some council members are concerned. 

Council Members Elliot Payne (Ward 1) and Jeremiah Ellison (Ward 5) said that they are concerned about a lack of resources to support the work of the city council as the legislative body.  Council Member Jason Chavez (Ward 9) said he “still believes the pathway forward is through a charter change.” Council Member LaTrisha Vetaw (Ward 4) said that she “is afraid some departments, like health, will be lost.” “We have to be mindful that council still plays a role in approving department heads and that we don’t have a dilution of financial oversight.” Council Member Andrew Johnson (Ward 12) said. He wants to ensure that there is no change in the level of financial authority currently held by the council.  

“Question one has been implemented for nearly 7 months, there is no reason to rush this process,” said Council Member Robin Wonsley (ward 2), who was the lone “no” vote on approving the new positions. “I know the public wants to be involved in charting a path forward for our city.”

At the June 18 council meeting, she asked the mayor about community engagement on the proposal, and he highlighted the 2021 campaign and his work group. That work group was established in late 2021 without a single current, or newly elected, Council Member serving on it. None of its meetings were open to the public.  In 2021 Question #1 won with 52.4% of the vote and was defeated in 6 out of the 7 wards.

“The Mayor could take the time to work with Council and the public to shape an equitable transparent restructure package, instead he is rushing through an ordinance process to avoid public scrutiny,” Wonsley wrote following that meeting. “The current proposal lacks robust programs and resources on the legislative side that Council needs to best serve constituents.”

About lack of public participation, she said, “For comparison, the city did a multi-phased engagement process for the city’s Transportation Action Plan that received thousands of comments and created a process that allowed the public to see how their feedback shaped adjustments in the proposals,” she said. “The guiding principles of this government structure were offered by the Mayor’s Government Structure Work Group and the public safety plan was based on recommendations from the Mayor’s Public Safety Work Group. Both Work Groups were handpicked by the Mayor and met behind closed doors with little to no opportunity for public comment. This is not how elected leaders should be making decisions when credibility and public trust is at an all-time low, the public deserves better.”

Wonsley also raised concerns about the lack of any independent legal counsel to advise Council Members.

Given the many concerns raised by council members, the potential significance of this restructuring to further divide and eliminate checks and balances in our government the council could decide to take a slower and more inclusive process going forward.   If not, it could be written, approved, and enacted into law by the end of the month.  

 

Aggressive Solicitation: selective enforcement

This was a formerly unpublished blog from my first term in office.  Since both Don and Paul are running this year for other offices, I decided to publish it now. 

While I was working hard in 2006 and 7 to decriminalize poverty, othere were doubling down and not willing to be concerned about unfair and biased enforcement. 

There was another aspect of the speeches made by my colleagues who are supportive of the Remington/Ostrow amendment to further criminalize panhandling which I found distrubing. CMs Paul Ostrow and Don Samuels both, in different ways, stated that the proposed ordinance was going to be selectively enforced but concluded that that's ok.

Here's CM Ostrow:

“There’s a longstanding doctrine of prosecutorial discretion, and in every single law that’s ever been written, there are circumstances where the prosecutor and the police can say: ‘this is not an appropriate situation to apply the ordinance.’ So while I think that Council Member Gordon has pointed out some questions about where, perhaps, one might apply this ordinance, I don’t think, in the real world, that those are going to create real challenges in terms of the application of this ordinance. I think to some extent we do – the best of ordinances unreasonably applied are unreasonable. And I think we at some point have to have some faith that the ordinances we pass will in fact be reasonably applied, and I think that should go for this particular ordinance as well.”

We must understand that Council Member Ostrow’s “prosecutorial discretion” is code for selective enforcement. The message is very clear: don’t worry. If you’re white, if you look like you have money, if you have a home, if you’re middle-aged, this ordinance will not be used against you. No one will advocate arresting you for violating this ordinance if you need spare change for a meter. If you’re a candidate for office and you violate this ordinance, you won’t be arrested. We all know who this ordinance is designed to target: people without homes, people without money, people addicted to drugs or alcohol, people with mental illness, people of color. People who look scruffy. This is the “reasonableness” that Ostrow is talking about. “Reasonable” police officers and prosecutors know that my mother-in-law, though she is breaking the letter of the law, is not the kind of person the law was intended to target, and therefore it would be “unreasonable” to enforce it against her. This is selective enforcement, this is profiling based on race and class, and this is both morally wrong and bad public policy.

CM Samuels spoke of our "squeamishness" to pass laws that we know will be enforced against the have-nots, the poor, the homeless, the black. But he exhorted us to get over this squeamishness and pass laws that we know are intended to be selectively enforced, because we must "incentivize" those who are panhandling now to participate in our outreach programs.

I believe that when we pass laws making certain acts illegal, we must be very clear that the act itself is wrong, no matter who is engaging in it.

I believe that the Council did a good job meeting that standard with the existing Aggressive Solicitation ordinance. Badgering and intimidating someone for money is a destructive act. Swearing and berating people who refuse to give money is wrong. People who are in a line, a sidewalk cafe, a crosswalk or an ATM can't get away, and shouldn't be targeted for solicitation. The City can defensibly state that the existing code criminalizes clearly bad acts, and we should expect equal enforcement across the board.

The proposed ordinance does not meet this standard, and Ostrow and Samuels' speeches asking us to trust that the police and prosecutors will be "reasonable" in exercising their "prosecutorial discretion," and exhorting us to get over the squeamishness we may feel about enacting laws that are intended to be selectively enforced make this perfectly clear.

So don't worry, middle class homeowners. This law is not intended to be used on you. It's for those other kinds of people, you know who. The poor, the homeless, the scruffy, the nonwhite, the "creeps."

Race and class-based profiling isn't a few bad apples. It comes right down from the top.