Finding a Green Way to Govern

  Frey Budget Further Tips the Scale The power struggle in city hall continues in the 2026 budget. Not only with the usual disputes over the police budget, but now Mayor Jacob Frey’s recommendation to cut funds to the City Auditor has both staff and council members raising concerns.   The Minneapolis City Auditor is one of only two department heads that the mayor doesn’t appoint and can’t fire. Under the new government structure established after the so-called strong mayor charter amended passed, the city auditor and city clerk are the only two departments left that do not answer to the mayor. All the other 18-some departments are under the mayor’s authority. The clerk’s office reports to the council directly. The city auditor formally reports to neither the mayor nor the city council. They report to the audit committee that appoints them and is made up of two council members, a park board commissioner, and four community members. In 2022, the auditor was presented...

This year’s election will bring new faces to the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board (MPRB). Four of the current commissioners (Billy Menz, Becky Alper, Elizabeth Schaffer, and Becka Thompson) are not running again, and other incumbents face serious challengers. Seven candidates are running for the three at-large city-wide seats, including two incumbents, Meg Forney and Tom Olsen. Olsen, Michael Wilson and Amber Frederick secured the Democratic Farmer Labor (DFL) endorsement in July and will be running along with the Green Party’s Adam Schneider. Forney, Mary McKelvey, and Matthew Dowgwillo are running without party endorsement. You can learn some more about the at-large, southside and southwest candidates from these articles I wrote this summer for a few neighborhood papers.  You can find an article on the hotly contested district 5 and uncontested district 3 park board races here:    https://www.longfellownokomismessenger.com/stories/sep-2025-messenger,122203 The So...