Finding a Green Way to Govern

A resolution, "Supporting Equity in Employment in Minneapolis and the Region," that I am co-authoring will be coming for approval to the Public Safety, Civil Rights and Health Committee tomorrow, on August 22 at 1:30pm. Time for a public comment will be provided. The resolution declares that racism, discrimination and racial employment disparities in Minneapolis are serious problems that must be solved. It commits the City government to lead by example and better incorporate racial equity into City policies and, if approved, it would direct the City Coordinator, Community Planning and Economic Development Director and the Civil Rights Director to engage with other department heads, staff and our Workforce Council to develop and implement an Equity Assessment Toolkit to inform city decisions including those related to the budget, hiring, promotion, contracting and purchasing. It also directs staff to assess and implement where appropriate, the other recommendations of the E...

The Civil Rights Department, in conjunction with the Police and City Attorney’s Office, have proposed a major change  (scroll to item 9) to the Civilian Police Review Authority (CRA).   If passed, the CRA would essentially cease to exist, and be replaced by an advisory board to the Police Department.   Internal Affairs and the Civilian Review investigatory functions would basically be merged.    The current CRA board is not supportive of this proposal, and has recommended its own improvements to the civilian review process.   Though I understand the problems this proposal is attempting to solve – including the Legislature and Governor’s recent terrible decision to prohibit our CRA from making findings of fact, and the fact that the CRA cannot communicate its disposition of complaints – I have serious concerns about merging the police department’s internal affairs with the civilian review authority and making the citizen/civilian component adviso...

In case you missed it, the Star Tribune has run a very good article by Eric Roper on the Unisys contract.  I have been very troubled by the close relationship between past leadership in the City's BIS (now called IT)Department and Unisys, and those concerns are confirmed by the information Eric has dug up. The bottom line, for me, is that for too long we have accepted the conservative, Reagan-era lie that government can't do things well.  We have outsourced essential City functions in ways that I don't think those who came before us would have been quite so eager to accept.  Small and underutilized local firms are crowded out by this one large, powerful corporation, undermining the City's efforts to create jobs, especially for women and people of color.  We're giving tens of millions of dollars to Unisys, without adequate oversight for me to be confident that we're getting our money's worth.  Remember, we're in a time of limited resources, and the Cit...

People in Minneapolis can now request City services any time of day through a free application on their smartphone and similar devices. So far ten common service requests are available, including those related to folks will be able to report issues to Minneapolis 311 related to abandoned vehicles, graffiti, parking meters, parking violations, potholes, traffic signals and broken street lights. More will be added soon. The Global Positioning System (GPS) will provide the location of the service request and people will also be able to submit a photo to add more detail to their request.

The Council took a strong position earlier this year opposing the Republican attempt to write bigotry into the Minnesota Constitution through the anti-marriage amendment. Today, the Council had to respond to an open-ended fishing expedition for all communications having anything to do with the effort to defeat that terrible ballot measure, by none other than erstwhile Michele Bachmann staffer Andy Parrish . Here's just one of the narrowly tailored requests our office spent an hour and a half of taxpayer-funded time responding to: "Any communication or contact between any combination of the following individuals, their staff, and the identified organizations (including officers and staff) that relates to the proposed constitutional amendment to recognize marriage: Mayor, all current City Council Members, the City Administrator, County Administrator, the City Attorney's Office, and any city established Human Rights Committee or other committees, Project 515, Minnesotan...