Finding a Green Way to Govern

This morning, I was able to convince my Council colleagues that the City shouldn't take an action that could have led to the unnecessary deaths of dogs in Minneapolis. Last Wednesday, Animal Care and Control (AC&C) staff brought a proposal to the Public Safety and Regulatory Services committee. One of its provisions would have prohibited owners of dogs that have been declared either dangerous or potentially dangerous from transferring ownership of the animal to someone else. Given how onerous and expensive we've already made it for folks to own declared dogs, I was concerned that the proposal would have led to a large numbers of dogs being impounded and killed by AC&C. I also know that in some cases, dogs that have been declared potentially dangerous can thrive in a different setting. A dog that has threatened or even bit someone when living in an abusive or neglectful setting - or even just a home with no yard, no one to walk him or her or with one or more agreesive ca...

The University District Alliance Progress Report for 2007 - 2009 is now available here . The report offers an overview of the work that has been done by Alliance over the last 16 months and make recommendations for the future. The report will be coming to the City Council's Intergovernmental Relations Committee this Tuesday morning and then to State Legislature sometime in the next few months. I hope that the full City Council will approve it on Friday. One of the things the Alliance has been working on is getting more people who work in the District to also live int he district. To help to that we have developed a website - http://www.livenearyourwork.net/ - to help match homes that are for sale with potential buyers.

As you can read here , the Minneapolis Police Department is offering a $1,000 reward for information leading to an arrest in last summer's murder of Joe Sodd III on the West Bank. Despite having put hundreds of hours into the case, MPD has yet to make arrests or determine a motive for the crime. If you have any information, please call CrimeStoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS or Minneapolis police at 612-692-TIPS .

I realize it sounds like information from another time, but surprisingly enough there has been a bed bug epidemic in the University neighborhoods for the past few years. The parasites often make their way into homes with infested used furniture. The University has put together a program to educate folks about these pernicious little pests. Here's the notice: Learn how to recognize an infestation and what to do about bed bugs. Dr. Kells , a Ph .D. in Entomology, is an Assistant Professor at the University of Minnesota, with extension and research responsibilities in Food Processing and Structural Entomology. This includes studies in biology and control of bedbugs. Dr. Kells served for five years as Technical Director, leading the Quality Assurance and Technical Services Department for Abell Pest Control, Inc. He has published numerous articles on the subject and continues to speak across the country as the problem expands. DATE: Thursday, March 12, 2009-02-12 PLACE: Coffman Unio...

There was a story on WCCO yesterday about Binge drinking, and I wanted to let people know that despite how it may have appeared on the segment, I am not necessarily supporting banning happy hour or drink specials in the City of Minneapolis. What I am willing to do is follow up on the recommendations of our Our Public Health Advisory Committee and our Health Department, to create a task force to look into the problem of binge drinking and related City regulations and explore possible things we can do. They brought this idea to the Health Energy and Environment Committee in December and we decided that before taking any action they should meet with industry representatives and then return to the committee so we could consider this further. I am inclined to think that education is a better way to approach this, but I am also willing to see if there are some things we can regulate. I know some bars have some games and specials that other cities have banned. I also suspect that the vasts ma...