Finding a Green Way to Govern

In yesterday's Zoning and Planning Committee, I voted against the rezoning for the Opus development in Dinkytown, in Ward 3.  I wanted to take the opportunity to share some of what motivated this vote. First, a little background.  I think we need more density in Minneapolis, especially in our most walkable, bikeable and transit-friendly areas.  Increasing density has many co-benefits: a greater percentage of trips made by foot, bike and transit; less suburban sprawl; more economic vitality; a healthier tax base.  The edges of the University of Minnesota are good places for more density, and the neighborhoods around the U have recognized this.  Marcy Holmes and Prospect Park have been especially strategic about supporting density in the parts of their neighborhoods closest to the U.  This is why I have supported many, many developments in the Second Ward that have substantially increased density - after downtown, Ward 2 saw the most growth in housing units...

  What Will Our Options Be?   Introduction The City  of Minneapolis has adopted aggressive goals for dealing with the most pressing environmental problem of our time, global climate change.  But our current electricity provider is not doing enough to help Minneapolis residents and businesses to reduce our energy use and increase the percentage of our energy we get from clean, renewable energy sources.  They are continuing to raise rates even as consumption falls, and those rates are going in part into questionable investments in outdated nuclear plants, private jets and corporate profit.  Reliability is not improving, and the electrical grid is more sensitive to external shocks than it needs to be. It would be irresponsible for us not to seize this moment to put our energy economy on a different path, either by improving the behavior of our existing utilities or by forming one of our own.  Other cities have their own energy utilities, and...

Last Friday, the Council approved (on a 10-3 vote) my motion to bring forward 3 actions related to putting the question of becoming a municipal utility on the ballot in November.   These actions set a public hearing date within the timeframe required by state law to get the matter of authorizing the City to become  a municipal utility on the ballot in November.  The specific actions are below the fold. I have pushed this forward because I believe that now is the most appropriate time for the City of Minneapolis to consider forming a municipal energy utility. Human beings are changing our climate.  We are already seeing the impacts, including larger and more powerful storms.  This morning, the Council unanimously passed a Climate Action Plan that commits us to work towards a 30% reduction in carbon emissions by 2030 - and I do not think even that aggressive goal is enough.  I believe that future generations will judge those of us alive - and especially th...

At the Gay Pride celebration today, I was struck by the momentous change we've seen from just one year ago. A year ago, we were fighting to prevent anti-gay bigotry from being written into our most fundamental document.  A year ago, we were forced to defend a status quo in which marriage was not open to all, but at least it was not constitutionally forbidden to all.  A year ago, we were shouting "no!" to a tide of intolerance, and sometimes felt like we were swimming upstream. Today, we came together to celebrate, to join with one another in a joyful yes , an affirmation of our community's inclusiveness, an affirmation of our commitments to each other - whether in marriage, or in the kind of civil society that cherishes and respects our differences - and an affirmation of love. Today, we celebrated not only the defeat of that terrible attempt to write marriage inequality into our constitution, but the knowledge that in a month and a day, Minneapolis City Hall w...

The Climate Action Plan  that I wrote about when it passed committee unanimously passed the Council this morning. It's difficult to overstate the importance of this document.  It lays out specific, targeted, achievable strategies for reducing our city's impact on climate change.  As I have said elsewhere, I think this is the critical challenge of our time, the issue on which future generations will judge us. I want to publicly thank a few people for the success of this document, starting with Sustainability staff person Brandon Slotterback .  He put in a tremendous amount of time, effort, and skill into this planning process, and it shows.  He was supported by his boss, Gayle Prest , and intern Anders Imboden (who did much of the very impressive graphics work in the plan, among other things). Sustainability staff worked hard to make this plan possible, but it's important to note that the goals and strategies were not crafted by staff, but by a large and d...