Finding a Green Way to Govern

This winter the people of Minnesota experienced an unprecedented and broadly condemned action by Homeland Security Department (DHS) police forces and its so-called “Operation Metro Surge.”   Thousands of the over 400,000 people in my hometown of Minneapolis, and thousands more in the greater metropolitan area and throughout the state, had their lives upended. Federal police killed at least two, and likely three, Minneapolis residents. Their killings of Renee Good, and Alex Pretti were recorded and viewed by millions of people. Victor Manuel Diaz was arrested in Minneapolis in January and died in ICE custody in Texas. “Anyone who has witnessed this occupation in our community, or seen the footage online, knows that none of this has made us safer, as the federal government is claiming. Instead, it has caused irreparable damage to our community,” said Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarity in February. There have been widespread and credible reports that federal agents have a...

  This December, 2025, Southside Pride newspapers hit the doors and stores for the last time. Ed Felien, Powderhorn neighbor, husband, father, grandfather, sometimes contrarian, chronic malcontent, often humorous, self-identified Maoist and consistently prolific writer, announced his retirement and the end of the community paper he has published for the past 35 years. “Before I say goodbye,” he wrote in that last issue, “I need to acknowledge a debt I owe to the thousands of you who read this paper. For 35 years we have sent out our messages of radical peace and love in the hopes that someone might read those messages and go out and do something about it.”    There are many opinions about Felien and many Southsiders who will miss the paper. On Facebook, his grandson, Cooper Gatzmer, described the 87-year-old as "… a totally stubborn muckraking journalist with some extreme and hyper specific bias for leftist politics in south Minneapolis,” and a “really cool guy." ...

  Divided We Fail Election Reveals Two Minneapolises November 3 was election eve. Minneapolis was wrapping up one of its most expensive and divisive campaign seasons in recent history. The city was on the cusp of possibly electing its first male Black mayor as Omar Fateh, DeWayne Davis and Jazz Hampton had all run credible campaigns. Many Southsiders were hoping for change in the leadership at city hall following sometimes intense and offensive campaigning, that included accusations of racism and xenophobia. The next day, however, a majority of voters chose the incumbent, Jacob Frey, to continue as the city’s 38 th White male mayor, out of the 40 mayors in the city’s history.   Minneapolis voters picked the candidate who chose not to make racial justice a top priority. As a council member, he voted to cut funding from the racial equity division. When he was mayor, city staff issued statements outlining a “toxic, anti-Black work culture” under his leadership as mayor...

  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...