Saying there is a “shared vision” doesn’t make it so

Every Decision in Minneapolis Politics Is Fraught with Controversy

Lyndale Avenue Reconstruction On Monday evening, business owners along Lyndale Avenue invited Mayor Frey to the Uptown VFW for a listening session. He may have thought he was walking into a respectful gathering. Instead, he found himself in a standing-room-only rally, business owners and their supporters on one side, biking advocates seeking to preserve the latest design on the other, and a large contingent of Minneapolis press documenting every word. Everyone came ready for a fight. Hennepin County controls this project. Lyndale Avenue is County Road 22, so the county manages the budget and leads the design process. However, because the road runs through city limits, the city council and mayor must approve the design. If the two parties disagree, state law provides a dispute resolution process. The county has a website with detailed project information [https://beheardhennepin.org/lyndale-avenue] for those who want to dig deeper. Business owners fear the current plan will hollow out the corridor, just as it has along Hennepin Avenue. When they pleaded for a slower timeline or design changes, bike supporters responded with boos and dismissive remarks. The message was unmistakable: we don’t care if your business survives. Several concerns raised during the meeting validate their worries. First, the newly opened Hennepin Avenue shows what’s at stake. A concrete median down the middle narrows the road and stalls traffic whenever someone parallel parks. Emergency vehicle access becomes a nightmare if an accident occurs, and accidents will happen. Just weeks ago, a car flipped onto the sidewalk in front of the C.C. Club. Now imagine that scenario on Lyndale Avenue when traffic has nowhere to go. Then there’s winter. Snow removal in Uptown is already a mess; many people avoid the neighborhood between November and March because parking and navigation become nearly impossible. With the street, bike lanes, and walkway all needing snow removal, where to put it becomes a challenge. The city could haul snow away in trucks, but that’s expensive and time-consuming. Biking is nearly non-existent during this time period. Add two years of construction, narrowed roads, and fewer parking spots, and you’ve guaranteed a winter parking catastrophe that extends well beyond the project timeline. The third issue: business survival during construction. Two years of disruption will empty the corridor. According to Mayor Frey, there’s no money to help. That’s unacceptable. The county and city need to either shrink the timeline to one year, even if it means three construction shifts daily, or provide direct financial support to affected businesses. It’s inexcusable. Carol Becker reported in the Minneapolis Times in December that the city budgeted $150,000 for a consultant to lead the Prince Sing-Along. If I owned a business on Lyndale and the city told me there’s no reconstruction assistance available, I’d stop believing anything they say about priorities. Mayor Frey spoke for about ten minutes at the end. He didn’t commit to any specific actions if the city council approves the design this month. But he stayed after the event, talking to people who were openly hostile. That matters. Most politicians leave quickly when crowds turn cold. He didn’t. His willingness to engage, even with critics, stands out. The People’s Way Is a Long Way from Completion The Business, Housing & Zoning Committee voted to deny the city’s recommendation of the Agape Movement for redevelopment of the Peoples’ Way. Ward 9 Council Member Jason Chavez brought the motion, supported by Jamal Osman, Aurin Chowdhury, and Aisha Chughtai. They chose denial, rather than sending the decision back to staff, specifically to preclude Agape Movement from future consideration. It was the right call. Agape Movement wasn’t ready. As Chavez and Ward 8 Council Member Soren Stevenson pointed out in their press conference, the group lacked “the right experience and support” for the project. Council Member Shaffer questioned the group’s finances. Agape operates both an LLC and a nonprofit; the city has a contract with the LLC, but city representatives couldn’t explain what was in it or how much had been spent. The city stipulated that development must be conducted by a nonprofit. That restriction may be shrinking the pool of qualified applicants. The project is back to square one if the full council votes to uphold the committee vote. The city may want to drop the requirement that the process be led by a nonprofit. Let for-profit developers bid. Add a stipulation that they partner with a nonprofit, the final design and city sign-off will protect community interests regardless. There’s no reason to disqualify capable developers just because they’re in business to make money. Division Comes with a Cost Driving through Theodore Wirth Park on Tuesday afternoon, Minneapolis felt like a great place to live. People were biking, running, golfing in the sunshine, from a distance, they looked like they didn’t have a worry in the world. Walk into any Minneapolis meeting about biking, transportation, public safety, or economic development, and the mood shifts completely. You feel the weight of every ideological division the city carries. Listening to the protesters on Monday, I was struck by their entitlement, arrogance, and ableism. They were young with few physical limitations. They were also 99% white. Few BIPOC voices were present, let alone leading the charge against small business owners. Their sense of injustice runs far deeper than bike lanes. As one speaker pointed out, the protesters aren’t fighting Elon Musk or Walmart. They’re fighting yoga studio owners, dry cleaners, and restaurant operators. Most of these business exist on very small profit margins. They are people who almost certainly vote progressive. The protestors acted as though the jobs and tax revenue these businesses provide have no bearing on the community’s success. The protesters are a vocal, organized minority who don’t recognize how many depend on vehicles not by choice, but out of necessity. They remind one of MAGA supporters, loud, angry, convinced they’re not being heard (despite prioritizing their voices in the design process), and utterly indifferent to anyone who disagrees. Drive down Hennepin, Blaisdell, or Bryant and you can see exactly who was heard. The Minneapolis City Council and Hennepin County Commission listen to these activists because they’re organized and visible. But that minority view doesn’t represent most residents. Most people drive. Most business owners are trying to rebuild after six devastating years. The city is driving out the families and entrepreneurs invested in seeing Minneapolis recover by prioritizing ideology over neighborhoods’ economic survival. If you want to be heard, listen first. Show respect before you demand it. Thank you for reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.betterminneapolis.com/subscribe [https://www.betterminneapolis.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2]

Minneapolis: Uncertain Road Ahead

The Reform Agenda Minneapolis must ask itself what it wants from the police and how we’re going to prioritize our public safety dollars. Chief O’Hara resigned on the heels of the 6th Anniversary of George Floyd’s murder, an occasion that saw community gatherings of remembrance and panels devoted to pushing for greater change within the Minneapolis Police Department. Social media has been abuzz with denunciations of Mayor Frey and Chief O’Hara since the resignation. Despite his shortcomings, many believe that Minneapolis is unlikely to find another chief of O’Hara’s caliber anytime soon. However, others have piled on the recrimination and are making the case his performance was unfit from the start. We’d like to point out that on Friday morning at 8:30 a.m., two people were shot downtown at Ninth Street South and Nicollet. It’s our opinion that while the factions within the city battle over the philosophy of policing, crime continues to impact the daily lives of residents. The daylight shooting near Target’s corporate headquarters sends a message that Minneapolis is out of control. While Minneapolis may be improving in some areas, it’s worth examining whether we are spending too much time analyzing the police and not enough trying to combat the root causes of crime. One of the victims shot downtown was a 44-year-old bystander waiting for a bus. This story, like so many, gets buried in the onslaught of other news, but the victims remember. They won’t forget. On Saturday, the city honored the memory of Police Officer Jamal Mitchell by renaming a stretch of Blaisdell Avenue South after him. He was killed while responding to a shooting in 2024. His family will feel his absence for the rest of their lives. Hot summers historically correlate with higher crime rates. We expect to see more shootings, shots fired, stolen vehicles and assaults. Hopefully, it is clear to people that the heat is only one factor in crime rates, just as the number of police is one factor. Unfortunately, because of a depleted number of officers, historical abuses, cost overruns, and continued trouble within the department, we, as a city, seem to place most of our focus on the MPD to either save the city or drag it down. The causes of crime, however, are numerous and we would like to see the city reach a plateau where it can accept that both the police and other social support are needed. The causes of crime often cited include: * Poverty and Economic Inequality * Social Environment and Peer Influence * Family Dysfunction and Childhood Trauma * Substance Abuse * Lack of Education and Employment In this newsletter we often advocate for elected officials to focus more on creating the economic environment necessary for job creation. The reason we do so is because jobs address poverty. When people are working, it can lead to less substance abuse, more family cohesion, and more tax dollars to fund the social safety net needed to assist people with housing and education. We aren’t advocating for jobs because we’re eager to see capital pool at the top of the economic food chain. Rather, it’s because without them desperation creeps into a city, people go hungry, and they turn on one another. There are many problems with capitalism, and the Democratic Party would be well-served to consider how to ameliorate the worst of these, but at the same time, the jobs created when businesses grow and thrive build community and reduce inequality. Let the Data Lead My recent newsletter about the fate of Commissioner Barnette of the Office of Community Safety elicited a number of comments questioning the need for this department. When it comes to safety, it’s worth asking whether the Office of Community Safety reduced crime. We’d like to see more emphasis on the statistics and less on the ideology driving these programs. For example, to illustrate the importance of data, let’s consider an issue that isn’t a topic of focus right now. Does distributing condoms at high schools reduce teen pregnancy? Without looking up any data, our first reaction would be yes, absolutely it does. We would advocate for the county to distribute them everywhere possible to reduce unwanted pregnancies that can lead to reduced education and economic opportunities, especially for women. However, looking up the data, we find a more nuanced picture. Without counseling and education support, distribution can actually increase unintended pregnancies. Knowing the data, if we were to design a program to reduce teen pregnancy, we would pair it with counseling and education, otherwise we would have a program, funded by the government, that wasn’t resulting in the desired outcome. Here’s another example, the city raised the price of cigarettes to a minimum of $15. If the goal was to reduce smoking, we would want to see the data. It might be that it has resulted in less cigarette smoking (good) but more use of nicotine packets and vaping (bad). This trade-off might be acceptable, but we want to have the data to inform the path forward. This same approach would be useful when it comes to the Office of Community Safety. Has it reduced the need for police officers or reduced crime? As for police hours, the amount of overtime being paid would indicate that non-police alternatives such as violence interrupters, safety ambassadors and the behavioral crisis response (BCR) have had very little combined impact. The BCR in particular has been cited frequently to show how police hours have been reduced because calls are routed to community organizations rather than to police. It’s a small sample size and we would like a more robust data set, but Tuesday, 5/26, from 8 a.m to 3 p.m. there were 310 calls directed to the police and 13 directed to BCR, of those, 8 were for a BCR welfare check. If these statistics were emblematic, it would mean roughly 4% of calls that might once have been directed to the police are now directed at non-police alternatives. This analysis is crude, but it would be the basis for determining whether the money being spent on the BCR is being well spent or if the program needs to be changed or eliminated. We’re not advocating either way except to say let’s put more emphasis on data. Setting aside the specific candidate for Commissioner of the Office of Community Safety, now might be an appropriate time to revisit the goals of this program and the make-up. What data shows whether violence interrupters and other non-police alternatives work? One metric is to examine homicides and shots fired. These appear to be roughly the same in 2026 as they were in 2025. Year to date Assault offenses are at 4,285, last year there were 4,056. For homicides, there have been 18 so far, last year there were 20 at this point. For shots fired, last year there were 1,769 versus 1,650 so far this year. It’s worth asking whether the funding allocated to the Office of Community Safety and the host of alternatives to policing are achieving the desired outcome. We often hear about people wanting to see police officers in their communities, walking patrols, rather than only showing up once shots have been fired. More interaction between the police and the community before a crime is committed could reduce crime and improve trust. A trained officer wearing a uniform is a presence that represents order for many people. The goal in reviewing these services is to support what is working and discard what isn’t instead of assuming that national data used to inform their creation is relevant to our local situation. One of the main reasons the city council has put Commissioner Barnette in administrative purgatory is his handling of the budget. They want answers as to why the police have exceeded theirs for overtime and other categories. That’s a fair question; it is part of their fiscal responsibility. We’re suggesting the review be broader. The statistics indicate the city has not seen a significant reduction in violence from violence interrupters, nor are patrols of unarmed safety ambassadors leading to less open drug use, robberies, assaults, car thefts, and vandalism. So maybe it's time to look at alternatives to the alternatives. Having data on what is working will benefit the next chief, whomever that person turns out to be. This is a public episode. 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O'Hara Resigns as MPD Chief

It is 8:30 p.m. on Tuesday and we are pulling an earlier version of the newsletter to report that Chief O'Hara has resigned. An investigation into his conduct contained "concerning substantiated findings," though no details have been officially provided. Until they are, we will treat rumors with circumspection. Beyond the investigation, a range of concerns about O’Hara’s performance had been raised in recent weeks by both DSA-aligned council members and some of the more moderate members. Budget overruns generated significant frustration, as did what some viewed as mishandling of the Davis Moturi shooting and the investigation into Allison Lussier’s death. Some wanted the MPD to play a more active role during Operation Metro Surge. The most frequently cited complaint, however, is what critics considered too slow a pace of reforms within the department. Others in the community viewed O’Hara as a steady presence who made genuine efforts to communicate with the public. The Chief had been scheduled for a public hearing on June 3. We assume that is no longer on the council’s agenda. This story is developing, and readers can expect more coverage as facts become available. More Upheaval in an Already Unsettled Moment O’Hara’s resignation lands on top of an already unsettled moment for public safety in Minneapolis. The failure to confirm a Commissioner for the Office of Community Safety, and now the sudden departure of the Police Chief, leaves a broad field on which to rethink the path forward, if the city has the will to do so. Two Sides of the Same Frustration As the searches for a new chief and commissioner begin, we’d like to see a community conversation around what exactly is meant when people speak of reform, and whether that standard can be met. Minneapolis has been through a great deal. This change is yet more upheaval as the city tries to steady itself and regain the upper hand on public safety. Rate of change is difficult to gauge. For those who have suffered directly from police abuse, reform cannot come fast enough. For those frustrated by crime and lawlessness on their streets, change is also too slow, the difference is that they still believe police are an integral part of the solution. We’re hopeful the current upheaval can be resolved in a way that leaves all residents feeling the MPD is genuinely serving them. Define Success Before Filling the Seats As that process unfolds, the central question deserves to be asked plainly: what does success look like, and how will we measure it? The city has an opportunity, amid this reset, to define those outcomes clearly before filling either seat, rather than after. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.betterminneapolis.com/subscribe [https://www.betterminneapolis.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2]

Let the Summer of Consternation Begin

Memorial Day is here and with it the unofficial beginning of summer. You can now wear white. For some, the start of summer is the solstice, which this year falls on Sunday, June 21. But don’t let the sunshine fool you. When it comes to cooperation and progress at City Hall, there isn’t the joy of sunshine and festivals that come with the season. Minneapolis City Hall continues to be where dark clouds of disagreement and stagnation hover, a perpetual storm waiting to break. As with our national politics, the upside for cooperation is limited. Donors and votes follow the uncompromising members of government. Minneapolis residents eager for progress on public safety and improved economic conditions are advised to lower their expectations. It will be a long 3½ years if you place your hopes on significant strides occurring in what appears to be a council and mayor who live in different cities. The back and forth between the mayor and city council over the nomination of Community Safety Commissioner Toddrick Barnette is an appropriate symbol for the current situation. The city council voted 7-6 for a second time not to approve his nomination, but instead of sending the motion back to Frey for a potential third veto, it was moved into administrative hibernation. At this point, it’s unclear how long Barnette will retain his job. In an odd twist, Wonsley initiated a motion to begin a new nationwide replacement search, but because Ward 8 council member Soren Stevenson abstained from voting, the motion failed with a 6-6 vote. We’re interested to hear why he chose to abstain and will report on his position when we learn more.Let’s pretend for a moment that he had voted with Wonsley to begin a search. Who do they think is going to step up and apply? Yes, the $374,000 salary is the highest in the city, but the gauntlet of criticism and second-guessing that anyone in this role must endure is substantial. The same uncertainty extends to the police chief. Chief Brian O’Hara’s renomination has been assigned to the Public Health, Safety, & Equity Committee with no set schedule for when a public hearing and vote will take place. However, if the questioning from Ward 10 council member Aisha Chughtai is any indicator, the odds of a smooth approval are low. He was repeatedly asked about exceeding his budget, including on food and beverage, parking, advertising, and overtime. Chughtai isn’t the only council member unsupportive of him. It’s quite possible the city will end up searching for both a new Police Chief and Commissioner of Community Safety. The disruption to progress on reform and safety will be substantial, and the search costly. The motion to spend $6 million for the purpose of purchasing land in the Windom neighborhood of South Minneapolis for a new Community Safety Wellness & Training Center was also voted down in a 7-6 vote. AI Debate Heats Up the Room A development award, a decade-old building dispute, and a city council moratorium on data centers may seem unrelated, but all three reveal the same underlying problem: Minneapolis has no coherent plan for ensuring that public investment, whether in nonprofits or private industry, delivers sustainable results.Start with the nonprofits. None of the three major civic development projects currently underway has a credible path to self-sufficiency. Agape Movement will be awarded development rights for the Peoples’ Way if approved by the city council, where they will be tasked with assembling a team to raise funds, design, and build. Their proposal is available online. [https://www.minneapolismn.gov/government/programs-initiatives/38th-chicago/peoples-way/#d.en.180667]Our fundamental outlook for their success improved slightly after meeting Thursday with Miles Mercer of CPED and Alex Kado from the Office of Public Service to learn more about the Request for Qualifications process, but many questions remain about what will ultimately become of the Peoples’ Way. They will rely on public grants and private donations.To many, the requirement that the developer be a nonprofit will make sense. For others, it raises concerns about accountability, concerns the Roof Depot situation in East Phillips does little to allay. After ten years of carrying the costs of a vacant building, the city has reached an agreement with the East Phillips Neighborhood Institute (EPNI) [https://www.startribune.com/east-phillips-activists-strike-deal-over-hard-fought-roof-depot-urban-farm/601846877]: the nonprofit will spend $6 million in state-granted funds to buy half the building, while the city retains the other half with no current plans for it. The agreement will allow EPNI to pursue their long-held goal of creating an urban farm on the site. Then there is the Rise Up Center, slated for the former YWCA on Hennepin Avenue. All three projects share the same vulnerability: continued dependence on public grants and the goodwill of politicians. The current track record of Minnesota politicians providing adequate oversight of nonprofit finances and operations is poor, which makes it difficult for us to have confidence in these endeavors.That’s the nonprofit sector. What about private industry? At Thursday’s city council meeting, the first several hours were consumed with a debate over data centers and the creeping role that AI plays in our lives. We fully understand the skepticism, we are as tired as anyone of every program asking whether we want AI assistance. The council stepped back from a full one-year moratorium and adopted a six-month moratorium on data centers over 350,000 square feet, with a public hearing scheduled for mid-June. This debate reflects a national concern about how AI is reshaping the job market. The conversation about how Minneapolis and Minnesota prepare for this technological shift has only just begun.The moratorium on its own is unlikely to keep investors away from Minneapolis. The same could be said of the concrete median running down Hennepin Avenue, it alone didn't cause Red Cow to close. What concerns us is the cumulative effect of decisions and policies that appear to discount the importance of private investment and business to the city's health. High taxes, heavy regulation, and persistent public discord between the mayor and city council are deterrents. These and other debates about non-core issues feed an impression of instability and unpredictability that compounds over time. When someone is weighing where to relocate a business or a family, they are increasingly passing on Minneapolis.The city we moved to 20 years ago looks different from the one that exists today. The schools are struggling. Downtown buildings are no longer generating the taxes they once did. Unemployment runs higher than the national average. City governance appears to be in disarray. For our meeting downtown we rode the bus. Afterwards, we went to write in the library. It required navigating past multiple unhoused individuals asleep in the library, others screaming into cell phones about court dates, and on the way home, a woman nodding off in the bus aisle. Minneapolis needs to take its reputation seriously.The city needs a coherent plan for improving its reputation and attracting the kind of businesses that create jobs. Watching City Hall, we’re confident the plan won’t originate there. What might be more effective is a private group of civic leaders empowered to draft a plan without concern for pleasing the interest groups on which politicians depend. Given the pace of change, particularly with AI, that plan must take shape within the next few years. The choice Minneapolis must make is whether to be known for its foresight or remembered for its infighting. Thank you for listening and caring about Minneapolis. This is a public episode. 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The Minneapolis Car vs. Bike Debate

Monday night at the VFW in Uptown, a familiar argument played out. Residents gathered to review reconstruction plans for Lyndale Avenue, and the room quickly divided along predictable lines. Business owners raised concerns about extended construction timelines, reduced parking, and a concrete median that would make their already-struggling storefronts harder to reach. On the other side, advocates pushed for road designs that promote alternatives to driving, such as buses, bikes, and foot traffic, arguing that changing infrastructure is how you change behavior. The debate spilled onto social media before the night was over, bringing with it the usual taunts and high-minded proclamations. It’s worth stepping back and asking what, exactly, is driving all of this anxiety. At its core, the car-versus-bike debate is a proxy for a larger concern: that we are contributing to climate catastrophe and have a moral obligation to stop it. The logic is straightforward, if human activity is warming the planet, then humans must do everything in their power to reverse course. The problem is that, from where Minneapolis sits, there isn’t much we can actually do. Our city’s emissions account for roughly 0.05% of global output annually. That means if every resident stopped driving tomorrow, no cars, no Amazon deliveries, bikes and boots only, it would make essentially no measurable difference to the planet’s trajectory. The numbers bear this out. According to an Associated Press report from 2018 [https://whyy.org/articles/climate-reality-check-global-carbon-pollution-up-in-2018/], admittedly a few years old, but the order of magnitude holds, global CO2 emissions run between 37 and 40 billion metric tons per year. Minnesota’s share is approximately 117 million metric tons, or about 0.29% of the total. Minneapolis, as a portion of the state, accounts for roughly 0.05% of that global figure. And transportation makes up only about 24% of the city’s emissions, the majority comes from heating and powering our homes and businesses. Do the math: if we eliminated every car in the city entirely, Minneapolis’s contribution to global CO2 would drop from approximately 0.05% to about 0.038%. Turn down the heat None of this is an argument for giving up. There are real, meaningful reasons to make lifestyle changes, riding the bus, biking to the store, eating less meat, buying used, combining errands, switching to solar. Small choices can add up, and there’s nothing wrong with wanting to feel less complicit in a problem that genuinely worries you. Do what fits your life. But when those choices become a cudgel, when people who need to drive to work or want their business accessible by car are treated as the enemy, it’s worth asking whether the anger is proportionate to the impact. Someone who bikes their kid to school but flies the whole family to Florida every December may well be generating more carbon than a neighbor who drives daily but never boards a plane. We’re all making trade-offs, and most of us are doing the best we can. The point is this: even if every person in Minneapolis made every right choice, it would not meaningfully alter the planet’s future. The fury that urban planning decisions tend to generate is wildly disproportionate to the actual environmental stakes. Let’s keep making good choices where we can, and let’s stop treating road design like a moral referendum. The city has real problems to solve. We’ll solve them faster if we’re pulling in the same direction. Thank you for listening and caring about Minneapolis. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.betterminneapolis.com/subscribe [https://www.betterminneapolis.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2]