Minneapolis 2021 Elections - Mayor, City Council, BET, Park Board

Elections - City Councils and Commissions - Policies
MNdible
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Re: Minneapolis 2021 Elections - Mayor, City Council, BET, Park Board

Postby MNdible » September 17th, 2021, 2:47 pm

Clearly, you should be making your decision based on the specifics of the policy being proposed. Oh wait, strike that.

twinkess
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Re: Minneapolis 2021 Elections - Mayor, City Council, BET, Park Board

Postby twinkess » September 17th, 2021, 3:13 pm

Maybe not, but who's to say the next ones will be better?

alexschief
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Re: Minneapolis 2021 Elections - Mayor, City Council, BET, Park Board

Postby alexschief » September 17th, 2021, 3:42 pm

Per the vagueness issue:
From what councilmembers have said, months ago they were trying to provide an outline and process for drafting an ordinance that would implement the department of public safety and how police would fit into that, but they were told to stop by the City Attorney's office because it would be considered campaigning in favor of the amendment.

https://twitter.com/lisabendermpls/stat ... 9333848066

https://www.startribune.com/minneapolis ... 600056497/
This seems insane to me? Obviously the bulk of the City Council supports this measure, they advanced a nearly identical one. This legal fiction about not using their offices to campaign for something they are obviously campaigning for outside of their offices really prohibits them from laying any groundwork whatsoever? That seems pretty dumb!

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Re: Minneapolis 2021 Elections - Mayor, City Council, BET, Park Board

Postby thespeedmccool » September 17th, 2021, 4:35 pm

I get the logic of not using council meetings or office resources to draw up a post-election plan (it would be wrong to divert city resources to planning for something they're not yet legally allowed to do.)

That said, there's no reason that the councilmembers couldn't advance a "vision" or outline in their private capacities. I'd imagine that's not happened for a few reasons.

First, Bender's retiring, leaving defunders without a clear leader for the future (I really can't stand that Bender's retiring. Follow through.)

Second, no one wants to commit to a plan and potentially have to walk it back. I know for a fact some councilmembers feel that they overstepped in Powderhorn Park; they probably don't want to make that mistake again.

Third, they've committed to framing the amendment as a kind of minor adjustment to add flexibility to the charter. That was really stupid. This is a minor, technical change, but one that comes with massive implications. The whole point of backing "defunding" was to do something groundbreaking. Going back on it to pitch it as an administrative change was stupid. I guess now they've committed to that now though and don't want to be too specific in hopes of picking up some "good governance" moderates or something.

Finally, I think it can't be understated that the council doesn't even really know what the plan would be. We have to remember that city staff drives a lot of what the council does, and this is no exception. The city staff being more or less banned from considering the future means they can't tender the expert opinions that normally drive city policy. Add to that the fact that thr Police Federation is 100% non-cooperative and there's reason to believe that even if the council did want to put a plan in writing, they wouldn't really know where to start. (Just imagine the response from Rondo if a councilmember emailed him today and asked him how much he thought could get safely cut from the police budget.)

All said, I wish the council had a more concrete plan, but I SUPPORT the amendment anyway. MPD is despicable and full of proven racists who don't care at all about Minneapolis. Time, in my opinion, to take them off their exalted pedestals and treat them like any other city department. Public safety is more than police, and I hope Minneapolis voters recognize that this fall.

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Re: Minneapolis 2021 Elections - Mayor, City Council, BET, Park Board

Postby tedlanda2571 » September 19th, 2021, 12:44 am

I’m undecided, and it’s going to be a game time decision, likely.

Honest question, though, why is the ‘if necessary’ language about having police officers in the amendment at all? Especially if, as literally every supporter tries to assure me, there definitively WILL be police officers?

I mean, it makes me completely distrustful. You could write an amendment that accomplishes the exact same thing without it. So why include it at all? The authors of the amendment must realize the likelihood of passing would be higher without such language (every single critique of the amendment jumps at that precise section), yet they included it. Why?

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Re: Minneapolis 2021 Elections - Mayor, City Council, BET, Park Board

Postby amiller92 » September 19th, 2021, 5:51 am

Clearly, you should be making your decision based on the specifics of the policy being proposed. Oh wait, strike that.
Advertising your willful ignorance is... a look.

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Re: Minneapolis 2021 Elections - Mayor, City Council, BET, Park Board

Postby amiller92 » September 19th, 2021, 6:16 am

I’m undecided, and it’s going to be a game time decision, likely.

Honest question, though, why is the ‘if necessary’ language about having police officers in the amendment at all? Especially if, as literally every supporter tries to assure me, there definitively WILL be police officers?

I mean, it makes me completely distrustful. You could write an amendment that accomplishes the exact same thing without it. So why include it at all? The authors of the amendment must realize the likelihood of passing would be higher without such language (every single critique of the amendment jumps at that precise section), yet they included it. Why?
The anti side has done a really good job of pretending that the charter is the only applicable source of law. It is not. There is a union contract (sorta) that the city cannot just ignore. There are city ordinances that require police and a chief. A future mayor and council could change those, but for now they exist. Judge for yourself whether you think those changes are likely. Then there is state law, which requires sworn officers for an excessively long list of things. There are ways around all of those things, but they all exist, along with a well-documented public desire not to be rid of police altogether right away. The police are not disappearing any time soon (no more so that bulldozers are coming for entire neighborhoods).

But this was a citizen petition drafter by activists that include police abolitionists. Of course it has language that a savvy political operator wouldn't include. Personally, I'd love to live in a world where police are not necessary, and think we should be working toward that world, but I don't really believe we will ever get there.

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Re: Minneapolis 2021 Elections - Mayor, City Council, BET, Park Board

Postby tedlanda2571 » September 19th, 2021, 7:15 am

^I'm aware of all the other impediments to eliminating armed emergency responders, but I think you are being willfully naïve about the implications of poorly drafted amendment language. For example, I would not be the least bit surprised if, once passed, those same citizen police abolitionist drafters claim that the 'if necessary' language sets a standard that the default position is 'no police'.

That is, they will claim the amendment should be interpreted as 'there will be police ONLY if it is established that they are necessary, and up to and until the city formally makes such a determination, the amendment effectively states that there SHALL NOT be police'. Is that a winning argument? Almost certainly not (I hope). But I wouldn't be surprised if it is made and prolongs whatever is to come. The history of poorly worded laws does not bode well for the implementation of this amendment.

Under the best of circumstances, I think it's likely that passing the amendment is going to lead to <very> messy period that could last for years. Lawsuits (both for and against), morons committing more crimes because they think it means no police (even if it doesn't), likely even further disengagement by the current police, etc..

That said, I'm seriously considering supporting it (or at least abstaining). In large part simply because, "we are here". By that I mean that the relationship between city government, citizenry, and the current police force is so damaged that I don't see any realistic path towards improving it. I'm not saying reforming the police is either possible or impossible, I'm saying that I think we are at a point where the contempt each group has for each other is so deep that it cannot be fixed, and where does that leave you?

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Re: Minneapolis 2021 Elections - Mayor, City Council, BET, Park Board

Postby amiller92 » September 19th, 2021, 11:21 am

Abolitionists may well argue that, but so what? They need a majority of the city council to agree with them. Even if a court decides that the council needs to explicitly find the police necessary, they will.

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Re: Minneapolis 2021 Elections - Mayor, City Council, BET, Park Board

Postby Blaisdell Greenway » September 20th, 2021, 8:14 am

This seems insane to me? Obviously the bulk of the City Council supports this measure, they advanced a nearly identical one. This legal fiction about not using their offices to campaign for something they are obviously campaigning for outside of their offices really prohibits them from laying any groundwork whatsoever? That seems pretty dumb!
Surprise surprise, it's the mayor's appointees (city attorney's office) that are the ones playing politics and doing everything possible to gum up the works. Funny how the mayor's office prevented a "plan" and is now advancing the narrative that "we don't have a plan"

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Re: Minneapolis 2021 Elections - Mayor, City Council, BET, Park Board

Postby EOst » September 20th, 2021, 8:26 am

First, Bender's retiring, leaving defunders without a clear leader for the future (I really can't stand that Bender's retiring. Follow through.)
Hard to keep elected officials when people camping on their boulevard and hurling insults at them and their children becomes an accepted practice.

alexschief
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Re: Minneapolis 2021 Elections - Mayor, City Council, BET, Park Board

Postby alexschief » September 20th, 2021, 1:15 pm

It's great to finally have some polling to ground people's expectations, but I think just about the only clear takeaway you can get out of the Strib/MPR/KARE11 polls is that basically all of the citywide races are up in the air. This is something of a cop-out, but all of the results were close, there's still six weeks left, and it's just a single poll of a single city. Just about any combination of results seems entirely possible, including really funny and idiosyncratic ones, like Strong Mayor, Public Safety, and Knuth/Nezhad all winning.

The spending and organizing on these races is going to be out of control down the stretch. Everyone can look at this data and think "we've got a shot."

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Re: Minneapolis 2021 Elections - Mayor, City Council, BET, Park Board

Postby Didier » October 8th, 2021, 1:51 pm

Anyone have a good argument for voting no on the strong mayor amendment?

This isn't it.

https://www.startribune.com/editorial-c ... fresh=true

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Re: Minneapolis 2021 Elections - Mayor, City Council, BET, Park Board

Postby LakeCharles » October 8th, 2021, 3:38 pm

Anyone have a good argument for voting no on the strong mayor amendment?

This isn't it.

https://www.startribune.com/editorial-c ... fresh=true
Here's one:
https://wedgelive.com/vote-no-on-questi ... #more-4287
The unresolved questions:

Currently, ordinances are written by department staff taking direction from the city council as a body. Does that continue or does the city council now need to fund and hire its own legislative staff?
Beyond legislating, departments must follow policies enacted by the city council that govern how they perform their work. For example, the Regulatory Services department must follow a “renter-first policy” that prioritizes an inspections and enforcement regime that keeps renters in their homes. Do policies like this depend on the whim of individual mayors? Do policies go in and out of fashion like presidential executive orders?
On the more routine issue of basic constituent service, who can a resident call about garbage pickup or snow plowing? Is it still their council member acting as the go-between to resolve minor issues with city departments, or is it the mayor’s office?
Or consider the opinion of Trudy Maloney, St. Paul director of City Council Operations, who described her experience working at both Minneapolis and St. Paul City Hall: “St. Paul is more efficient, but I think for that efficiency you lose some of the innovation and creativity.” Moloney said St. Paul was often decades behind Minneapolis in developing the same programs and policies. “While I was in [Minneapolis] Mayor Fraser’s office, there wasn’t one day that I didn’t want a strong mayor form of government. It really wasn’t until I came over to St. Paul that I started to respect and better understand the beauty that the Minneapolis government has. There’s value to not having the buck stop with just a mayor.”

Consider also that Frey has said if this change goes through, he would need to hire more staff to manage his new responsibilities, and the City Council would also have to hire more staff in order to fulfill their legislative obligations. Meaning we would be looking at minimum 15 new city staff with this change.

What's a good argument in favor of it? As others have noted, the weak mayor/strong council structure is commonplace in other countries such as Australia, Canada, the UK, and New Zealand. Now I don't think we need to emulate Sydney just because, I also haven't been convinced that becoming more like Cleveland and less like Auckland is going to solve anything.

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Re: Minneapolis 2021 Elections - Mayor, City Council, BET, Park Board

Postby mister.shoes » October 8th, 2021, 10:14 pm

Anyone have a good argument for voting no on the strong mayor amendment?

This isn't it.

https://www.startribune.com/editorial-c ... fresh=true
I dunno. Someone retweeted her thread into my timeline the other day and I found it compelling. What turns you off about it?
The problem with being an introvert online is that no one knows you're just hanging out and listening.

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Re: Minneapolis 2021 Elections - Mayor, City Council, BET, Park Board

Postby Blaisdell Greenway » October 11th, 2021, 7:57 am

Besides the idea itself being half-baked, the Charter Commission basically admitted they created this to reward Frey for people being mean to him and punish the council for listening to their constituents.

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Re: Minneapolis 2021 Elections - Mayor, City Council, BET, Park Board

Postby Silophant » October 11th, 2021, 9:44 am

The critical thing to understand is that the strong mayor amendment is independent from the actual mayoral race. Everyone who's for it seems to take it for granted that Frey will win reelection and become the Strong Mayor of their dreams (well, except for this guy), and that's probably the most likely outcome given the specific coalitions that exist right now, but it's perfectly possible that the amendment passes and Knuth or Nezhad wins instead. To be honest, Q1 passing and Nezhad winning is probably the best chance for MPD actually being abolished, unlikely though it is.
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Re: Minneapolis 2021 Elections - Mayor, City Council, BET, Park Board

Postby SurlyLHT » October 12th, 2021, 1:42 pm

Besides the idea itself being half-baked, the Charter Commission basically admitted they created this to reward Frey for people being mean to him and punish the council for listening to their constituents.
Hardly half baked when they've been trying to do something similar since 1900.
https://www.startribune.com/strong-mayo ... 600098605/

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Re: Minneapolis 2021 Elections - Mayor, City Council, BET, Park Board

Postby Blaisdell Greenway » October 12th, 2021, 2:25 pm

Have you actually researched what it would do? This is not like the other versions that have come up in the past. Why did the Charter Commission come up with the idea to literally penalize the council for going against the mayor? Do you really trust the Strib to advocate for anything besides what the downtown council tells them to support?

Myron Orfield himself says "the Commission has become 'dominated by lawyers who are in the service of established interests, more conservative and representing the interests of big business and the mayor, a consensus of powerful people.'"

https://spokesman-recorder.com/2021/09/ ... -powerful/

They are rewarding their guy and punishing the rest of us and they know it. They have said so while in open meetings.

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Re: Minneapolis 2021 Elections - Mayor, City Council, BET, Park Board

Postby SurlyLHT » October 13th, 2021, 3:15 pm

Have you actually researched what it would do? This is not like the other versions that have come up in the past. Why did the Charter Commission come up with the idea to literally penalize the council for going against the mayor? Do you really trust the Strib to advocate for anything besides what the downtown council tells them to support?

Myron Orfield himself says "the Commission has become 'dominated by lawyers who are in the service of established interests, more conservative and representing the interests of big business and the mayor, a consensus of powerful people.'"

https://spokesman-recorder.com/2021/09/ ... -powerful/

They are rewarding their guy and punishing the rest of us and they know it. They have said so while in open meetings.
Lisa Bender is the most powerful person in the city as Council President. I don't live in her Ward...I can't vote her out if she were running for re-election. Seems like our current system is quite undemocratic. The Charter Commission is the Judicial Branch of the Government and is doing it's proper job of balancing the other two branches. Go read Rousseau if you want to learn more about the balance of powers.


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