I reached out to Kidale Smith to offer condolences and my sympathy’s over the death of Winston Smith. It was very embracing and tear-jerking at the same time. Kidale’s daughter was crying and sending off balloons and Kidale was warm and welcoming to me and my campaign team.

Public Safety

How will you keep young Black and brown kids safe — those who are simultaneously the most at risk from gun violence but also most at risk during interactions with the police? What do you believe are best practices for solving these issues in tandem, and how will you involve the communities most affected in problem solving and determining next steps?

Housing should be viewed as a fundamental human right, not a commodity that some cannot access or afford. Ensure that every one living – or visiting – the city has a space to call ‘home’. There should be a gun safety class for all 12 year olds. Community organizations reach out to troubled teens with support and resources. Advocate for alternative forms to cash bail.

Divert offenders of less-serious domestic crimes out of the traditional criminal-justice system by providing them the opportunity to go to therapy after their arrests in lieu of jail time and permanent convictions on their criminal records.

Decriminalize our approach to drug addiction by viewing it as a public health issue and increase resources for treatment centers and mental health service.

People of color in Minneapolis are killed or otherwise harmed by law enforcement at disproportionately high rates, despite many attempts at reform over several election cycles. How do you intend to reshape a policing system that has been resistant to change, and slow to show meaningful strides toward equitable community outcomes?

Address the rampant gun violence and robberies occurring throughout our neighborhoods – by ensuring that the public safety needs of the city are fully funded. Actively work with communities and neighborhoods to restore the people’s trust in public safety – and its peace officers.

Commission a “Citizen’s Assembly” with a mandate to architect and recommend to the city’s people a completely new model of policing that is fit for purpose – and better serves people of color, immigrants, LGBTQ people, and other marginalized groups.

Demand the demilitarization of MPD and its transformation into the professional force of peace officers the city’s communities and neighborhoods need now and for the future

Demand accountability from the city’s leaders for their ‘abject failure’ during a serious public safety crisis – and ensure that its lessons are documented and reviewed so all levels of government are better prepared.

Change how we respond to non-violent calls and traffic stop – like the one that precipitated the death of George Floyd and Daunte Wright.

Fully fund and implement a civilian-run emergency call line to provide de-escalation support to victims, thereby reducing reliance on 911 and the potential for armed police encounters.

Implement restorative justice practices to avoid arrests for minor crimes and instead refer people to social programs, mental health services, or shelters.

What are your stances on memorializing public spaces when our community is grieving, and/or demanding action through constitutionally-protected protests? What policies would you put in place or what organizations would you engage to ensure residents can do these things safely?

The issue of public safety is too big to be decided by the ‘elite few’ – and what ever public safety model is ultimately decided upon, must be lead by and include the people of the city. And those who suffered in the past, must have a major position and fully represented in developing what comes next for our pubic safety agencies and departments

In the meantime, we must continue to take immediate and intermediate steps to move our public safety as far away from the deadly elements of the existing failed model.

And yes, this must be done as purposely as possible in order to safeguard the people, city commerce, and the dreams of every one in the city.

AJ believes we must architect and implement a new model for Public Safety in Minneapolis – that will include comprehensive consultation and support from neighborhoods and marginalized communities – and will ensure Public Safety is provided and dedicated to the well-being of every single resident.

We can – and we will – make public safety in Minneapolis better for everyone.

Housing

Rental assistance from the federal government has helped keep people in their homes through the pandemic. This funding is not permanent, however, and inability to pay is the leading cause of evictions. What is your stance on more permanent rental assistance, rent stabilization, and/or rent control measures in Minneapolis?

I believe everyone in Minneapolis deserves a space to call ‘home’. That’s why I believe we need a strong rent stabilization policy in Minneapolis. The city can – and must – do more. We need another tool in our city’s “housing toolbox” to address the housing needs of all. Minneapolis must rise to the challenge of making rents stable and predictable for all who chose to call Minneapolis home. We are not far from a future where your average blue-collar worker making $33k a year will find it hard to find an affordable apartment for themselves and their child. According to many economists, to remain affordable, housing costs must only be about 30% of a person’s income.

I believe a universal rent control or stabilization ordinance that is properly funded and implemented in Minneapolis would allow us to protect renters from displacement; help renters strengthen their communities by allowing them to stay in their neighborhoods; stabilize our community schools by minimizing student relocation, and prevent increased homelessness.

If approved, I believe any ordinance should limit rent increases to inflation or the consumer price index or some similar formula; it should apply to properties that have a rental license; include protections against the amounts landlords can pass renovation and repair fees onto tenants; apply to the home, rather than the tenant, to avoid price-hikes when people move out. And I believe we should create a well-resourced renter protection board that empowers renters.

Gentrification results in cultural loss for communities and major economic impacts for those priced out of their longtime neighborhoods. As our city grows, what plans do you have to combat gentrification and increase the amount of affordable housing available in Minneapolis?

Unfortunately, in recent years, the Minneapolis Public Housing Authority, with the support of City Council, has moved forward with privatization plans for the Elliot Twins high-rises, as well as the privatization of all single-family “scattered site” homes throughout Minneapolis.

Turning over ownership to the same private investors and developers who created our current housing crisis will not solve our affordability issues. In fact, it will likely lead to further displacement for our most vulnerable residents.

In a ‘Better Minneapolis’, our public housing and housing options will be a source of pride for our city – and a place of comfort, safety, and stability for all who call the city ‘home’ or just to visit.

In the last few years, Minneapolis has experienced a spike in encampments of unhoused people on public land — a high percentage of whom are Black and/or Indigenous. Many of our unhoused neighbors see this as their best housing option over shelters (for reasons of personal safety, pet ownership, or having to abandon property). What will you do to protect these neighbors and connect them with safe and stable housing?

Our residents deserve better. We must have a city that is building the amount and kinds of housing necessary to minimize or even prevent these issues from arising – and as Mayor, AJ Awed will take action.

AJ believes housing is a fundamental human right, and not a commodity. But he knows how housing is currently developed and he knows it will take creative thinking and private – and government partners – to meet the housing needs of everyone in Minneapolis.

We must take bolder steps to solves these issues – and we must recommit our city to addressing them directly by advocating for new taxing authority and funding for these efforts. We cannot rely on US Government pandemic funds alone – the City of Minneapolis must be given new taxing authority so that funding for these efforts are sustainable to meet them.

Housing Opportunities in Minneapolis

Right now, the most pressing need facing Minneapolis is affordable housing. This was true before the COVID-19 pandemic, but with workers unemployed, the need for affordable and stable housing is only intensifying as the city grows. Addressing the affordability crisis will require bold policies capable of ensuring affordable housing for all.

Together we must lay the foundation and funding for future housing stability, we need to refocus city policy to protect current occupants, repair public housing, and build new affordable housing.

Rent Control and Stabilization
AJ believes we must curb high rent increases for landlords who own 5 or more properties – tying increases to the percentage increase in the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for All Urban Consumers. The City of Minneapolis must not allow large rent increases to displace families and long-time residents from living in their neighborhoods.

As your Mayor, AJ will continue to work alongside Minneapolis tenants and housing advocates to implement a universal Rent Control ordinance that will work for everyone in Minneapolis.

Universal rent control or stabilization ordinances that are properly funded and implemented in Minneapolis would allow us to:

Protect renters from displacement.
Help renters strengthen their communities by allowing them to stay in their neighborhoods
Stabilize our community schools by minimizing student relocation.
Prevent increased homelessness.

Jobs and Economy

Black, Indigenous, and Minneapolis residents of color pay local taxes and contribute to our local economy, but often do not receive the same shared economic benefits as their white counterparts. Through generations of oppression via policy and unequal systems, wealth has been chronically and systematically extracted from BIPOC communities—how do you envision addressing this legacy of economic harm, in both the short term and the long term?

Expand the city’s technical assistance program by offering low-income small businesses free legal advice for lease negotiations and low-interest loans from trustworthy community lenders

Oppose the sale and development of city-owned land for projects that will further exacerbate gentrification and displacement pressure for small businesses

Support a future ‘Vacancy Tax’, to create an incentive for landlords not to leave ground-floor storefront retail spaces empty in the hopes of waiting for a tenant who will pay higher rent

Support a version of commercial rent control for small businesses
Champion low interest loans and other forms of support for neighborhood-based small businesses and entrepreneurs

The power dynamics of work are heavily tilted against low-wage workers, especially immigrant workers. What actions have you taken or what plans do you have to protect and support these workers?

Expand the city’s technical assistance program by offering low-income small businesses free legal advice for lease negotiations and low-interest loans from trustworthy community lenders

Oppose the sale and development of city-owned land for projects that will further exacerbate gentrification and displacement pressure for small businesses

Support a future ‘Vacancy Tax’, to create an incentive for landlords not to leave ground-floor storefront retail spaces empty in the hopes of waiting for a tenant who will pay higher rent

Support a version of commercial rent control for small businesses

Champion low interest loans and other forms of support for neighborhood-based small businesses and entrepreneurs

Racial Justice

Explain your understanding of systemic racism, and how—or whether—you believe it affects Minneapolis’s education systems & outcomes, our housing market, our environment, public safety, healthcare, or other major systems.

As a black man who is a refugee I am well aware of the systemic racism or new Jim Crow which exists due to the history of manifest destiny and after reading the data it exists on paper after the research results were revealed in the report published by Wilder.

Elevate and empower a diverse and inclusive city leadership

Advocate with the state to ensure all drivers in the city are provided a drivers license – regardless of immigration status

Push for fair and accessible pathways to legal status and citizenship for all undocumented people living in the city

Champion and uplift the voices of the LGBTQ+ community and other marginalized identities

Protect undocumented workers from ‘notario’ fraud and related unbanked households fraud

Invest in neighborhood infrastructure and community space

Expand free mental health services, especially those tailored for youth

Invest in programs that support recovering addicts after they graduate from a treatment facility

Expand the accessibility of naloxone/narcan and train more government employees to use the life-saving drug

In cases where 911 is called for a non-violent drug related incident, have first responders be health care professionals

Push for diversion programs that place people addicted to a substance in a treatment program rather than prison or jail

Expunge the records of those previously incarcerated on non-violent drug crimes

Expand the locations, coverage, and hours of current syringe exchange programs

Our community suffers from some of the greatest racial disparities in the country across many social, educational, and economic metrics—and has for some time. If you’re in government now, what have you done to address this, and do you feel your efforts have been enough despite the lack of change? And if you’re seeking office for the first time, what ideas are you going to put forward that haven’t already failed?

A WELCOMING CITY CONNECTS NEIGHBORS
We’ve all had moments where we felt like we didn’t belong. But for some of our neighbors – they experience this for more than a moment.

Everyone wants to feel welcome in our city, but today, too many of our neighbors experience exclusion, isolation, harassment, and even violence solely on the basis of their identity.

Diverse and welcoming communities provide an opportunity for people from different racial and ethnic backgrounds to come into contact with each other, and we know that diverse neighborhoods have more inclusive identities, and are thus be more prosocial.

And we know that these experiences can create a positive effect on people’s identities.

A diverse and inclusive city provides provides new residents an opportunity to achieve economic independence and a sense of community. We must continue to meet newcomers’ immediate needs, as well as offer opportunities for long-term social and economic integration.

The degree to which migrants, refugees, and other newcomers are welcomed, integrated and included into local government’s policies and planning strongly impacts their level of empowerment and resilience.

There is growing consensus that diversity is key to promoting a wide range of positive outcomes for all residents by improving access to economic opportunity. More integrated communities give more people better connections to jobs, schools, and civic resources.

How do we continue to maintain that diversity?
The best way for the city to do this is by building lots more housing. Using any increase in property values and tax revenues to fund affordable housing means that all residents will have access to the same opportunities. And AJ believes we must make investment in transformative public spaces – which can create shared experiences that encourage, celebrate, and promote social cohesion and diversity.

What happens when we are welcoming?
When communities recognize the value being truly welcoming and intentionally work toward the inclusion of newcomers, they can create a culture and policy environment where everyone feels empowered to work with each other in strengthening the social, civic, and economic fabric.

When we find strength in our diversity — and actively resist fear and division — we can build a resilient community that fully harnesses the talents, skills, and contributions of every resident so that all can thrive. And that makes for a better city!

Climate

Climate change is already upon us, and its causes are on such a large scale that we can’t expect everyday Minneapolitans to recycle or LED bulb our way to a solution. How would you encourage businesses in our city to adopt practices to mitigate climate change, and/or hold them accountable for practices that worsen it?

In addition to working with Metro Transit to ensure the existing fleet of hybrid-electric busses are assigned to bus routes in areas of the city that currently experience the highest levels of pollution (i.e. the Southside Green Zone of Phillips, Little Earth, and Cedar-Riverside).

Here is where the response goes.

Protect vulnerable neighborhoods from a changing climate.

Invest in Green Job Training and Certification for workers to provide long-term career paths in the new green economy.

Incentivize and assist Small Businesses in transitioning to cleaner, green economy technologies.

Work in partnership with Metro Transit to expand mass transit and make public transportation free.

Prioritize equitable transit-oriented development by locating new affordable housing developments near public transit ways throughout Minneapolis.

Advocate for a clean energy grid – deploying solar, wind, and hyrdo options where possible.

Push for reductions in building energy emissions and emissions from other sources – like vehicle tailpipes and waste.

Put social and racial justice at the center of the city’s climate work and make sure every one has the skills to participate in the green economy.

Educate our neighbors – and the next generation – about the impacts of climate change in our city.

Businesses need to continue to bring down their carbon footprints as stated in one of clean air acts to stop global warming starting with Minneapolis businesses and providing incentives with those businesses that comply.

Voters’ Rights

Votes for city-wide offices in Minneapolis come disproportionately from the most affluent corners of the city. How have you/will you work to increase voter participation and engagement so that city-wide elections better capture the voices of all Minneapolitans

Elevate and empower a diverse and inclusive city leadership

Advocate with the state to ensure all drivers in the city are provided a drivers license – regardless of immigration status

Push for fair and accessible pathways to legal status and citizenship for all undocumented people living in the city.

AJ has been educating voters out of incarceration or holding a criminal record what their voting rights are and why it is important to be able to vote. He is educating immigrants on the importance of citizenship and the right to vote on the issues that effect one’s daily lives. AJ has been out in the community embracing voters rights and absentee vote sessions to keep the public aware of what their voting options are and why it is important to their daily living as well as their future.

Governance

Who are the people and/or organizations that would be part of your decision-making process in office?

The degree to which migrants, refugees, and other newcomers are welcomed, integrated and included into local government’s policies and planning strongly impacts their level of empowerment and resilience.

There is growing consensus that diversity is key to promoting a wide range of positive outcomes for all residents by improving access to economic opportunity. More integrated communities give more people better connections to jobs, schools, and civic resources.

I plan to be community led in my decision making processes once elected.

Last Word

What’s one thing you think Minneapolis does well that you’d like to build upon if elected?

I plan to create a “welcomeness”!

When communities recognize the value being truly welcoming and intentionally work toward the inclusion of newcomers, they can create a culture and policy environment where everyone feels empowered to work with each other in strengthening the social, civic, and economic fabric.

When we find strength in our diversity — and actively resist fear and division — we can build a resilient community that fully harnesses the talents, skills, and contributions of every resident so that all can thrive. And that makes for a better city!

Every single day my team and I work directly with communities across our city, showing up when there are no cameras and without social media attention. From consoling a grieving family after a shooting, to connecting directly with community members experiencing homelessness, to working with small business owners through a global pandemic, the vast majority of our work goes unseen. One specific example is that I’ve been volunteering with and organizing for Cook for Kids, providing, preparing, and serving meals to families who are part of the Jeremiah Program for single mothers and their families. There are quite a few other examples both in my personal life and public service as Mayor but I’d like to speak about non-performative behavior more broadly, because it’s critical.

When I ran for mayor, I heard repeatedly that elected officials were not present enough on the Northside. As Mayor, I’ve spent more time there than anywhere else (outside of my home and City Hall), and my experiences there have helped inform my position and actions on police reform, community safety, inclusive and intentional economic policy, and a number of other issues. I take frequent opportunities to listen to residents who are not part of the mainstream political discourse in our city, and it is exemplified by my broad support within these communities. I carried the largest subcaucus in both Northside wards this year, winning 15 of 17 Northside precincts. And we have broad support across the Latino and Somali communities. When you show up for people, they show up for you. I do this work every day and I will continue to do so in my second term.

Public Safety

How will you keep young Black and brown kids safe — those who are simultaneously the most at risk from gun violence but also most at risk during interactions with the police? What do you believe are best practices for solving these issues in tandem, and how will you involve the communities most affected in problem solving and determining next steps?

I support a both-and approach to public safety. This means deep structural change to our police department, culture shift, safety beyond policing, and adequate staffing of police.

I involve affected communities by meeting them where they are. When you listen to our neighbors most impacted by violence within their communities, be it on the Northside or along East Lake St, the overwhelming sentiment you hear is that we cannot abolish or defund the police and expect our community to get safer. It does not make sense. I will listen to the experts, data, and impacted community members in making sure our police department is properly staffed.

Communities feel safe when they are nurtured, protected, and supported. They feel safe when they are not only free from violent crime plaguing their communities, but also when they have the opportunities, assets, and ability to chart their own course in life. This requires foundational necessities like a stable home, healthy and affordable food, access to healthcare, a good paying job that is valued, and the ability to relax and recreate. Safety requires inclusion, connection to your neighbors, and the notion that you are part of something bigger than yourself. Finally, safety requires the assurance that you will receive help during times of need.

People of color in Minneapolis are killed or otherwise harmed by law enforcement at disproportionately high rates, despite many attempts at reform over several election cycles. How do you intend to reshape a policing system that has been resistant to change, and slow to show meaningful strides toward equitable community outcomes?

It will take more than empty rhetoric, and there are no magic wand fixes to the deep-seated change we need. We have authored a litany of changes including but not limited to, implementing strict standards with disciplinary consequences for the body worn camera policy (raising compliance from 55% to 95%), banning warrior-style training both on-and-off duty, banning no-knock warrants for all but exigent circumstances, overhauling the use of force policy to be as strict as possible under state law, incorporating de-escalation requirements and reporting, enhanced training, and more. Just this week, we announced that we will end pretextual stops for low-level offenses.

We also must shift the culture of policing, which means getting the right officers in and the wrong officers out. To achieve this, we must see true arbitration reform because right now 50% of disciplinary and termination decisions get overturned by mandatory arbitration. I have been the only candidate talking about this substantial issue.

To address the point about equitable community outcomes: I support, and have funded at record levels, both new safety beyond policing initiatives as part of our community safety ecosystem and made overdue investments in redressing long-term, systemic inequities which are a root cause of crime. We also have an obligation to respond to and address these issues right now because crime is an accelerator of these same inequities. When crime is out of control, it makes all of these problems worse. And so I do support properly staffing a police department with officers that are able to respond to difficult and dangerous situations that communities experience in our city. As a city with one of the lowest per capita number of police officers of any city in the country, Minneapolis cannot afford to defund or abolish the police.

What are your stances on memorializing public spaces when our community is grieving, and/or demanding action through constitutionally-protected protests? What policies would you put in place or what organizations would you engage to ensure residents can do these things safely?

There is no one-size-fits-all solution to governing during times of crisis, protest, or unrest. Anyone who tells you otherwise is willfully lying or deeply deluded. I will address the situation at 38th and Chicago in my answer.

George Floyd Square is and will forever be a center of racial justice and healing in our city and around the world. I worked closely with community members and activists over the past year to determine the best way forward. The decision to reopen the Square in phases reflects our commitment to both the community members who live and work in the area and have a right to receive basic city services, and the activists whose demands for racial justice must be heard. To that end, my administration has pledged and begun advancing a series of investments (and millions of dollars) for the neighborhood around 38th and Chicago ranging from support to create more Black-owned business and property, to policing changes, to resources for racial justice and healing in line with the demands laid out by the occupants. I’ve repeatedly met with both Council Vice President Jenkins and activists to meet these demands, and we have made excellent progress toward meeting them.

Housing

Rental assistance from the federal government has helped keep people in their homes through the pandemic. This funding is not permanent, however, and inability to pay is the leading cause of evictions. What is your stance on more permanent rental assistance, rent stabilization, and/or rent control measures in Minneapolis?

I was the first mayor in our city’s history to explicitly state that “housing is a right.” I have acted to fund affordable housing at 3 times the previous record in our city and more, on a per capita basis, than almost any major city in our country. The level of deeply affordable (30 percent AMI) housing built under our administration this past year was nearly seven times the median output from 2011-2018.

I have pushed for comprehensive zoning reform to allow for a diversity of housing options to every neighborhood, including affordable housing where it was previously blocked. Our ability to keep up with increased demand is predicated on an ability to increase housing supply. To that point, I am extremely proud that even as our city has grown quickly, average rent in Minneapolis has never increased by more than 3% in a year throughout my term as Mayor.

I oppose rent control in its classic form. Economic studies have widely shown that it has been counterproductive in achieving affordable housing. I do, however, support local control and the ability for municipalities to chart their course going forward in preventing rent gouging. There is an amendment toward this end on the ballot this year. In addition we’ve also produced low-barrier housing, opened more new shelters than ever before, and worked with the county (the main provider of these services) to meet needs that have historically been insufficiently addressed. Here again, we have delivered with record results, and we will push even harder.

Gentrification results in cultural loss for communities and major economic impacts for those priced out of their longtime neighborhoods. As our city grows, what plans do you have to combat gentrification and increase the amount of affordable housing available in Minneapolis?

We cannot allow communities that have made neighborhoods wonderful to begin with to get kicked out when values go up. This displacement ruins the very fabric of our communities and we have an obligation to do more than cite the problem, but act with specificity toward a solution.

First, we have acted to preserve naturally occurring affordable housing and continue to build new affordable housing. In addition to achieving several times the previous record of affordable housing production in our city, we have also done more than ever before to retain existing affordable stock through the 4D program, which incentivizes affordable rents in exchange for property tax reductions, and through our NOAH acquisition fund. And, we have recognized that BIPOC ownership of commercial property is also critical in creating intergenerational wealth, and so we started the Commercial Property Development Fund so that Black business owners can own not just the business buy the building/land. All of these new strategies that have now become mainstays were created under my administration.

Finally, despite a rapidly growing population, average rent has never grown by more than 3% annually in my term, and has averaged 1.5%, right in line with inflation. We still have so much work to do, and we are committed to it.

In the last few years, Minneapolis has experienced a spike in encampments of unhoused people on public land — a high percentage of whom are Black and/or Indigenous. Many of our unhoused neighbors see this as their best housing option over shelters (for reasons of personal safety, pet ownership, or having to abandon property). What will you do to protect these neighbors and connect them with safe and stable housing?

I believe that stable housing is a right. In fact, it’s largely the reason I got into municipal politics in the first place. Our city is currently investing more in housing on a per capita basis than nearly any other city in the country. While long-term, stable housing is the goal, it is not always an attainable reality in the short term.

To that end, our city has opened several new shelters in the past year with the acknowledgement that the classic shelter framework does not work for everyone, as your question points out. One of these shelters — the Avivo center in Near North — is a pioneering new model that gives people their own tiny home and private space. Unlike other shelters where you might have a bed for one night but not the next, the Avivo center provides people a space where they can get the privacy and dignity that everyone deserves. Additionally, we opened Homeward Bound – a culturally sensitive shelter for our Native community that is already seeing excellent results.

Additionally, our Stable Homes Stable Schools program has helped provide 3,000 children at risk of homelessness with stable housing and wraparound services. Some have talked about creating programs to help our most vulnerable in the community – we have acted to get it done.

Jobs and Economy

Black, Indigenous, and Minneapolis residents of color pay local taxes and contribute to our local economy, but often do not receive the same shared economic benefits as their white counterparts. Through generations of oppression via policy and unequal systems, wealth has been chronically and systematically extracted from BIPOC communities—how do you envision addressing this legacy of economic harm, in both the short term and the long term?

Whether through reparations or strategic investment in BIPOC communities, we have the obligation to make sure the precision of our solutions match the precision of the harm initially inflicted.

In terms of funding, we’ve allocated a $2.5 million initial investment to establish a city fund that provides no-interest loans for business owners in racially segregated areas with concentrated poverty helping to ensure that they are able to be the beneficiaries of, rather than displaced by, increases to property values.

We’ve created the Commercial Property Development Fund that invests more than $10 million to provide BIPOC business owners with long term capital to support the acquisition or completion of commercial real estate in portions of Minneapolis that have experienced historic disinvestment and are vulnerable to displacement.

More substantially, the City Council recently approved my proposal for $37 million in direct relief and support for small businesses and workers from the American Rescue Plan funds, with an emphasis toward BIPOC and immigrant communities.

We must do these things in tandem with the assurance of safety, which I expand on in question 2.

The power dynamics of work are heavily tilted against low-wage workers, especially immigrant workers. What actions have you taken or what plans do you have to protect and support these workers?

I was instrumental in passing a $15 minimum wage in Minneapolis while I was on the city council. I co-authored the law and was among the first on the council to publicly support such a wage increase. It is both a moral and an economic imperative to make sure our essential and low-wage workers earn a living wage. In turn, the extra money in these workers’ pockets serves to stimulate the economy.

Since we’ve passed it, the next imperative was enforcing it. We’ve allocated resources to our Civil Rights Department to investigate complaints, worked with community based organizations to properly find infractions, coached local businesses to ensure they’re meeting the standards, and yes, penalized businesses that refuse to comply. The fastest way to undermine trust in government is to pass legislation that we don’t enforce. The minimum wage needs to be enforced.

I’ve received the endorsement of every labor union who has endorsed in this race so far, due, in no small part, to the work that we’ve done to protect and bolster workers’ rights.

Racial Justice

Explain your understanding of systemic racism, and how—or whether—you believe it affects Minneapolis’s education systems & outcomes, our housing market, our environment, public safety, healthcare, or other major systems.

Systemic racism is embedded in the very institutions that control our daily lives – from government to employment to housing to healthcare. The impacts of systemic racism are so replete throughout our daily lives that identifying examples inevitably leave others out. Simply put, we have collectively mistreated Black residents through so many systems that have been designed to perpetuate harm and further anti-Blackness. Furthermore, our Latino, new immigrant, Hmong, and Somali communities have not been afforded equal opportunity in many of the aforementioned areas.

Regardless of what any candidate believes about system racism, the truth is shown with great clarity in the data. Whether that data shows disparate outcomes in criminal justice, housing, or pollution, the end result is clear – our communities of color have suffered because of intentional decisions that have been made over hundreds of years, and those results are continued today.

Our community suffers from some of the greatest racial disparities in the country across many social, educational, and economic metrics—and has for some time. If you’re in government now, what have you done to address this, and do you feel your efforts have been enough despite the lack of change? And if you’re seeking office for the first time, what ideas are you going to put forward that haven’t already failed?

Our work has produced record funding/results in everything from housing to Black ownership of real estate. Our administration has pushed forward and supported work around truth and reconciliation, criminal justice reform, and broad based economic inclusion. We have outlined some of this work in answers to questions above. Is it enough? No. We have so much more work to do.

Climate

Climate change is already upon us, and its causes are on such a large scale that we can’t expect everyday Minneapolitans to recycle or LED bulb our way to a solution. How would you encourage businesses in our city to adopt practices to mitigate climate change, and/or hold them accountable for practices that worsen it?

We must reflect environmental costs in how we operate. The unregulated market is notably poor at accounting for a firm or individual’s environmental impacts when determining its overall cost of doing business. As a city councilmember, I changed the structure of our pollution fee system toward this end. Previously, businesses were charged per device, which incentivized them to pollute as much as possible from each of those devices. In other words, the regulation was not effectively meeting its goal of reducing production of pollutants. I led, and the city council passed, a change to charge a fee for every pound of pollution produced. I have doubled down on this policy as mayor, and the results have dramatically decreased our carbon and criteria pollutant emissions.

We have also dramatically expanded our green business cost share program, which has allowed businesses across our city to make better, more sustainable decisions while not sacrificing their bottom line. And, my administration started our city’s Rebuild Resilient program, which is presently providing funding to businesses to and development projects so they can build more sustainably.

We’ve even adopted a social cost of carbon in our 2022 budget proposal. Still, we can’t and won’t stop here. We must go even further to incentivize, and where possible require, sustainable energy sources, reduce GHGs, and reduce consumption.

Voters’ Rights

Votes for city-wide offices in Minneapolis come disproportionately from the most affluent corners of the city. How have you/will you work to increase voter participation and engagement so that city-wide elections better capture the voices of all Minneapolitans?

Our efforts to increase voter participation and win the election align. Our election strategy is simple – increase voter turnout to the highest it’s ever been in Minneapolis history. If there is high turnout, especially among voters from Black, indigenous, and immigrant communities, we believe we will win. Some of our strongest support comes from these communities, and we’ve worked extensively to engage them as constituents, caucus goers, and voters. This engagement has been less of a social media or campaign strategy than an organic result of showing up and listening to people in those communities, empowering them with a voice in our policy discussions, and providing them with leadership roles so our city departments are more representative of our diverse communities.

We plan on continuing to reach residents who are not the “typical” participants in municipal politics. Public polling, our field data, and the caucus results reveal great support for our positions among individuals in the aforementioned communities, and we want them to participate in all stages of this election culminating with a vote in November.

Governance

Who are the people and/or organizations that would be part of your decision-making process in office?

There are too many to list. Community leaders, small businesses and workers, people with lived experience, elected officials, labor unions, and advocacy organizations to name a few.

Last Word

15. What’s one thing you think Minneapolis does well that you’d like to build upon if elected?

We have some of the greatest parks in the world, and more of them per square mile than any large city that I know of. In tandem with the work of the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board, we will continue to maintain and improve access to these incredible assets. Just this year, my recommended budget includes a substantial increase in funding for youth recreation in our park system, and this work can be built upon.

On that point: access, I believe that we have done transformative work in the area of making our wonderful neighborhoods accessible to a wide diversity of housing options and people, both racially and socioeconomically. This work is not done. Just because certain barriers like zoning or status have been lifted doesn’t mean the systemic inequities cease to exist and persist. Still, we have advanced the cause in my first term, and look forward to doing so further in my second term.

I have represented low-income tenants and homeowners in Minneapolis on issues relating to eviction, affordable housing and housing discrimination on a pro bono basis. Most of these disputes are handled in housing court and therefore in the public eye. What is not seen is the day-to-day communication with tenants and homeowners, and these discussions reveal what is at stake: shelter, stability and safety. These conversations are difficult because they reveal how vulnerable we are when we are close to losing our homes. I worked with a woman whose son is asthmatic and was suffering from the renovation work her landlord was doing in her apartment during the holidays. I argued successfully in emergency hearings for the mother and son to spend the renovation period in a hotel so they had a safe, warm place to spend the holidays. I helped a front-line worker whose property management company tried to evict him for simply waiting in the lobby for a ride to work. In these cases and others, I listen to my clients’ situation and ask them to put their trust in me at a time when they are feeling worried and anxious. In return, I fight for them in court to help them achieve favorable outcomes.

Public Safety

How will you keep young Black and brown kids safe — those who are simultaneously the most at risk from gun violence but also most at risk during interactions with the police? What do you believe are best practices for solving these issues in tandem, and how will you involve the communities most affected in problem solving and determining next steps?

Public safety is my number one issue, especially when it comes to children. We need a multi-prong approach to keeping our city’s youth safe. That approach includes getting more good police officers on the street – officers who are dedicated to the city, have the right training and support, and have strong ties with the communities they serve. It also includes deep, structural changes that require the input of the communities most affected by violence.

People of color in Minneapolis are killed or otherwise harmed by law enforcement at disproportionately high rates, despite many attempts at reform over several election cycles. How do you intend to reshape a policing system that has been resistant to change, and slow to show meaningful strides toward equitable community outcomes?

We need the Minneapolis Police Department to help keep us safe, and we need a mayor who will make the police department better. We need a leader who will work every day to restore faith and trust in the department. We need a leader who knows that this work will be an ongoing process that requires partnership and buy-in from individuals and communities across our city.

My plans include:

Reset the narrative about our good police by sharing their stories with the public so our officers know their service is appreciated and our community understands their sacrifice and dedication to safety.

Identify and promote the best civil servants – those who believe in the beauty of multiculturalism and our city – and create an environment in which they thrive.

Work with Chief Arradondo and the MPD community to find creative ways to incentivize and recruit candidates who embody the values we share.

Focus on building an unprecedented level of community-centered programs and relationships.

Change our approach to policing from an offensive mentality to a proactive, service-based mentality while building new community-centered programs.

Involve mental health and other professionals trained in de-escalation in all appropriate situations.

Mandate regular counseling for all officers to remove stigma and maintain health and readiness of our department.

Communicate frequently with Minneapolis residents about current efforts and plans.

Bring detrimental practices and mindsets to light so they can be addressed; using data analysis to track results, identify weaknesses, and propose holistic solutions.

What are your stances on memorializing public spaces when our community is grieving, and/or demanding action through constitutionally-protected protests? What policies would you put in place or what organizations would you engage to ensure residents can do these things safely?

I am very much in favor of first amendment rights and the right to protest. As mentioned in my values statement, I testified at the Minnesota House to stop GOP-proposed bills that would have drastically increased penalties for peaceful Minneapolis protesters. My plan for George Floyd Square is to open the streets immediately. 38th and Chicago is in the heart of our city. We need to reopen the streets and heal as a community. We will engage the Black community and federal government to develop a plan for a national monument.

Housing

Rental assistance from the federal government has helped keep people in their homes through the pandemic. This funding is not permanent, however, and inability to pay is the leading cause of evictions. What is your stance on more permanent rental assistance, rent stabilization, and/or rent control measures in Minneapolis?

All Minneapolitans deserve stable housing. Far too many of our neighbors are living in desperation because they don’t have a place they can call home, or they are one step away from homelessness every month. Many more have homes they cannot trust because of dangerous living conditions or unexpected changes in rental terms.

Minneapolis needs more stable, truly affordable housing. But stability and affordability are meaningless when housing is uninhabitable. We cannot pledge to provide affordable housing while ignoring powerful landlords who disregard city code and the well-being of their tenants. Too many Minneapolis residents are paying rent to live in substandard housing.

As Mayor, I am committed to bringing safe, stable and habitable housing. To this end, I would work with leadership from Hennepin County and other area cities to consider establishing a voucher system that would be supplemental to the federal Section 8 programs and would provide quicker, more flexible affordable housing options.

Gentrification results in cultural loss for communities and major economic impacts for those priced out of their longtime neighborhoods. As our city grows, what plans do you have to combat gentrification and increase the amount of affordable housing available in Minneapolis?

My plan would be to create policies that allow neighborhoods to remain intact and affordable. This would include:

Moving vacant city-, county- and state-owned properties into affordable housing development

Enacting a policy requiring landlords to offer properties to tenants before developers

Tax policies that ease the burden of rising home values for owners and increase incentives to landlords for affordable housing

Disincentivize landlords of home and storefronts from waiting for a big gentrification “payout” by increasing the vacancy fee

In the last few years, Minneapolis has experienced a spike in encampments of unhoused people on public land — a high percentage of whom are Black and/or Indigenous. Many of our unhoused neighbors see this as their best housing option over shelters (for reasons of personal safety, pet ownership, or having to abandon property). What will you do to protect these neighbors and connect them with safe and stable housing?

The encampments that grew to a peak last summer forced every Minneapolis resident to confront the crisis of homelessness among our city’s citizens. The Covid pandemic exacerbated the issue due to economic hardship from job loss and the concern of community spread of SARS-Cov2 in shelters. The pandemic is still dangerous and many are still struggling economically, but encampments cannot be the solution to sheltering our unhoused neighbors. Encampments pose a health and safety risk for everyone in the area, especially for people staying in the encampment itself. I would not advocate simply tearing down the encampments, but I would use all city resources to find appropriate and culture-conscious shelter for anyone who needs housing.

Jobs and Economy

Black, Indigenous, and Minneapolis residents of color pay local taxes and contribute to our local economy, but often do not receive the same shared economic benefits as their white counterparts. Through generations of oppression via policy and unequal systems, wealth has been chronically and systematically extracted from BIPOC communities—how do you envision addressing this legacy of economic harm, in both the short term and the long term?

Our citizens feel that they are not getting out of our system what they are putting in, and that goes especially for BIPOC communities who have been underrepresented in the policy-decision process. The mayoral office staff would directly reflect the community it serves in demographic and gender representation. It is incumbent on the local government to serve its communities’ needs. Asking a community what it needs to achieve success requires outreach and listening, and implementation requires a partnership between the mayor’s office and Minneapolis citizens. As mayor, I will forge relationships with every neighborhood and constituency to make sure their voice is heard, and that we as a municipality guarantee that the most vulnerable community’s needs are met.

The power dynamics of work are heavily tilted against low-wage workers, especially immigrant workers. What actions have you taken or what plans do you have to protect and support these workers?

Immigrant workers, to borrow a phrase from Lin-Manuel Miranda, get the job done. Immigrants aspire to America for the same reasons our non-Native/non-bonded ancestors did: It’s the Land of Opportunity. For many Western Europeans, such as my own grandparents, there was a social contract: you work hard and in return we educate your children and we provide opportunities to move ahead. I was fortunate to attend public schools from kindergarten through law school. For me, public education provided great instruction and training at zero or low cost.

For people of color and recent immigrants, the social contract of public education is largely unfulfilled. This is an area of need: We need good public schools; They are vital to closing the opportunity gap. Every student deserves the opportunity to go as far as their ambition takes them.

Furthermore, we need union protections for all workers, to ensure that every person who contributes to this economy receives equitable wages, ample safety protection, and flexible opportunity to advance.

As mayor, I would advocate strongly for making Minneapolis Public Schools the finest schools in the state and the country. And I would partner with other metro-area leaders to ensure that all workers have strong protections to work safely and equitably.

Racial Justice

Explain your understanding of systemic racism, and how—or whether—you believe it affects Minneapolis’s education systems & outcomes, our housing market, our environment, public safety, healthcare, or other major systems.

As a white male, I have not experienced racism that has changed my life trajectory. My understanding of systemic racism has come from friends and colleagues who have suffered because of bias or outright discrimination, and from academic or personal research. I know racism is prevalent from simply looking at the statistics of our city: lower home ownership among people of color, higher rates of incarceration for Black citizens, lower rates of achievement in schools where the majority of students are BIPOC. These statistics are not an accident; They are the results of redlining, racial profiling, and other discriminatory practices.

To their credit, Minneapolis Public Schools teachers do teach our students about the racist and anti-Semitic policies of our city planning at its founding and beyond. As mayor, I would support educational initiatives that teach all citizens about our legacy of discrimination, and also support programs that address and counteract the results of these policies.

Our community suffers from some of the greatest racial disparities in the country across many social, educational, and economic metrics—and has for some time. If you’re in government now, what have you done to address this, and do you feel your efforts have been enough despite the lack of change? And if you’re seeking office for the first time, what ideas are you going to put forward that haven’t already failed?

Minneapolis has a fraught record on racial disparity, and that came to a head last summer when peaceful protests over George Floyd’s murder turned into civil unrest. Years of disinvestment, aggressive use of police force, and the agony of watching George Floyd die by the knee of a public servant led to tragic loss of life and the destruction of several homes and businesses in Minneapolis and St. Paul.

Still, there is reason for hope. Our community delivered a historic verdict when a Minneapolis jury convicted a Derek Chauvin for the murder of George Floyd. There was an urgency to heal our community following the days of civil unrest and destruction. There is a sense among Minneapolitans that right now is a make-or-break moment in our history. But in order to move ahead, every citizen needs to feel safe, which is why I emphasize public safety as my top goal.

I feel that in addition to feeling safe, we need to invest in communities that have been exploited and underresouced. Our problems are long and systemic, but we have the talent and the desire to move forward as a city of the future.

Climate

Climate change is already upon us, and its causes are on such a large scale that we can’t expect everyday Minneapolitans to recycle or LED bulb our way to a solution. How would you encourage businesses in our city to adopt practices to mitigate climate change, and/or hold them accountable for practices that worsen it?

I was an engineer before I became a lawyer and I am committed to science. We need only to look at global data on temperatures and precipitation to know we are in a climate crisis. In Minnesota, warming temperatures and drought conditions affect our ability to grow the crops that feed the world. Scientists’ predictions for climate change are being borne out faster than anyone expected, and we need to address these problems immediately.

We need to develop an action plan that accounts for existing and future technologies. What works in leading cities could work here:

Investing in renewable energy for all buildings

Transitioning our public transportation fleet so it is powered by clean energy (electric, hydrogen)

Investing in renewable energy while divesting from fossil fuels

Installing solar panels and green spaces on public buildings

Planting trees throughout the city that will absorb carbon, purify air, provide shade, block wind, create beauty

As the City of Lakes, we need to protect our water quality. We should consider banning lawn chemicals that pollute our lakes while investing in rain gardens that absorb excess water during storms.

For companies who violate environmental practices, they should be penalized with fines and sanctions until they fix the issues and comply with regulations. I will use my knowledge and industry contacts to bring green jobs here. More specifically, I want to incentivize companies to build facilities in Minneapolis that make green technology and bring jobs to Minneapolis’s disadvantaged communities. This endeavor would create jobs, move our country toward clean energy, and bring opportunity to our most vulnerable communities.

Voters’ Rights

Votes for city-wide offices in Minneapolis come disproportionately from the most affluent corners of the city. How have you/will you work to increase voter participation and engagement so that city-wide elections better capture the voices of all Minneapolitans?

Voting — much like campaigning, I have learned — is a ground game. You need to get out in the community and meet people where they are. We need to make it safe and easy to vote in every election. We need to reach out to every community in Minneapolis to make sure they have their voice heard both in city policies and at the ballot box.

Governance

Who are the people and/or organizations that would be part of your decision-making process in office?

Every resident of Minneapolis is a stakeholder and I urge everyone to share their voice with the city government. For policy discussions, I would look to the experts we have working for the city. To make decisions, I would use the data and information on what is working and strengthen those policies, and look to amend or eliminate policies that do not work.

Last Word

What’s one thing you think Minneapolis does well that you’d like to build upon if elected?

Minneapolitans care deeply and are engaged in building a better and more equitable future. I want to harness our desire to fulfill the potential of Minneapolis to the best of my abilities. Times like these call for a mayor to be out in the community non-stop, developing plans based on feedback, and communicating short-term and long-term plans for success to the community. I am committed to creating an environment where the next generation of people of color can thrive and lead this nation. That’s why my administration will reflect the demographics and gender of this entire city. My ambition stops here at Minneapolis. We are at a crossroads where the next two years will determine whether we are a place of crime and broken dreams, or a vibrant city of people, ideas and potential.

Like many people in Minneapolis, after the murder of George Floyd and subsequent uprising, I wanted to work on making Minneapolis a more racially just city. One place I thought of was the Bryn Mawr Neighborhood Association, on which I serve on the Board. I sent an email to fellow board members, challenging us to show up in the moment as a whiter, more affluent neighborhood and to use our privilege to push for racial justice in our city. I gave a number of suggestions, including creating a racial justice committee. The Board jumped at that idea, and in summer 2020, I became a co-chair of the committee. Since then, we’ve become an active committee, creating racial justice issue review process, offering anti-racist training in our community, working to diversity our board, and more. As I’ve taken on more in running for mayor, I have been less at the front of the committee. Still, it has been a real pleasure to stay involved and see many people in my neighborhood step up and offer leadership to push forward on racial justice.

Public Safety

How will you keep young Black and brown kids safe — those who are simultaneously the most at risk from gun violence but also most at risk during interactions with the police? What do you believe are best practices for solving these issues in tandem, and how will you involve the communities most affected in problem solving and determining next steps?

I have heard from many that they want a clear plan on how to move forward on a more holistic public safety system. That’s why my team and I connected with dozens of community/policy leaders to develop my plan to Build Community Safety and Transform Policing. This plan is based on one core value. Every person in Minneapolis – regardless of race, gender, age, ability, or zip code – deserves to feel and be safe.

Building this system requires taking seriously both the prevalence of community violence and the harm caused by policing – particularly in Black, brown, and Indigenous communities. As we work together to create a system for public safety that works for everyone, we need to recognize this history and repair harm. I am committed to intentional collaboration with Black, brown, and Indigenous communities in the city to ensure we’re addressing concerns from the most highly-impacted communities. I will appoint city leadership in our Office of Violence Prevention and police departments that are grounded in and responsive to highly-impacted communities. I will push these leaders to engage effectively with communities more heavily-impacted by violence, make sure the resources are available to support this work, and back up their leadership with actions as mayor.

People of color in Minneapolis are killed or otherwise harmed by law enforcement at disproportionately high rates, despite many attempts at reform over several election cycles. How do you intend to reshape a policing system that has been resistant to change, and slow to show meaningful strides toward equitable community outcomes?

Given the focus on the racial injustice and harm caused by our current police-centric public safety response, we are in a moment with the potential to make meaningful progress on equitable public safety. As mayor, I will build a powerful coalition to address the power of the Police Federation in our city, with transparency and accountability as a foundation.

Two key pillars of my plan to Build Community Safety and Transform Policing are particularly important here:

– Whole-System Approach – Create a Department of Public Safety that dramatically expands the Office of Violence Prevention (OVP) and puts Police, Fire, OVP, and emergency management under a unified structure.

– Unbundle and Transform MPD: We ask police to do too much, creating situations that escalate to police violence and mean police have less resources to focus on core functions. My plan is to move some public safety functions from MPD and make sure MPD effectively responds to violent situations and investigates and solves serious crime. Moving ahead on a holistic public safety system also requires radical
transparency on the racial inequities in policing and police misconduct as well as clear accountability measures. I am committed to this work as mayor, especially since in my administration police will be part of our public safety system.

What are your stances on memorializing public spaces when our community is grieving, and/or demanding action through constitutionally-protected protests? What policies would you put in place or what organizations would you engage to ensure residents can do these things safely?

Ensuring safe public spaces when our community is grieving and demanding action through public speech/protest is fundamental to how our community can move through the trauma of police violence and have a chance to address harm. It is necessary and also not enough

An important place to learn from is the national resource developed by Cities United, which collaborated with cities and researchers across the country to develop a “playbook” for responding to killings by police. I would prioritize transparency and quick release of accurate information. I’d hold officers accountable for misinformation. I will develop crowd control and safety measures that center the community’s need to grieve and
constitutional right to assemble, which includes not using chemical weapons or so-called ‘less-lethal’ weapons. I am very wary of creating a military presence in our city, and if it becomes necessary I will be radically transparent with the community about why and how.

I’ve been frustrated by the lack of current mayoral leadership to move swiftly on an after-action review after the murder of George Floyd and subsequent uprising. This review will, apparently, not be finished until the end of this year – 18 months after our city was traumatized and after the election. We deserve better than that.

You can find this and more in section 3 of my Building Community Safety & Transforming Policing Plan.

Housing

Rental assistance from the federal government has helped keep people in their homes through the pandemic. This funding is not permanent, however, and inability to pay is the leading cause of evictions. What is your stance on more permanent rental assistance, rent stabilization, and/or rent control measures in Minneapolis?

Everyone deserves a safe and decent place to call home—but that is becoming out of reach for so many people in Minneapolis. Right now, more than half our city’s population are renters, especially young people and people of color. This is what makes Minneapolis such a vibrant, welcoming place for people to call home. Yet 44 percent of renters are cost-burdened. We need more protections in place for renters so that exorbitant price hikes and discriminatory practices in our rental markets do not continue to displace renters and make our city unaffordable for so many.

I believe that we must advance evidence-based eviction-prevention models to support people and families before they are in crisis, and also increase city-funded tenant protection services and eviction defense funds. I will push to move forward on rent stabilization in Minneapolis and am committed to championing an effective rent-stabilization policy in partnership with the City Council.

Gentrification results in cultural loss for communities and major economic impacts for those priced out of their longtime neighborhoods. As our city grows, what plans do you have to combat gentrification and increase the amount of affordable housing available in Minneapolis?

One of my core values is that everyone deserves a stable place to call home regardless of income, ability, age, or location. Minneapolis has a severe shortage of subsidized and Section 8 housing to serve the most vulnerable and lowest-income residents. Given the housing crisis in Minneapolis, we need to use every available tool to make progress on housing that is truly affordable. We can increase affordable housing based on 30% AMI and increase access to government-subsidized housing. To achieve this outcome, I will use a public housing levy to maintain current public housing units and add more. To combat gentrification, I will work with community organizations in areas that are potentially most highly impacted, push for tenant protections, invest in pathways to collective ownership models in multi-unit buildings, and increase focus on homeownership in the Northside where too many single-family homes are owned by large corporations who treat housing as a way to make money. With federal money from the American Recovery Plan, Minneapolis has a once-in-a-generation opportunity to invest big in deeply affordable housing, and as mayor, I will make housing – and the economic security associated with it – a priority for these dollars.

In the last few years, Minneapolis has experienced a spike in encampments of unhoused people on public land — a high percentage of whom are Black and/or Indigenous. Many of our unhoused neighbors see this as their best housing option over shelters (for reasons of personal safety, pet ownership, or having to abandon property). What will you do to protect these neighbors and connect them with safe and stable housing?

We need to have compassion and empathy when addressing the root causes of homelessness like substance use disorder, poverty, and systemic barriers to accessing stable housing. We know how to end unsheltered homelessness – build more housing that works for people – but the challenge is scaling it quickly. Minneapolis has strong shelter providers who would do much more if they had the resources. Contrary to prevalent false narratives about encampments, people will accept shelter and housing if it’s designed in a way that meets their individual needs. Congregate shelter doesn’t work for some, but that should not be interpreted as meaning that those people don’t want shelter. To be successful at addressing this issue we need to develop a range of housing types.

In the short term, we need immediate indoor spaces that people will accept and where intensive housing-focused and health services are readily available. We need to lease and purchase hotels for shelter and housing conversion; address administrative barriers that slow the development of new shelter and housing; replicate models that have demonstrated success – such as the “hotel to home” model developed during the pandemic – and create culturally specific and harm-reduction-oriented shelter.

Jobs and Economy

Black, Indigenous, and Minneapolis residents of color pay local taxes and contribute to our local economy, but often do not receive the same shared economic benefits as their white counterparts. Through generations of oppression via policy and unequal systems, wealth has been chronically and systematically extracted from BIPOC communities—how do you envision addressing this legacy of economic harm, in both the short term and the long term?

Despite promises to address deep inequities, Minneapolis leads the country in racial disparities in unemployment, housing, health, and income. The COVID-19 pandemic has only increased economic instability and the wealth gap between low-income and wealthy people in our community.

As mayor, I will aggressively tackle the generations of harm inflicted on our communities of color while also investing strategically to create parity. We can do this by advancing targeted wealth-building opportunities for marginalized communities, such as programs that support entrepreneurship, business development, and homeownership.
All of these are necessary to build generational wealth. It’s essential that we work across multiple sectors to rethink and reimagine how we deliver pathways to prosperity for everyone in Minneapolis. We can and will build a forward-looking and vibrant city that addresses the inequities of the past on the path to becoming a community in which all can flourish.

The power dynamics of work are heavily tilted against low-wage workers, especially immigrant workers. What actions have you taken or what plans do you have to protect and support these workers?

We need to build an economy that works for people not just profits —where everyone makes a living wage, can join a union, and is treated fairly in employment situations. For our city to work for everyone, we need to protect and prioritize the lowest paid and most marginalized workers, especially immigrant workers.

We can do this by prioritizing policy and enforcement to prevent the exploitation of immigrant small business owners, ensuring enforcement of earned safe and sick time, increasing city funding and initiatives to combat wage theft, and creating pathways for all Minneapolis residents into jobs and careers with family-supporting wages and benefits. As mayor, I will make sure to fund labor enforcement in the city and work with community groups to make sure we are addressing wage theft and other labor exploitation. I will advance workforce development initiatives that advance family-supporting wage opportunities and ensure that we center the human dignity and self-determination of people to choose what kind of life they want to build for themselves and their families.

Racial Justice

Explain your understanding of systemic racism, and how—or whether—you believe it affects Minneapolis’s education systems & outcomes, our housing market, our environment, public safety, healthcare, or other major systems.

Systemic racism affects every system operating in our city. It shows up in the geography of our city because racial covenants successfully segregated the city. This laid the foundation for underinvesting in some communities and locating harmful heavy industry (like an insecticide plant in East Phillips) and polluting infrastructure like highways in communities of color. Legacies of wealth inequality were, in part, made worse by redlining in communities of color that kept people of color from accessing historic federal investments in middle-class wealth-building in the middle of last century. These city specific examples are just a few of what I could talk about here, but they show how I understand that systemic racism affects every major system in Minneapolis.

One area that I have gone deeper on how systemic racism shows up in our community is climate vulnerability. For example, redlined neighborhoods, which have higher ercentages of people of color, are up to 10 degrees hotter than non-redlined neighborhoods on the hottest days in Minneapolis. For a more in-depth discussion of how I understand the intersections among climate, vulnerability, and resilience check out section 3 in a recent white paper I wrote about climate adaptation and resilience in Minnesota.

Our community suffers from some of the greatest racial disparities in the country across many social, educational, and economic metrics—and has for some time. If you’re in government now, what have you done to address this, and do you feel your efforts have been enough despite the lack of change? And if you’re seeking office for the first time, what ideas are you going to put forward that haven’t already failed?

I’ve lived and served in public leadership roles for much of my career in Minnesota. I will be direct, I have not done enough to address the racial injustices in our city and state. As a member of the legislature, I was an ally of organized Labor, who I see as essential pushing forward on economic justice, which is part of racial justice. As a member of the Environmental Quality Board, I was a vocal supporter of doing more on environmental justice and on recognizing and acting on the harms of building more pipelines in Minnesota. As a program director at the University of Minnesota, I pushed for changes that resulted in more opportunities for students and staff of color. None of it is enough. To really make change, we need to use government power to align resources to actively undo harms created over decades of systemic racism. I see strong potential and would put forward plans to push radical transparency and associated accountability in policing; universal college savings plans; basic income programs; well-designed reparations, and investments in water, transit, and green infrastructure targeted in communities of color.

Climate

Climate change is already upon us, and its causes are on such a large scale that we can’t expect everyday Minneapolitans to recycle or LED bulb our way to a solution. How would you encourage businesses in our city to adopt practices to mitigate climate change, and/or hold them accountable for practices that worsen it?

As mayor, I will make Minneapolis a national leader in addressing global climate change at the city level. This work has been a professional focus of mine for many years and I welcome this challenge and opportunity, especially because I know the people of our city are ready for this kind of leadership. The smoky air and heat this summer are just the most recent example of why this leadership matters.

I am currently developing a Minneapolis Green New Deal. It will have more ambitious emissions reductions than Minneapolis is currently committed to, a mobilization of resources in the private and public sectors for action at the scale necessary to achieve these reductions, a push for environmental justice by reducing pollution in neighborhoods harmed by higher pollution levels and climate injustices, and pathways into work and ownership opportunities in a climate-resilience economy.

We need to update our city’s climate action plan – something that hasn’t been done since 2013 and something our current mayor has failed to do despite the requirement to do so in the 2040 Plan. While updating the plan, I will work across the city to build the programs necessary to achieve emissions reductions and climate resilience for every neighborhood in the city.

Voters’ Rights

Votes for city-wide offices in Minneapolis come disproportionately from the most affluent corners of the city. How have you/will you work to increase voter participation and engagement so that city-wide elections better capture the voices of all Minneapolitans?

Making Minneapolis a multiracial democracy is a core value of my campaign and approach to governing. In a multiracial democracy, every person has what they need to live with dignity and act with power in public life. Early on in my campaign, I hosted a policy conversation about building our multiracial democracy in Minneapolis.

HA foundational part of building a multiracial democracy is voting. We need to make sure people have access to voting, are engaged by campaigns, and that we govern in ways that every person sees voting as a worthwhile thing to do.

Our campaign is connecting with voters all across the city. We are hosting events in every ward, attending community events across the city,
reaching out to groups in communities of color, running field operations that target apartments and campuses, and more.

As mayor, I would work to increase voter turnout by governing in a more community-connected, participatory manner. If people see city government as responsive to their needs, they will be more likely to vote. I would also look to strengthen and invest in partnerships with different cultural groups who have the trust and networks to increase voter turnout in the many communities who make up our city.

Governance

Who are the people and/or organizations that would be part of your decision-making process in office?

When people ask me what I hope to achieve after my first mayoral term, I answer that I most want the people of Minneapolis to believe more deeply in the idea that city government is an essential partner in making their lives and community better. We build this belief by actually building a government that works for and with people. And that is, quite frankly, a challenge in this time of transformative potential and conflict. Yet, if there is anything I have learned in this campaign it is that despite big differences about the best path forward, people in our city care deeply about Minneapolis and our people.

Part of building trust in our city government as worthy of investing time and energy is hearing from and working with many different people and organizations. And these people and organizations need to be part of, understand, and are trusted by different parts of our city across race, geography, sector, age, class, and ideology. I am actively building these relationships and being clear that I know trust will not fully happen until I am elected and move through decision-making and governance in ways that are collaborative with and responsive to different parts of Minneapolis.

Last Word

What’s one thing you think Minneapolis does well that you’d like to build upon if elected?

Minneapolis is full of people who love our city and are committed to the work of making it better. Yes, we are moving through a challenging time, but this struggle is important and necessary. It’s important and necessary because it comes from really starting to reckon with the fact that many of our systems don’t serve everyone well and, in many cases, actively harm some people in our city. We need to make it clear that this Minneapolis is no longer acceptable AND we need to draw on the deep well of love for Minneapolis and civic commitment and skill to do the work of building a safer city with racial justice, strong democracy, and climate resilience.

I started my campaign by asking people in Minneapolis to step forward with the courage to imagine a better Minneapolis and then step forward into actually building it. When I ask for support, I ask for something more. I ask for people to join in the hard, joyful work of building our city. I know we in Minneapolis have what it takes to meet this moment and make it a real turning point toward a Minneapolis that works for every person in our city.

I have been a street medic ever since the election of Donald Trump and the associated rise of open white supremacists. From Black-led sit-ins, to marches, to LGBT die-ins, every civil rights movement in the history of America was only won change through mass mobilization in the streets. Last year reminded us that chemical weapons like tear gas, rubber bullets, and flash-bang grenades are go-tos to use against protestors.

I’ve been helping as a medic on the streets for years. In the past year, I’ve treated the most serious injuries I’ve seen from protests against MPD, and the “Operation Safety Net” weapons, including being injured myself. As mayor I will fight to make sure no resident will be blinded, traumatized or killed by our city employees.

Public Safety

How will you keep young Black and brown kids safe — those who are simultaneously the most at risk from gun violence but also most at risk during interactions with the police? What do you believe are best practices for solving these issues in tandem, and how will you involve the communities most affected in problem solving and determining next steps?

A voter I talked with told me, “The answers aren’t mysteries, people on the ground have been shouting them for years.” We keep Black and brown kids safe by investing in the economic and social wellbeing of Black and brown communities. We need to address the root causes of violence and harm. The most effective violence prevention is affordable rent, fully funded schools, more youth programs, comprehensive sex education that teaches healthy relationship skills, and accessible mental health supports. Police were established as slave patrols and have been instruments of pushing Black and brown communities into the hands of mass incarceration through the war on drugs, and Minneapolis is now infamous worldwide for its racist policing.

As mayor, I would divest from militarized, racist policing, and invest in violence prevention. The John Jay Research Advisory Group on Preventing and Reducing Violence identified five evidence-based strategies to stop violence:

1. Improve the physical environment (think well-maintained parks, public buildings, clean air)
2. Strengthen anti-violence norms and peer relationships (violence interrupters that focus on building one on one mentoring relationships, not policing community)
3. Engage and support youth (expanding STEP-UP, creating full service community schools)
4. Decriminalization and treatment (investing in harm reduction, and implementing Housing First policies)
5. Mitigate financial stress. We create healthy societies by investing in social systems that make sure everyone is housed and has the mental, physical, and social support to live a dignified life.

People of color in Minneapolis are killed or otherwise harmed by law enforcement at disproportionately high rates, despite many attempts at reform over several election cycles. How do you intend to reshape a policing system that has been resistant to change, and slow to show meaningful strides toward equitable community outcomes?

I am the strongest candidate for mayor because I have the deepest knowledge of the history of Minneapolis policing, attempted reforms, and community-based alternatives to policing we know work. I am a core member of the people’s history group MPD150, policy analyst at Reclaim the Block, and helped craft the charter amendment for a new department of public safety. In the last three years, I was a lead organizer on campaigns that started the Office of Violence prevention, started the mobile mental health responders teams, and moved $11M out of violent policing and into violence prevention and community-led safety projects.

I am ready to hit the ground running in the mayor’s office to transition us to a system of real safety that protects Black lives. I will use the new Department of Public Safety to fully fund violence prevention and safe emergency responder services. That includes scaling up mental health response teams city-wide to assist the city-wide, full funding for 311, 911, EMS, unarmed traffic control, and restorative and transformative justice programs, especially for youth. As someone who studies the police budget, I know we spend millions in the MPD budget that could save lives through housing, summer jobs, and healthcare.

Policing began in Minnesota with the forced removal of Indigenous peoples. The first major elected official to suggest that police need better training in order to stop racist police violence was Harry Truman. We have been trying the same police reforms for over 70 years. Minneapolis has adopted all of them, body cameras, implicit bias training, de escalation training, hiring more officers of color and female officers. We must root ourselves in an understanding of history and data, and that tells us the police cannot be reformed, and if we truly value Black life, we must build new systems of safety.

What are your stances on memorializing public spaces when our community is grieving, and/or demanding action through constitutionally-protected protests? What policies would you put in place or what organizations would you engage to ensure residents can do these things safely?

We need to give people spaces to grieve. I have been a community organizer active in movements for racial justice and LGBTQ liberation for over a decade. Mass protests happen because of grief and justice denied. When I am mayor, I would have the city provide bathrooms and hot food from local restaurants for all of those who are gathering. Because that’s what you do when someone dies, you bring food and make sure people feel seen and cared for.

Protests don’t happen because of isolated incidents, they bubble up after year upon year of traumatic racist violence. Therefore, I would demand that the city provide free pop-up mental health clinics and trauma counseling at every park building and school throughout the city, along with free childcare and kids activities. Finally, in response to justice denied, as mayor I would make a clear commitment on how power and resources will be moved out of law enforcement violence and into community in the long-term (this is in fact what I’ve been fighting for years), and I would allocate a portion of that money to be ready for distribution as soon as possible.

Housing

Rental assistance from the federal government has helped keep people in their homes through the pandemic. This funding is not permanent, however, and inability to pay is the leading cause of evictions. What is your stance on more permanent rental assistance, rent stabilization, and/or rent control measures in Minneapolis?

We must develop a new approach to housing across the city that sets people up to succeed and stay in safe, dignified housing. The movement for rent control is being led by those who are most impacted by our current housing system. I’ve rented in Minneapolis for all twelve years I’ve been here. I know what it’s like to have to leave your home because you can no longer afford the rent. I have moved three times in one year because of unaffordable rent and bad landlords. I wholeheartedly support permanent rental assistance.

In addition to rent support measures, I want to fully fund tenant protection services. That means starting a tenant protection board, and a general increase in renter protections through the tenant navigators program, HomeLine, and contracts with community groups that educate renters about their rights. As mayor, I will also pressure the city attorney’s office to go after landlords who have shown repetitive abusive behaviors. Housing is a human right and evictions are acts of violence on poor and working class communities. Rent control and tenant protections are the first step towards de-commodifying housing, pulling back the involvement of “the market” in what should be a human right.

Gentrification results in cultural loss for communities and major economic impacts for those priced out of their longtime neighborhoods. As our city grows, what plans do you have to combat gentrification and increase the amount of affordable housing available in Minneapolis?

We need to be critical about who is allowed to build in Minneapolis, and who we are building for. When I am mayor, one of the biggest anti-gentrification challenges will be to protect working class families and local businesses along the Blue Line construction route. I’ve already started having conversations with organizers up there because it is a priority for me to protect and invest in those communities, and pass anti-displacement policies to protect the residents of those communities. People will keep moving to Minneapolis, and under our current mayor’s leadership, working class people are being pushed to the outskirts of the metro because of skyrocketing rents. That’s why as mayor I will fight for public housing, Tenant Opportunity to Purchase, and land trust support, and stop the privatization of Section 8 housing. A stable housing system is key to creating community safety, and I am ready to fight to keep our neighbors together so we can keep building stronger communities together.

In the last few years, Minneapolis has experienced a spike in encampments of unhoused people on public land — a high percentage of whom are Black and/or Indigenous. Many of our unhoused neighbors see this as their best housing option over shelters (for reasons of personal safety, pet ownership, or having to abandon property). What will you do to protect these neighbors and connect them with safe and stable housing?

When COVID hit, I helped organize mutual aid efforts to provide support to encampments. I remember having to organize a call-in to Mayor Frey’s office to get the city to provide port-a-potties and handwashing stations, after weeks of advocates asking the city for the most basic of public health services in the middle of a pandemic. The parks, boulevards, sidewalks and empty lots in Minneapolis all occupy stolen Dakota land. There must be no evictions on stolen land, but instead of offering support and basic dignities like access to bathrooms and wash stations, I watched our city treat those experiencing unsheltered homelessness with disrespect.

Many people who I talked with chose to stay in encampments over shelters for many of the reasons stated in this question. If we are to address unsheltered homelessness as a city, we must pursue a Housing First model where chronically unsheltered residents are placed in culturally competent stable housing. As mayor, I will also push the city to prioritize harm reduction services for people experiencing homelessness to make sure we are setting people up for success to get into stable housing. I would also place a moratorium on forced evictions of encampments. I have watched far too many times as our city’s primary response to unsheltered homelessness has been to bulldoze people’s shelters without viable alternative places for people to go. As mayor, a key part of my work would be making sure that CPED is led by advocates for housing justice, especially those who believe in maintaining our public housing system, and treating housing as a public good.

Jobs and Economy

Black, Indigenous, and Minneapolis residents of color pay local taxes and contribute to our local economy, but often do not receive the same shared economic benefits as their white counterparts. Through generations of oppression via policy and unequal systems, wealth has been chronically and systematically extracted from BIPOC communities—how do you envision addressing this legacy of economic harm, in both the short term and the long term?

We can’t arrest or bulldoze our way to peace of safety. It is time for reparations in Minneapolis, including Black community members harmed by police, and Indigenous communities who have been displaced by our State. Back in March, our campaign hosted a session called “Policy by the People: Reparations” (watch here). We talked with Trahern Crews who helped start the reparations commission in St. Paul, and Melissa Olson who shared the history of the urban Indigenous community in Minneapolis who were restricted to poor housing and jobs as a part of Indigenous relocation. As mayor, I will advocate that the city start with a Black-led reparations commission (similar to the work being led by our neighbors in St. Paul), and an Indigenous-led restoration commission. In addition, I would push for Minneapolis to pass reparations for victims of police violence, following the lead of the Illinois Reparations for Police Torture Victims Act. In the long term, I will push for the city to expand pathways to wealth building for BIPOC communities.

The power dynamics of work are heavily tilted against low-wage workers, especially immigrant workers. What actions have you taken or what plans do you have to protect and support these workers?

As mayor, I will be a vocal supporter for low-wage worker rights because I know what it’s like to be under that power dynamic. I was a restaurant worker for ten years, I experienced sexual harassment, unpredictable scheduling, and witnessed endless racist comments from bosses. I even lost a job because I spoke up against sexual harassment (my coworkers carried that work on and organized their workplace a year later!). As mayor, I will make protecting workers a priority and I will put more funding into wage theft and worker rights enforcement.

I am a union member (CWA Local 37002). As mayor I would support the implementation of a local fair scheduling ordinance, paid family leave, employment protection for service workers, right to recall for laid-off workers to have the first chance at their old jobs, and expand the scope of the city’s sick and safe time. I would also propose increased funds to contract with labor centers to do public education with workers so they know their rights, including the right to collective bargaining.

Racial Justice

Explain your understanding of systemic racism, and how—or whether—you believe it affects Minneapolis’s education systems & outcomes, our housing market, our environment, public safety, healthcare, or other major systems.

I am a mixed race woman and daughter of an immigrant. Systemic racism means that our systems of government, housing, public safety, healthcare, and education privileges whiteness. In Minneapolis, you can see racism in our neighborhoods, the legacies of redlining, highways through POC neighborhoods, and skyrocketing rents only the privileged can afford. Systemic racism shows up in our public safety system in obvious ways, but also in the quieter routes to our racist mass-incarceration system, like when MPD did low-level marijuana stings where 46 of the 47 people targeted by the officers were Black men. You can taste systemic racism in the polluted air in majority-BIPOC North and East Phillips. Minneapolis has some of the highest racial disparities in the nation because of systemic racism. As mayor, I would fight to start public education campaigns that teach the history of how we got to this current government structures, who it serves, who it excludes, and how you can get involved to collectively build systems that support all people in Minneapolis.

Our community suffers from some of the greatest racial disparities in the country across many social, educational, and economic metrics—and has for some time. If you’re in government now, what have you done to address this, and do you feel your efforts have been enough despite the lack of change? And if you’re seeking office for the first time, what ideas are you going to put forward that haven’t already failed?

I believe we need to transfer power out of the hands of a few politicians and into the hands of the people. I am proud to be the only mayoral candidate who includes participatory budgeting in my platform. Participatory budgeting can be a powerful tool in shifting the scales of power, and it has not yet been implemented at a large scale in Minneapolis. As mayor, I will propose $10M for participatory budgeting, making sure that process is being led by BIPOC, LGBTQ+, immigrant, disabled and working class communities that have been historically underserved by our city’s policy making process.

Climate

Climate change is already upon us, and its causes are on such a large scale that we can’t expect everyday Minneapolitans to recycle or LED bulb our way to a solution. How would you encourage businesses in our city to adopt practices to mitigate climate change, and/or hold them accountable for practices that worsen it?

I am ready to stand up against heavy industry polluters and corporations who are harming our health. As mayor, I will support community-led projects like the East Phillips Indoor Urban Farm, create green jobs, and will start a city-wide municipal sidewalk shoveling program.

I support a Green New Deal for Minneapolis, led by BIPOC, working class and disabled people who are most affected by climate change. As mayor, I will fight for our city to replace industrial sites like the Roof Depot, HERC, and Upper Harbor Terminal with green infrastructure, such as urban farms like EPNI has proposed. I would also push for city programs that would create more green jobs, including starting a winter municipal shoveling program, and summer boulevard gardens and bee lawns, which will also protect our stormwater. As a community organizer, I’m no stranger to demanding, and winning, change from big institutions. I am committed to using the 2024 energy negotiations to explore all options, and provide the cleanest, locally sourced, and most efficient energy solution possible, as well as getting energy partners committing to programs like community solar gardens that they have been stalling on.

Voters’ Rights

Votes for city-wide offices in Minneapolis come disproportionately from the most affluent corners of the city. How have you/will you work to increase voter participation and engagement so that city-wide elections better capture the voices of all Minneapolitans?

My campaign strategy has prioritized reaching voters who are traditionally left behind in these municipal elections – renters and working class people. That means our campaign meets people where they’re at, and we make it fun! We spent the winter months on a themed canvassing tour of all the Minneapolis Aldi’s, the meeting point of punks, soccer moms, immigrant families, people young and old in the city! We started doorknocking in apartments early in the campaign, and as of the writing of this questionnaire, we’ve door knocked and called over 30,000 voters.

As mayor, I would fight for the city to mail people voter registration forms and ballots in municipal election years, and would advocate with the state to institute automatic voter registration and ballot delivery. I would also encourage business owners to provide paid time off for their employees to vote (I’m grateful that my workplace Ricardo Levins Morales Art Studio has election day as a half-day paid holiday in our union contract!)

Governance

Who are the people and/or organizations that would be part of your decision-making process in office?

My motto is “from the streets to the spreadsheets” because I believe the best solutions come from people who are leading change on the ground. For years, our city leadership has led with business and developer interests in mind, leaving our working class neighbors behind. If I am elected mayor, I will include the Black, Indigenous, POC, queer, trans, immigrant, renter, and union members & organizers I’ve been working alongside for years. I will fight for more inclusive systems through participatory budgeting, stipends and childcare for community advisory commissions, and investment in hyper-local community-led projects.

Last Word

What’s one thing you think Minneapolis does well that you’d like to build upon if elected?

Minneapolis has a wonderful community of BIPOC and LGBTQ artists. I used to work out of the Intermedia Arts building, where outside artists would transform the building into a dreamscape, and inside, I went to shows where queer and BIPOC performers crafted stories that got to be entirely their own. Community art can inspire hope and resilience. The murals we saw emerge throughout the city this past year provided beauty, and many painted windows to worlds we have not yet built. As mayor, I would like to expand support for public art, with a special focus on programs for youth, and working to protect and reopen some of our city’s grassroots arts spaces.