Better Minneapolis Podcast

After the Interview

On Tuesday, after conducting the interview, Paul Walsh from the Star Tribune reported, “Homeless man charged with setting dumpster fires ‘for fun’ along Lake Street near Uptown.” Since updating their technology, the Star Tribune commenting feature has been unavailable. However, if we had to guess, many residents would be angry about what seems to be a porous justice system. The 62-year-old man accused of setting the fires is the subject of a nationwide warrant after being released the same day as his arrest.

It would be difficult to argue that those hypothetical commenters are wrong. However, this incident raises questions about where a mentally ill individual bent on wreaking havoc might best be detained. While we do not know for certain that this individual is mentally ill, it is likely. Most stable people are not roaming the streets at 3 a.m. with a towel wrapped around their head, carrying a grill lighter, and intent on setting dumpsters fires for fun. Prison might be the reflexive answer, but we believe an investment in mental health and substance abuse facilities would be more appropriate, some of which may not be voluntary. Alternatives to prison are warranted to house the mentally ill who are currently sleeping on our streets. As we discussed in “The Gavin Newsom Gambit,” the closing of institutions housing the mentally ill has left few options. The community centers needed to replace them have yet to be developed to the extent required. Many groups and agencies are attempting to provide services, but the results have so far proven inadequate.

CM Jenkins discusses her intent to bring the people with power and resources from various government offices to the same table to address homelessness. She acknowledges that the group gathering at the 35W and 31st underpass has become untenable. During the rain, the area became a densely packed village. We encourage those seated at this table to develop a concrete plan of action. This may mean setting up temporary facilities. There are ways to get it done. Using the Hennepin County Home School facilities or creating a tent village at Fort Snelling are ideas to consider. New York City used airport runways. The key is to not leave the table until an immediate solution is developed. Waiting for longer-term solutions to address housing affordability, substance abuse, and mental health issues would be a mistake.

Finally, Gov. Tim Walz has been named as Kamala Harris’s VP choice. We can see Republican operatives showing up with cameras to film our encampments, turning these into attack ads with an ominous voice-over warning people about Democratic leadership. We do not want Minneapolis featured in national ads describing how we have let encampments proliferate in our streets. We can do more than talk about how homelessness is a national issue. By addressing it on a local level, it will help those in the encampments, their neighbors, and the image of Minneapolis on the national stage.

Interview Topics

In our conversation, we cover a range of important topics, including:

* George Floyd Square

* Feedback on community safety centers

* Improving collaboration to address encampments

* Priorities for the soon-to-be-released city budget

* Cleaner streets

After the recording ended, we also talked about her new puppy, Toasty. Juggling the responsibilities of the council and a puppy will keep CM Jenkins busy.

The auto-generated transcript is available for those who prefer to read it. Please contact us before publishing any quotes from the interview.

Other Interviews

Our goal is to interview all council members before next year’s election. We invite city and county department leaders and elected officials interested in sharing their views to join us in a conversation about making Minneapolis a better place to live.

A nice feature of this format is that we get to hear longer answers from representatives than we do during TV interviews or in newspapers. This provides a more in-depth understanding of the people entrusted with making important decisions that impact our lives. Feedback helps us determine the content of greatest interest to readers (and listeners).

To ensure you receive all our newsletters and interviews, we encourage you to subscribe.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.betterminneapolis.com/subscribe

(The below is read as part of the podcast. The interview begins at 7:20. There is also a transcript available by selecting the transcript button.)

Introduction

This interview was important to us because we wanted to determine for ourselves whether Mr. Velazquez was as problematic as the vocal and belligerent defenders of homeless encampments have made him out to be. We’re at a point in city politics where it has become acceptable to harass elected officials and government employees with whom we disagree. Technology enables a few individuals to send thousands of text messages, emails, and phone calls, which can skew perceptions of what residents consider priorities. When these technologies fail to achieve the desired response, people have resorted to showing up at the homes of officials and threatening them. These tactics are counterproductive and delay solutions to complicated and urgent problems that require collaboration, openness, and negotiation for progress to be made.

In this interview, Mr. Velazquez corrects our use of the term “sweeps.” He believes the term fails to recognize the careful planning involved with closures and the efforts of people attempting to provide services to encampment inhabitants. There are four determining factors used when deciding whether to close an encampment, which are discussed in the interview. Advocates for allowing the encampments to remain often minimize the damaging effects of substance abuse, sex trafficking, and violence the encampments can have on both the people living in them and nearby residents. Ignoring or dismissing these concerns ensures their voices will be ignored, leading to a stalemate.

There is no simple solution to ending homelessness in our city. Dialogue must begin with the assumption that everyone involved wants a humane solution. It’s okay to disagree. However, the dialogue must continue, and new ideas and proposals will have to be considered if we are going to break the cycle we are in. This won’t happen when people are afraid to speak for fear of harassment. Mr. Velazquez says he wants the approach to encampments to include “kindness and humanity.” Minneapolis could have an administrator with a much less sympathetic attitude. If we start the conversation assuming that Mr. Velazquez is sincere, we’ll get closer to finding a solution.

It's possible that the nature of online interaction is contributing to the rigid and apoplectic tone of many exchanges. Anonymity allows users to vent their emotions without considering the human beings receiving their messages. Social media does not encourage the deep and subtle thinking required to solve complex problems. If you wouldn’t say it to someone face-to-face, it’s probably a good indicator that you shouldn’t espouse it on social media. Demonizing those with whom we disagree creates a space where we extract their humanity, allowing us to treat them without respect. It lets us ignore the life experiences and knowledge that person possesses that brought them to their position, whatever that might be. We can all take steps to prevent seeing people we disagree with as objects. When we speak of wanting to see bipartisan action by elected officials, it begins with how we conduct ourselves in our everyday lives.

Topics included in the interview:

* Regulatory Services Overview

* Encampment closures

* Restaurant and business regulations and whether there is a gap for the new regulatory body to fill

* Pet adoption

Thanks for reading Better Minneapolis! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

Feedback notes

Reparation Commissions

The Juneteenth newsletter “Reparation Commissions” generated a lot of feedback. From some of the responses, it was obvious that people did not read the entire newsletter. For the many who did, it seems we could have been more clear. We may publish a follow-up, but we wanted to summarize a few things:

* First, we do believe that the wealth gap is a significant problem in our city. The cycle of poverty impacts more than just Black residents, but since the Chicago reparation commission was focused on Black Americans and it was Juneteenth, we chose to address inherited poverty for this demographic.

* Second, we are skeptical of reparation commissions and think they can be a means for politicians to virtue signal by creating them.

* Third, our suggestions for how to address poverty were meant to encourage debate. It wasn’t an exhaustive list. Some of the suggestions, it was pointed out to us, would not be possible to implement on a city level. However, the intention was to convey that there are actions we can take now to reduce poverty, actions that would help both those in poverty and those more fortunate. We do not need to wait for reparation committees to complete their studies.

We made the mistake of assuming that readers would agree with the first point, that the wealth gap is a persistent problem. In our follow-up newsletter, we will spend more time documenting the facts behind education, home ownership, and savings that led us to this conclusion.

The $13 Million Remodel

We have also been asked to clarify our newsletter, The “$13 Million Remodel”. After the newsletter was published, the budget item was referred back to committee for further research and will be discussed in the Tuesday, June 25th Administration & Enterprise Oversight Committee meeting. The title for this item indicates one room is being remodeled. However, if you look into the Background Analysis, more than one room is being remodeled.

This contract is for Phase 2 of the Minneapolis Convention Center Meeting Room remodel project which will update all finishes as well as the technology in Meeting rooms 101, 102, M100, M101 and L100. Wall Panel systems will also be replaced in the L100 and M100 meeting rooms.

We have since been informed, but have yet to verify, that a total of 39 rooms are being remodeled. This scope is not documented in what the city council was asked to approve. We would like to see greater transparency around the budget and scope of the project and are actively trying to find time to meet with Jeff Johnson, Executive Director of the Minneapolis Convention Center. Regardless of whether it is one room, several, or 39, we find the price tag to be high. To give some perspective, the state legislature approved $12.5 million for the new Community Performing Arts Center (CPAC), an 8,000-seat amphitheater to be built as part of the Upper Harbor Terminal project.

(Refer to the top of the newsletter for audio link to the interview.)

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.betterminneapolis.com/subscribe

Interview Topics

This podcast is my 45-minute interview with Mayor Jacob Frey. (Before quoting any sections of the interview, please email for permission.) Of the twenty original questions I’d hoped to ask, I narrowed the field down in the interest of time. Here are the issue we ended up covering:

* Keeping perspective

* George Floyd square

* Social media and the political climate

* The Future of Downtown

* Balancing revenue generation versus reductions in spending

* Homeless encampments and affordable housing

* Gun violence, record number of guns seized, and the easy access to guns

* Next steps for MPD Union Contract

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.betterminneapolis.com/subscribe