The Wedge Times-Picayune

The story that an outsider might have known about Minneapolis prior to the current occupation by thousands of masked federal agents is that of a notoriously brutal and unaccountable city police department. In addition to marking the peak of the larger Black Lives Matter movement, the murder of George Floyd has defined local politics in Minneapolis through three city elections over nearly six years.

In the aftermath of a police murder caught on video, the call for accountability and a new approach to public safety was impossible to ignore. It was led by activists with a radical vision who’d already been raising the alarm about the Minneapolis Police Department for years. Long before MPD became a global symbol of police abuse, groups like Reclaim the Block had been highlighting the department’s troubled history and consistently calling for a reallocation of the police budget, using the slogan “Defund the Police.”

Continue reading ““We Keep Us Safe” – Radical Vision Now the Best Defense in Occupied Minneapolis”

My thoughts on Jacob Frey’s reelection to a third term as mayor

I’ve heard casual observers comment that “progressives need to put forward better candidates for mayor.” And who could disagree with that?

The problem is, this complaint suggests there’s a backroom cabal picking the candidates. These decisions about whether to run for office are made by individuals — the person running, along with their closest friends and supporters.

Omar Fateh and his people decided to do a thing nobody else wanted or was able to do in 2025. They worked hard and achieved a more than respectable 50-44 second place finish against a two-term incumbent. If someone wanted to step up and do it better, by generating more excitement for their own candidacy — Fateh and his campaign weren’t stopping them.

Several times this year I had conversations with strongly committed Fateh supporters who would tease me about why I wouldn’t join them. I would explain my concerns and they’d concede my points, before saying something like, yeah but who else has a shot? It didn’t win me over, but I couldn’t argue with it.

Which is all to say that complaining that there should have been a better candidate ignores that there wasn’t one. Maybe with an open seat in 2029, there will be.

Backroom cabal, if you’re listening…

Continue reading “Backroom Cabal, If You’re Listening…”

Tomorrow brings us to the end of another slog of an election year in Minneapolis. Here’s a cheat sheet to help as many people as possible assess the candidates on criteria that are actually relevant to the job they’re running for.

Continue reading “Minneapolis 2025 Guide to Voting Reasonably”

I hate linking to the Hill & Lake Press. I wish they’d go back to publishing exclusively on pdf. But Scott Graham, the unsuccessful 2023 candidate for Minneapolis City Council in Ward 7, has written something that touched my heart. He makes a case for the Team Frey council slate on the issue of streets and transportation. I disagree.

Continue reading “Minneapolis 2025: Reject the cranks and vote for great streets”

First, Context for Minneapolis 2025:

1. The police are funded. If you’ve been here a while, you know that five years ago the city’s police department imploded under the weight of its own brutality and corruption. They weren’t starved of resources. Look at the steep climb on the MPD funding chart. Anyone painting a picture of council members as 13 individual police chiefs — while letting the actual boss of police off the hook — might be trying to manipulate you.
   
2. The office of mayor is more powerful than ever following a 2021 charter change to a strong mayor form of government. Yet Frey continues to chip away at mechanisms for accountability and restraint on his power. He’s asked the charter commission put forward a ballot measure stripping council of the power to confirm his appointments to lead key city departments. His 2026 proposed budget defunds the city auditor’s office so they don’t have the capacity to do oversight on his administration and MPD’s actions. And of course, his wealthiest supporters are flooding the zone to buy Frey a city council that won’t cause him any trouble.
   
3. Like never before, Minneapolis is a bottomless pit of PACs and special interest money. It’s hard to keep track of the number of outside groups backing Frey & Co for a third term (All of Mpls, We Love Mpls, Thrive Mpls, Minneapolis Forward — I miss any?). Check Taylor Dahlin dot com for a fuller picture. These PACs will spend ungodly sums on behalf of Frey and his allied council candidates. Key races that will determine control of the City Council are wards 2, 5, 7, 8, 10 — but especially 5 & 7. Team Frey is swamping those handful of wards with record-breaking amounts of money.
   
4. Frey is campaigning on homelessness by attacking his critics — blaming them for circumstances his own administration has been unable or unwilling to solve. The laundry list he uses: encampment shootings, fires, explosions, have all happened under his leadership. He doesn’t win by performing his job well, but by scaring you that the other side will do worse.
   
5. I believe Jacob Frey is favored to win a third term. If that happens, we will need a city council that’s willing to hold his administration accountable. His natural inclination isn’t transparency and good government. He will surround himself with cronies, loyalists, and hacks — and pursue self-preservation.

ENDORSEMENTS

Continue reading “Wedge LIVE! Editorial Board Endorsements for Minneapolis Election 2025”

Hello, True Blue Moderates. I knew you’d come.

Let’s talk about Mayor Jacob Frey, the enigma. He’s a two-term mayor with a message suggesting he’s got a zero tolerance policy on encampments. Yet he has presided over an endless string of encampment tragedies. We’ve seen shootings, fires, and a general wack-a-mole strategy pushing the problem from block to block. Those are his results.

He’s held one indignant press conference after another, scolding his critics for not understanding how unacceptable and unsafe encampments are. But somehow the people in those encampments continue to exist, unhoused. The tragedies keep coming. Public safety issues in affected neighborhoods persist. The zero tolerance rhetoric isn’t getting results.

Continue reading “Dear Minneapolis Moderates: A 2025 Election Open Letter”

The DFL endorsement for mayor of Minneapolis never seemed as significant as when the people making the case for its meaninglessness are ready to fight, fight, fight to reverse the result.

Some have argued that moving with urgency at the “literal eleventh hour” of the July 19 Minneapolis DFL Convention was illegitimate (note: the author of the linked post is a recent former candidate for the state legislature who amended the rules at his DFL convention to advantage himself — gasp).

Continue reading “Casablanca Convention: Frey Campaign Shocked To Find That Parliamentary Procedure Is Going On In Here”

Last month, we told you about subpoenas and a frivolous campaign finance complaint directed against myself and Taylor Dahlin. All originated with Becka Thompson in response to an anonymous website making fun of her campaign for Minneapolis City Council in Ward 12.

Last week, the subpoenas were withdrawn because the domain registrar complied with a subpoena. They provided information revealing the owner of the website was not me or Taylor.

Today, the Minnesota Campaign Finance Board determined there was not probable cause to believe any of the alleged violations occurred.

Continue reading “John Edwards, Taylor Dahlin Exonerated on All Charges”

This year’s Minneapolis DFL caucuses were very well attended which means there are a lot of first-time delegates at 2025 conventions. Tomorrow’s Ward 10 convention (10 am registration, 11 am start) at Ella Baker School in the Wedge is expected to be hotly contested between Council Member Aisha Chughtai and challenger Lydia Millard. These are my tips for a successful convention. They can also be applied for the upcoming two-day city convention in July.

• Bring everything you might need to stay comfortable on a train trip to Chicago. Water, snacks, medication, an external battery for your phone, and a light jacket if the school auditorium is chilly.
• Don’t make plans for after. Prepare for it to take all day. Nobody knows when this train will stop.
• You’re free to walk around through most of the convention, but if you hear someone with a mic say the “floor will be frozen” it means there’s a vote coming up and you must be back by the time indicated. If not, you’ll be stopped from reentering the convention floor.
• There will be long stretches where nothing seems to be happening. This is normal.
• Long stretches where it seems nothing is happening will be punctuated by brief, intense moments where you’re confused about what’s happening. You are not alone. Wait for it to pass.
• Identify a person or group near you wearing shirts for your candidate, who appear to know what’s going on. You don’t have to speak to them, but if they’re voting a certain way on a question of procedure, do what they do. This is much easier than trying to develop an understanding of parliamentary rules and tactics.
• When you’re finally handed a piece of paper to vote for a candidate, write your candidate’s name and sign the back. If you don’t sign your ballot it won’t be counted. Your signature doesn’t have to be legible.
• The threshold for endorsement in 60%. This could take many rounds of balloting.
• The convention could end with no endorsement, but you should still be proud of yourself for potentially stopping a campaign that hates you and your way of life from winning the day.
• A melee is unlikely but if it does happen, do not participate. Get video.

It’s not one of those tragic anniversaries you can put out of mind until the date comes back around on the calendar. In Minneapolis, we have lived with George Floyd’s murder every day for five years.

And I don’t mean that in a “we must atone for what was done in our name” kind of way. Practically speaking, the trauma, disorder, and disintegration of public safety took something from all of us. As someone who loves this city and knows what it offers at its best, I’ve felt that loss deeply.

Continue reading “June 2, 2020: “Our worst fears realized… They can’t threaten this anymore””