It has nothing to do with schools, but here’s an under the radar story from last year that explains what’s wrong with Rebecca Gagnon, who is running for re-election to the Minneapolis school board. It’s a story about billboard regulations. How does a school board member get mixed up with billboard regulations? Up until this year, Gagnon had been the school board’s representative on the City Planning Commission. Continue reading “Rebecca Gagnon: Wrong for Minneapolis School Board”
The mysteriously persistent proposal to allow more billboards in downtown Minneapolis has Planning Commissioner John Slack feeling as if he’d like to pour a bottle of antibiotics all over it:
For me this is like the rash that won’t go away. I don’t see how this supports any of the comprehensive plan goals, I don’t see how this improves livability in the downtown. All I see is negative and adverse effects.
As described by city staff person Steve Poor, “the ordinance is designed to allow for a robust building out of off-premise advertising” in areas of downtown near stadiums and along Hennepin and Washington Avenues. The proposal was unanimously rejected by the Planning Commission in September, with near-universal negative reaction from commissioners. In October, the proposal lacked the votes to pass the City Council’s Zoning & Planning Committee. Yet the plan came back stronger and more expansive in December.
Based on discussion at December’s meeting, the only Planning Commissioner willing to support it is Rebecca Gagnon, who failed to disclose that her daughter is a lobbyist for the company who would benefit most from the change. She afterwards provided a weak defense of her failure to recuse herself from the process.
In the time since I wrote about this last month, the Star Tribune editorial board has come out against the zoning change; city staff has further consulted with City Council members, including author Abdi Warsame and others who are no longer on the City Council; and a bunch of neighbors, previously unaware of the proposal, showed up to testify against it.
One of those neighbors is Joe Tamburino, Chair of the Downtown Minneapolis Neighborhood Association. Tamburino said he spoke with the author of the zoning change, Abdi Warsame, at a retirement party for former Council President Barb Johnson. Warsame told Tamburino he doesn’t support the Washington Avenue expansion.
This raises a question I’ve had for a while: where is the political energy for this change coming from? It’s hard to find many who like the idea of more billboards downtown, and if you believe Joe Tamburino, even the nominal author of the change won’t support it entirely. There’s a confounding lack of transparency about exactly who on the City Council wants this and why.
Supporters of the plan like Barb Johnson and Warsame have been unable to articulate the public interest in easing the restriction on billboards, limiting their arguments to allowing companies like Blue Ox Media and Clear Channel to make more money from the upcoming Super Bowl in Minneapolis. (One might also speculate wildly, connecting the dots between Warsame and Johnson’s urgent arguments last October regarding the Super Bowl, and a leaked 2014 document detailing the Minneapolis Super Bowl Host Committee’s obligation to provide the NFL with 20 free billboards around the stadium, team hotels, and practice facilities.)
In order to give more chance for public feedback, the Planning Commission voted to delay a decision until the January 22 meeting.
The bulk of Gagnon’s argument has to do with a distinction between procedure and the merits. She says because she was only making a procedural argument, and not an argument on the merits, it’s no big deal.
The procedural argument was the ordinance’s only hope of making it from the Planning Commission to the City Council. The procedural argument was the whole ballgame. Whatever the Planning Commission recommended, yes or no, the City Council would have been free to ignore it. The worst possible outcome for supporters of the zoning change — and what Gagnon was trying to avoid — was for the issue to be continued to the next meeting, in procedural limbo with no action taken. As I wrote yesterday, that outcome created the very real possibility the zoning change would die for good.
Rebecca Gagnon says if the Planning Commission had actually proceeded to debate the merits of the billboard zoning change “it would have been germane to have noted publicly” that her daughter is a lobbyist for Blue Ox Media.
First, I don’t buy this argument. Gagnon should have disclosed the conflict from the outset and recused herself from the entire process.
It’s also funny to imagine if Gagnon’s colleagues had responded favorably to her procedural pleading last Monday. Now imagine if Gagnon then immediately said, “Oh by the way guys, before we get to the merits, I should let you know my daughter is a lobbyist for this billboard company.”
But if you are someone who believes in Gagnon’s made-up rule that you don’t need to disclose conflicts of interest until you begin making arguments on the merits, well, she did make an argument on the merits. As quoted in my original post, Gagnon said during the meeting, “Right now there’s a monopoly on this industry. You may or may not like that. I don’t like that.” Here’s video.
Gagnon says that while her daugher is a registered lobbyist for Blue Ox Media, neither her daughter nor the lobbying firm that employs her daughter was paid to work on behalf of Blue Ox Media.
I’m skeptical of the significance of this point. Blue Ox Media isn’t a charity and neither is Hylden Advocacy. CEO Tom McCarver was ambitious enough about his new business venture that he donated $5,100 to eight city council incumbents from July 18 to October 3. Prior to this 77 day period, I can’t find evidence that McCarver ever made a donation to Minneapolis city campaigns. That’s a significant investment of money, and the timing indicates it was directly related to the billboard zoning change; I’m sure he was hoping for a nice return on that investment. I don’t believe that while McCarver was spreading all that money around, there was nothing in it for Hylden Advocacy.
In addition to Samantha Gagnon and Nancy Hylden, Jackie Cherryhomes lobbies on behalf of Blue Ox. Is Cherryhomes’ lobbying firm also working for free? Is Hylden Advocacy literally donating their services for zero consideration while others get paid? (Someone please explain to me how lobbying works.)
But I’m gonna give the final word to random bearded Twitter guy, who says it better than I could:
Pro bono doesn’t mean lack of conflict of interest. Especially in the case of lobbying. Free now, reward later. 🙄
Back in September, the City Planning Commission (CPC) unanimously rejected (6-0) the idea of more and larger billboards in downtown Minneapolis.
“I still fail to see the public benefit of adding billboards in the downtown” said Commissioner Alissa Luepke Pier.
Commissioner Matt Brown expressed concerns about billboard blight in a part of downtown that’s rapidly changing for the better: “If we’re adding a lot of really large, kind of permanently mounted billboards, that can almost be a barrier to new development in an area where all of our policies suggest we’d like to see it.”
A man from an outdoor sign company called Blue Ox Media Group, Tom McCarver, testified in support of a more “robust” (meaning permissive) version of the amendment, saying it was “supported by people in the area and council member.” The council member in the area is Jacob Frey in Ward 3, though it’s possible McCarver was speaking of Abdi Warsame in adjacent Ward 6.
McCarver continued, “During committee of the whole we were looking at an ordinance that was a little more robust than this, talking about Washington Ave and parts of Hennepin. So we would encourage that discussion to continue and moving forward to Z&P as well.” Just as McCarver desired, despite a lack of political support at every step, billboard deregulation would continue to get more robust.
On October 26, the City Council’s Zoning and Planning Committee was split 3-3 on whether to approve the billboard district expansion (the same version rejected by CPC in September). Barb Johnson, Abdi Warsame, and Kevin Reich voted to approve; Lisa Bender, Andrew Johnson, and Lisa Goodman voted against. The committee then voted to send the zoning code change back to staff for modifications that might make it more palatable. This meant it would return to the CPC.
Last Monday, the concept of allowing more and larger billboards was back in front of the planning commission — only this time, the idea that was previously unacceptable to both CPC and the Z&P Committee had become even more expansive. The proposal now included allowing wall signs along stretches of Hennepin and Washington Avenues; and an expanded billboard district would go as far west as Portland Avenue, intruding into Commons park outside the new Vikings stadium.
If you want to read the details, you should be warned that the staff report has a number of errors. References to “painted wall signs” are actually meant to refer to “wall signs” of all types. Additionally, the map included in the report does not reflect the full scope of the proposed changes.
This lack of clarity in the staff report was the reason Commissioner Sam Rockwell said he was “profoundly uncomfortable voting for something where I don’t know what it’s supposed to be.” Rockwell’s motion to postpone the issue passed on a 5-2 vote. The billboard zoning change is now scheduled to be taken up again at the next CPC meeting on January 8.
Existing district in purple.
“Robust” billboard expansion discarded after CPC Committee of the Whole
“Modest” expansion rejected by CPC (9/18) & Z&P (10/26).
It’s back! Billboard Xtreme™ is more robust than ever!
Commissioner’s daughter is lobbyist for billboard company
Commissioner Rebecca Gagnon, who is also a member of the Minneapolis school board and candidate for the Minnesota House of Representatives, was not happy to see the process delayed. Gagnon urged action: “This has just come to us so much, I feel like we should be able to make a decision on this.” (The commission had made a decision — a unanimous decision — to reject the zoning change in September. Gagnon was absent.)
Gagnon continued:
And there’s also urgency around, I know it’s not our business, but there is some Super Bowl thing coming here, and I think there was some decisions that people wanted made so work could be done, which was one of the reasons. Right now there’s a monopoly on this industry. You may or may not like that. I don’t like that. I think it also just… there’s no sense and one of the big reasons is because people just want to get some work done. [emphasis mine]
The company that wants to break up what Gagnon refers to as an outdoor signage “monopoly” (in the form of Clear Channel), is called Blue Ox Media Group.
It’s curious that Gagnon would be so outspoken on the obscure issue of billboard regulation. As a frequent viewer, I can tell you it’s unusual for Gagnon to be outspoken on any issue during CPC meetings. (It was so unusual that it prompted me to look into this story.)
During the meeting, Gagnon continued to pour on the urgency: “Is there a way since we’re already here at 7:38. We’re now getting paid $17 an hour. Is there just a way we can just move this forward, please?”
Gagnon is right that she’s only paid a very small amount per meeting. But it’s important to note that Rebecca Gagnon’s daughter, Samantha Gagnon, gets paid as a registered lobbyist for Blue Ox Media Group. Blue Ox Media is interested in easing restrictions on billboards in downtown Minneapolis. When Rebecca Gagnon talks about how she doesn’t like our current billboard “monopoly” downtown, she’s talking about helping one company in particular: Blue Ox Media Group.
Samantha Gagnon works for the lobbying firm of Nancy Hylden. When an issue in front of the city council has some inexplicable political force behind it, just dig a little, and you might find the Hylden firm on the winning side.
An example: the recent city council decision to abandon a five cent fee for single-use shopping bags. The ordinance was defeated even though the same council had passed an outright plastic bag ban a year earlier, which had included the same five cent fee for paper bags.
The author of the bag ordinance, Council Member Cam Gordon, was taken by surprise when so many of his colleagues changed their position to vote against his ordinance. And the only explanation offered for that change of heart — they didn’t like the five cent fee — didn’t make sense. As Gordon wrote at the time, “Under both proposals the bags you could get in a store would have cost five cents. Any argument that can be made against a fee applies to both ordinances equally.”
Urgency ahead of new city council and the Super Bowl
At the planning commission last Monday, city staff person Steve Poor was blunt in explaining why it was so urgent that the commission take action on the billboard zoning change:
I prefer not to get into this level of explanation of the mechanics of the city. But if the ordinance is not acted on, and is postponed, it will likely have to be adopted by a new council member moving in, or Warsame picks it up. So there’s a procedural thing here that’s going on, not to mention that we don’t have committee assignments. That is presumptuous to think that it will be on an automatic timetable going forward. I think I’ve spoken to the intent and will of this council before, but I don’t think you can make assumptions about if it doesn’t come out of here that it will just proceed on January 8. I don’t think that’s a realistic expectation to be blunt about it.[emphasis mine]
Commissioner Rebecca Gagnon echoed this, saying, “We’re going to have a lot of turnover on January 1.”
This is an important point. With five new members of the city council elected last month, a new council president on the way, and new committee assignments coming, there’s a good chance that a zoning change to allow more and larger billboards wouldn’t even make it out of committee.
At the October 26 city council committee meeting, Abdi Warsame (initiator of the zoning change) and Barb Johnson very strongly urged their colleagues to pass the billboard zoning change out of committee. Both explicitly noted the financial boon to outdoor sign companies during the upcoming Super Bowl.
Barb Johnson: “This modest expansion would allow for some revenue to come to the vendor in light of the Super Bowl coming.”
Abdi Warsame: “If we push this back there’s no guarantee that either party [Clear Channel and Blue Ox Media] will get any updated billboards for the Super Bowl, which is the intention that they had in the first place.”
On December 4, city staff person Steve Poor highlighted the Super Bowl as a motivating factor for certain members of the city council:
To be frank about it, this came back in short order because staff was told that this council wanted to act on it. […] There was a lot of intense discussion back and forth about that, but I think it’s fair to say the council felt they wanted to have a vote on this, whether it’s because of the large circus coming to town soon, or the super bowl, or what have you. I would just tell you that one of the reasons staff worked with some diligence to get this before you is because the policymakers directed us to do so.[emphasis mine]
Why Does Minneapolis Need More Billboards?
With all the talk about Super Bowl 52 and the financial well-being of Blue Ox Media and Clear Channel, I couldn’t find anyone making the case for why Minneapolis needs larger billboards in more places. A change like this, and any additional billboards it creates, would be with us long after the Super Bowl leaves town.
And why does this idea, that seems not very popular, keep coming back in forms that are less appealing, but more pro-industry? Maybe a friend of the billboard industry thinks they’ve rustled up enough votes to pass it — if only they can get it in front of the full council we currently have, but probably not the council we’ll have next month. I watched hours and hours and hours of public meetings to bring you this story. Please support that work by becoming a Wedge LIVE patron!
