Lisa Goodman’s seven terms on the Minneapolis City Council ended on Jan 1. Less than nine months later, she’s back at city hall. She started a new job Monday as the director of initiatives and partnerships — a new position created specifically for her.
What new things does a former council member who represented both Uptown and downtown since 1998 have to teach us about Minneapolis revitalization? We’re about to find out.
In Goodman’s 26 years on the city council she was known for wielding great power as chair of committees controlling economic development cash, being an unreserved police booster, and being a foe of safe streets and alternative transportation (she was the lone vote against the Transportation Action Plan).
This City Pages story from 2009 has all the Goodman classics: guiding development towards her friends and getting the city sued; threatening to defund a neighborhood group for not letting her use their email list; and going to great — possibly corrupt — lengths to help her dear friends build a wood-burning energy plant in the Phillips neighborhood.
One of Goodman’s last acts in her old job last December was to vote on the city’s 2024 budget that created her new job. The annual pay of $156,000 is roughly 140 percent of her old salary as a council member.
In an email last Friday, deputy city operations officer Brette Hjelle described Goodman as a “creative thinker with a penchant for bringing people together to get things done.” He said Goodman was hired after a months-long “rigorous and thorough interview process.”
But that can’t be true — I was told on Feb 1 that she’d be given this job. I posted about it four days later. That’s not enough time for a thorough, rigorous, months-long process.
Continue reading “Frey admin brings Lisa Goodman back to city hall; lies about having months-long, “rigorous and thorough” hiring process”
