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St. Paul Makes Big Change, Despite Voting to Keep Things Mostly the Same

Yesterday was election day in St. Paul. Here’s the results. Five of seven seats on the City Council have returning incumbents. Rebecca Noecker (62%), Chris Tolbert (61%), Mitra Jalali Nelson (59%), Amy Brendmoen (53%), and Jane Prince (62%). All won by virtue of surpassing 50% of first choice votes after the election night count. Two seats remain up in the air.

In Ward 6, Nelsie Yang has what looks like an insurmountable 17 point lead (44-27%) over Terri Thao. In Ward 1, incumbent Dai Thao leads Anika Bowie 42-30%; Liz De La Torre is in third place with 19%. Final results might take a while: Ramsey County is scheduled to begin reallocating voters’ ranked choices on Friday.

Voters citywide came out in favor retaining St. Paul’s organized trash ordinance by a 63-37% margin. If organized trash was a candidate, it would have been the most popular candidate on the ballot last night.

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Southwest Mpls Reacts to Plan for Affordable Housing

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Last night, Ward 13 Council Member Linea Palmisano hosted a meeting in the Fulton neighborhood to gather feedback on an idea to turn a city-owned parking lot near 50th and France into affordable housing. The lot is at 5028-5044 Ewing Ave S.

This is an early stage idea. Because this is a city-owned lot, criteria would be developed through extensive engagement with the neighborhood. The city would then put out a request for proposals from developers. The city would pick their preferred proposal — or pick none at all. Palmisano told residents at the meeting that she wants to do this “collaboratively” so that it brings “the least amount of disruption to the neighborhood as possible.”

At the beginning of the meeting Palmisano acknowledged she had already heard concerns about parking. To which the guy next to me said, “big time.” Palmisano promised “some amount of parking” included in any development. Parking concerns would go on to dominate much of the meeting.

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Kelly Doran Bullshits His Way Through a Debate with Councilman Steve

On Monday I was at the Downtown Minneapolis Neighborhood Association (DMNA), mostly because I heard a crew of residents would be riled up over a plan for short term rentals. (The rumors were true. I’ve never heard so many lawsuit threats in my life).

As a bonus, I got to hear developers Mike Garvin and Kelly Doran make their case against a proposed city ordinance to limit landlord screening practices on things like background checks, credit checks, and deposit amounts.

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Is It Possible to Have Productive Neighborhood Conversations About Development?

Here’s a story about two six-story apartment proposals, from the same developer in adjacent neighborhoods. In both cases, city planners said the buildings were too big. But the differing approach from each neighborhood organization meant one was approved and the other has been scaled down significantly.

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Cat Tour Draws Hundreds to the Wedge

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People said it couldn’t be done. They said “Chet, you should reschedule, it’s going to rain really hard and everyone will get wet!”

I said, “Please don’t call me Chet. This ‘Chet Wedgely’ thing was meant to be a joke but now it’s catching on.” And then, showing uncommon courage, I refused to cancel the cat tour. As a result, 300 hearts were touched and the sun never stopped shining. That’s 10 times the number of people who attended last year’s Wedge neighborhood cat tour.

Attendees (the ones who kept count) reported seeing over 50 cats. Most cats were spotted at windows — but others were seen on porches, rooftops, in strollers, on leashes, or scampering through yards. A man at 28th and Dupont emerged from an apartment building holding a cat and wearing a giant cat head. As one Reddit user put it, “does anyone else think this is kinda fuckin weird?”

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A Fair Housing Proposal in Minneapolis

Nationally 30% of adults have an arrest or criminal record. That can make it much harder to find housing. And to the degree there are racial disparities in our criminal justice system (as of 2012, black people were arrested by Minneapolis police at 6.5 times the rate of the non-black population), this results in disparities in who is eligible for housing.

In 2016, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development issued legal guidance that “where a policy or practice that restricts access to housing on the basis of criminal history has a disparate impact on individuals of a particular race, national origin, or other protected class” could violate the Fair Housing Act.

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