Does Minneapolis need more cops?

Mayor Frey and Chief Arradondo want to hire 100 more cops to push Minneapolis to 1,000 officers. A recent Star Tribune article notes that Minneapolis “still lags behind other Midwest cities, including Cincinnati, Milwaukee and Kansas City, Mo.” The article quotes notoriously racist Minneapolis police union leader Bob Kroll saying Minneapolis should strive to match Milwaukee, a place with nearly 60% more cops per capita.

There are a few things about all these city-to-city comparisons that make me question the relevance of “cops per resident” as a statistic. Milwaukee and Kansas City have 40-45% more violent crime per capita than Minneapolis; either all that extra policing isn’t working or there are more significant factors contributing to/mitigating violent crime than how many cops you have. And as long as we’re comparing ourselves to large Midwestern cities, Minneapolis has slightly more cops per person than St. Paul, which is the Midwest city located just across the river (police staffing data as of 2016).

Pushing back against this call for more cops is Council Member Phillipe Cunningham who defeated City Council President Barb Johnson in 2017. Johnson was maybe the Minneapolis politician most associated with stoking crime fears to push for aggressive policing. Cunningham supports alternatives to more cops, and posed one example of a situation where more police isn’t the answer: “If we’re having a mental health crisis, are police the most equipped to handle a mental health crisis?”

Council President Lisa Bender responded to the Mayor’s call for more cops with a statement saying, “we need a balanced approach that includes significantly more funding for reform and violence prevention.”

Listening to the discussion about downtown crime and policing from the business community, you might get the sense this is about making white people comfortable in the presence of low income black and brown people. People say the transit hub and the public library are a magnet for the wrong crowd. A restaurant owner says, “Suburbanites and the 40-plus crowd are concerned about safety. Office workers are not comfortable. You are always on guard.”

Based on my own understanding of where a significant majority of the current City Council is on the police issue, I think the Phillipe Cunningham position is much closer to where we’ll end up than the old Barb Johnson “aggressive law enforcement” position. It seems unlikely we’re about to hire 100 more cops in Minneapolis. In response to this political reality, the law-and-order crowd will stoke fears with anecdotes and descriptions of gruesome security camera videos. Meanwhile, it’s hard to pin down statistics that say crime is spinning out of control.

As someone who feels safe in Minneapolis at all times, both from crime and the police, I don’t want to dismiss the concerns of people who want to be and feel safe when they move around the city. But it’s important we act in ways that consider the safety of everyone who lives here. Is hiring 100 more cops actually an effective way to make Minneapolis safer, when we know it would make many of our neighbors less safe?

MinnPost crime stats

Lisa Goodman Calls YIMBYs “Republicanesque” Proponents of “Trickle-Down”

After spending far too much time with the cast of characters from last week’s Zoning and Planning meeting in the editing room (ICYMI: I’m a prominent local anthropologist and documentarian), one thing struck me as particularly notable: Council Member Lisa Goodman calling YIMBYs a bunch of Republicans.

Goodman found a very provocative way to say projects like the Sons of Norway redevelopment will “increase prices” for homes in surrounding areas:

I’m mostly concerned about the impact of projects like this on our future affordable housing goals. It’s almost like we have this Republicanesque kind of trickle-down theory going on. That if you just build a lot more, then that will free up units at the lower level…

Aside from Goodman’s “Republicanesque” and “trickle-down” slurs, I think this is a reasonable, though incomplete, characterization of a YIMBY argument. I do think building a crapload of homes of all kinds and sizes — especially on giant parking lots — is helpful! Hopefully a lot of this new housing comes with less parking, smaller setbacks, in medium-sized buildings without elevators, among other things that keep housing costs lower. I believe more housing supply puts pressure on landlords by giving tenants options, and makes it less enticing for developers to purchase, renovate, and raise rents in older apartment buildings. In addition to this, I believe we need more public money to subsidize housing for people the market can’t possibly serve. The scale of the problem is too big to pretend these solutions are all mutually exclusive.
It’s disappointing that a city council member is legitimizing arguments that make it easier for well-meaning people to oppose new housing during a housing shortage. Vacancy rates remain historically low as our population grows — hovering around 3%! Lisa Goodman represents some of the most expensive real estate in Minneapolis and many of those neighborhoods have been walled off from more housing for decades by exclusionary zoning. Instead of leading, she’s pandering to people’s fears.
We’ve tried the “no new housing” approach as prices have risen; Lisa Goodman should know it’s only made things worse in her ward. It’s an embarrassing pander to tell exceptionally well-off people that more housing in their neighborhood will cause gentrification. And it makes less sense when you consider Lisa Goodman and residents in opposition to the Sons of Norway project explicitly promoted the idea of fewer units on the site; this would necessarily have made each unit more expensive.
Council President Lisa Bender rebutted the notion of a new wave of gentrification in East Calhoun by rattling off the eye-popping “for sale” prices of single-family homes in the neighborhood (from $500,000 to 1.2M), helping to make the subtle point that Lisa Goodman is full of it. Bender added:

I can’t in good conscience as an elected official in the city of Minneapolis force a developer to build multi-million dollar homes at this location. It just isn’t consistent with any of our policies, or the promises that I made when I ran for office. It doesn’t make sense to me to say that we could only build 38 units here. Imagine how expensive those units would be: millions of dollars. 

[In fairness to Lisa Bender, she spoke before Goodman, so Bender isn’t entirely responsible for making the subtle point that Goodman is “full of it.” Blame Lisa Goodman.]

While Lisa Goodman will happily grab credit for disbursing meager affordable housing funds to a few subsidized projects each year, she is hardly an advocate for those who’ve experienced rising housing costs in Minneapolis during her 20 years in office.

When publicly-subsidized affordable youth housing was proposed near the bustling and exceedingly urban intersection of Hennepin and Franklin Avenues last year, Goodman pressured the developer to lop a few stories off the top, causing the proposal to have fewer units. The project is controversial among some wealthy residents of Lowry Hill, both for the size of the building and because it would house young people just out of foster care. One quote among many from an actual neighborhood meeting: “When you go on the nextdoor website we get a lot of kids breaking into cars to sell things to buy a hit of drugs… Are these kids curfewed?”

Goodman has also disputed the contention that housing is made more affordable by removing the substantial added cost of constructing parking. This is a weird thing for her to be in denial about because she has often supported less parking in new development; she has even noted how requiring less parking makes publicly subsidized affordable housing cheaper to build. The evidence on reducing parking minimums is clear and points towards cheaper housing no matter how it’s financed.

While campaigning for re-election last year, Goodman called the idea of allowing people in duplexes, triplexes and small apartment buildings to live near her wealthy constituents “unconscionable.” A notable sentiment because this is the sort of housing that’s least expensive to build and live in. Goodman thought it more essential to defend exclusionary zoning; she talked about her opposition to new housing in terms of protecting the “investment” of the well-off:

When you buy a house, which is your single biggest investment, one of the things that you take into consideration is the location and what the neighborhood looks and feels like surrounding you. To upend that and make a dramatic change without the neighborhood and neighbors agreeing to it is, I think, unconscionable.

But Lisa Goodman has not always pushed for very strictly interpreting the zoning code to the benefit of the most disgruntled and privileged neighbors. In 2016, Goodman justified her vote to approve a remarkably generous variance for a 600% increase in floor area ratio (FAR) for the 40-story Alatus tower (zoned for 4-stories in a historic district, oh my!), by saying: “We are in a position in the city — whether I campaigned on it or not, and frankly I didn’t — that we should increase density in our city. Not even noted Fan of Tall Buildings in the Middle of Major American Cities, Nick Magrino, could stomach that departure from the zoning code — he voted against it.
Compare the 2016 “Alatus Tower Lisa Goodman” to the 2018 “Sons of Norway Lisa Goodman.”

  • Grants 600% floor area ratio variance for a 40-story luxury condo tower.
  • Says, “we should increase density in our city.”

2018 Lisa Goodman

  • Quibbled over a single story, saying that four stories — not five — was essential to comply with the small area plan by achieving a “graceful” stepdown from east to west.
  • Said housing advocates were “Republicanesque” trickle-downers driving the gentrification of Minneapolis.
I think 2018 Lisa Goodman would rip 2016 Lisa Goodman to shreds for disrespecting the neighborhood and gentrifying Minneapolis beyond recognition.
So my point is, watch my new film [STREAM IT TODAY!]. And please send thoughts and prayers to Neighbors for East Bank Livability, the group who tried their darnedest to stop the 40-story Alatus tower, and who are still screaming at their TV screens a week after watching Lisa Goodman put her whole heart into defending East Calhoun from a 5-story building.

Local Development Politics Officially Enter the Trump Era

It was bound to happen. After a year spent enduring the daily trauma inflicted on our country by its own president, concerned residents have adopted the language of resistance to Donald Trump and applied it to the perceived atrocity of new apartments in their backyard.

The subject of my latest documentary film is the Sons of Norway redevelopment project on Lake Street between Holmes and Humboldt Avenues. The concerns are the same as they’ve always been — traffic, parking, too many people! — but it may be harder for some viewers to take seriously (and could make young children uncomfortable).
One person manufactured their own personal Elizabeth Warren moment by declaring, “Nevertheless I will persist.” A guy from New York bragged about fighting against Trump in the old days, then told the City Council about Giulian’s destruction of the Upper West Side. Lisa Goodman called people who acknowledge that we are experiencing an actual housing shortage “Republicanesque” trickle-downers. Local development politics have officially been nationalized!

Critics are calling “Nevertheless I Persisted: Real, Legitimate Families Against the Bastard Sons of Norway” the spiritual sequel to my 2016 hit film, “LHENA Goes to City Hall.” [STREAM IT TODAY and support this important content on Patreon!]

Residents Gather to Remember Iconic Arby’s Sign

People from across the Twin Cities flocked to Arby’s Island in Uptown Friday night to celebrate the memory of a fallen icon: a fast food sign that lit the corner of Lake St and Emerson Ave for more than 47 years.

Organizer Noah Hevey billed the event as a candle light vigil. Rather than mournful, the atmosphere was friendly and celebratory as the temperature hovered around zero degrees. The image of the old Arby’s sign was projected onto a screen in the parking lot while attendees displayed cardboard signs and lit candles in remembrance.

Fire dancer at the Uptown Arby’s vigil. pic.twitter.com/8qc7NcRML4

— Wedge LIVE! (@WedgeLIVE) February 10, 2018

Arby’s Restaurant Group provided free t-shirts and the Moxy hotel provided Arby’s signature roast beef sandwiches, which were enjoyed afterwards in the lounge across the street.

A statement from Arby’s president Rob Lynch offered “condolences for the loss of a community icon.” The statement explained the reason for the restaurant’s closing was the unwillingness of the property owner to offer a 10-year lease.

Lynch continued, “Tonight we bid farewell to the Uptown Arby’s and its beautiful sign, but this doesn’t have to be goodbye forever. We have more than 60 Arby’s restaurants in Minneapolis and surrounding areas within 3 to 5 miles of here.”

Printed lyrics to a parody version of Danny Boy were distributed to the crowd. The music started, and it went like this:

Oh Arby’s Sign, the meats, the meats are calling
With curly fries and all the tasty sides
The sign is gone and now I will be bawling
‘Tis you ’tis you, must go and I must bide

But come ye back when hunger’s in the belly
Or when the city’s hushed and white with snow
‘Tis I’ll be here in sunshine or in shadow
Oh Arby’s sign, oh Arby’s sign, I love you so

Of you I dream, oh when the night is falling
And then I’m fed, as fed I may well be
I pray you find the place where I am lying
And kneel and place an Arby’s there for me

And I will know the sixty other metro locations
And so my plate still warm and sweet shall be
For you shall serve and show me that you love me
And I will eat in peace, oh Arby’s come to me

Solemn walk through the drive-thru.
Moxy hotel bar distributing sandwiches.

The Uptown Arby’s is Now Closed

With rumors swirling about the fate of the Wedge neighborhood’s most beloved fast food restaurant, I was present for the final hours of the Uptown Arby’s. Joined by four of my best Twitter friends, we ate curly fries and reminisced about the good times.

Employees confirmed that the Arby’s at 1116 West Lake Street is closing, and speculated about a new apartment building taking the place of the single-story drive-thru restaurant. A wistful young cashier spoke of the coworkers he won’t get to see anymore.

After learning of the news, former Mayor Betsy Hodges wondered whether the city might save the historic Arby’s cowboy hat signage.

Has anyone made an HPC application for the sign?

— Betsy Hodges (@BetsyHodges) January 29, 2018

Over the last year, the Uptown Arby’s has seen neighboring properties transformed. The former parking lot across the street has become Uptown’s only hotel — or what some residents loudly complain will be a sex hotel (the Star Tribune found photos on the hotel’s website featuring “half-dressed patrons jumping on beds”). One block to the west, on the site of a former single-story retail building, stands a new apartment building with a small-format Target store operating on the ground floor.

As we imagine what the future holds for this odd triangular patch of land, let’s take a look back at how Uptown’s geography has evolved over the years. In the mid-1960s, Lagoon Avenue was constructed north of Lake Street, cutting city blocks in half and creating what we know now as the “Arby’s Island” triangle.

1961: pre-Lagoon Ave

1970: Lagoon Ave splits Uptown blocks in half.

1974 with original Arby’s building and sign.

 
In the 1974 aerial photo, you can see the cowboy-hat-shaped shadow cast by the sign, as well as umbrella-covered outdoor seating on the south end of the building. The original structure, like other Arby’s restaurants at the time, was designed to look like a chuck-wagon — a covered wagon used to feed cowboys.

1989 Uptown Arby’s newspaper ad.

Promotional material from Wedge LIVE event held at Arby’s Island.

What’s the difference between a 62A and a 62B?

You may currently be hearing a lot about a couple of open and competitive Minnesota State House seats this year: 62A and 62B. If you’re like me, those numbers are geographically incomprehensible. You may be asking, what is the difference between a 62A and a 62B? Who is running in which of these districts? How can I get involved?

First, a brief explanation of district naming conventions. The “62” represents Senate District 62, which is one of 67 senate districts in Minnesota. The “A” and “B” come from dividing a senate district into two house districts. In this way, 67 senate districts are subdivided into 134 house districts.

But where are 62A and 62B? Use this tool to find your district and caucus locations. I expected to be able to find a good map showing exctly where these districts are, but strangely there’s nothing that puts them in context. So I had to make one. (Reader sent me this link to a map of House districts.)

  • 62A goes roughly from Lyndale Ave on the west to Hiawatha on the East; and from I-94 on the north, to Lake Street on the south.
  • 62B, as explained in this candidate write-up in the Southwest Journal “includes the Lyndale, Kingfield, Central, Bryant and Regina neighborhoods, most of Powderhorn Park and Field and a portion of Tangletown.”
Who is running in 62A?

62A candidate forum – Tuesday, January 30, 6:30 – 8:30 PM, Sabathani Community Center.

Who is running in 62B?
62B candidate forum – Friday, February 2, 6:30 – 8:30 PM, Sabathani Community Center.

DFL Caucus night is February 6. Caucuses are terrible, but you can be one of an exclusive few who decide which candidate is best positioned to win in November.

App Matches Minneapolis Politicians to Their Fine Art Dopplegängers

Google now has an app that will match your face to fine art. I have determined you can point your phone’s camera at a computer screen to match Minneapolis politicians to faces in old paintings. Disclaimer: much like DNA testing services provided by sites like ancestry.com, these results are not 100% genetically accurate.

Kevin Reich, Ward 1.

Cam Gordon, Ward 2.

Steve Fletcher, Ward 3.

Phillipe Cunningham, Ward 4.

Jeremiah Ellison, Ward 5.

Abdi Warsame, Ward 6.

Lisa Goodman, Ward 7.

Andrea Jenkins, Ward 8.

Alondra Cano, Ward 9.

Council President Lisa Bender, Ward 10.

Jeremy Schroeder, Ward 11.

Andrew Johnson, Ward 12.

Linea Palmisano, Ward 13.

Mayor Jacob Frey.
The ubiquitous unflattering Star Tribune photo of former Mayor Betsy Hodges shows a 50% genetic match to a boy playing the bagpipes.
Former City Council President Barb Johnson.

Former mayoral candidate Tom Hoch.
I tried to run the eerily human face of Andrew Johnson’s dog through the Google fine art machine, but it couldn’t find a match. However, Wedge LIVE computers calculate that Andrew Johnson’s dog is a 99% genetic match to a painting of an Ewok.

Billboard Proposal is “Rash That Won’t Go Away”

Update: New Ward 3 Council Member Steve Fletcher has confirmed that the billboard proposal is dead.

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.

Lisa Bender Expected to be Elected President of Minneapolis City Council

Commemorative shirt. Get yours today!

In the Minneapolis City Council’s virtual one party system it can be tough to know how election results translate to actual governing. This morning we get answers to some of the big questions lingering since last November’s election, setting the stage for the next four years.

Who will be elected City Council President? 

It’s very likely Lisa Bender will become Council President. The other candidate is Andrea Jenkins.

The public vote for president is traditionally unanimous once it becomes clear which candidate has majority support. Privately Bender has had seven of 13 votes secured for a while: incumbents Cam Gordon and Andrew Johnson, joined by new members Steve Fletcher, Phillipe Cunningham, Jeremiah Ellison, and Jeremy Schroeder.

Andrea Jenkins had the support of Alondra Cano plus the four remaining incumbents who were part of President Barb Johnson’s coalition during the last term: Kevin Reich, Abdi Warsame, Lisa Goodman, and Linea Palmisano.

The council will also elect a Vice President, a Majority Leader, and a Minority Leader.

Who will lead new committees?

It’s important to note the obvious: large turnover on the council means large turnover on many committees, both in terms of membership and who chairs those committees.

Here are some committees to watch for changes (previous committee chairperson in parentheses):

  • Community Development & Regulatory Services (Goodman)
  • Transportation & Public Works (Reich)
  • Public Safety, Civil Rights & Emergency Management (Yang)
  • Zoning & Planning (Bender)
  • Ways & Means (Quincy)
Assuming Bender is elected president, she will not be back as chair of Zoning & Planning. Because Yang and Quincy were not reelected, they will definitely not be back as chairs of their respective committees. Lisa Goodman wields a ton of money and power from her position as chair of CDRS. Does she hold on to it?
Watch for the creation of new committees. An example from the beginning of last term: Community Development was combined with Regulatory Services as a gift from Barb Johnson to Lisa Goodman. 

Can I purchase a shirt to commemorate this momentous quadrennial event?

Absolutely. This shirt has all your favorite roman numerals plus the faces of all your favorite and least favorite council members.

You can watch the first City Council meeting of the year at 11:30 on Channel 14.

Acme Comedy: The Parking Crisis That Wasn’t

Acme Comedy’s remaining parking lot was half-filled during a Friday show last June

In 2016, Acme Comedy Co was the subject of the most high-profile movement to save a parking lot in recent Minneapolis history. If the owner of an adjacent parking lot was allowed to turn it into apartments, Acme’s owner predicted he would be forced to move his business out of Minneapolis to a parking-rich suburb. Nationally-known comedians rallied to Acme’s defense. Nearly 6,000 people signed an online petition to save a parking lot — in order to save a beloved comedy institution.

Today, with a new apartment building occupying that former parking lot, Acme owner Louis Lee tells the Star Tribune (in a story unrelated to parking) “Acme is enjoying its strongest business in a decade.” 
This dynamic plays out on a smaller scale every week in neighborhoods across Minneapolis. Parking concerns are pervasive in a changing city. But people don’t usually pay attention long enough to check predictions against reality. We get headlines that say Neighborhood Threatened by Change. We never get the follow-up headline years later: Oops, Things Are Actually Just Fine.
So it’s important we honor bearded soothsayers like Peter Bajurny, who was right all along. There’s one less parking lot in Minneapolis but the comedy business is booming in the North Loop. Go have your obnoxious “I told you so” moment, Peter — you deserve it.