Conventional wisdom says incumbent John Quincy is a goner in Ward 11. The Star Tribune would not have endorsed against him if they thought he had a chance of surviving this election. Which means Ward 11 will likely have a new city council member come 2018.
I’ve been observing Quincy’s challengers all year long, and I believe both would immediately become excellent council members, and clear upgrades over the incumbent.
What separates Erica Mauter from most other candidates is her willingness to say true things that are hard for people to hear. That’s a big reason why Ward 11 voters should make Mauter their number one choice on November 7.
Mauter has been the most bluntly honest about the need for reforms that chip away at the exclusionary zoning practices that keep small and midscale multi-family housing out of single-family neighborhoods (her support for triplexes and easing parking minimums earned her the rebuke of the Star Tribune editorial board). You also see this political courage when Mauter very directly makes the case for equity to the largely white residents of Ward 11.
One thing that all the council candidates I’m endorsing this year have in common: they are courageous and impressively wonky. Erica Mauter checks both boxes. I’ve seen it myself and I hear it from others. People I respect who work side by side with Mauter on policy issues tell me she knows her stuff and works hard, standing out from her colleagues. She has lived up to this praise when I’ve seen her in person at candidate forums.
Jeremy Schroeder is the other challenger in Ward 11. You should rank Schroeder second on your ballot. He is an excellent candidate and has run an impressive campaign.
This one goes without saying. I’ve been a Janne supporter from the beginning. But it’s important to make it clear one last time before election day: Ward 7 would be very lucky to have Janne Flisrand working for them.
You should go read Janne’s website for her policy positions. I won’t bother telling you how I’m on board for all of it. I’d rather focus on Janne’s personal qualities and her tremendous capacity to make those positions a reality: whether it’s on affordable housing; police reform; protecting the environment; and creating a transportation system that works for people, not just cars.
I know Janne pretty well. She’s someone I rely on to help me understand the way our city works, and all the ways it could work better. I’ve watched her campaign up close for the last year. I believed in Janne last November when she started; after watching her campaign for all this time, I am in awe of what she’s built and the people she surrounds herself with. She works freakishly hard every day; she lifts people up, supporting and inspiring them to do big things; and there’s no issue she can’t figure out or help you understand better.
Janne has no special affinity for politics for the sake of politics. She doesn’t want to be council member, she wants very much to do the job of council member.
As I say, Janne works incredibly hard. She pays attention to details. She’s prepared for everything. She has a stubborn, persistent refusal to leave anything to chance. This has a downside: the Janne campaign team is exhausted right now (though exhilarated). The upside: Janne is ready to get some stuff done as a council member. And she’s proven herself uniquely qualified to build the coalitions that make progress happen. Ward 7 shouldn’t pass up the chance to vote Janne as their first choice for city council.
Nobody should be surprised I’m endorsing Lisa Bender. I agree with her on just about everything (even though I’m still shaking my fist at the Great Downzoning of 2016!). As someone who bikes, walks, and takes transit, I’m grateful for all that she’s done to make Ward 10 a safer place to travel.
Bender is solidly on the City Council’s progressive wing in fighting for pro-worker policies and police reform. She leads the way on housing, towards a city that’s affordable for everyone. She’s a tireless advocate for street designs that serve people and neighborhoods, rather than just speeding cars.
What makes Lisa Bender the most exceptional member of the Minneapolis City Council: she’s incredibly knowledgeable, relentlessly productive, and completely transparent about her agenda. I’m constantly impressed by her willingness to do and say the right thing, sometimes at the risk of her own popularity. It’s a rare quality in an elected official; Lisa Bender isn’t trying to thread the needle of public opinion, she’s trying to do things that work for the most people, even the ones who don’t reliably vote.
Lisa Bender has my strongest possible endorsement. Minneapolis is lucky to have her.
I saw Steve Fletcher compete for the DFL nomination earlier this spring. He won on the first ballot at the Ward 3 convention, as the candidate of the left. Before the emergence of Ginger Jentzen’s campaign, it seemed like Fletcher would glide easily to an election victory in November.
My first impression of Fletcher, based on his bio, was as an activist; but when you hear him talk, he has the ease of a policy wonk. I was not surprised to hear him say all the right things on police reform and worker’s rights. I was pleasantly surprised to hear him talk about building a transportation that serves people who bike, walk, and take transit. While Fletcher is no full-blown YIMBY, I consider him an ally. He readily acknowledges that market-rate housing is a necessary part of the solution on affordability. He has my strong first choice endorsement. I’m very confident he’ll be an effective council member.
Because of the successful campaign of Ginger Jentzen, the conversation in Ward 3 has been dominated by discussion of developers and rent control. My position has always been that, while developers are often rich assholes, that doesn’t mean building a bunch of new housing isn’t a net benefit to the cause of housing affordability (obligatory caveat: that’s not to say it’s the only thing we need to be doing, just that it’s a necessary part of the solution).
Jentzen’s campaign has raised a record-breaking amount of money with a message focused on rent control and the idea that new market-rate housing (built with no public subsidy) is the problem. It’s mostly working out pretty well for her. It’s popular! But it’s still not a set of policies that work the way people hope.
I still like Fletcher’s chances, but I think he’s become a victim of circumstance, caught up in the improbable rise of a talented opponent who’s become a sudden national cause. If you don’t believe me when I tell you Fletcher is well to the left of current Ward 3 council member Jacob Frey, just look at Fletcher’s fundraising. The usual big-donor suspects refuse to support him. Despite being a smart, amiable, DFL-endorsed candidate, Fletcher’s getting badly out-raised from the left. And now there’s a well-funded (though longshot) Republican candidate charging in from the right, with the aid of big business.
I have no preference between Samantha Pree-Stinson and Ginger Jentzen for second and third choice, but I’d encourage you to use every line on your ballot. Please leave Ward 3 Republican candidate Tim Bildsoe off your ballot entirely (yes, he’s an actual Republican pretending to be DFL).
“Nazi Lane” signs dripping with fake blood (photo: Shane Morin)
Minneapolis election season has collided with backlash to a pair of bike lanes recently installed on 26th and 28th streets. Previous negative reaction to those lanes has mainly consisted of Facebook posts, a never-ending thread of commentary on the Nextdoor website, and Jon Tevlin of the Star Tribune fanning the flames. Today the bikelash became an actual real-life protest with signs reading “Nazi Lanes,” “Mafia Lanes,” and “Suck It Lanes.”
One important thing to know is that the idea for this protest began on social media as a hoax, but became very real after spreading to credulous bike-haters on Facebook. The Facebook event was created by internet hoax artist Jeremy Piatt (known for creating the GoFundMe for Kanye West that was picked up by major national news outlets).
By all accounts, organizer Jeremy Piatt didn’t show up to the protest. But here’s who did show up to march against bikes: two candidates for City Council, David Schorn (Ward 10) and Joe Kovacs (Ward 7); and former Ward 10 City Council member Meg Tuthill; and let’s not forget the group of people carrying “Nazi Lane” signs dripping with red paint intended to look like blood.
> Drivers freak out about bike lanes > Fake bike lane protest organized online as joke > Conservatives actually show up w/“Nazi Lanes” signs https://t.co/bgKkIxW34M
Cannot fathom the fucking nerve to carry a sign that looks like it’s dripping with blood. Car violence IS killing PEOPLE. That’s real blood https://t.co/ahJWb5l3qr
The anti-bike protest was followed a few hours later by an event billed as a “Bike Lane Party” attended by a few dozen residents, including current Ward 10 City Council member Lisa Bender. Bender advocates for policies that create safer streets for pedestrians and cyclists, and has been the target of criticism from bike lane opponents on social media.
There’s a political fund called “Minneapolis Works!” sending mailers supporting Ward 7 incumbent Lisa Goodman [and a bunch of other candidates, as indicated above]. On both sides of the mailer, a diverse collection of disembodied thumbs can be seen endorsing Lisa Goodman as the “proven progressive.”
The group had raised $12,000 at the end of August. Funding was provided by the Downtown Council ($1,000); Steve Cramer, President and CEO of the Downtown Council ($500); developer Steve Minn ($5,000) and wife Lucille Minn ($5,000); and Jonathan Weinhagen, the President and CEO of the Minneapolis Chamber of Commerce ($500). Based on the large volume of advertising from Minneapolis Works in the last half of October, future finance reports will show a much larger fundraising haul.
Send your tips/pictures to newsroom@wedgelive.com if you happen to see advertising from Minneapolis Works!
UPDATE: more mailers from Minneapolis Works: Barb Johnson in Ward 4, Kevin Reich in Ward 1 and John Quincy in Ward 11.
UPDATE: Round 2 of Minneapolis Works mailers (arriving October 19th/20th). Lisa Goodman, the pretend progressive; Kevin Reich and the stock image diversity 🌍 children; Tim Bildsoe, who was a Republican city council member in Plymouth until 2014, is labeled a “proven progressive”; and John Quincy, famous for doing nothing, is the progressive who gets things done.
October 25: Attack mailers from Minneapolis Works! start arriving.
Wards 4 and 5 in Minneapolis are composed of 14 North Side neighborhoods where people of color are the majority. By a wide margin, these wards have the lowest turnout in Minneapolis municipal elections. These wards have also produced two of the most conservative members of the Minneapolis City Council, Barb Johnson and Blong Yang.
Voter turnout in Minneapolis (2013)
One way to boost turnout would be to let people know there’s an election going on and how they can participate. Early voting is happening right now. Election day is less than a month away on November 7. Fortunately, the City of Minneapolis produces and mails a voter guide with some essential voter information. This guide contains basic info, like:
date of the election
times polls are open
how to locate your polling place
how to access a sample ballot
voter eligibility requirements
Minnesota voter bill of rights
how to mark a ranked choice ballot
Last Wednesday, Minneapolis City Clerk Casey Carl told the City Council’s Elections Committee that his team gets “more compliments and positive feedback on [the voter guide] than anything else we do.”
But Council President Barb Johnson, who benefits from the fact that so many people of color in Ward 4 don’t vote, responded to the City Clerk’s presentation with this: “I’m glad you got a lot of positives about the voter guide, but I got a lot of negatives.”
Barb continued, “Why are we mailing to every house? And what does that cost? Can you give me a price tag about that? Because, as I say, I got a lot of negative feedback.”
Barb didn’t mention specific details about the negative feedback, or who she’s hearing it from.
I’m not sure how Blong Yang feels about voter guides in low-turnout Ward 5, but he’s campaigning in a way that makes me think he needs one mailed to his house, because it’s not clear he understands there’s an election happening right now.
One important thing to remember about Blong Yang is he didn’t begin his term on the Council in a position of strength; he received only 42 percent of first-choice votes in 2013. This election year, instead of trying to expand his coalition, Yang’s strategy has been to run and hide. Naomi Kritzer explains the problem with Blong Yang in 2017:
He didn’t get endorsed at the DFL Ward Convention and has been campaigning in what I can only describe as a completely halfhearted way. He has not shown up for many (any?) of the debate/forum type events. He hasn’t filled out any questionnaires. His events (which you can find on his campaign Facebook page) are few in number and the campaign Facebook page is mostly just announcements of these events. On that grounds alone, I would not vote for him. If someone doesn’t want to be accountable to their constituents during the campaign they certainly aren’t going to be accountable to you after they take office.
Reading Kritzer’s post reminded me of this Public Safety Committee hearing Blong chaired in 2015, where he essentially excluded the general public from an impromptu public hearing, but found a way to make time for Bob Kroll and other invited guests who were hand-picked to give the right kind of testimony. Being a city council person involves facing people who disagree with you, right or wrong; Blong Yang seems to have no stomach for that part of the job.
Last week, I showed up at a Ward 5 forum to see Blong field questions alongside challengers Jeremiah Ellison and Raeisha Williams. Even though I knew Blong had been avoiding debates, I was pretty confident that, as the lone member of the City Council to vote against a $15 minimum wage, Blong wouldn’t run away from a forum sponsored by the Minneapolis Chamber of Commerce; but he wasn’t there. And it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that Blong thinks either that he can’t win, or that his candidacy doesn’t stand up to the tiniest bit of scrutiny. This page on MSP Votes has a list of forums and questionnaires Blong Yang has avoided.
Goodman has skipped two other recent candidate forums, including one hosted by the Minneapolis Chamber of Commerce. She has refused to answer questionnaires on housing, transportation, racial justice, and other topics. Goodman did find a way to attend a forum sponsored by the five “lakes area” neighborhood organizations, featuring an audience question that instructed candidates to “restrict their answers to only the five lakes-area neighborhoods” (which tells you a lot about Ward 7 political dynamics).
At the City Council’s Elections Committee hearing where the city’s voter guide was discussed, a very conscientious-sounding Lisa Goodman said she feels “weird” and “awkward” using “city resources” (her e-newsletter) to promote basic info about the election.
But I don’t think an elected official telling people where and when they can vote is all that weird or awkward. What’s really weird and extremely awkward is Lisa Goodman using city resources to promote herself with a six-page color newsletter, printed and mailed to constituents just before the election. According to Ward 7 residents, this newsletter is not something they usually receive.
Goodman also sent 6 page color gatefold newsletter printed, mailed at city expense. Never seen such fanciness in 5+ years in W7.
Lisa Goodman mailed Mother of All Franked pieces 6 wks b4 election. She send 4-color pieces other times? City return address; taxpayer dime. pic.twitter.com/6rdVknr4VF
So you should vote this year. A good rule of thumb is to vote against the people who are running away from this election, afraid that more people might vote.
Lundeen said that non-profits are the “path to the urban plantation, which is basically what we keep up in north Minneapolis.”
“If you’re a black man, you need to try and get a good job,” Lundeen said. “You need to imagine that.”
Lundeen continued: “I don’t even see any… very few blacks here. They don’t even bother to come to hear this chatter anymore.”
Lundeen then pointed towards the back of the room, at incumbent Ward 10 city council member Lisa Bender’s policy aide Ron Harris, who is black. Lundeen said, “ok, there’s one…. I wonder if you agree with what I say.”
“Not at all,” Harris replied. “Continue.”
Bender placed her hands over her head during the exchange.
In one of his finest moments of the campaign so far, Schorn admitted he didn’t know what inclusionary zoning was. Lisa Bender even commended him for admitting a lack of knowledge instead of faking his way through an answer.
However, in one of Schorn’s worst moments of the campaign so far, he showed up to a city council candidate forum on housing without knowing anything about inclusionary zoning, which is one of the most commonly discussed concepts in housing politics.
It’s important to remember that Schorn is running a campaign that’s largely a series of complaints about Bender’s housing policies, blaming Bender for the cost of housing, while demanding stricter parking mandates (Schorn’s preferred parking policies would drive up the cost of housing).
Schorn got into his usual routine of “vacancy rate trutherism.” In rebutting the idea that housing is expensive because there isn’t enough of it, Schorn claimed that landlords are faking low vacancy rates in order to charge higher rents. Schorn said this theory is based on his personal experience as the resident of a luxury apartment building in Uptown.
Candidate Saralyn Romanishan had a somewhat forgettable forum performance. But I did find her advocating for cutting the estate tax in her Make Homes Happen candidate questionnaire (Make Homes Happen was the forum host):
The estate tax exemption in Minnesota is $2.1 million for 2017. There isn’t a single home in the Wedge that would be reasonably valued at much more than $1 million. Romanishan’s estate tax cut idea would benefit only the very rich. It seems like an idea that Republican candidate Bruce Lundeen might be willing to co-sponsor.
Three Ward 10 neighborhood organizations are planning another candidate forum on October 17. Because it will be hosted by neighborhood organizations, this forum has the chance to be infinitely weirder.
At some point, far into the future, when I give talks to classrooms full of aspiring journalists, I will tell them you miss 100% of the weird stories you don’t show up for. That’s why you go to all the neighborhood meetings, all the zoning hearings, and every candidate forum.
You go to a Ward 7 city council candidate forum at a big fancy church on Hennepin Avenue to break a once-in-a-lifetime story that a not-so-clever person might call Gumghazi.
(What you’re about to read is the biggest Wedge LIVE scoop since Deflate-gate.)
Multiple eyewitness accounts and the pictures below show that Lisa Goodman placed chewing gum from her mouth into the hand of one of her opponents. Poor guy thought when Goodman said “take my gum” that she was offering a nicely wrapped piece of unchewed gum. Live and learn. The unlucky political neophyte, Teqen Zéa-Aida, won’t fall for the old gum trick again. Experience matters. (Read Teqen’s account here.)
Photo credit: Canin Apriori
Meg Tuthill works the room Former Ward 10 city council member, Meg Tuthill—who is a Goodman supporter—walked around the room before the candidate forum, doing some persuasion work. Tuthill interrogated a couple of sweet, innocent older ladies about who they were supporting and why. The innocent older ladies said they were supporting Goodman’s other opponent Janne Flisrand.
My close encounter with Lisa Goodman (Kingpin Wedge “El Chapo” LIVÉ escapes Mexican prison once again)
Here’s another Real-Life Story from the Ward 7 Candidate Forum. After it was all over (after all the gum had been chewed and spit out into other people’s hands), I stood up and began talking to the tall, handsome man I was seated next to during the 90-minute forum. To my great terror, Lisa Goodman approaches us and asks the tall man, “are you John?” Clearly she was confusing one tall handsome man for another.
Lucky for me, Lisa Goodman had her sights locked on my friend, convinced that this was the “John” she was looking for. But he was not John. I am John. And at that moment, John (me) was making his escape.
My thinking was, if the first thing on Lisa Goodman’s mind after a grueling 90-minute candidate forum is “John” then something has gone terribly wrong.
The tall man will have my everlasting gratitude because he did not waver. He is brave. A normal person would have looked in my direction when asked, “are you John?” A coward would have given me up to the authorities. But the Tall Man looked Lisa Goodman square in the eyes and said “no.” With a convincingly perplexed expression on his face, he gave the impression he had never met anyone named “John” in his entire life.
I believe the Tall Man is tall and handsome and brave enough to play Wedge LIVE in the movie version. In the movie he (I) will say, “So you must be Lisa Goodman… We meet at last.”
Later I spoke with the Tall Man about the incident. He says he was scolded for taking video of the forum (because I guess taking weird videos of city council members slapping a wet wad of chewed-up gum into their political opponent’s hand seems like a thing Wedge LIVE would do). Lisa Goodman said to the Tall Man that she thought video recordings were maybe a violation of the candidate forum rules. In addition to being tall and handsome and loyal and brave, Tall Man thinks that city council candidate forum rules don’t apply to him. Tall Man is a rebel. Sorry ladies, he’s not single.
We’re going to try to track Minneapolis candidate forums and other key election-related dates on this calendar. You’ll also see a sidebar calendar on the desktop version of the site. I’m asking readers and campaigns to help track down anything we’ve missed: contact us via Twitter or send an email to newsroom@wedgelive.com.
