u/bttr-mpls

I watched the Minneapolis budget hearings this week, and a few things stood out. The 911 call center told the City Council that 41% of its staff is out on Minnesota's new paid family and medical leave, while the center handles about 200 top-priority emergency calls a day. That helps explain why its budget is going up $1.5 million, mostly from overtime and rising pay and benefits. Only about 3% of 911 calls go to the city's behavioral crisis team, and the city is switching that contract from a local company, Canopy Roots, to an Arizona company. Meanwhile, Uptown business owners are still dealing with break-ins and graffiti while they wait for the city's new Community Safety Ambassadors, who won't be on the streets until November. Some council members want to expand these non-police programs, but the city's own director warned that there isn't clear proof yet that they are the reason violent crime is down. I wrote more about it in my newsletter if you want the full numbers. https://www.betterminneapolis.com/p/911-call-center-reports-41-of-staff

On Tuesday, the Board of Estimate & Taxation (BET) set the maximum property tax levy for next year. That maximum is 11.7%, covering both the city and the Park Board.

Here's how it got that high. The board had already met once and couldn't agree on a number. If they deadlocked again, the levy would have gone back to last year's amount. Commissioner Eric Harris Bernstein said that would cause "a catastrophic loss of funds." So instead of settling on a middle number, the board voted 4 to 2 to approve the full amounts both the city and the Park Board asked for.

Mayor Frey and Commissioner Steve Brandt voted no. Both wanted a lower levy.

What happens next

The 11.7% is a ceiling, not the final number. The City Council will now go through the budget and can make cuts to bring it down. It can't go higher. We should know the final number by mid-to-late December.

It's not just the city

Hennepin County has proposed an 8.15% property tax increase. Minneapolis Public Schools is expected to ask for more money too.

Your bill may be different

Not everyone's taxes go up by the same amount. A formula based on your property's value decides your share. If values in your neighborhood went up a lot, your taxes may go up more. Last year, more than 3,300 Minneapolis properties saw increases over 20%.

Read my full account here: https://www.betterminneapolis.com/p/property-tax-shock

In this newsletter I talk with Eric Roper, an opinion columnist at the Star Tribune, about why our next governor needs to pay more attention to how the Twin Cities region works together. Right now we have over 140 cities in the metro area, and a lot of them are duplicating work like police departments, city halls, and planning staff, while big problems like homelessness, housing, and even hospital funding get handled differently depending on which city or county you happen to be in. Roper points out that Minnesota actually used to have a program that pooled tax money across cities so they wouldn't compete so hard against each other, and we talk about why bringing back that kind of regional thinking could help the whole area, not just one city at a time. If you're into local government or wondering why things like transit and housing feel so disconnected around here, I think you'll find it interesting. https://www.betterminneapolis.com/p/why-the-next-governor-needs-a-regional?r=304p16

I rode my motorcycle home from a day trip Monday and passed through the 46th/35W exit ramp where people were getting high in public, one of them swaying toward traffic. It hit me how normal this has become. Nobody calls the police. Nobody stops. I started looking into it and found out Minnesota has actually closed three addiction treatment centers this year, so now there are only two left and 53 people stuck on waitlists. Meanwhile the state spent $75 million to add 50 treatment beds, which works out to $1.5 million per bed. My point is that we have a coordination problem between agencies and a leadership problem. I think the governor should declare this a health emergency like we did with COVID, set up a task force with real power, and start using empty buildings we already own (like the old Hennepin County Home School) instead of waiting years to build new ones. It would be cheaper and it would save lives, since right now jails and ERs are stuck doing the job that treatment centers should be doing. https://www.betterminneapolis.com/p/your-dealer-is-not-your-friend

I've been digging into the city's 2027 budget proposal, and I'm not convinced it's as responsible as Mayor Frey says it is. Minneapolis property taxes keep going up every year, but city employee salaries are climbing even faster, some by over 100% since 2019, while a lot of us regular residents aren't seeing raises anywhere close to that. On top of that, Minneapolis has one of the highest rates of distressed commercial loans in the country right now, which means property values could keep dropping and taxes could go up even more to make up the difference. Frey's plan still increases total city spending by about 5.3%, even though he's calling it a "hard choices" budget. Before we accept more tax hikes, I think the city needs to be upfront about where the money is actually going, especially these big salary jumps, and have an actual plan for what happens if the commercial loan situation gets worse. https://www.betterminneapolis.com/p/pay-raises-may-have-to-wait

This week I sat down with Minneapolis City Council President Elliott Payne at his newly remodeled office in City Hall. We started off talking about the State Fair (he's a cheese curds guy) before getting into the drama around the DFL's rescinded endorsement of Senator Omar Fateh. But the real focus was housing. Payne likes the idea of "social housing," which is different from regular public housing because it's locally owned and controlled instead of relying on federal money. Seattle's trying this out right now with an apartment building where people pay rent based on their income instead of a flat rate, and over 10,000 people applied for just 150 units. We also talked about the mess at Heritage Park, where the city already spent $2.5 million to move residents out after the housing was allowed to fall into terrible shape. Then we got into this year's city budget fight, since Payne and other council members think the police department's overspending is a big reason property taxes keep climbing. We wrapped up talking about his own ward in Northeast Minneapolis, including the Central Avenue rebuild and plans to protect the old brick streets on Quincy Avenue. Full interview is up if you want the details. https://www.betterminneapolis.com/p/interview-elliott-payne-president

I just posted an interview with Tom Olsen, President of the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board, about the 2027-28 city budget fight. The Park Board wants a 5.86% levy increase just to keep things running as they are, but Mayor Frey is only offering 2.5% and wants to merge some Park Board departments (like HR) into the city to save money. Olsen says that won't actually save much, since Park Board staff are cheaper than city staff for the same work, and if the mayor's number wins out, it could mean layoffs and cuts to park services. We also got into two other big topics: the ongoing fight over the Minnehaha off-leash dog park closure, and why so many city beaches have been closing this year due to E. coli. Full interview and video are in the post if you want the details. Watch the interview here.

In this newsletter, I look at the constant online backlash against Mayor Jacob Frey, using his recent dancing at the Black Entrepreneurial State Fair as an example of how any small moment can turn into a big controversy. The piece argues that this nonstop outrage distracts from bigger problems the city actually needs to fix, like slow job growth, high childcare costs, and a corporate tax rate that ranks dead last among major metro areas. It also shares highlights from a conversation with the head of the Portland Chamber of Commerce, who warns that cities cannot coast on their past reputation and have to keep working to stay competitive. The main message is that criticizing leaders is fine, but Minneapolis needs to focus more on solving real problems and attracting jobs. https://www.betterminneapolis.com/p/frey-derangement-syndrome

In my latest newsletter, I break down what Peggy Flanagan's blowout win over Angie Craig tells us about where Minnesota Democratic politics is headed. The short version: voters are done with cautious, TV-ad-heavy campaigns and want candidates who take bold stands, show up in person, and build real community connections instead of just buying airtime. I dig into four big lessons from the race, including how Craig's vote on immigration hurt her, why "safe" centrist messaging didn't work outstate like people expected, and why taking money from groups tied to Israel has become a serious liability for Democrats in progressive states. Are there other factors I am missing? https://www.betterminneapolis.com/p/the-new-math-of-dfl-elections-in

In this newsletter, I look at the tight DFL primary race for U.S. Senate between Angie Craig and Peggy Flanagan, where the polls disagree on who's ahead. I compare it to Michigan, where Abdul El-Sayed beat Haley Stevens by a smaller margin than expected, and I wonder if Flanagan could pull off something similar against the more centrist Craig. I point out that the online fighting between supporters has gotten ugly, with each side treating the other as unworthy of respect, even though the seat is rated "Likely D" and either candidate would probably keep it in Democratic hands. I bring in Jonathan Chait's argument from The Atlantic that the party's left wing is gaining ground because it doesn't have to worry about general election voters the way moderates do, and that this internal fight is making Democrats weaker heading into 2028. I close by saying Minnesota has real problems, like rebuilding Minneapolis's economy and dealing with strained school and city budgets, and that we need leaders focused on solving those problems rather than winning intraparty fights. https://www.betterminneapolis.com/p/what-the-michigan-senate-race-means

I wrote about how a city's reputation matters and how it gets shaped by both bad luck and bad leadership. I looked at Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson, who has had a rough few months, from an awkward comment about wealthy residents leaving over taxes to her slow public response after a shooting at a food festival, which ended with her police chief being pushed out with a big payout. I also pointed to St. Paul's new mayor dealing with her own scandal, and to Minneapolis losing its police chief too. Then I turned closer to home. Minneapolis keeps dealing with mass shootings that make people in the suburbs even more likely to skip going downtown, even as the city tries hard to promote its arts and music scene. I argued that Minneapolis, along with cities like Seattle, Portland, and San Francisco, is competing for new businesses and residents against cities like Dallas, Charlotte, and Nashville, and that we won't win that competition until we're seen as safe, well run, and effective, not just well intentioned. You can read the full newsletter here: https://www.betterminneapolis.com/p/reputation-management

Occasionally, I ride the D-Line bus through Phillips, Ventura Village, and Elliot Park, and this week got me thinking hard about what it actually means to help someone struggling with addiction. I saw things on that ride that made me question whether staying out of it is really the compassionate choice. I've been reading a Seattle writer named Michael Hatch, who lost his sister to overdose, and he makes the case that San Francisco is finally getting this right under Mayor Daniel Lurie. They built a 24/7 stabilization center where police can bring people in crisis, and California now allows year-long conservatorships to keep people in treatment instead of releasing them back to the street. Hatch argues Seattle has avoided doing anything like this, even though we already step in for people like Alzheimer's patients who can't keep themselves safe. This connects directly to news here at home. Mayor Frey just announced that Minneapolis police will start citing and arresting people for public drug use and dealing in encampments, a move some activists are calling cruel. I don't see it that way. If someone has lost the ability to make sound choices because of addiction, letting them stay on the street isn't respect, it's neglect. I'm interviewing Minneapolis Director of Regulatory Services Enrique Velazquez this week about what this policy shift means and how the city's new Safe Outdoor Spaces program, which would let homeless residents sleep safely in vehicles, might work in practice. You can read the newsletter for the full story: https://www.betterminneapolis.com/p/minneapolis-as-seen-from-the-d-line?r=304p16&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

Hennepin County is picking a new top prosecutor in August, and five candidates are running. The County Attorney decides who gets charged with crimes, offers plea deals, and sets priorities for victims and the community, basically, they have a ton of power over how justice works here. The thing is, even though it's supposed to be "nonpartisan," it's pretty much a Democratic race (one candidate even got the DSA wing's endorsement). The candidates mostly agree on the big goals, reduce racial disparities, help victims, prevent crime, but they disagree on how to get there and which crimes to focus on. One is an insider who ran the fraud division for 40+ years; one is a state representative known for gun reform; one is a federal prosecutor who handled the Chauvin case; one runs prosecutions in Ramsey County with solid data-driven results; and one is a civil lawyer from outside the system who wants accountability. There's no obvious wrong answer here, and whoever wins will probably end up in a controversy, this office always does. If you want the real breakdown of each candidate, check out the full newsletter.

After a string of incidents in my own South Minneapolis neighborhood — a break-in, a car theft, smashed windows, and getting blocked from a street because of an active shooter — I found myself struggling to convince friends from New York that Minneapolis is safe. What bothers me most isn't just the crime itself, but the silence from our elected officials. Two people were shot near the Wedge Co-op on Sunday, three more were shot near University Avenue Northeast on Monday, and the response from City Hall was basically nothing. Meanwhile, nearly every crime category in Minneapolis is trending at or above last year's numbers. I'm not just calling for more police, I know they mostly show up after the fact to collect shell casings. What I want is a real, honest conversation about the mix of things that drive crime: drugs, gangs, poverty, lack of jobs and education. Until our leaders stop looking away and start treating this like the urgent problem it is, Minneapolis is going to keep spinning its wheels. Read the full article.