TO: Council Members Hodges, Glidden and Gordon

FR: Mayor R.T. Rybak

CC: Council Members

RE: Police Chief Appointment

With this memo, I would like to take the opportunity to respond in detail to your memo from earlier this week, and to summarize what we discussed in person on Tuesday.

The detailed thinking and attention you brought to your memo is appreciated. I have fought hard to lead reforms in the police department and I welcome your help. As we discussed, I strongly reject the premise that I have not been working on reforms, especially when many of the actions your agenda calls for either I or the MPD have already initiated and led. I believe we adequately addressed this in our conversation.

I’ve provided here a response to your proposed reform agenda, and also addressed some of the broader concerns you have raised. Before I go into details, I want to focus for a moment on the biggest public safety issue facing our citizens, the Mayor’s office, the City Council, and the Police Department: the rise in violent crime. I hope we can agree that the most important challenge facing the Minneapolis Police Department is to stop the increase in violent crime, and that this work must be undertaken with respect for human dignity and in collaboration with the communities that the MPD serves.

Under Chief Dolan’s leadership, we are beginning to reverse the tide of violent crime in Minneapolis.

In May of 2006, year to date violent crime was up 19% across the city. This number was driven by increases of 22% in the 3rd precinct, 57% in the 4th precinct, and 40% in the 5th precinct.

During August and September (through 9/25), citywide violent crime is up only about 2% compared to last year. Most significantly, from August to September violent crime is up less than 2% in the 3rd and 4th precincts and down almost 20% in the 5th precinct compared to last year. This is not enough, and we all know that crime in 2005 was up significantly, but it is a start. Credit goes to many, including the leadership of Tim.

In May we reinstituted the juvenile unit and put a strong focus on juvenile violent crime, especially focusing on enforcing curfew. As a result, curfew arrests and juvenile arrests are both up significantly. We know we cannot arrest ourselves out of the problem with violent crime, but getting violent youth off the street and into some kind of intervention effort is an important step in the right direction. The juvenile units advances this goal

As we discussed on Tuesday, these are important achievements. Chief Dolan would also be the first to say that we cannot stop working to continuously improve, and we have a long way to go.

The first part of your memo focused on a handful of administrative “missteps” as you called them over the last six months. I believe that Chief Dolan has already dealt with these individually. His willingness to take personal responsibility for the performance of the over 800 members of the police department is exactly what I would look for in a leader. His capacity to learn from these incidents and immediately put in place process improvements also demonstrates strong, accountable leadership.

Your memo raised the question of whether or not Chief Dolan can be an agent for change given his years of experience within the department. Again, I must challenge the premise that experience and relationships prohibit anyone, and especially Chief Dolan, from leading change. In fact, I believe the opposite is often true. Chief Dolan’s experience with the department gives him a deep understanding of the strengths and weaknesses both of the organization and its individual players. His decades of experience in the community have earned him widespread respect. He is known within the department as an independent player. Chief Dolan’s steady, unassuming leadership style combined with his detailed focus on results make him the kind of change leader the MPD needs right now.

In your memo you raised several specific policy ideas for discussion. I’d like to reinforce that many of these policy issues are the responsibility of the City Council or Mayor, not the Police Chief, nor do they bear directly on whether Chief Dolan will make an excellent Police Chief. In fact, Chief Dolan was very clear yesterday before the Executive Committee that he understands his responsibility as Chief is to implement the policies advanced by the Mayor and City Council.

Having said that, here are my thoughts on the issues you raised.

1. Separate managers from rank-and-file employees in the Minneapolis Police Federation.

I support this idea, and I would support the City Council if this were included in the 2007 legislative agenda. Making this reform could help to improve accountability within the department. But we need to recognize that this is a long term and difficult to achieve strategy. Not only would Minneapolis need to get legislative approval for this strategy, but the employees of the department would also need to agree to it in the next collective bargaining, which won’t happen until 2008.