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What’s making news in Minneapolis, reported by the Star Tribune’s team of city reporters. Send news tips to james.shiffer@startribune.com.
Samuels, Hoch exploring bids for mayor
Posted by: Steve Brandt under Politics and government Updated: December 28, 2012 - 5:29 PM
Don Samuels with President Barack Obama at a campaign stop in June.
Minneapolis City Council Member Don Samuels announced Friday that he's exploring a bid for mayor, swelling the field of candidates to succeed Mayor. R.T. Rybak.
Theater executive Tom Hoch also said that he's considering entering the race.
Samuels made his announcement from his native Jamaica where he's vacationing. His statement added that former Minneapolis Police Chief Tim Dolan will chair his exploratory committee. Samuels has been politically close to Rybak and is a reliable vote for the mayor's proposals, including the new Vikings stadium.
The Jordan neighborhood resident most recently ran for Hennepin County commissioner, but in July dropped out of a crowded race in which he had been expected to be a top contender.
Samuels said at the time that he was backing out to support his wife, Sondra, who is the chief executive of the Northside Achievement Zone, a federally funded effort to improve the lives of children and families.
He cited the increased time demands on the family imposed by his wife's job, which makes the decision to explore running for mayor somewhat puzzling. Samuels hasn't responded to a Star Tribune inquiry.
Tom Hoch
Samuels has been a council member for 10 years, chairing the committee dealing with policing. firefighting, civil rights, and formerly rental property and other regulatory matters. He won a special election in the Third Ward, with Rybak's help, then knocked off incumbent Natalie Johnson Lee when he was thrown into her Fifth Ward by redistricting.
An often-spellbinding speaker, Samuels has also drawn criticism for a lack of follow-through on such mundane matters as returning calls to constituents.
The ordained Baptist minister has cultivated a following outside of the North Side, speaking at venues across the city. He's been politically close to lame-duck mayor Rybak, who announced his mayoral retirement on Thursday. He drew controversy when he hyperbolically suggested several years ago that North High School be burned down due to its poor academic outcomes.
Dolan just retired as police chief after leading a reduction in the city's crime rate. The Edina resident was unpopular among some black community members over policing issues but Samuels stood by him as chief.
Hoch is president and chief exectuive of Hennepin Theatre Trust, a nonprofit company that owns and programs four downtown venues.
"People have started calling me and caused me to start thinking about it," Hoch said Friday from Austin, Tex., where he is vacationing. "I'm anxious to hear what people think, what they want in a candidate."
Hoch once was a city elementary teacher, who earned a law degree at Hamline and oversaw the renovation of the State and Orpheum theaters by the city. Then he shifted to the No. 2 position at the Minneapolis Public Housing Authority, when it was spun off as an independent agency. There he oversaw an extensive rehab program and helped to negotiate the Hollman public housing desegregation settlement.
He left the city in 1996 for theater management. He lives in Lowry Hill neighborhood and has headed neighborhood associations in downtown and St. Anthony East. He now chairs the Downtown Improvement District, which assesses property owners for livability improvements.
"The big question for me right now is if this is something I want to do. And if I do, how do I make that happen?" he said.
Meanwhile, Brett Buckner has filed to run for council in the Fith Ward.
Reaction to Mayor Rybak's decision not to run again
Posted by: James Eli Shiffer under Politics and government Updated: December 27, 2012 - 4:25 PMCompiled by Mary Jane Smetanka and Nicole Norfleet:
Clyde Turner, executive director of Sabathani Community Center, said Rybak was supportive of the center and the families it works with. "He fought for good neighborhoods and to bring down crime, for the best education and for housing for low-income families,” Turner said. “He was the kind of mayor to draw the community together and he was comfortable in working with different ethnic groups.
U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar: “R.T. has brought an infectious optimism and enthusiasm about Minneapolis to the mayor’s office. Whether he is rallying citizens at a neighborhood meeting in North Minneapolis or crowd surfing at First Avenue, with R.T. you always feel everything and anything is possible.”
St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman: "“The City of Minneapolis, the Minneapolis-Saint Paul region and our state are better off because of Mayor Rybak's leadership. Whether we were developing the Metro Business Plan, working to implement the Thinc Green initiative, or we were planning for the Green Line, the largest infrastructure project in the history of our state, both Minneapolis and Saint Paul came together to find ways we could work together for the benefit of our region. I join the rest of our community when I say he will be missed and that we wish him the best of luck in his future endeavors, whatever they may be. At the very least, I hope his stage diving days at First Ave. haven’t come to an end.”
Minneapolis School Board Chairman Alberto Monserrate said he appreciated Rybak’s involvement with AchieveMpls, the nonprofit fundraising arm for Minneapolis Public Schools, and with initiatives like the “I Want You Back” campaign to draw dropouts back to school.
“I’ve seen him, especially in the last few years, engaged in Minneapolis Public Schools,” Monserrate said. “We both shared the goals of increasing achievement for all our students and reducing the achievement gap…. I’m hoping the next mayor will continue that collaboration, because we need that continuity.”
Rybak says he's not running for re-election
Posted by: James Eli Shiffer under Politics and government Updated: December 27, 2012 - 2:11 PM
By Steve Brandt
Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak announced Thursday that he’s calling it quits after three terms and 12 years in office, throwing the 2013 mayor’s race open to at least four credible contenders who have expressed interest in the job.
Rybak revealed his intentions at a press conference at Midtown Global Market on Lake Street, one of the symbols of his efforts to revitalize the city.
In a statement posted on his blog, Rybak hailed the creation of jobs, safer streets and neighborhood revitalization, but also said " doing this job in the way I’ve chosen to do it involves some personal sacrifices, and right now, I owe it to those around me, and to myself, to get a bit more balance in my life. I also think that after 12 years, the city will benefit from a fresh perspective."
“The greatest professional job I could have is to serve my hometown,” Rybak said at Thursday's announcement. “It’s tough for me to walk away.”
Council Member Betsy Hodges. who had hinged her candidacy on Rybak dropping out, announced Thursday that she's running for mayor. Another Council Member, Gary Schiff, had said he was considering a run either way and would declare his intent next month. Also strongly considering a bid is Hussein Samatar, whose 2010 election to the school board made him the state’s first Somali-born elected official. Former Council President Jackie Cherry home is mulling a political comeback for mayor.
Since he first won election in 2001, Rybak has raised the profile of the office and become one of the state's most recognizable political figures. He became an avid cheerleader for local causes, an agile politician who steers the City Council his way and a force in national Democratic politics. Once a critic of subsidies for sports teams, Rybak engineered a razor thin 7-6 vote on the City Council earlier this year to use city tax money to build a new football stadium for the Vikings and renovate Target Center, home of the NBA’s Timberwolves.
In the past, Rybak put his reputation on the line to promote quality-of-life projects that sometimes became lightning rods for his critics, such as bike lanes and artist-designed water fountains. The city he inherited lacked the deep pockets of the past, so he has often played the role of enthusiastic idea man behind outside ventures: bike sharing, the City of Lakes Loppet, a cooperative workspace in an abandoned grain trading floor.
Rybak ran on a base of neighborhood activism to oust predecessor Sharon Sayles Belton in 2001, riding a wave of public discontent with large public subsidies for development projects. He won handily a hard-fought reelection bid in 2005 against Peter McLaughlin, and coasted to an easy win against 10 lightly funded contenders in 2009, amassing almost three-quarters of votes cast.
He’s been a peripatetic figure around the city, from crowd-surfing at clubs to more somber appearances at funerals for slain youths.
But his most lasting contribution may well be returning City Hall to a firmer financial footing after the freer-spending Sayles Belton-Cherryhomes days. The city paid down enough debt to regain a top credit rating lost under Sayles Belton and won legislation to put the city’s pension funds on more stable footing.
Rybak also scored a big win over an old airport noise foe when he led the city into a lawsuit whose settlement forced the Metropolitan Airports Commission to pay for noise insulation packages for thousands more homes in the city and nearby suburbs.
Rybak strove to close the gap between the North Side and the rest of the city, but the twin devastation of a wave of foreclosures and the 2011 tornado undermined those efforts. Yet his strong emphasis on job training helped to close the city’s job gap with the rest of the metro area, a rarity among American cities.
Gagnon will get little sleep handling 2013 duties
Posted by: Steve Brandt under Politics and government Updated: December 26, 2012 - 11:17 AM
Rebecca Gagnon
The new year in shaping up as a busy one for Rebecca Gagnon in her third year on the Minneapolis school board.
The Fulton resident will serve on all but one of the board’s six committees, while taking on four external committee assignments. That’s more in each category of any board member. At least that's according to the roster that board members divvied up informally and will ratify at their Jan. 8 organizational meeting.
Her outside duties will range from sitting on a group reviewing district facility needs to the heavy lifting of sitting on the city Planning Commission, a position assigned to the school board by city charter.
Gagnon says she needs just three to five hours of sleep daily, which will help, as will the speed-reading course she once took. She’s also the only board member without other paid employment. But that’s offset by having three children who aren’t driving yet, and a husband who travels for work.
The planning duties can require mastering arcane city zoning and planning law, unless a commissioner relies on staff guidance on voting on projects pending before the commission. But Gagnon has shown herself to be the board’s most detail-oriented person, often probing staff with repeated questions at board meetings.
"I'm a big puzzle person and I like to put the puzzle pieces together," she said.
Fellow school board member Richard Mammen was only too happy to relinquish sitting through lengthy planning group meetings, citing the time commitment and his frustrations with City Hall. The upside is that the commission pays its members $35 a meeting, a not inconsiderable sum to school board members paid $13,800 a year, including expenses.
Board member Carla Bates tried to put a gloss on the job of representing the board on the commission. “You learn a lot about the city,” she said. But, she conceded, “It’s Herculean to actually be on the Planning Commission. It would take two Hercules to get things moving.”
Besides representing the board on metro and statewide school groups, Gagnon also has one prestige assignment that involves sitting on a federal advisory board that works with the U.S. Department of Education, for which she applied and was appointed by Education secretary Arne Duncan. The board makes recommendations regarding the National Assessment of Educational Progress, a testing yardstick of what students across America know.
It's possible that one of Gagnon's assignments could go away if board Ciiarman Alberto Monserrate has his way. He wondered out loud as board members discussed assignments whether it makes sense for Minneapolis to belong to the rural-dominated Minnesota School Boards Association, a trade group where Gagnon said Minneapolis and St. Paul are typically outvoted. But Carla Bates, who has represented Minneapolis to the association, said maybe it's time to work harder to win the support of association members.
New finance chief seeks balanced school budget
Posted by: Steve Brandt under Politics and government Updated: December 21, 2012 - 5:42 PMWith a gap of about $24 million projected between what Minneapolis schools expect to take in during the next school year and what they already spend, Robert Doty has set a lofty goal.
The district’s finance chief wants to balance the district’s 2013-2014 budget without deficit spending. "We are going to try very hard to do that," Doty told the school board Friday.
The district hasn’t balanced its budget without dipping into its budget surplus for at least two years. This school year, for example, it pulled $18 million out of reserves to balance the budget.
But tapping that source to offset the imbalance is obviously something that can’t happen forever, even if the district is sitting on a reserve of more than $63 million.
That’s the uncommitted portion of a budget balance that’s twice that size, but the other half is already committed to purposes such as building projects or other restricted uses.
Doty is beginning his second cycle as finance chief. His department’s budget projection is based on spending for next school year remaining at this year’s level. But with a new round of labor negotiations and other expenses potentially rising, he knows that district needs other cuts to keep spending flat.
Where will he generate that kind of money? The district is reviewing the filling of every new position; not a pay freeze, he said, but hard scrutiny. There’s a review of 10 activities in five divisions of the district to see if they’re needed and if they could be farmed out for less.
The board’s finance committee will get a special review of five spending areas where its members are concerned about spending or services: special education, immigrant education, class sizes, labor costs and services the district provides centrally.
Besides balancing the budget without dipping into reserves, Doty is also hoping to focus spending more closely on the district’s academic and other goals.
The budget needs to be adopted by next June 30.
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