Opinion | Minneapolis City Council can still do the right thing for George Floyd Square

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It’s a typical wintertime morning walk from my home to the bus stop on 38th and Park Avenue. With the new-fallen snow, bus transit has replaced my bike ride from my home a couple of blocks east of George Floyd Square to work at Abbott Northwestern Hospital.

It’s quiet and dark as I walk through George Floyd Square. The cinderblocks that surround the garden area in the center of the intersection at 38th and Chicago are askew or disintegrating. Smoke emanates from the fire pit at the People’s Way and two people are slumped over on benches around the burned-out fire. Expletive-laden graffiti marks electrical boxes and the People’s Closet, the bus-stop-turned-free-donation-area adjacent to the People’s Way.

By day, volunteers clean and organize the People’s Closet, but when I walk past at 6:30 a.m., it is totally disheveled by those who came looking for something of value overnight. This morning is no different. Garbage and clothing are strewn all around the sidewalk. As I walk past I notice a person sleeping or passed out just outside the People’s Closet.

Nothing about this area feels reverential or monumental to me. Rather, it feels like an area that has been neglected by a city leadership that has failed to implement a plan to invest in our neighborhood, its residents and the businesses in and around George Floyd Square. The following comes from my years of attending community engagement meetings, from talking with neighbors and stakeholders about the future of George Floyd Square, and from entreating the City Council to take action for our neighborhood.

About a year ago, as the city’s Public Works employees presented a plan for the revitalization and permanent memorialization of the global movement that stemmed from George Floyd’s murder, a vocal minority of activists and City Council Member Jason Chavez convinced the council at large that the Public Works plan was not in agreement with the desires of community members. Chavez was insistent that the majority of the community desired a pedestrian plaza at 38th and Chicago. This was despite years of community engagement meetings that reached a contrary recommendation; an objective survey indicating a preference for open thoroughfares at the intersection, and a survey of business owners in and around the square that indicated all respondents to the survey, 15 in total, were opposed to a pedestrian plaza.

More important than wasted money has been the wasted time. When the City Council failed to pass a collaborative plan recommended by the city planning experts with Public Works last February (the plan borne out by community engagement from 2021-24), it bound our neighborhood to another year of poorly managed traffic, unsafe pedestrian access to the square, unhindered drug use and sale at the People’s Way, local businesses feeling more uncertain about the future, and further delay in finally constructing the permanent memorial this community desires.

Despite the waste, the City Council can choose a path toward progress, community investment and reconciliation for George Floyd Square. On Dec. 11 the council will have the opportunity to pass the Public Works Department’s original recommendation for revitalization at George Floyd Square. The plan is one that came from years of community engagement, and it would feature updated infrastructure to make vehicle traffic and pedestrian access safer. It would also return bus service to Chicago Avenue so that people coming to the area have more continuity of transit and can be brought directly to the square to access a future memorial and the current business district.

Finally, it would demonstrate leadership by a City Council ready to listen to community needs and invest in our long-neglected neighborhood.