Protest moved from Frey’s home as concerns rise over safety for public officials

A protest originally planned to take place outside Mayor Jacob Frey’s home has generated backlash for two Minneapolis environmental justice groups and imperiled a decade-long quest to convert a former industrial site into an urban farm.

The protest, organized by Climate Justice Committee MN and scheduled for Thursday, was moved to a public park last week.

On Monday, the Minnesota Star Tribune published a commentary from the mayor’s wife, Sarah Clarke, that renewed scrutiny on demonstrating at the homes of elected officials in light of the attacks on Melissa Hortman and John Hoffman earlier this summer.

“Violence against public officials and their families is no longer hypothetical — it has happened here in Minnesota," Clarke wrote.

The Climate Justice Committee intended to draw attention to a dispute in the city’s East Phillips neighborhood, where — for more than a decade — another group, the East Phillips Neighborhood Institute, has been fighting the city of Minneapolis over control of a former roofing supply warehouse commonly known as Roof Depot.

The city scrapped its plan for a public works site two years ago and agreed to sell Roof Depot for $16 million to EPNI, which wanted to redevelop the Roof Depot site into a community-owned urban farm.

. The activists have since raised over $10 million, but were unsuccessful in their bids for state funding for the remaining money two years in a row.

The Mayor’s Office eventually agreed to meet with EPNI on Monday, but canceled it last week after Climate Justice Committee began promoting a protest outside Frey’s apartment in northeast Minneapolis. Social media posters for the event identified the nearest intersection and declared, “Stop sabotaging the Roof Depot deal!”

“Recent messaging and planned actions by proponents of EPNI has made it difficult to see how this could be the ‘friendly and generative conversation’ you originally pitched,” wrote the mayor’s chief of staff, Grace Waltz, in an email canceling the meeting. “Publicly sharing a home address under these circumstances is not responsible advocacy, especially considering the recent targeted and violent attacks on elected officials in Minnesota.”

EPNI told the Minnesota Star Tribune that it and Climate Justice Committee were entirely distinct organizations. EPNI did not organize, endorse or promote Climate Justice Committee’s protest, and hoped the Mayor’s Office wouldn’t hold it responsible for another group’s political activity, organizers said.

Daniel Colten-Schmidt, EPNI’s finance and fundraising director, said EPNI asked Climate Justice Committee to not protest at the mayor’s home, and that Climate Justice Committee respected the request.

“We responded to [the Mayor’s Office] early Monday morning, saying that this meeting is really important to us, that we’re still willing to meet in good faith,” said Colten-Schmidt. “We told them about our actions of reaching out to Climate Justice Committee and asking them to move the protest because it was jeopardizing our negotiations.”

It is still planned for Thursday.

Responding to Clarke’s commentary, Climate Justice Committee spokesperson Michael Wood said the organization took offense at peaceful protesters being compared with “right-wing assassins,” referring to Vance Boelter, who has been charged in the lawmaker shootings.

“Something that oftentimes isn’t talked about in the lead-up to a protest at a politician’s home are the many other ways that constituents have tried to reach out to these elected officials,” Wood said. “It is not something that is taken lightly by any organization, because the risks are high in terms of public backlash. But in some cases, we feel that it’s necessary to actually get our point across to these public officials that they need to be accountable.”

Frey and Clarke have previously voiced concerns about the level of vitriol they’ve faced at their residence, from protests to threats. Hennepin County Commissioner Heather Edelson raised similar concerns earlier this month after protesters opposed to the burning of garbage appeared at the home of a fellow commissioner.