Omar Fateh: We need a mayor who meets the moment

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I love Minneapolis. This is the city where I want to raise my family. From morning coffee at Code Blu to pick up games at Peavey Park, this city is home. I’m eager to send my son to a Minneapolis public school, because I believe in what this city can be. We aren’t reaching our potential, but I see it — and I know you do, too.

I’m deeply concerned with the world my son has been born into. I want to raise him in a city that gives him the tools he needs to spread his wings and enough support to lift him up if he stumbles. I’m not just running to fix a broken system, I’m running to help build the city to grow up in. It’s time we had a mayor who will work as hard as we do to ensure Minneapolis is a city working people can afford to call home.

I delivered in the state Senate, and I worked across the aisle with Republicans to pass transformative policy. I passed free college for working-class families making less than $80,000 annually, led the fight to pass a living wage for Uber and Lyft drivers, and invested $19 million in Minneapolis public safety. Despite corporate interests throwing their weight around at every turn, I still got the job done — and I did it with a broad coalition of support.

For the last seven years, we’ve had a mayor who has failed to deliver meaningful change. He failed to work collaboratively with 13 fellow Democrats on the City Council, by prioritizing his ideology and political ambitions above the needs of Minneapolis residents. You deserve better than broken promises and endless vetoes. You deserve a mayor who puts you first.

If the historic 2023 session taught me anything, it’s that when you have the opportunity to make change, you seize it. You stay up all night with workers because people are making poverty wages, struggling to feed their families and they have waited long enough. What I have never done, and what I will never do, is look the people of this city in the eye and ask them to wait their turn.

Families have been put in an impossible position; they should never have to decide between paying rent and putting food on the table. I’m ready to raise the minimum wage to $20 an hour by 2028 and pass a rent stabilization policy that still incentivizes new construction and tenant protections. I won’t bow to corporate interests or political pressure, because you deserve a mayor who fights for you.

It’s past time for true public safety. The political strategists have manufactured a myth to pit us against each other about our own safety. To that I say, we can walk and chew gum at the same time. That’s why I secured $19 million in public safety funding for Minneapolis and called for real accountability in policing. Safety means no longer asking officers to take on every problem leading to residents waiting on the phone with 911. Real public safety means investing in officer wellness while freeing up their capacity to focus on violent crime and clear the case backlog.

The MAGA talking heads, the dog whistles and the millions of dollars being spent to put my face in your mailbox, insisting that I’m too young, too radical, too idealistic — are afraid I’m too close to you. The worker, the immigrant, the renter, people in this city who are just trying to make it. If fighting to house people, protect immigrants and keep you safe is radical, then count me in, because Minneapolis is worth fighting for. For my son, for you — because we have the people, the power and the potential. Now, we need a mayor ready to meet the moment.