Readers Write: Minneapolis politics and business concerns, Target Field and tax receipts, state Rep. Tony Cornish on police accountability

I'm 55, and I've never voted Republican in my life. Sadly, that's about to change. My Minneapolis City Council member, Lisa Bender, who in response to the business community's fears of the City Council moving "left" (front page, Oct. 19) thinks it's unrealistic for those in business to "fight back against what Minneapolis people want their elected officials to do" and further states that "[t]his isn't being invented by me or other elected officials. It's coming from people in our community," demonstrates a remarkable level of pandering and lack of leadership.

I'm not a small-business owner, but I work for one, and we're about to leave Minneapolis for St. Louis Park. I love this city. I thought that one day I or one of my more motivated friends might open a business here. It's not worth it as long as Minneapolis city government acts like business is the enemy. It's not. I'm not sure who the Republican candidate is in my ward, but I will be voting for that person. Sad.

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City Council Member Lisa Bender is right when she suggests, in response to the formation of the election committee Minneapolis Works, that there are important social, economic and environmental issues in our city to address. She is dead-wrong by stating the business community will "fight back" against progress in these areas. Her statement reveals exactly what is at stake in elections for City Council this year.

Minneapolis has a vibrant and progressive private sector. From the largest employers downtown to neighborhood entrepreneurs throughout the city, the business sector has been at the table with community and government partners for decades solving difficult challenges that affect all of us. Our ability to work together has led to activities like the nationally known Step-Up youth internship program, a groundbreaking Clean Energy Partnership and career pathways workforce initiatives that for the first time in years are helping reduce employment disparities. Business leaders want nothing more than for this history, and spirit, of public-private cooperation to survive the current election cycle.

Raising objections to policies that make Minneapolis a singularly costly and complicated place to do business is not tantamount to resisting progress. The route of partnership to create a growing economy, paired with cooperative efforts to help ensure that as many people as possible benefit, is the best path to a brighter future. In our view, a City Council that thinks it knows best about all things is not. And that is what is at stake on Nov. 7.

Cramer is president and CEO of the Minneapolis Downtown Council; Weinhagen is president and CEO of the Minneapolis Regional Chamber of Commerce, and Lewis is executive director of BOMA Greater Minneapolis.

Sadly, Minneapolis residents are not so fortunate. City Council supporters of the city's $678 million U.S. Bank Stadium commitment celebrated the stadium legislation language that gave the city new "explicit control" over its sales, liquor, lodging and entertainment taxes. Supporters claimed that the legislation "clarified" that the authority granted by the Legislature to the city in 2009 allowing the use of any local sales taxes remaining after Convention Center costs "to further residential, cultural, commercial and economic development in both downtown and neighborhoods" extends to liquor, lodging and entertainment taxes.

Given the above, imagine my surprise when Council Member Kevin Reich, one of the seven council supporters of the 2012 stadium legislation, told an audience of artists and arts supporters on Tuesday night that the state would not allow the city to use the sales tax for the funding of small arts organizations. (This is exactly what St. Paul does with a portion of its sales tax dollars).

The mayor's five-year plan for 2018 to 2022 dedicates any discretionary sales and use taxes to a "Downtown Assets Fund." If this plan is approved, any hope that a portion of the city's sales and use taxes will directly benefit neighborhoods and city residents will be gone.

One would think that competing uses for city sales and use taxes would be a significant issue in the city elections. Sadly, no mayoral candidates and only two council candidates, council candidates John Hayden (First Ward) and Samantha Pree-Stinson (Third Ward) have proposed investing available sales and use taxes in affordable housing, economic development, job training, and arts and culture.

Let's demand that our mayor and City Council, just like our Hennepin County Board, deliver to the good residents of Minneapolis a return on their huge investment.

In the Oct. 15 paper, Jillia Pessenda, a candidate for Minneapolis City Council, wrote a letter to the editor referring to a Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST) Board meeting that I attended, saying, "State Rep. Tony Cornish fought in 2013 to make sure domestic violence is not a crime that triggers automatic revocation of a police license, saying the decision should be up to local departments." The first mistake is that certain degrees of felony domestic assault are revocable offenses that trigger revocation of a peace officer's license.

In 2013, the Minnesota Chiefs of Police Association acted alone, without involving other law enforcement agencies, in bringing an idea to the POST Board concerning "officer involved domestic violence, high-profile domestic violence and to research nationwide best practices." In the notes of this meeting you will find that, after discussion, "[t]he Minnesota Chiefs of Police Association committee did not specifically recommend any change to the policy, but asked the issue be further discussed."

At this meeting, the executive director of the Minnesota Coalition for Battered Women was listed in the notes saying that the coalition had no plans to bring an initiative to the Legislature regarding police-involved domestic violence situations. She also said: "We don't believe this is a rampant problem in law enforcement, but when it does arise, it is my belief that we are better off to have policies in place before problems arise."

I made a statement at the above-mentioned meeting that I did not think a statewide solution was the best and that it should be handled by the local law enforcement agency as it is now, not by the Peace Officer Standards and Training Board. A local law enforcement agency is closer to the specifics of the case and may still discipline or terminate an officer, if they wish. I have worked closely with the Minnesota Coalition for Battered Women and have "chief authored" their legislation in the past; however, I am not aware that this suggestion by Pessenda is on the table for the coalition.