Pastor who threatened Minneapolis council members set to receive new city contracts

A church and nonprofit run by a prominent north Minneapolis pastor who made threatening statements toward the Minneapolis City Council in February could get two new city contract extensions to do community work.

The council will decide in the coming weeks whether to award the contracts to entities associated with the Rev. Jerry McAfee, despite some members’ concerns about his past statements.

McAfee is pastor of New Salem Missionary Baptist Church and operates several nonprofits that have done violence prevention work for the city, Downtown Improvement District and the state for years. Such initiatives, which seek to increase public safety by means other than policing, have received tens of millions in taxpayer funds since the murder of George Floyd by a police officer in 2020.

But McAfee roiled City Hall this winter when he interrupted a council meeting, took the microphone and went on a 5-minute rant that some council members viewed as threatening and homophobic.

During his outburst, McAfee accused Council Member Jason Chavez, who is gay, of acting like a “girl,” prompting LGBTQ activists to call on Mayor Jacob Frey to condemn McAfee’s comments. Frey has not done so.

Weeks later, council members were stunned when the city’s Neighborhood Safety Department recommended that McAfee’s nonprofit, Salem Inc., be awarded a one-year contract to do anti-violence work. The contract was worth roughly $650,000.

On the day the council was set to vote on the contract, Neighborhood Safety officials withdrew it for “review” hours after two employees of another McAfee nonprofit, 21 Days of Peace, were charged in connection with a March 10 shootout in north Minneapolis.

Salem Inc., is slated to get a one-year extension and increase for a total $303,000 contract to provide “community trauma response services,” according to the city’s description of the work. Under the contract, the organization will seek to heal trauma and break “the cycle of violence” through activities like grief counseling and healing circles.

In addition, McAfee’s church is being recommended to get another an extension of another community trauma contract that will be bumped up to nearly $348,000.

Asked this week about the new contracts, McAfee said they’re renewals of existing contracts and different from the anti-violence contract held up by the city earlier this year.

He said he had “no idea” what the status of that contract was. The city has been mum on that, too.

The City Council must vote on the new community trauma contracts in the coming weeks. So far, they’ve gone through one committee, which forwarded them to another for consideration next week. The mayor’s office doesn’t participate in contract selection, but if the council approves the contract, it would go to the mayor’s office for approval.

To get an extension, the contractors had to be compliant with their contractual obligations and be evaluated on their performance, Harrington said.

“I will present before the City Council next week, and members can determine if they agree with the data-backed recommendations,” she said.

In the five years since Floyd’s murder, Minneapolis has poured tens of millions of dollars into alternatives to policing, such as anti-violence programs. But the programs have been beset by infighting among community groups and their allies at City Hall, and resistance to the city’s attempt to tighten invoicing and procurement.

Muhammad Abdul-Ahad, executive director of T.O.U.C.H Outreach, which also does anti-violence work, questions why the city plans to resume awarding contracts to McAfee’s entities despite his scrap with the City Council and the arrest of his workers.

“It really does hurt the work,” Abdul-Ahad told the Minnesota Star Tribune this year. “None of us carry guns and bulletproof vests,” he said, referencing the March shootout allegedly involving the 21 Days of Peace workers. ”That’s not what we do.”

Chavez said “homophobia and threats are not in line with Minneapolis values.”

“Unfortunately, his actions demonstrate a lack of cultural competency that is important to building trust with the community and violence prevention,” he said.

Council President Elliott Payne said the procurement process is structured to provide equitable vendor selection centered on community needs and performance outcomes.