This district is currently represented by Billy Menz, who dropped out after not getting endorsed at the DFL City Convention.
On the ballot there are two Dans:
Dan Engelhart (DFL-endorsed)
Dan Miller
Over on the post about the At-Large race I provided a whole lot of backstory on the last four years of the Park Board, and I don’t want to just C&P that whole thing over because there’s a lot. For the people who don’t want to click over, here’s a minimalist “why I’m super annoyed with the current Park Board, and why I want candidates who will do different things” summary:
- Current Park Board turned down a free park in favor of keeping parking and pretended this was about fire safety.
- Current Park Board oversaw a strike and most of the board failed to intervene.
Dan Engelhart got endorsed at the DFL City Convention, Billy Menz dropped out, and Dan Miller joined the race. On September 29th an e-mail went out advocating for an “apolitical Park Board” and signed by some of the most aggressively centrist, absolutely political people in town. They’re supporting Miller.
Dan Engelhart (DFL-endorsed)
Engelhart’s website emphasizes his background as a union organizer and employee (he’s the business agent for MAPE). I e-mailed to ask for more information on his work with the parks, and he got back to me promptly to talk about his involvement with AFCAC (the Above the Falls Community Advisory Committee). Honestly I felt like I got the best sense of who he is, what he stands for, and what he wants to do on the Park Board from watching his WedgeLive interview. You can also listen to WedgeLive interviews as a podcast but this is a good one to watch on YouTube, as there’s a lot of discussion of the areas they bike through and it’s useful to be able to see some of what they’re talking about. He struck me as committed, knowledgeable, and thoughtful.
Calling Dan Miller a “bike guy” doesn’t really do him justice. He teaches biking to kids through a program in the local schools; he’s chaired multiple groups working on planning bikeway expansions; he’s worked on master plan advisory committees; he’s served for years on the Bicycle Advisory Committee. From his website: “Thanks in part to his advocacy, $5.5 million in public funding was secured to begin construction of the Grand Rounds Missing Link between Stinson Boulevard and the Franklin Avenue Bridge. […] Dan Miller has spent a decade championing a safer Central Ave. His persistent advocacy helped shape MnDOT’s corridor plan. […] His firsthand experience [with kid biking safety] informed his role in the Edison High School Safe Routes to School study, where he led site tours and helped identify high-risk areas.” Various people I know have worked with him and say he’s good to work with.
I like this, and he sounds terrific in a number of ways (his website also expresses commitment to playgrounds, dog parks, ice rinks, etc., lest you think he is just a bike guy). I guess my main concern about him is the fact that the Super Apolitical (very political) people endorsed him. I e-mailed him and asked, among other things, whether he had considered screening for Labor endorsement.
He replied, among other things: “My reason for filing was after Billy Menz suspended his campaign. I felt strongly that there be at least two candidates on the ballot for Parks Commissioner District 1. I do not have an agenda. I am running because it is my civic duty to offer voters a choice of parks over politics. I have years of volunteering on parks, city and neighborhood committees as well as a career managing people and projects. There’s alot happening at MPRB which I think is going in the right direction. I don’t wish to upend Parks for All, the Above the Falls and Grand Rounds Missing Link efforts. I’m a collaborator and will not be a ‘my way or the highway’ commissioner.” (I’m not sure if he’s referring to Billy Menz there but “my way or the highway” is a phrase that has come up A LOT when people have talked about Billy Menz.) So given his line about “parks over politics” I do have concerns that he’s weaker on labor issues, especially given that Engelhart has in fact done a bunch of civic work in the parks (less than Miller, but this is actually an extremely high bar.)
ETA: I watched the Parks & Power forum and my concerns that Miller is weaker on labor issues were reinforced by Miller’s answers on the questions about the strike. This first came up about 15 minutes in. A constituent asked how people would ensure a strike didn’t happen again. Miller’s reply went on for a while but included:
Miller: It was a bad mark — it was a bad mark on everybody. Park board and union. Particularly the union leadership. The park board is more than just a union contract. […] If you take a look at the park boards’ 200 page budget from last year, and to be able to see the challenges that are out there, you’ll see a dollar amount that is not increasing, it’s got to stay the same, costs are going up, something’s got to [inaudible] and that will be… [shrugs].
Audience member: the workers’ backs.
Miller: Could be workers’ backs, could be a reduction in labor.
The strike came up again 45 minutes in (they got asked about lessons learned). Miller again opted to blame union leadership:
I don’t fully understand — I can only tell you what I’ve read in the newspaper, which reflects worse on LiUNA’s leadership than on the Park Board. […] To have national leaders come down and try to beat up on the Park Board … those folks were stuck. They were trying. I think leadership led them down a crack that a lot of people in LiUNA didn’t want to go.
So yeah, I would vote for Engelhart. The people who have worked with Miller have good things to say about him, but it’s clear he didn’t miss out on union endorsement just because he got in late.
I have a new book coming out next June! This one is not YA; it’s a near-future thriller about an obstetrician who gets kidnapped by a cult because they want someone on site to deliver babies. You can pre-order it right now if you want.
I do not have a Patreon or Ko-Fi but instead encourage people who want to reward all my hard work to donate to fundraisers. This year I’m fundraising for YouthLink. YouthLink is a Minneapolis nonprofit that helps youth (ages 16-24) who are homeless or at risk of homelessness. (Here’s their website.) I have seen some of the work they do and been really impressed. (An early donor to the fundraiser added a comment: “YouthLink was incredible instrumental in my assistance of a friend to escape a bad family situation in Florida with little more than a computer and a state ID. Thanks to YouthLink and their knowledge of resources my friend was able to get a mailing address (which was essential in getting a debit card and formal identification documents), healthcare, hot meals, an internship at a local company, and even furniture for their new apartment.” — That is exactly the sort of thing I’m talking about!)
Will Tell Stories For Food 
You are right that it’s a tough choice but I come down on Miller’s side after working with him for almost nine years now at countless events to promote the Great Northern Greenway, which is nearly finished but for one gap in Northeast and the river bridge.
Steve Brandt 612-289-8021 sbrandt51@gmail.com sbrandt51@gmail.com
I appreciate your takes, Naomi, which are fair-minded while always adhering to your progressive values. However you left out a few details about Dan Engelhart which your audience should know.
At last year’s state DFL convention, Dan E challenged Amy Klobuchar for the Senate nomination:
https://www.mprnews.org/story/2024/05/31/us-sen-amy-klobuchar-clinches-dfl-endorsement-in-reelection-bid
It was obviously a stunt to bring attention to the uncommitted delegation and not a serious run for national office. However not even a year later Dan E decided to run for a much lower office and told Wedge Live he just wanted to humbly serve his community. Maybe he completely changed character in the space of ten months, but it sure seems that he’s likely to pull more performative stunts if elected to MPRB.
More importantly, and to be perfectly blunt here, Dan E comes off as a jerk to a lot of people. Back when Minneapolis was holding what I think all would agree was the most important municipal election in generations, Dan E found catharsis in calling multiple random neighbors “murderous” for not supporting Question 2. He told me I would have “blood on [my] hands”. If Dan E persists in his campaign it is a virtual certainty that more neighbors will come forward with stories of him being a jerk, or you can search for them yourselves in the online spaces where he has unloaded his bile and bombast for years.
Now he is asking for our votes, which I suppose earns him points for chutzpah, but come on – are the issues facing MPRB so monumental and Dan E’s positions so pure that everyone should vote for an unapologetic jerk?
I called for Dan E to apologize publicly in a letter to the editor of the Northeaster newspaper. In response he sent me an email that was so inappropriate that it should be grounds for immediate revocation of all his endorsements and censure by the DFL. In it, he questions my mental health for not supporting his candidacy and says that my letter put him in fear of his physical safety (while also inviting me for coffee). He accused me of libeling him (while also inviting me to write more letters) but the only alleged misstatement of fact he could come up with is that I called him a “public employee”. I clearly wrote that he was a “public union employee” which is a reasonable way of describing his employment at MAPE, a union for public employees. Now I am also worried about Dan E’s reading comprehension. Lastly while Dan E’s writing is so jumbled I can’t be confident of what he actually meant, I think he might have blamed me personally for Amir Locke’s death.
I will not post the email itself, though it’s legitimately a matter of public concern that a candidate for public office would write a voter in the manner Dan E did, because I do not need the hassle if Dan E decides to pursue a baseless suit against me. However I did forward the email to CM Elliott Payne to find out if he thought it appropriate that the MPRB candidate he and the Minneapolis DFL endorsed was writing voters and potential constituents in this way. CM Payne has consistently said he is not responsible for what his supporters say, but he is definitely responsible for who he endorses. Full disclosure – CM Payne did leave me a voice mail asking to talk the other day and we have not yet connected.
District 1, you have a choice between a bombastic jerk with progressive bona fides (Dan Engelhart) or a kind servant-leader with deep knowledge of MPRB (Dan Miller).
Logan G. Spector
Audubon Park, Minneapolis
Couple thoughts.
1. I can’t stand Amy K and him challenging her, while clearly a stunt, is not a stunt that bothers me.
2. Everyone running for local offices always disclaims all future ambitions and claims to just want to humbly serve their community as Municipal Dogcatcher or whatever. This is such routine boilerplate I kind of ignore it.
3. Jerk behavior is concerning and would be easier to assess with links to what you’re talking about.
(For people scrolling down to this discussion, you can read Logan’s letter to the Northeaster newspaper here: https://www.mynortheaster.com/wp-content/news-archives/250827Northeaster/#page=2 )