Category Archives: Election 2025

Special Election 2025, State House 64A

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“Where’s your gift guide?” It’s coming, I promise, but first and somewhat more urgently there is one more election this year. Saint Paul Mayor-Elect Kaohly Her was a State Rep, and resigned her seat when she won the mayoral race, and the primary for the special election to fill her seat is happening December 16th. This is a deeply blue district, and while a Republican is running (Dan Walsh, who also ran against Kaohly Her in 2024), the primary is the real contest. So if you live in District 64A (that link leads to a map but you can also look up your address here) you should figure out who you’re voting for, and go vote. (“What about the Special Election in 47A, are you going to write about that one?” No, because 47A is an entirely suburban district. No part of 47A is in St. Paul or Minneapolis. I only write about races that appear on the ballots of voters in St. Paul or Minneapolis.)

There are six people running in the DFL primary. The local DFL held an endorsing convention on December 7th, which I attended with the goal of watching the speeches and the Q&A. Everyone said they would continue to run regardless, which is honestly reasonable given that it’s too late to pull your name off the ballot, and also, this was a convention of 75 delegates re-called from the pool that volunteered to be delegates to the uncontested convention in 2024. I’m glad they ran the convention, because it gave me an opportunity to see most of the people running and get a sense of what they’re like. But I think it’s fine that no one’s dropping out.

There’s no instant runoff in this race; everyone needs to pick one.

In the race:

John Zwier
Matt Hill
Lois Quam
Meg Luger-Nikolai (DFL-endorsed)
Beth Fraser
Dan McGrath

A note on this writeup. Ordinarily, I would send e-mails to all the candidates asking them a question or two. But this election is in one week. So I’m going to leave some stuff a little handwavy and if candidates see this and urgently want to explain whatever it was I threw up my hands over, they can e-mail me and/or leave a comment.

ETA: There was a LWV candidate forum last night. I haven’t watched it (yet) (and I may not, because I’ve got a bunch of other stuff I need to do.) Here’s the video. It looks like all six candidates were there.

John Zwier

John didn’t seek DFL endorsement, which means I didn’t see him speak. He works in the Attorney General’s office but his boss has endorsed in this race and he was not the pick (Keith Ellison endorsed Lois Quam.) He lists no endorsements on his site. His primary issue is gun control, and you can read his Star Tribune editorial for more information on his proposal (his main proposal is mandatory visible trigger locks on any gun carried in a public space; he has more proposals at https://www.mnfirearmlegislation.com/.)

Poking around social media I discovered that he does have an endorsement from Wes Burdine (owner of the Black Hart LGBTQ+ soccer bar) who knows him personally.

I would not vote for John; most of the other candidates seem to be making a better case for themselves. (Also, he doesn’t seem to have much momentum, and this is not a race with instant runoff. I think this is a race between Lois, Meg, Beth, and Dan.)

Matt Hill

Matt has worked as an advisor and aide to several Ramsey County Commissioners, but again, does not have any endorsements. He did seek DFL endorsement so I heard him speak and respond to Q&A today, and I was not impressed. He kept saying that he was uniquely qualified but was not successful at conveying what his unique qualifications were, in this field of incredibly qualified and accomplished people. He said “that’s my commitment to you!” at the end of most of his answers, after not actually giving us any specific commitments.

During Q&A, there were two responses that stood out to me, both bad. First, there was a question about AI (this really took all the candidates by surprise; none of them had an answer prepared, which was interesting in itself). Everyone else talked about the ways in which they would want to regulate AI and Matt’s response included the line “We need to get with it, if that is the will of what we decide to do.” (I assume he meant the will of the people.) Terrible response. At the very end, they got asked whether they would support higher taxes on the very rich. Everyone else said yes. He did not. He didn’t say no, either, but he used his minute to talk about living within our means and “as a small business owner” blah blah etc. He seemed out of his depth, and I would not vote for him.

Lois Quam

Lois honestly impressed me more than I’d expected her to when I saw that (a) she was the President and CEO of Blue Shield of California from January through April of this year and an executive at UnitedHealth from 1989-2007 (source) and (b) she’s endorsed by Hillary Clinton. Her endorsements also include Attorney General Keith Ellison, Ward 4 City Council Rep Molly Coleman, and Ward 3 City Council Rep Saura Jost. In addition to working for health insurers, she helped write the legislation that created MinnesotaCare, she was an advisor to then-first-lady Hillary when she was writing the health care plan that didn’t pass (hence the endorsement from Hillary), and spent a number of years as the CEO of a global health nonprofit.

Her four-month tenure at Blue Shield of California is sort of weird. I assumed that she got hired in an interim capacity, but that doesn’t seem to have been the case and it’s not clear why she left (and I can’t even read the article talking about how it’s mysterious as it’s behind a paywall I can’t get around with archive.is.)

Asked about single payer, she said she’s a supporter, but that it’s very hard to do it as a state on our own. She talked a ton about coalition building. She said that health care was an easier issue to work across the aisle on than you might expect because there’s not a single Republican representative that doesn’t have his or her own horror story about prior authorization fuckery. (Can I just say I find it wild to hear this from someone who has been a high-level executive at UnitedHealth and a CEO at another insurer. Yes, yes, we all contain multitudes, but, you know. Wild.)

She’s from Marshall, Minnesota originally, and she talked a lot about how she would do outreach to the southern part of the state to recruit people who would run as Democrats for the state legislature. Asked about what she’d hope to accomplish in her first year she talked about being a loyal team player and serving wherever caucus leadership thought she was needed. Finally, if you’re a fan of the Twin Cities Boulevard proposal, she was the one candidate who said she favored it when this got brought up during Q&A. (Everyone else talked about a land bridge.)

I’m going to talk about her answer to the AI question, too. (I found the responses to this really interesting because it was a topic no one had prepared for, and it meant we got a look at how they thought through something they don’t get asked about much.) She started out with the cheerful statement, “I like regulations.” She then acknowledged that it’s an uphill fight because the companies are powerful and it’s a hard problem to tackle as one state, but she supports Keith Ellison’s work in that area, and she suggested that one place to start would be within health care — there are good places to use it, but also really bad places. (She didn’t specify what she meant by this but I would cite “AI supported radiography” as an example of an appropriate use and “AIs used to deny coverage” as an example of a wildly inappropriate use and hopefully that’s more or less what she meant.)

Anyway. There are aspects of Lois’s platform I appreciate but I’m sorry, I can’t get past the fact that she spent almost 20 years as a UnitedHealth executive. It is possibly she has managed to buy back her soul in her years of working for nonprofits, and if so, that’s a good thing, but it doesn’t mean I trust her. I would not vote for her in the primary.

Meg Luger-Nikolai (DFL-endorsed)

Meg is a labor lawyer who works for Education Minnesota. She’s endorsed by SPPS school board chair Halla Henderson and 62A House Rep Aisha Gomez, and also by several unions. (ETA: post-convention, she was also endorsed by mayor-elect Kaohly Her, SD 64 Senator Erin Murphy, and 64B Rep Dave Pinto.)

In her speech, she highlighted fighting back against school boards that adopt homophobic and racist book censorship policies. She talked about the unprecedented corruption in the Republican party.

During Q&A she mentioned organizing in the suburbs; it’s nice to hear people talking about party building generally, like Lois’s comment about working in southern Minnesota. She stood out a little as being unsupportive of ranked choice. (They got asked about that during the Q&A.) On the AI question, she started out with, “I’m a luddite” and went on to say that she doesn’t really care about stuff like fake pictures of alien invasions but she is very concerned about deepfake videos of real people, and would support required identification when AI was being used. (Same! I don’t know how we enforce this but same.)

ETA: I got a note from Meg. She says she’s not against RCV, just not sold, and is going to be chatting with someone from FairVote ASAP (but probably not in the next week). Re AIs, she had this to add: “I am very concerned about the intellectual property aspect of AI and LLMs specifically. In my line of work, most of my writing is a work for hire and I can’t feel that protective of it. The notion that working authors are having their works fed into a digital Cuisinart and get neither compensation nor a right of refusal is a huge problem that we need a fix for, and I am all in for a state level solution if it’s workable.”

I poked around social media to see what other people were saying about various candidates and ran across a post from a local labor guy (with a book coming out) that said “Labor organizer’s greatest ire is reserved for timid labor lawyers who are too scared to support action. Meg Luger-Nikolai is THE exception to that rule, the best labor lawyer I know.”

She is one of my top three.

Beth Fraser

Beth is a former Deputy Secretary of State and founded the Voting Rights Alliance twenty years ago. She has a long career in policy, working both directly with the legislature (as a researcher) and with various nonprofits (the Main Street Alliance, OutFront Minnesota, and others). She is endorsed by former Secretary of State Mark Ritchie (Steve Simon’s predecessor), a bunch of State Senators, Ward 5 City Council Rep Hwa Jeong Kim, and Ward 1 City Council Rep Anika Bowie. And the owners of Moon Palace Books, one of my favorite local bookstores.

She helped to both pass and implement the Safe at Home act (which allows people whose safety is at risk, such as victims of stalking and domestic violence, to maintain a confidential address and still vote). She worked to end prison gerrymandering and to ensure that Tribal IDs were acceptable ID for voter registration. One of the things that impresses me about her history is that she had the foresight to write protections in the law before the GOP started trying to use certain specific loopholes to attack voting rights.

She started her speech by talking about a vicious homophobic note she received as a 14-year-old high school kid, and she ended it by talking about standing up to bullies (i.e., Trump). Two things from her speech particularly stood out to me. First, when she introduced herself, she gave her pronouns, which I don’t think anyone else did. Second, as she was talking about protecting all the people being targeted by the Republicans, she said that everyone had the right to respect and protection “regardless of how or if you worship.” Both of these things were brief and subtle and yet stood out to me as evidence that she’s someone who is not going to brush aside any of her constituents.

Policywise, some things that jumped out at me: she talked about empowering local governments to raise money in progressive ways (rather than property taxes.) She also talked about banning tear gas for crowd control.

On the AI question, she said she’s been working with experts in this area, trying to figure out what is and isn’t possible, in terms of regulatory approaches. She said she worked on Minnesota’s law against political deepfakes. She added that we also need strong environmental regulations on data centers.

She is one of my top three.

Dan McGrath

Dan McGrath was the founding executive director of Take Action MN, which is an organization I like a lot. (When I doorknock in election season I often head over to their office to pick up materials and a route.) He is endorsed by two County Commissioners and by State Senator Scott Dibble, who also endorsed Beth Fraser. Since leaving Take Action MN in 2018, he has worked as a consultant, and as a policy strategist for the Grassroots Power Project.

In talking about his history, he noted that in 2012, there was a statewide referendum on mandatory photo ID when voting, and that there was initially 80% support for it in polls, it was so popular that a whole lot of Democrats and progressive organizations said we couldn’t win and shouldn’t even try. As the Executive Director of Take Action, he decided they’d fight anyway, and we beat it. (We beat it along with the proposed constitutional amendment against same-sex marriage, and we beat both so thoroughly we got a trifecta for the first time in a long time and passed marriage equality.)

Everyone (I think) said they were at least theoretically in favor of single-payer. Dan also brought up passing the Patient-Centered Health Care Act, which would change Minnesota Care so that payments were made directly from the government to the providers. (Currently, If you are enrolled in Minnesota Care, you get your services through one of the insurers.)

On the issue of property taxes, he mentioned wanting to be able to raise revenue from all the properties currently not on the tax rolls but was not specific about exactly which of the various nontaxable entities in St. Paul he wants to tax. (A bunch are owned by the government itself.)

A couple of things I particularly liked: there was a question about how people would work across the aisle while not compromising their values and he said that where the inherent worth and dignity of all people were at stake, there could be no exceptions; “I cannot yield on any question about the basic dignity of other people.” But also, he wouldn’t want to go to the legislature if he didn’t want to talk to people in the other party. The question you want to ask is, what’s the problem you’re trying to solve, and are we actually coming at it from different directions? (“No one likes insurance companies,” he added, which was echoed a minute later by Lois — I talked about her response above.) Also, on the question about climate change, he was the only person to talk about transit, which kind of blew my mind; he also talked about working with farmers to help them cut fertilizer usage, and bonding housing downtown that requires builders to minimize use of plastics. (This was a lot more specific plans than most of the other candidates offered in response to that question.)

On the AI question, I transcribed while he was talking and I’m actually just going to quote: “I, too, feel strongly about regulating AI. But I want to say why. It is important that in public life that we emphasize and prioritize having a conscience. Having ethics. AI has none of what I’ve just said. It doesn’t have a moral compass. I think first – how do we try to lift up the idea that we are people, that we have values, that we yearn for connection to each other? We also have to look at infrastructure side so that our rural communities are not depleted of their resources for Google’s next behemoth.”

He is one of my top three.

So — okay, I have narrowed it down to Dan McGrath, Beth Fraser, and Meg Luger-Nikolai. And I’m not sure how to decide. All three seem fighty, in a way I think we need right now. Dan is a particularly good speaker, someone who can really eloquently defend our values. Beth is someone whose past work shows a lot of insight into shoring up the exact walls that Republicans are preparing to attack. Meg Luger-Nikolai is kind of the embodiment of the line “there is power in the union.” I think Dan would be the strongest on environmental issues, because he’d clearly spent more time thinking about them than the other candidates; he’s also someone who will stand and fight when no one thinks the ground is defensible. I think Meg Luger-Nikolai would be the strongest on education issues, because she’s spent 16 years working for the teacher’s union. Beth seems particularly well-prepared to defend democracy, both because of her decades of work on voting rights and because of things like, she’s been posting to her Facebook about banning the use of tear gas and requiring ICE agents to unmask.

I think I would vote for Beth. I think she’d be my pick. But honestly I’ve been swinging back and forth (mostly between Beth and Dan) since the convention, and I’m not sure. I am going to go ahead and post this because if you’re in 64A, you have one week to figure out how to vote, and hopefully this at least helps you narrow it down and gives you a starting place?

If you’d like to express your appreciation for my election blogging work in a monetary way, you can still donate to my fundraiser for YouthLink. You can also pre-order a copy of Obstetrix, my near-future thriller about an obstetrician who gets kidnapped by a cult. (It comes out in June!)

Election 2025: Some of My Many Sources

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If you would like to learn more about any of the races, or any of the groups involved, or politics in Minneapolis more broadly, or if you’d like to support the people whose work I turn to when I’m writing my election guide, there are in fact a LOT of people whose original reporting and data-gathering I rely on heavily, and I’d like to list some of them along with Patreons and fundraisers and so on.

John Edwards of WedgeLive, who provides social media coverage of a whole lot of events on Bluesky, writes a blog about local politics, and does amazing interviews on his podcast, which you can find via a podcast app (it’s called the WedgeLive podcast) or on YouTube. Something distinctive about his interviews is that he likes to interview people while biking or engaged in some other physical activity, which means you often get a much more genuine and authentic look at the candidate or politician than you would normally, because they’re just a little bit distracted. I listened to many, many of his interviews with local candidates, followed his coverage of conventions, and deeply appreciate his work. Support his Patreon here.

Taylor Dahlin has done a ton of research on the PACs that have been throwing money around the Minneapolis city races. You can find her on Bluesky here and her blog (full of useful coverage of those PACs) is here. I don’t think she has a Patreon but she does have an open GoFundMe to support her ongoing fight against breast cancer.

Josh Martin documents meetings and also has this absolutely AMAZING set of spreadsheets (link is to his Google Doc that rounds up all the stuff he does) that give you summaries of (and links to more) campaign finance stuff, endorsements, his “campaign viability matrix” where he tries to calculate the people who might actually win, just a TON of stuff. I could not find a Patreon.

The League of Women Voters Minneapolis hosted a TON of forums this year, all staffed by volunteer moderators and livestreamed. You can donate to the LWV Minneapolis here. LWV St. Paul also hosted a forum. You can donate to LWV St. Paul here. They’re also both always looking for volunteers; volunteers run all those forums but also register voters, answer questions about voting, and educate people about voting. Volunteer with LWV Minneapolis / Volunteer with LWV St. Paul.

Racket is an online arts and politics weekly that is staffed by people who once worked for the City Pages. It’s terrific and you can subscribe to it here.

Sahan Journal does immigrant-focused news coverage and is my go-to source for anything related to the Feeding Our Future scandal (other stuff as well, to be clear). It has no paywall, and you can support it here. MPR News and MinnPost also provide paywall-free coverage of local politics at least some of the time.

I also pretty regularly use coverage from the Star Trib (you can find that on your own) and the Pioneer Press (ditto). The Minnesota Reformer has moved away from local political coverage in an unfortunate way (the decision they made resulted in extremely fine-grained coverage on everything Fateh has ever done wrong, and no coverage of anyone else) although they’ve been a key source for me in the past.

(I’m probably forgetting someone, so I may come back and add stuff.) Anyway, if you value news, please support journalism!

Election 2025: Saint Paul Mayoral Race

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The incumbent, Melvin Carter, is running again. On the ballot:

Melvin Carter (incumbent)
Kaohly Her
Yan Chen
Adam Dullinger
Mike Hilborn

This is a ranked-choice election and St. Paul lets you rank five candidates, so you can literally rate these candidates in order of preference, if you want.

I need to get this done ASAP: it’s my last post and I’m about to leave town. I’ve been having trouble getting motivated to do this one for reasons that are summed up well in a conversation I had tonight with my father. He asked me when I was going to do the St. Paul mayoral race and I told him I was working on it. I then told him that the only person with any real shot at beating Melvin was Kaohly Her, and he grabbed a pen to write down the name. Bad news for people who hate Melvin: if, a month out from the election, reasonably politically engaged St. Paul residents are not even aware of the name of Melvin’s main opponent, this is not much of a contest.

I mean, get out there and vote, please, whether you love Melvin or hate him or feel “eh, I mean, he’s okay?” about him, because we need your votes on the two ballot questions (vote yes on both).

tl;dr I’m going to vote for Melvin. If you don’t like Melvin you should rank Kaohly Her and Yan Chen.

Mike Hilborn

Mike Hilborn owns an exterior services business that does stuff like powerwashing. I e-mailed him to ask him if he had any endorsements or any governance experience (like, had he ever served on a city board or committee or a county advisory board or attended city council meetings as an observer)? He does not. “I do not have any endorsements.  I don’t seek them.  Endorsements come with strings to promote their agenda.  My agenda is to lower taxes, crime and homelessness.  I do not have any government experience.  I have spent the last 30 years focused on growing my business.  We are a second chance employer with 45 employees.  I’m at the point in my career where I have time to see if can save our city.  I believe my business experience is what is required to fix Saint Paul.”

I disagree that running a small business is (all by itself) adequate preparation for the job of mayor. (I also don’t know that Melvin Carter would be qualified to take over a 45-employee exterior services business. At the very least I would have a bunch of questions about whether he’s run a small business in the past and how much he knows about power washing; his Wikipedia entry does not lead me to believe that he has any relevant experience in that area.)

He also had Republican vibes and sure enough, Open Secrets showed donations to Tim Pawlenty and the Minnesota GOP. He also gave a rousing defense of ICE at one of the forums. I would not rank Hilborn.

ETA: someone pointed out in the comments he ran for State House last year. This means I sent him the question I sent to all Republicans running: who did he think won the 2020 election? From my post last year: “He gets some credit for responding to my e-mail asking who won the 2020 Presidential election but no credit for his response. (He made it clear that (a) he 100% buys into Trump’s big lie and (b) he wanted to fight with me about it by demanding why Democrats opposed the SAVE act. When I pointed out that the law he and his party wanted to pass would disenfranchise about 30% of married women, and a disproportionately Republican subset at that, he stopped replying.)” Don’t rank Mike!

Adam Dullinger

Adam is an engineer (he makes firefighting equipment, I think for this company) and has no endorsements or political experience. He is very earnest (though he got scolded at a mayoral forum for his lack of civility) and given his genuine interests in city design particularly as it applies to bikes, I think he should consider applying to one of the the city advisory boards. (Among other things, I genuinely think this would be a better fit for the information deep dives he wants to do than the mayor’s job.) I do not think he’s qualified to be mayor, though I’d take him over Mike.

Yan Chen

Yan Chen is a retired science professor who ran for City Council in 2023. Last time she picked up a second-choice endorsement from a labor coalition, and this time she’s co-endorsed with Kaohly by former City Council rep Jane Prince. When I asked her about her governance experience, she said that she had attended City Council meetings multiple times, had visited every district council, was a board member of Summit University District Council until she withdrew to run for office, and is a community board member for a public charter school (Career Pathways). That’s actually pretty solid from a “does this person have any real idea what this sort of job entails” perspective.

She really loves to post videos and I really hate to watch videos but I watched enough to be reassured that she is not secretly a Republican despite her focus on property taxes. I am unconvinced that she’d do a better job than Melvin, but if you’re unhappy and feeling like you want a change (any change) she’s worth ranking.

Kaohly Her

Kaohly Her is a State House Rep for 64A (a section of the middle of the western part of the city). She did an interview with WedgeLive and my primary takeaway from it is that she’d do basically the same stuff Melvin is doing but she’s pretty sure she’d do it better.

Asked about the Summit Trail thing, she said the process was flawed, which … I don’t know, honestly, I feel like there are some real problems with the communication around that project but I don’t think that means that the project is a bad idea. (I wrote about this project in my Ward 4 post a few months ago, here.) The way she talks about this project makes me worry that she will cave to pressure from NIMBYs to the detriment of everyone in St. Paul. She also talked about this bike trail like it’s an amenity for the people who live on Summit. It’s really not; the whole point of a regional trail is to provide a really good, pleasant, well-maintained trail that people can use for both recreational travel and bike commuting and Summit is terrific for this for anyone who needs to get between downtown and the river and a ton of people use Summit (for driving, biking, and walking) as their preferred route just because it’s nice. (This was the thing Adam got scolded over, incidentally; he said her answer was bullshit.)

ETA: Kaohly has totally signalled her alliance with the anti-bike-lane side of that fight. (She’s “refused to pick a side” according to the Strib which is — to quote Adam Dullinger — a bullshit answer. I consider this a really good reason NOT TO VOTE FOR HER.

That said: she would bring good relationships with the legislature and she clearly has the experience to do the job. I like her fine and she’d probably be a reasonably decent mayor. I’m just really not convinced she’d actually do better than Melvin. I’m thoroughly put off by her “oh, I just don’t think the process was sufficient” BS on the Summit Ave bike lane thing. Nope. Also, someone in the comments also raised concerns that her “urban wealth fund” thing would be stealth privatization.

Melvin Carter

Melvin’s WedgeLive interview is also worth watching or listening to. He has one really interesting moment where he talks about how one of the aspects of unidentified, masked ICE officers is that we had a political assassination in this state a few months back committed by a masked guy pretending to be law enforcement.

Melvin has done an outstanding job on one particular thing, which is gun violence in St. Paul — basically he worked with the police department to have them investigate non-fatal shootings with the same energy they bring to murders. This has made a massive difference in the number of shootings. I’m also happy with what he’s done with municipal garbage collection. Homeless encampments in St. Paul are dealt with by an outreach team and while they pop up from time to time this is more or less what I think most Minneapolis advocates would say is the right way to deal with encampments. (I ran searches in the Minneapolis and St. Paul subreddits to see how much people are talking about encampments and in St. Paul they mostly just are not, which is funny given that r/stpaul really hates Melvin and thinks he sucks. Or at least that’s the direction of the threads on the mayoral race.)

St. Paul’s downtown is ailing but it’s dealing with the central problem of downtowns everywhere, a reduced in-office work force. Property taxes are high, and this is a problem that is largely created by the fact that huge sections of St. Paul are owned by the government (because it’s the state capital) or a large nonprofit organization (we’ve got a truly ridiculous number of colleges) and are thus not taxable; the fall in commercial property values in downtown is a major contributing factor and this not a problem that’s going to get solved as quickly as would be nice. It’s annoying to start a business in St. Paul (Minneapolis has this same issue) and they should rethink some of the regulations; I’ll put that on Melvin. Kaohly Her says that Cub says that nobody at City Hall took their calls; Melvin says this is bullshit (except he was more polite about it than Adam) and that they complained a lot about shoplifting but then never called 911 when it was actually happening.

Fundamentally I think Melvin has done a pretty good job of fixing the stuff that he could fix. In the coming four years (because as noted, I think he’s going to win) I hope he’ll bring some of that energy to dealing with the Snelling-University vacant CVS (is that a pet peeve of mine? I mean yeah but I think it pisses off everyone who regularly passes that intersection. Seriously, what the hell) and those vacant buildings on Grand that the Ohio teacher’s retirement fund is basically just sitting on and leaving empty.

A final strategic note: Melvin’s father was a cop, and it’s pretty clear that he has a good relationship with the SPPD, enough that he was able to get them to aggressively investigate non-fatal shootings. In the current political environment, I can think of worse things than a progressive mayor who can successfully tell the cops to do stuff.

Anyway, I am currently planning to rank Melvin #1 (and Kaohly #2, and Yan Chen #3, even though I don’t think those rankings will matter.) If you’re unhappy with Melvin, I think Kaohly would make a fine mayor would probably disappoint you just as much, honestly (unless your ONLY issue with Melvin is that you hate the idea of the Summit bike trail, in which case, I guess she’s your girl.)

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!)

Election 2025: Minneapolis Park Board, District 5

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Steffanie Musich is the incumbent and is running again. She was not endorsed at the City DFL convention, probably due to the walkout of all the Frey supporters in a failed attempt to break the quorum.

On the ballot:

Steffanie Musich (Incumbent)
Kay Carvajal Moran (Labor-endorsed)
Justin Theodore Cermak
Colton Baldus

tl;dr I would rank Kay Carvajal Moran #1, Colton Baldus #2, Steffanie Musich #3.

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:

I think Steffanie was the only candidate seeking endorsement at the City DFL convention, which is why there was no endorsement in District 5 — she was one of the members LiUNA (the park board workers’ union) identified as a union buster, but there was no viable alternative presented at the time. Since then, Kay has entered the race and gotten a ton of union support.

Justin Theodore Cermak

Justin listed his Instagram as his campaign site but I linked to his campaign Facebook because it’s a lot more informative. (For example, the newest post as of today appears to suggest that supporters put his signs up in parks.) Most informative bit is his rant about how the incumbent is “THE driving force behind the plan to ruin Hiawatha Golf Course.” That golf course is not viable in 18-hole form. One of the things I like about Musich is her refusal to prioritize golf over a clean lake and people not losing their homes. I would absolutely not rank Justin.

Steffanie Musich (Incumbent)

Steffanie was on the wrong side of both the Uptown Mall vote and the strike. She was also the driving force behind a program that sells carbon offset credits to companies, theoretically in exchange for planting trees. Her website mentions this in her first-term accomplishments: “Facilitated Public/Private partnership with Green Minneapolis to expand tree planting by 7,000 trees annually.” Except that according to the 2024 Star Tribune article I linked above, “none of the profits has been used to plant a single tree. It may be used to purchase trees in 2025, said Park Board spokeswoman Robin Smothers.”

I have mixed feelings about carbon credits; I mean on one hand they’re weirdly reminiscent to me of medieval-style indulgences and on the other hand they’re maybe better than nothing. However, if someone’s buying indulgences carbon credits on the basis of trees getting planted, and the trees aren’t getting planted, it’s really hard to see this as anything other than greenwashing.

Kay Carvajal Moran (Labor-endorsed)

Kay doesn’t have the DFL endorsement (presumably because she entered late) but does have multiple labor endorsements and endorsements from various high-profile DFLers. She’s held various jobs in human services (her LinkedIn says she’s currently a case management assistant for Hennepin County, and has worked as a youth coordinator).

She’s worked with the Minnesota Immigrant Movement to support street vendors, and supports “micro entrepreneurs” in the parks. She’s also worked on youth programming in the parks (she mentions kickboxing, Bike Alebrijes MN, and academic support.) Her website leads with youth programming and also talks about environmental stewardship and worker rights.

Colton Baldus

Colton Baldus is a tenant organizer. The vision section of their website leads with “stand with organized labor” but also talks about climate justice, reduced fees for those who currently struggle to afford to use park programs, public restrooms in every park, and harm reduction strategies. They don’t t seem to have any endorsements.

I would rank Kay #1, Colton #2. I originally said that I was not worried enough about Justin and his “NO ENDORSEMENTS – NO MASTERS” approach to campaigning to rate Steffanie #3, but a friend made a case for her on the grounds that it’s worth having the golf course ride-or-die lose as decisively as possible, and she deserves some gratitude for sticking with her stance on the golf course. (FWIW I think this is a contest between Kay and Steffanie, in any case.)

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!)

Election 2025: Minneapolis Park Board, District 6

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Cathy Abene is the incumbent and is running again. Her opponent, Ira Jourdain, has the DFL endorsement, probably in large part due to the walkout at the City DFL convention of all the Frey supporters in a failed attempt to break the quorum. (If I were Cathy Abene, I would be absolutely furious at Frey. Apparently they’re campaigning together, though.)

On the ballot:

Cathy Abene (Incumbent)
Ira Jourdain (DFL-endorsed)

Cathy Abene

Cathy Abene was my second choice in 2021 and while I don’t think I regret this (could’ve been worse) I’ve been disappointed with her as she’s largely gone in lockstep with Elizabeth Shaffer. I wrote a longer assessment of all the reasons I don’t like the current Park Board on my At-Large post and I don’t want to recap here, but I will note that Cathy got called out by LiUNA (the union that represents the Park Workers) as a union buster in the wake of the park worker strike. On Cathy’s website, she says, “The number one refrain I hear from constituents is that we should prioritize taking care of what we have, and I couldn’t agree more. When it comes to our physical parks, our world-class system is only as good as the assets that make it up.” The thing she doesn’t acknowledge is that among the assets that make it up are the people who take care of what we have! Taking care of the workers who maintain our parks is part of taking care of what we have. Cathy also joined Shaffer in the vote to cut youth programming positions in order to repave a bike path.

When my kids were little, we lived close to the Hiawatha School Park, and we went there a lot. There was a woman who worked at the park (I would guess she’s now retired) who was the person who would literally haul out the hose to spray down the surface of the ice rink any day when it was cold enough to freeze, to give skaters a fresh surface. One time some asshole dropped bubble bath into the wading pool and she spent the next day scrubbing it out by hand. She worked so hard making sure that park stayed pleasant and usable and nice. The parks system is partly the fields, playgrounds, ice rinks, woods, community centers, etc., and it’s partly the people who mow the grass, fix the play equipment, flood the ice rinks, trim the trees, and staff the community centers.

Ira Jourdain

Ira is an enrolled tribal citizen of the Red Lake band of Ojibwe, works in Human Services, and served on the Minneapolis School Board for two terms. In an article where he reflects on his time on the school board he mentions his proudest achievement is mandating 30 minutes of recess per day for Minneapolis elementary schoolers. (That’s a minimum, to be clear, and many — possibly most — Minneapolis elementary schoolers were not getting it. My kids definitely did not, when they were in a Minneapolis public school.)

Ira got an anti-endorsement from someone who’d had very bad experiences with him back when he was running for the State House seat in 62B (okay, someone let me know you can’t see that link without a Bluesky account. The statement was, “Ira Jourdain is the single worst elected official I have ever interacted with. I had to block him on Facebook because he would constantly harass me in the DMs at like 2AM,” made by a former resident who maintains ties to the area) but I’m very unhappy with Cathy, and Ira actually explicitly acknowledges how much the parks are the result of hard work from the park staff.. I would vote for Ira Jourdain.

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!)

Election 2025: Minneapolis Park Board, District 4

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This district is currently represented by Elizabeth Shaffer, who is running for the Ward 7 City Council seat. I don’t like Shaffer; she is central to all my current grudges against the current Park Board.

There are three people on the ballot:

Jeanette Colby
Jason Garcia (DFL-endorsed)
Andrew Gebo

tl;dr I would rank Jason Garcia first, Andrew Gebo second.

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’m not going to fully recap that here because there’s a lot, but here’s one thing: last spring, there was a vote on the Uptown Mall, which is a stretch of park-owned land between Hennepin and Lake of the Isles:

A snip of Google Maps showing "The Mall," just south of the Midtown Greenway, running between Lake of the Isles and Hennepin (which isn't labeled in this snippet but where you see MoZaic, that's Hennepin).

There were five years of community engagement over how best to develop it, which resulted in a detailed plan in 2021: the plan included a play area, a connection to the Greenway, seating, a “shared woonerf” that could be used for stuff like farmer’s markets or small art festivals, and a community garden. When this plan was originally created, it looked like it wouldn’t be implemented for years, because it would require money to be allocated to do it. However, this year, the Met Council announced they were going to do a sewer rebuild, which involved tearing out all the roads anyway, and offered to rebuild it however the Park Board wanted it rebuilt. It was an absolutely amazing opportunity for a free park, basically.

And the current Park Board turned it down, because the rebuild would sacrifice parking. Their claim was that they were acting out of concerns over fire safety. However, their justification was that the Fire Department prefers a 20-foot road width; this is wider than the “shared woonerf/flexible market street” in the plan, but also wider than the 12-foot road that’s there now, unless you include the 8-foot parking lane, which is normally full of parked cars. The board then voted against banning parking there, or even enforcing the on-the-books overnight parking ban. The claim that this was about fire safety rather than parking was profoundly disingenuous. (Also, Minneapolis is full of streets that don’t provide that ideal 20′ road width and the Fire Department is able to cope.) The theory I’ve heard now from two places is that the rich people who live in mansions nearby didn’t want the renters who currently park on the Mall to relocate to the street parking in front of their homes.

One final note on this controversy: the Uptown Mall is in District 4.

One of the other major things that happened was the strike of park workers. Elizabeth Shaffer is one of the park board members called out by the union as a union buster.

Moving on! Jason Garcia was endorsed at the DFL City Convention. 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 Colby.

Jeanette Colby

Jeanette Colby is campaigning with Elizabeth Shaffer — her lit highlights that endorsement — and I swear I saw her talking somewhere about having been recruited by her to run. That would be reason for suspicion but I also e-mailed her to get her thoughts on the Uptown Mall thing, and here’s her response:

On the question of The Mall, my biggest concern was that if street access were removed, emergency vehicles would not have had adequate access to the apartment homes of dozens of people according to the Minneapolis Fire Chief. In general, I believe a remake of a space like The Mall requires much more substantial community input than it received during the Southwest Area master planning process. When the issue came to a critical juncture in April, the East Isles Neighborhood Association did not support the master plan.

Yeah, no. Even the Star Tribune reporting made it clear the “fire safety concerns” were a smokescreen for a collective freakout over parking spaces.

Colby has volunteered with the Kenwood Neighborhood Organization, the SWLRT Community Advisory Committee, and the Cedar Lake Park Association. She is a an artist (ceramicist, specifically) and a docent at the MIA.

I would not rank her.

Andrew Gebo

Gebo is a tech guy with cats. He spoke in favor of the Uptown Mall plan when interviewed by the Southwest Connector for their coverage of the race. (“This project, part of the Southwest Parks Plan, would have created bike paths and recreational spaces that connected Uptown to Bde Maka Ska, which would have been a transformative enhancement to our park system. With the Metropolitan Council’s sewer project presenting a unique opportunity to implement this plan without cost to the Park Board, the decision not to act reflects a lack of vision and leadership.”)

He has done some volunteering in the parks (in an e-mail response he mentioned Earth Day trash pickups and supporting fundraising efforts with the Friends of Loring Park) but has not served on any commissions or advisory boards. I enjoyed listening to his interview with WedgeLive but there was one bit I found sort of eyebrow-raising — John asked him if he was ready for “nastiness” and Gebo thought he meant in the campaign. John did not mean in the campaign. (The Park Board has historically been one of the most drama-prone, acrimonious elected bodies in the City of Minneapolis.) If he were the only person running on a “park board, not parking board” platform I would endorse him but he is not. I would rank him second.

Jason Garcia (DFL-endorsed)

Jason Garcia is someone I’ve known online for years and I was really excited when they entered the race. They spent most of the month of September in the hospital after emergency surgery — they’re now home, but still recovering. They do expect to be sufficiently recovered to serve, if elected, but they are not able to do as much campaigning as some of their opponents. If you would like to see Jason elected, this would be a good race to volunteer to doorknock in.

Jason’s employment has involved a lot of work in local/indigenous foods. They worked for the American Indian Community Housing Organization and helped AICHO plan an indigenous food market. They were also the founding manager at the Indigenous Food Lab Market in Midtown Global Market.

Their governance experience includes a lot of time in meetings as an observer, and part of why I’m familiar with them is their involvement with WedgeLive coverage of local politics. I have a lot of confidence that they know what they’re getting into, and significant conviction that they’ll make good choices in Park Board work.

I would rank Jason Garcia #1, Andrew Gebo #2.

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!)

Election 2025: Minneapolis Park Board, District 1

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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:

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.

Dan Miller

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!)

Election 2025: Minneapolis Park Board, At-Large

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Everyone in Minneapolis will have this race on their ballot, and it’s a bit of a doozy in terms of “complicated history” and “lots of candidates,” so buckle up. I am posting this with my current choice of candidates, then come back and edit in late October, based on the vibes I’m getting at that point in the race.

There are three seats up, and eight people running. This is ranked-choice race and you get to rank three people. Exactly how this shakes out is complicated, and I strongly recommend watching this video that explains how a multi-seat instant runoff vote works:

The key detail here that I think people need to take into account: when it’s a one-person race, you get to rank three candidates, which means if there are three people you like you can list them in order of preference. With a three-person race, you also get to rank three candidates, which means “who among the candidates I like are the most likely to beat the candidates I don’t like” becomes a more important piece of the equation.

Here’s who’s running, and then I will put in a cut because this is going to get very, very long.

Matthew Dowgwillo
Meg Forney (Incumbent)
Amber A. Frederick (DFL-endorsed)
Mary McKelvey
Tom Olsen (DFL-endorsed, Incumbent)
Adam Schneider (Green and DSA-endorsed)
Averi M. Turner
Michael Wilson (DFL-endorsed)

tl;dr if I were voting today (September 30th) I would vote (1) Tom Olsen, (2) Michael Wilson, (3) Amber Frederick. I may revise that closer to the election, depending (as noted) in part on vibes. ETA 10/30: I’m happy with my rankings.

Continue reading →

Election 2025: Minneapolis City Council, Ward 11

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Just as I’d started to like her, Emily Koski decided not to run for re-election. (Well, she decided to run for mayor, then dropped out of the mayoral race but not back into the City Council race.) There are three people running for the Ward 11 seat. On the ballot:

Mariam DeMello (DFL)
Jamison Whiting (DFL-endorsed)
Jim Meyer (Budgetary Economic Stability)

Mariam DeMello (DFL)

Mariam DeMello promised to drop out if someone else was endorsed, and announced at the convention that she was dropping out and endorsing Jamison Whiting, and then got back in. I don’t usually bring this up, but in Mariam’s case, I would kind of like to know what it is she thinks Whiting is going to do that she doesn’t like, or fail to do that she wants. I wrote to her and asked and didn’t get a response, and I watched the forum hoping for more enlightenment on this topic and came away disappointed. She currently serves on the Charter Commission and talked some about the dysfunction of city government (by which she seems to mean “there are people to the left of the mayor on the City Council,” she specifically blamed the DSA when asked about homeless encampments. Which, let’s be honest about this fact: no one in the DSA likes encampments and everyone in the DSA is advocating for the “dignified housing” she says she wants instead.) Anyway, I think she thinks she’d be better on public safety but I’m not sure. She is endorsed by fake Democrat and absolute weirdo Mickey Moore. (Link leads to my writeup of the Ward 9 race from 2023, when he ran.)

ETA: She wrote back on October 15th. (I’m just now updating this because I was in China at that point, and super busy.) She said my message went to spam and said, “You’re right — I initially paused my campaign after the DFL convention, but after hearing from so many neighbors, I felt Ward 11 needed a truly independent, moderate voice in this race.”

The ways in which she says she differs from Jamison: (1) she’s “realistic” about how the City Council can affect the schools (“The Council doesn’t oversee the Minneapolis School Board, but we can help keep kids engaged outside of school through mentorship, youth programming, and safe community spaces” — Jamison advocates for those things but also talks about having the city expand funding for counselors, nurses, and mental health support in the public schools); (2) “I believe in increasing the supply of affordable housing, but also in ensuring a healthy mix of housing types — including cooperatives, starter homes, and multi-family options” — Jamison’s housing policy also talks about a mix of market-rate, affordable, and deeply affordable housing so I don’t know what she’s talking about here; (3) “On policing, I believe the consent decree is just the starting point” — I cannot believe she’s seriously proposing herself as an improvement over Jamison on this one, given his background and experience in police reform, which definitely does not treat the consent decree as the end point; (4) she wants a multi-unit housing complex on the Speedway site at George Floyd Square, while apparently Jamison wants a community center.

Jim Meyer (Budgetary Economic Stability)

Jim Meyer sent me an e-mail last month making a case for himself that included the amusing and honestly kind of accurate line, “I don’t know if I am exactly your cup of tea, but Ward 11 doesn’t produce too many Our Revolutionaries.” I mean, yeah, this is valid. Jim is a former journalist turned LPN (Licensed Practical Nurse) and running as a budget hawk. Unlike a lot of fringe candidates Jim has some actual civic service experience; he serves on the Minneapolis Advisory Committee on Aging. This makes sense (he worked at a nursing home) but he also served on the city’s Racial Equity Advisory in 2018; this makes less sense to me (he’s a white guy). Anyway, if what you want is a budget hawk, he might be your pick; he at least has a little political experience and is not coming at this 100% from a “how hard could politics possibly be? I’ll just do what The People want!” perspective. ETA: He’s an ICE apologist whose response to “should MPD assist with crowd control at operations were ICE is present” was “Of course!” Don’t vote for Jim.

Jamison Whiting (DFL-endorsed)

Jamison Whiting is a lawyer who works in the City Attorney’s office on the Police Reform Implementation team. In his bio he mentions that his father was imprisoned after a false conviction, which sounds like an interesting story but I wasn’t able to find the details. He’s kind of the “unity candidate” — his endorsements skew right but the progressives seem to like him OK, in that the Love/Thrive/All of Mpls crowd has endorsed him and the left wing thinks he’s about as good as we’re likely to get from that part of town.

I listened to his WedgeLive interview (you can watch it here, or listen to it as a podcast on your favorite podcast app) and he struck me as experienced in some things I care about (he’s worked directly on police reform) and as someone who genuinely wants to be a unifying figure. (This response at the forum was particularly striking, actually. The question: “How will you work with fellow council members to address encampments and support residents facing housing instability, displacement, or homelessness?” He said that housing was a human right and then spent most of his minute leaning into to the “how will you work with fellow council members” part and talked about building relationships. “I know every single one of our council members extremely well…we are a city full of Democrats, but we are unable to get together and move this in the right direction.”)

I would vote for Jamison Whiting if I lived in Ward 11, and then cross my fingers and hope for the best.

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!)

Election 2025: Minneapolis Park Board, District 3

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I’ve got one City Council seat left to do (Ward 11) but there’s a forum tomorrow I could watch so I’m skipping ahead to Park Board.

This is one of the handful of super easy races this year. In the race for District 3 Park and Recreation Commissioner, Kedar Deshpande (DFL-endorsed) is running unopposed. (Incumbent Becky Alper decided not to run again.) Love him or hate him, if you live in Park Board District 3, that’s who you’re getting for the next four years.

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!)