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!)

Election 2025: Minneapolis Park Board, District 2

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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 2 Park and Recreation Commissioner, Charles Rucker (DFL-endorsed, Incumbent kinda) is running unopposed. Love him or hate him, if you live in Park Board District 2, that’s who you’re getting for the next four years. (He’s “incumbent, kinda” because he held an at-large seat by appointment when he replaced someone who moved away, and he’s running for the District 2 seat, which Becka Thompson is not running for.)

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!)

I set up a fundraiser with a specific goal mainly because seeing the money raised helps motivate me. (Having external motivation helps! This is a lot of work.)

Election 2025: Minneapolis City Council, Ward 10

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Aisha Chughtai, the incumbent, was elected in 2021 and re-elected in 2023. On the ballot:

Aisha Chughtai
Lydia Millard
DeShanneon Grimes

As I did in my Ward 2 post, before I talk about the candidates I’m going to talk about all the the PACs because they have similar names and it’s frankly pretty confusing and also especially relevant here.

  • There was We Love Mpls. Presumably called that because so many of them love Minneapolis, but don’t live there. (Obligatory note: neither do I, but at least I live in St. Paul and not, say, Wayzata.) Taylor Dahlin wrote about We Love Minneapolis in June. She noted that it’s chaired by (GOP donor) Andrea Corbin, and run by Joe Radinovich and Nico Woods. (Two of the most conservative people in the Minnesota DFL.) The money overwhelmingly came from landlords with large holdings; progressive PAC Minneapolis for the Many noted that 68% of their money came from landlords responsible for hundreds of property violations.
  • There is Thrive Minneapolis. In July, We Love Mpls shut down and Thrive Minneapolis seems to be the replacement. Taylor wrote about this group in July. She noted that it’s chaired by Martha Holton Dimick (the very conservative prosecutor who ran against Mary Moriarty in 2022), and again heavily funded by landlords and developers, many of whom do not live in Minneapolis.
  • There is All of Mpls, which is doing endorsements. Legally I am sure they are not actually the Frey campaign wearing a funny hat but if you click on the website you might be forgiven for thinking they basically look like the Frey campaign wearing a funny hat, especially since they have a link to “Thank Mayor Frey” (with a canned, adulatory e-mail). They have endorsed Becka Thompson in Ward 12, which is frankly inexcusable, and if I were Lydia Millard, I’d be pretty annoyed about that. I described them two years ago as “a group aligned with the law-and-order faction of the city government: they love cops, they love landlords, and they love parking spots.” In retrospect I’m not sure that’s harsh enough. What they want is for Mayor Frey, who I consider frankly incompetent even if you like his politics, to have a rubber-stamp City Council.
  • On the other side there is the progressive PAC Minneapolis for the Many. I like Minneapolis for the Many! They also do endorsements.

One final note about some of the people involved in Love/Thrive/All Of Mpls. On September 9th there was a Zoom meeting of the DFL Feminist Caucus where the people in charge and their friends engaged in some really gross treatment of trans Democrats who showed up and ran for offices. (There’s an open letter about what happened at that meeting here.) Joe Radinovich was there and voting with the hostile majority. Martha Holton Dimick nominated Latonya Reeves, who was one of the people huffing and eye-rolling over the concept of respecting someone’s pronouns. The people misgendering trans DFLers are out of step with things I consider to be core DFL values. If someone has sought and accepted these endorsements, I do not trust them. (Also, the reason the old guard of the DFL Feminist Caucus closed ranks was to defend the right of their friend to continue to hold party office despite her involvement in a fatal crash that has been charged as vehicular homicide. I’ve seen this sort of “how dare you show up in our clubhouse and make trouble” gatekeeping in other contexts and it’s toxic and awful.) More on all this in a minute.

DeShanneon Grimes

DeShanneon’s website describes her background as “entrepreneur, mother, and dog lover.” She’s currently a realtor. (From what I could find, she’s been a realtor for a year or two.) She wants red-light cameras and traffic calming; she also thinks infrastructure decisions are being made without enough input from residents and area businesses. I’m not sure she realizes that her desires here (more speed bumps / more attention paid to what businesses want) are probably in conflict.

She doesn’t list any prior civic experience (city/county committees, campaign work for other people, etc.) and she has no endorsements. You can vote for her if you really like her ideas but pick a backup candidate and maybe tell them which of her ideas you particularly like and hope they’ll enact.

Lydia Millard

Lydia Millard is one of the candidates supported by Love/Thrive/All Of Mpls. Nico Woods (formerly the person running We Love Mpls, along with Joe Rad one of the most conservative DFLers in the area) is her Campaign Manager, and she was present at the disastrous DFL Feminist Caucus meeting. I actually e-mailed her in the wake of it to ask if she was interested in sharing any comments on the rampant misgendering at the meeting and if it concerned her at all while the meeting was happening; she did not reply to my e-mail nor has she commented on the meeting at all, that I’ve seen. She appears to have close ties with the now-chair of the DFL Feminist Caucus, Alicia Gibson, who has been campaigning for her and ironically posted photos of her back in June posing with two people in trans flag t-shirts at the Pride Parade. (Alicia, unlike Lydia, did comment after that meeting: she sent out a wildly bad-faith e-mail.) “Supportive of trans people in the context of photo ops” is not a particularly useful sort of allyship, IMO. I mean, it’s better than Amy Klobuchar but the bar is in hell.

She also has some genuinely odd ideas like building a data center in Ward 10. She showed up at the vigil for the Hortmans with staffers in campaign t-shirts (the family had explicitly requested no campaigning, a request that was honored by other candidates who came.) And she referred to the old police chief Arradondo as a racist and a bigot — Carin Mrotz, the person who had this conversation with her, thought she probably was thinking of former police union boss Bob Kroll, but tried to clarify and Lydia reiterated she meant Arradondo. (She probably honestly DID mean Kroll, but it’s a weird mistake.)

In Lydia’s favor: she is Board Chair of the Partnership In Property Commercial Land Trust and she has a lot more detailed knowledge around housing than a lot of people running. I disagree with a bunch of the stances she gave on her Neighbors for More Neighbors questionnaire but unlike most of the Thrive/Love/All of Mpls candidates, she had detailed analytical explanations for her stances. (For example, her opposition to Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Laws: “Converting rental properties to community or resident ownership in Minneapolis is complex. The process can take over a year, and many renters don’t qualify for financing. Rising taxes and underfunded HOAs leave residents unprepared for major repairs. The Sky Without Limits co-op, supported by short-term city and LISC funding, still hasn’t secured ownership after seven years. PPL also dissolved resident-owned co-ops due to building deterioration. Before expanding efforts like TOPA, the city must address the financial and structural issues that have undermined past attempts.” That is actually a bunch of valid points and a much better response than “I believe that property owners should be able to sell their property to whom they choose to sell it to,” which is what Pearll in Ward 5 said.)

ETA: Asked about transit modes at a forum, Lydia characterized investment in infrastructure for bikers, walkers, and transit users as “penalizing people who drive.”

Most years, I would hold off on posting this, because there’s a LWV forum scheduled on October 7th. But I have travel planned in October and really want to get these done before I go. If I have time, I will watch & edit later. I am hoping that the candidates get asked some questions about biking infrastructure and bus lanes, because Lydia has a “climate resilience” section that briefly mentions transit, doesn’t mention bikes, and mostly talks about trees. (I love trees, to be clear, but I’m pretty sure so does Aisha, and I would like to hear more about Lydia’s stance on bus lanes, given the controversy over Hennepin Ave.

Anyway — overall I think she’s far more qualified and makes a much better case for her positions than the centrist who ran last time but has the same circle of friends and I distrust anyone who would hire Nico Woods.

Aisha Chughtai

I like Aisha Chughtai. I deeply appreciated the fact that she showed up at the Lake/Bloomington raid. She’s been solid on transit and affordable housing; in her accomplishments list on public safety she mentions hiring additional investigators for MPD and expanding the behavioral crisis response team.

Looking on social media for commentary about her I ran into massive amounts of pearl clutching over her saying “fuck Jacob Frey” a few months back (the full quote: “We’re gonna transform this city because fuck Jacob Frey, fuck fascism, and fuck Donald Trump!”) I really don’t fucking care about this. (I strongly doubt that most of the pearl-clutchers actually give a shit about it, either.)

Anyway: I would vote for Aisha Chughtai. FYI, the October 7th forum should be livestreamed here (and if that link doesn’t work, try the LWV Candidate Forums page.)

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!)

I set up a fundraiser with a specific goal mainly because seeing the money raised helps motivate me. (Having external motivation helps! This is a lot of work.)

Election 2025: Saint Paul, City Question 1 and School District Question 1

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Saint Paul has a lot less on the ballot this year than Minneapolis, because no one here cares if the mayoral and city council races aren’t in sync, so they just aren’t. We have a mayoral race that I’m planning to write about at some point, and two ballot questions. Even if you don’t care about the mayoral race, you should definitely go vote on the ballot questions if you live in St. Paul! tl;dr: vote yes on both.

School District Question 1

Here’s the question that appears on the ballot:

Approval of New School District Referendum Revenue Authorization

The board of Independent School District No. 625 (Saint Paul), Minnesota has proposed to increase the School District’s general education revenue by $1,073 per pupil, subject to an annual increase at the rate of inflation. The proposed new referendum revenue authorization would be first levied in 2025 for taxes payable in 2026 and applicable for ten (10) years unless otherwise revoked or reduced as provided by law.

This is a school funding referendum, and to be clear, it is on top of an existing school funding referendum (the current one expires in 2029, so I am sort of guessing there will be another school funding referendum to replace that one in 2028.) Here’s the post I wrote about that one, in 2018.

Here’s the site for the Vote Yes campaign. You can see how much it will cost you, specifically, on this site but since it looks things up by parcel number rather than address (wtf guys) you’ll have to go here to get your parcel number. (The Vote Yes site says that a house valued at $289,200 would pay about $26 per month/$309 per year; I’m not sure if they picked $289,200 because that’s the actual median home value or if they went based on vibes.)

The explanation for why they need more money basically goes back to, “Republican governor Tim Pawlenty fucked everything up back in 2003, and state funding ran way behind inflation for years, and while the DFL trifecta helped, it did not fill in the giant hole the Republicans created in school budgets.”

I always vote yes on school funding questions, because I want the schools in my city to have adequate (ideally abundant, but AT LEAST adequate!) resources, and I will vote yes on this one. Also, let’s keep electing Democrats statewide and ask them to increase state funding (done through income taxes) so we don’t have to do quite so much through property taxes.

City Question 1

This one’s more complicated to explain. (I feel like most people know what a school board funding referendum is for.) This is an amendment to the city charter (the “constitution” of the city) that would allow St. Paul to issue administrative citations for code violations, which is to say, it would let the city make people pay fines. Part of what’s confusing is that so many people assume that the city can already do this, because (a) we do get fined for parking violations (because the state gave the police department authority to do that) and (b) every other large city in the state of Minnesota already has administrative citations and it’s actually incredibly weird that we don’t. Minneapolis has them, Duluth, Bloomington, Apple Valley. In St. Paul, currently, here are the options the city has if you violate the city code: (1) They can send you a sternly worded letter. (2) They can charge you criminally, and the city page about the proposed charter amendment talks about how this has affected people. (3) There are a couple of things where they can do an end-run that feels to people like a fine even though it isn’t — if you don’t shovel your walk, they will send city workers to shovel your walk and then bill you for their time, which many people read as a fine even though technically it isn’t.

The City Council passed administrative citations last year (unanimously — which is required, for a charter amendment) but instead of being implemented it was put on the ballot by a couple of local perennial cranks who did a petition drive and also wrote an infuriating and inaccuracy-riddled letter to the editor to the Highland Villager newspaper. Among their claims: “the ordinance will give the city unbridled authority to impose monetary penalties” — the city’s authority is inherently bridled by the fact that things have to be passed by the City Council. “The legal end-around of the democratic process is a unanimous City Council vote” — that’s not an end-run around the democratic process, that is a democratic process, we elected the City Council. “Supporters argue that each proposed civil penalty will have three readings and a public hearing. But they fail to disclose that only four City Council votes are needed to pass any civil penalty ordinance” — no one is failing to disclose that it will require a majority of the City Council to pass city ordinances because most of us understand that this is the normal way you pass city ordinances. (Patty Hartmann is a climate-change-denying vaccine-denying Republican who ran for City Council a couple of times, and Peter Butler’s hobby is petition drives followed by lawsuits against the city when he doesn’t get enough signatures.)

I am STRONGLY IN FAVOR OF THIS AMENDMENT. I am in favor for all the reasons discussed on the Vote Yes website (created by Vote Yes for a Fairer St. Paul, which appears to be run by the SEIU labor union in the sense that they share an address.) Like SEIU, I am in favor because we need every tool available to handle wage theft. (The St. Paul city site describes a case where it took four years to get group of health aides compensated for sick time they were denied in 2020; currently, the only thing the city can demand is the back wages, so there’s no downside to the employer of dragging things out. If the city can also impose fines, they can create an incentive to the crooked employer to pay what they owe promptly.) Like HomeLine, I am in favor because we need every tool available to handle unsafe rental properties that are not being repaired by the landlords. But most of all, I want administrative citations to be an option to fine the everliving crap out of motherfucking CVS for sitting on an empty building for so long that it appears as a boarded-over building on Google Maps:

The Google Maps Street View of the boarded-up CVS at the corner of Snelling and University.

Not to mention the asshole investors who bought up half of Grand Avenue in order to let storefronts sit empty for literal years.

(This is not magic, there are blighted buildings in Minneapolis as well, but it is at least a tool that gets added to the available options.)

(I also am in favor of criminal charges for employers who commit wage theft, but realistically, that’s going to be treated as a last resort. We know that “certainty of punishment” is a much better deterrent than “severity of punishment,” and “if I short my employees their wages I’ll wind up having to pay twice as much in the end” is much more likely to discourage wage theft than “there is about a 1% chance that I will go to jail.”)

Will this be used against citizens who annoy their neighbors? I’m not saying it will never, ever happen but it’s clearly not the goal here, this is not a major problem in other Minnesota cities, and as the Fairer St. Paul website points out, we are a city that completely abolished library overdue fines a few years ago and cut fines and fees for a huge number of things during the pandemic. Back when I lived in Minneapolis I got an order to fix something minor (a short stretch of rotted fascia on the side of my garage) and I was annoyed about it but also, I just went ahead and fixed it and did not get fined. Also St. Paul will also order you to fix stuff like this (okay, maybe not a foot of rotted fascia, my friend who fixed it for me said “did you piss off one of your neighbors?” when he looked at it) and most people have assumed for years that they can fine you if you don’t do it so I don’t think it will actually change all that much for most people! (Also, this won’t affect parking violations — we can already get fined for those — and I’m pretty sure that those are far and away the thing people get fined for most often, statewide.)

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!)

I set up a fundraiser with a specific goal mainly because seeing the money raised helps motivate me. (Having external motivation helps! This is a lot of work.)

Election 2025: Minneapolis City Council, Ward 9

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Look, it’s a rematch and last time Jason Chavez absolutely crushed Dan Orban so honestly I’m not going to spend a lot of time on this one. Here’s who’s on the ballot:

Jason Chavez (Incumbent, DFL-endorsed)
Dan Orban (Independent)

Dan Orban (Independent)

When I wrote about Dan Orban two years ago, he had no social media and seemed pretty clueless about policy. He’s since gotten social media (Facebook, Bluesky, Twitter) but I still see no indication that he’s served on any city or county advisory committees or worked in policy or done any of the other stuff that is the sort of experience I generally look for when someone is running for an entry-level political office. He says he’s qualified because he lives in the neighborhood, teaches at the U, and has a PhD in Computer Science. And, I mean. That does in fact put him one up over, for example, Becka Thompson in Ward 12.

I’m not sure what happened with the hobby farm he mentioned in 2023 (they had bought “a 20 acre off-grid Amish hobby farm” in Lanesboro). He doesn’t mention it on his website now.

I feel like this editorial that he wrote for Carol Becker’s “Minneapolis Times” website illustrates a bunch of what I dislike about him. It’s titled “Seek the Peace of the City” and it’s about the Bloomington/Lake raid. He starts out saying that he agrees we should protect immigrants and that he supports the separation ordinance. Then he goes on to take some passive-aggressive swipes at Jason Chavez, who was one of the City Council members to go to Lake and Bloomington in person: “Leaders should be accurate and deescalate dangerous situations. Based on the information that was released by the city, the federal law enforcement event on Lake St. and Bloomington was a criminal operation regarding drugs, money laundering, and human trafficking. […] Unfortunately, this message was not initially communicated. Instead the situation escalated under the false assumption that the event was an immigration raid, requiring additional law enforcement presence to help control the growing crowd. Even if this was an immigration raid, a leader’s role should be directed towards peace and deescalation. Stirring up emotional responses can lead to dangerous activity as we saw on Tuesday. Leaders should also take responsibility for the consequences of their words and actions.” He uses the passive voice when he’s talking about how “the message was not initially communicated” — it was not communicated by the FBI or by Mayor Frey’s office. In the portions of the raid conducted in the suburbs, they sent in a bunch of FBI agents in windbreakers to seize the financial records, and had they done that in Minneapolis, there would not have been a massive, furious, risky protest in response. This was a deliberate provocation, something Dan does not acknowledge, nor does he acknowledge that ICE has backed off in some areas when they’ve met a lot of pushback. This is not a normal time! Trump’s government is not a normal government that can be dealt with in a normal way! Orban’s refusal to acknowledge this is not reassuring at all.

He goes on to say, “If we have learned anything over the past 5 years, it is that we should maintain the highest moral and ethical standards for police officers. Even the appearance of excessive use of force ruins the witness of the Minneapolis Police Department’s efforts.” But in his questionnaire response for We Love Mpls, in response to the question, “With regard to public safety do you feel like the city’s more pressing issue currently is police accountability or staffing levels?” he responded with “staffing levels.”

I find the mix of platitudes and handwringing incredibly offputting. Especially in the current political situation. If you want more people who will wring their hands over incivility any time Democrats do anything other than say “please Mr. President sir, would you be so kind as to respect our constitutional rights sir,” Dan Orban’s your guy.

Jason Chavez (Incumbent, DFL-endorsed)

I like that Jason Chavez showed up at Lake and Bloomington during that raid (I am strongly of the opinion that having elected officials at events like this makes them significantly less likely to become violent, and curtails unnecessary violence used by law enforcement, at least some of the time) and I appreciated that he demanded an after-action report. I like most of what he’s done on the City Council. I would vote for Jason Chavez.

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!)

I set up a fundraiser with a specific goal mainly because seeing the money raised helps motivate me. (Having external motivation helps! This is a lot of work.)

Election 2025: Minneapolis City Council, Ward 8

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Two years ago, Soren Stevenson lost to incumbent Andrea Jenkins by 38 votes. This year Andrea Jenkins did not run for re-election; it’s an open seat. On the ballot:

Soren Stevenson (DFL-endorsed)
Josh Bassais (DFL)
Philip Galberth (Independent)
Bob Sullentrop (Republican)

Bob Sullentrop (Republican)

Bob is a local Republican who has run for a bunch of stuff, including Park Board (2017), Ward 8 City Council (2021), Ward 8 City Council again (2023), and Minnesota House 62B (2024). In 2024 I e-mailed all the people running as Republicans to ask who they thought won the 2020 Presidential Election and Bob was among the large majority who simply did not respond to my e-mail. In 2023 his campaign site talked about his hatred of bike lanes; this year he mostly talks about how much he hates the DSA. (“It is Bob’s belief that Democratic Socialists are extremely radical Democrats and at least some of them are indistinguishable from communists.”) I would not rank Bob.

Philip Galberth (Independent)

Philip appears to have no information online at all (no website, no social media) other than possibly a LinkedIn. Seriously, why do people do this. It costs $250 to file! With that money, you could go buy 50 chocolate croissants from Street Wheat, eat five, and hand out the other 45 to everyone else waiting in line and it would almost certainly bring you more joy than being on a ballot for a job you don’t actually seem to want enough to even bother setting up a website.

I sent him an e-mail asking if he had a website or any information he wanted to share about himself. He said he graduated from Washburn and owns a home. “The other candidates have released visions on how they want to reshape the city in their image. I prefer to have the voters tell me how they want their city to work. The city council should work for them and not tell them how the city should function. ‘Represent not rule,’ as they say.”

He went on to say that the questionnaires asked him questions about public safety, climate, and affordable housing, which are not concerns expressed by the people he’s talked to, who ask about plowing, street lights, pot holes, plastic bollards, the cost of trash disposal if HERC is shut down, and park maintenance. He finished with “As your potential representative on the council, what could I do for you?” If anyone in Ward 8 wants to e-mail him their policy questions, his address is listed on his campaign filing. FYI, his e-mail to me arrived looking like it had been redacted by the FBI or something, I don’t know what he did with his formatting but in order to read it I had to copy & paste without formatting, basically. You may need to do the same. (I do not recommend ranking him.)

Josh Bassais (DFL)

Josh Bassais is a good illustration of why I pay so much more attention to endorsements and questionnaires than what you say on your website. His website is mostly pretty inoffensive other than being difficult to read (light-blue-text on white background), he emphasizes public safety that doesn’t center police and so on. However, he’s endorsed by All of Mpls/We Love Mpls/Thrive Mpls (centrist groups heavily funded by suburban landlords, and you can get more details in my Ward 2 post) and the more I dug the more weird nastiness and hypocrisy I found:

  • He’s endorsed by all my least favorite City Council reps, my least favorite former mayor (Sharon Sayles-Belton), an organization of realtors, and NOT the union he apparently used to work for (LiUNA, which endorsed Soren.)
  • His campaign manager is Julius Hernandez, who previously managed campaigns for Republican-pretending-to-be-a-Democrat Victor Martinez and has worked for actual straight up Republicans.
  • He got called out at the the DFL convention for trying to talk up his support for renter protections despite saying on his We Heart Mpls questionnaire that he did not support any additional protections for renters. (Listening to that answer he’s pretty carefully dancing around the idea of additional protections — he talks about enforcing existing protections and how he would support a “tenant’s union” — while trying to use rhetoric to sound more left-wing than he is, like talking about “standing in solidarity” and “pounding the table.” Trying to use left-wing rhetoric to describe centrist positions strikes me as a bad sign, like you’re both a centrist and you’re trying to hide it from people because you know the people you’re trying to convince to vote for you won’t like your actual positions.)
  • Asked “bike lanes: love ’em or leave ’em” in the short-answers section of a forum he responded, “In July and August I love them, but otherwise … it depends.” I want to call out two things about that response. First, the idea that July and August are the best months for biking is just weird; I think of June and September as our perfect biking months, sunny and pleasant and not excessively hot. The second thing, though, is that this is a response that appears to centers his take on bike lanes on his personal experiences with biking. I don’t bike much but I want there to be safe, well-maintained, pleasant bike lanes and biking infrastructure throughout the metro because many other people bike. Some of them year round, in fact. I love bike lanes because they keep other people safe, and that’s a good enough reason to love bike lanes. Year round!
  • His website talks a lot about affordable housing, but has nothing on there about homelessness. On his We Heart Mpls questionnaire he says his solution to encampments is to “Address the root cause, drug addiction and mental health,” with zero details on how exactly he wants to address drug addiction and mental health. He did not respond to the Neighbors for More Neighbors questionnaire (Soren did.) My expectation, if he were elected, is that he would continue the Frey policy of periodically clearing encampments in an attempt to harass unhoused people into moving them out of sight, while making noise about root causes and doing absolutely nothing to make addiction treatment and mental health treatment more available to those who need and want them.
  • His website puts accountability up front when talking about policing. His responses to the We Heart Mpls questionnaire tell a different story; that questionnaire asks directly whether you feel that the city’s more pressing issue currently is staffing levels or police accountability, and he responses that it was staffing levels. (Hey, fun fact: the police officer who shot Soren Stevenson in the face with a rubber bullet at close range while Soren was peacefully protesting was not disciplined in any way and still works for MPD.)

Anyway — I think Josh Bassais is an empty suit who’s pals with a bunch of people I deeply dislike, and I think he would be a rubber stamp for Frey. I would not rank him.

Soren Stevenson (DFL-endorsed)

I liked Soren Stevenson two years ago and was planning to doorknock for him; I wound up not going out that day because my husband came down with COVID and I didn’t want to risk exposing other people. Anyway, I’m sorry, clearly if I had gone out I’d have found you 38 more votes.

Soren Stevenson had an eye shot out by the Minneapolis Police during a protest after Derek Chauvin murdered George Floyd; on police accountability specifically, I trust him a lot. He’s worked as a lobbyist for the Minnesota Justice Coalition and doing street outreach for Agate Housing and Services. One thing that struck me was that his ideas on homelessness include dedicated shelter beds for trans and gender-nonconforming people; I wonder if his awareness around this specific issue is partly from working with people for whom shelters are just not safe.

Soren is someone who has walked the walk in a whole lot of extremely tangible ways and honestly, working in street outreach is a hell of a background for someone who wants to do useful policy work on homelessness. (I have a friend who did street outreach and then lobbying — he’s now retired — and he was, for decades, someone with a long list of useful and practical ideas for addressing unsheltered homelessness.)

I would absolutely vote for Soren, and I am really excited to see him on the Minneapolis City Council.

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!)

I set up a fundraiser with a specific goal mainly because seeing the money raised helps motivate me. (Having external motivation helps! This is a lot of work.)