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:
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 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.
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!)
Will Tell Stories For Food 