I wrote about this race in the primary. On the ballot now:

Marion Greene (Incumbent, DFL-endorsed)
Abdihakim Arabow Ibrahim

I took a closer look at Abdihakim once the race had narrowed. He’s an engineer and a member of the St. Louis Park school board. A detail about him I find kind of interesting is that he’s endorsed by State Senator Ron Latz (SD 46) and joined him in condemning the planned event with Hasan Piker that Ilhan Omar and Minnesota Senator Omar Fateh have organized for next week. This is not usually where I’d expect a Somali-American politician to stand.

If you look at both websites they’re largely in favor of the same stuff, but looking at Abdihakim’s Facebook, his complaints about Marion are a lot more clear. I’m going to go through the points where they diverge, or where Abdihakim attacks Marion.

• Marion Greene (and the whole board) last year voted for a 49% raise for themselves; then withdrew that proposal and passed a 5% raise, instead. Abdihakim has made a big deal out of this, demanding that Marion apologize. The old salary was $122,225 a year and had been frozen at that level since 2016; adjusted for inflation to 2025 levels the salary would have been $167,564.37, which to be fair is lower than the proposed $182,141 but if your salary were a political football that got debated in public and you hadn’t had a raise in a decade, you’d probably try to get ahead of inflation, too. I hate this debate, honestly. This is a job. I want politicians to be able to afford the same stuff as mid-level corporate managers and I don’t want them to have to come from family money. Frankly, I think it’s a problem that state legislators and city school board reps earn as little as they do. I think this is a bogus issue.
  
• Marion Greene pushed back on the Hennepin County Sheriff’s office going $11 million over budget and questioned why they were doing the work of city police departments. This got seized upon by Sheriff Dawanna Witt as an opportunity to act persecuted. I don’t like Dawanna Witt (though her opponent wouldn’t be an improvement) and think it’s 100% part of the job of Hennepin County Commissioners to push back on departments, especially law enforcement departments, blowing through their budgets. Abdihakim has attacked her over this — although he also doesn’t want to write the Sheriff’s office a blank check. His website says he will “support the critical role of law enforcement, such as the Hennepin County Sheriff, in protecting our communities — while expecting agencies to stay within their allocated budgets.”
  
• Abdihakim thinks that as a long-time incumbent, Marion Greene should have gotten HERC closed by now. He has promised to “set a date for closing HERC permanently, along with a day-after plan for the economic and environmental impacts — no more delays or throat-clearing” within 100 days of taking office. Marion’s website says she supports “ethical closure of HERC,” by which I think she means, she’s in favor of closing it once the county can figure out something else to do with the trash, because hauling it out to a landfill is not in fact a net gain, environmentally speaking. If Abdihakim has said what he would do with the garbage, I wasn’t able to find it.

ETA 10/22: WedgeLive dropped an interview with Abdihakim, which you can watch here. (He also interviewed Marion a few months ago and you can watch that here.) I also heard from a friend who who said Marion’s constituent services have been terrible, which is a significant strike against her.

ETA 11/1: One of the things John asked Abdihakim about in the WedgeLive interview that I didn’t end up talking about here because the whole thing is honestly so confusing: back in 2023, a small group of Somali parents in St. Louis Park threatened to sue the district if they weren’t given the option of removing their kids from lessons with any reference to LGBTQ+ people. Under state law they have the right to do this, and in 2024 the SLP school board agreed to this group’s demands while also passing a resolution calling on the legislature to specify that representation of protected classes (including race, religion, gender identity, and sexual orientation) could not be used as a basis for demanding that kids be exempted from lessons. Abdihakim wasn’t present at that meeting.

After the meeting, in a newsletter sent to district families, he said the following: “As a parent and a school board member, I fully support our district’s commitment to equity and inclusion. Parents across our community want the same thing: a great education that gives students the critical thinking skills necessary to succeed in our diverse world. We will follow the law and allow parents to opt their children out of instructional materials for any reason, to provide families an opportunity to review the content of instructional materials and pursue alternative instruction. I view this resolution as an opportunity for our school district to build bridges with families, particularly on deeply personal matters. Through stronger relationships and trust, we can pave the way for more extraordinary academic achievement and long-term success for all our students. I strongly believe that St. Louis Park Public Schools is a place where each student is seen and valued and becomes their best selves as racially conscious, globally minded contributors to society.”

Sahan Journal sought further comment and reported: “In a Saturday morning phone call, however, Abdihakim clarified that he did not support the resolution and would have voted against it. ‘People opt out for so many reasons,’ he said. ‘So why is it different when the Muslim and Somali community are opting out?'”

WedgeLive then followed up on this (that link should go directly to this part of the conversation.) Abdihakim denied being against the LGBTQ community, said that SLP had passed a gender inclusion policy while he was on the board and he’d helped to hire the first LGBTQ school board member. He added, “I think they misquoted. I support that resolution.”

I got an e-mail from someone who was a parent in the district during this controversy and doesn’t trust Abdihakim to protect LGBTQ Minnesotans, if elected to the County Board. I’m honestly not sure what to think of this. The statement from the newsletter is ambiguous in a way that feels like he was trying to play to both sides of the issue, his quote to Sahan is bluntly appalling, and then in his conversation with WedgeLive he tried to walk it all the way back.

Anyway. If I lived in the district, I would vote for Marion. If you’re still trying to make up your mind, I will note that there is a planned debate sponsored by the Theater of Public Policy happening on October 26th.

This seems like a good year to fundraise for a trans nonprofit, so I’m fundraising this year for TIGERRS. I don’t have a Patreon, and a fundraiser lets me see in a tangible way that people value my work, which is really helpful as a motivator. (This project is a lot of work.) I raised $7,230 during primary season so I’ve raised the goal.

I also have a new book out! Obstetrix is about an obstetrician who gets kidnapped by a cult because they want someone on hand to deliver their babies; it’s a story about enduring, surviving, and not giving up. You can buy it anywhere fine books are sold, and I’ve been doing my best to keep Uncle Hugo’s, Moon Palace, and Dreamhaven Books in signed copies.