There are three candidates on the ballot for Ward 12 City Council.
Nancy Ford (No Political Party or Principle)
Andrew Johnson (DFL)
David Rosenfeld (Socialist Workers Party)
tl;dr vote for Andrew Johnson.
Continue readingGOD DAMMIT I NEED TO GET STARTED ON THIS.
In 2021, both Minneapolis and Saint Paul will hold municipal races.
In Saint Paul, the ballot includes the mayoral race; a school board race (3 full-term seats, 1 partial-term seat vacated by someone moving); and a charter amendment to impose rent control.
In Minneapolis, the ballot includes the mayoral race; the city council seats (all of which will be only 2 years — there will be another city council race in 2023 due to redistricting); Park Board district seats; Park Board At Large seats (3); the Board of Estimate and Taxation; and three charter amendments (one to allow rent control, one to replace the police department with a public safety department, and one to give the mayor more power).
There are 17 candidates for mayor in Minneapolis; there are 8 candidates for mayor in Saint Paul.
AN IMPORTANT NOTE IF YOU WISH TO VOTE BY MAIL: Last year, you were able to request your ballot by filling out an online form. This year you will have to submit a downloadable form — which can still be done online, but you’ll have to download a PDF, fill it in, and e-mail it back, it’s a different and somewhat more complicated process. More here. This isn’t the Secretary of State being difficult: the actual state statute allows for absentee ballot applications to be submitted electronically “for a federal, state, or county election.” If you want “municipal” added to this, talk to your legislator.
In the meantime, I’m going to remind everyone that I had a book released this April, Chaos on CatNet. Signed copies are usually available from Dreamhaven and from the current mail-order-only incarnation of Uncle Hugo’s. Books make great holiday gifts, but should be ordered early this year — supply chain issues are happening all over.
I do not have a Patreon or Ko-Fi, so if you’d like make a donation to encourage my work, I’m going to start by pointing my readers at the school nurse from Olson Middle School, who urgently needs a refrigerator for things like student medications.
Minneapolis is voting on two questions that would amend the city charter. Neither is a question about policing, because the charter commission decided that as an un-elected body they were under no obligation to act in accordance with the wishes of the citizenry and didn’t put any questions about policing on the ballot. I bet that some of the charter commission members read my blog, and so before going onward to talk about the amendments that are on the ballot, I would just like to take this opportunity to say to them: why, hello there, fuck 10 out of the 15 of you.
The questions on the ballot read as follows.
Shall the Minneapolis City Charter be amended to allow ward and park district boundaries to be reestablished in a year ending in 1 and to allow the use of those new boundaries for elections in that same year; to allow ward and park district boundaries to be modified after the legislature has been redistricted to establish City precinct boundaries; to provide that an election for a Council Member office required by Minnesota law in a year ending in 2 or 3 after a redistricting shall be for a single 2-year term; and to clarify that a regular election means a regular general election?
CITY QUESTION 2 (Minneapolis)
Special Municipal Elections
Shall the Minneapolis City Charter be amended to comply with Minnesota election law related to uniform dates for special municipal elections and to provide that a special election be held on a legal election day under Minnesota law that is more than 90 days from a vacancy in the office of Mayor or Council Member?
You can vote yes or no. The two questions are voted on separately (and although they are both about elections, they’re unrelated.)
Another easy one. On the ballot:
Linea Palmisano (DFL, DFL-endorsed, Incumbent)
Bob Reuer (Independent)
Oh, thank GOD, an easy one.
On the ballot:
Andrew Johnson (DFL, DFL-endorsed, Incumbent)
Harrison Bullard (Independent Health Labor)
Will Jaeger (Independent)
This is one of those races where I like multiple candidates, which actually makes it a lot harder to write about. On the ballot:
John Quincy (DFL, incumbent)
Erica Mauter (DFL)
Jeremy Schroeder (DFL)
Well, the good news on this race: despite the presence of four candidates, it’s going to be pretty quick to write up. Shout out to the John Edwards and his “hyperlocal news empire,” WedgeLIVE, which has this race as covered as anyone could ask. (Here’s an article on the origins of WedgeLIVE in 2014. If you like my commentary and you live in Ward 10, you should absolutely start following this guy on Twitter, because he’s super-local, heavily focused on Ward 10, and he has a gift for finding the sort of bizarre moments that make local politics so surreal. That gum story made the international news, apparently — I mean, down in the “weird random shit that happened this week among those wacky Americans” tidbits — and he was the first to report it.)
On the ballot:
Lisa Bender (DFL-endorsed, incumbent)
David Schorn (DFL)
Saralyn Romanishan (DFL)
Bruce Lundeen (Republican)
This is one of those races where my opinion seems to be out of step with the opinion of a lot of people I respect and generally think of as sensible, and I’m honestly not sure if they simply have a different attitude about what constitutes a deal breaker, or if they missed the news story about Alondra Cano doxing a bunch of her constituents, or if there’s some EVEN WORSE story out there about Gary Schiff and Mohamed Farah and I just missed it?
On the ballot:
Alondra Cano (DFL, endorsed, incumbent)
Gary Schiff (DFL)
Mohamed Farah (DFL)
Ronald W. Peterson (Republican)
Ward 8 is currently represented by Elizabeth Glidden, but she decided not to run again. On the ballot:
Andrea Jenkins (DFL, endorsed)
Terry White (Green)
David Holsinger (Libertarian)
April Kane
This is the sort of straightforward race that’s almost as easy to write about as an uncontested seat. Vote for Andrea Jenkins! A long-time policy aide to Glidden, Andrea is sufficiently popular and beloved that despite the open seat, she was unopposed for endorsement.
If you want my full rundown, it’s below the cut.
Lisa Goodman has been on the council as long as Barb Johnson, and is such a staunch ally that their names tend to run together in a whole lot of articles. She represents what the city website refers to as “beautiful, stable, in-demand residential neighborhoods like Kenwood, Lowry Hill, Cedar-Isles-Dean, and Bryn Mawr.” If you’re reading from out of town and thinking, “oh, is that where the rich people live?” that would be a YES. (They are rich Democrats, however.) Lisa also represents part of downtown and the Loring Park neighborhood.
Lisa is kind of a mixed bag. There’s stuff she’s done that I genuinely like and approve of; there’s stuff she’s done that’s unfortunate; there’s stuff that’s just gross, like “WTF WHY” levels of gross. (LIKE THE GUM THING.)
On the ballot:
Lisa Goodman (DFL, Incumbent)
Joe Kovacs (Republican)
Teqen Zea-Aida (DFL)
Janne Flisrand (DFL)
No candidate received DFL endorsement.
Will Tell Stories For Food 