Dear Fellow DFLer:

Because I believe it is time for new leadership on the Minneapolis City Council, I write to ask your help in seeking DFL endorsement for the Council seat for Ward 2 currently held by Joan Campbell.

There are huge issues confronting us:

Affordable Housing/Development Practices

There is a need for affordable housing in Minneapolis that is approaching crisis proportions, affecting not only persons who are homeless or low-income, but the middle class, from students seeking low-cost apartments to young families seeking first homes, to seniors struggling to stay in the homes they have lived in for years. When a majority of the homeless persons in the city are employed, but unable to find housing they can afford, something must be done.

The City Council through the practice of demolishing substandard low-cost housing, but failing to replace adequately, and focusing instead on subsidizing downtown development has shortchanged its citizens.

Writing in the March 6, 2001 Star Tribune, business writer Neal St. Anthony said:

* Minneapolis, through its aggressive and controversial development practices, is pushing up public indebtedness to subsidize development of downtown Target stores and entertainment complexes into which tens of millions of dollars are being poured to buy or force out existing owners and prepare the land for development by city-favored developers.

* Because of the huge public debt the projects create, it takes years for such developments to generate taxes for schools, cops and parks while the debt is being repaid by the incremental taxes.

It’s time to put the brakes on tax increment financing and big corporate subsidies and concentrate on developing affordable housing for those who would become or stay residents of our city and neighborhoods

Police Practices

It’s been some years since we struggled to get out from under the New York Times labeling our city as “Murderapolis” and crime appears to be down here, as elsewhere, and for this thanks are due our police force. Yet there are new and widespread concerns, of a different nature, about policing in our city that need to be addressed forthrightly.

There continue to be concerns about the existence of _racial profiling_ by the police. The CODEFOR (Computer Optimized Deployment Focus on Results) Program needs to be reevaluated. According to the Hennepin County African American Men’s Project in 1999 over 50% of African American males between ages 18 and 30 living in Hennepin County were arrested and booked.

In two recent instances the police have fatally shot unarmed persons who were mentally ill. One of the victims was black. As a recent editorial in the Minnesota Daily put it, “the struggle against racial profiling, police brutality and fair treatment to disabled people deserves as much community support as possible.”

Peaceful protests at the recent International Society of Animal Genetics Conference in Minneapolis bore no reasonable resemblance to the protests at the World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle, yet they were met with massive infiltration and repressive police measures all out of proportion to any threat to the public, at a cost of over a million dollars to the taxpayers, because, according to Chief Olson, he didn’t intend to lose his job.

It’s time to intensify police training in nonviolent ways to deal with conflict. If a gunman shooting at the White House can be disabled by a shot in the knee, surely an unarmed person suffering from mental illness or chemical dependency can be dealt with short of being shot to death.

It may also be time to increase the authority of the Minneapolis Civilian Police Review Authority, which is currently appointed by the mayor and city council, is without subpoena power, doesn’t use independent hearing officers, and is without power to discipline officers.

Children

Our children are our future. They can use all of the help that our city, in cooperation with other agencies, can give them.

Our teachers do a valiant job to provide quality education to a diverse and often challenging student population. The superintendent and school board have identified a high correlation between simple attendance at school and academic success. Hennepin County is working hard to assist in securing attendance; the city can do no less. Beyond attendance, students sometimes confront teachers with disruptive, even violent behavior making learning difficult for everyone; the teachers and schools need our full support in dealing with these situations.

Minnesota, and Minneapolis, has a dismal record of delivering health care to children, particularly children of color. The Minnesota Department of Health, partnering with the private health care delivery system, has announced its intention to address this issue. We need to be of whatever help we can in this effort.

The DFL Education Foundation is looking at early childhood development studies that show “the life trajectory of a child is substantially influenced by her experiences before she hits the kindergarten door.” Check out “Why Early Childhood Intervention is a Key Investment for State and Local Policymakers” on the DFL Education Foundation website at http://www.uses.qwest.net/~dfl-ed/index/html. By partnering with other levels of government the City could lead the way in multidisciplinary intergenerational and individualized support services such as family support social services, pediatric care and referral, early childhood education, supplemental meals and snacks, and developmentally appropriate activities.

Environmental Concerns

Our city continues to be plagued with the residue of years of environmental neglect, from unclean brown fields, to toxic waste, to child-threatening lead paint. We have to help deal with these problems, which often outstrip the ability of individuals and neighborhoods to handle. In allowing the Kondirator and the University of Minnesota coal-burning steam plant we desecrate the Mississippi River bank. The city itself may be able to be part of the solution instead of the problem by looking into creative ideas such as “hybrid” electric and gasoline powered vehicles as city cars are replaced.

University of Minnesota

The University of Minnesota is perhaps the biggest “neighborhood” in the Southeast Minneapolis community, with thousands of students living on and near campus and employing many of us who live Southeast; yet it is often an uneasy relationship between the University and the surrounding neighborhoods.

Parking in the nearby neighborhoods seems to be a never-ending and increasing problem. Students continue to complain of being victimized by slumlords and have difficulty finding any livable housing off campus. Longtime residents complain of being disturbed by noisy, party houses. There is a need for mediation between landlords and renters and to remember renters not infrequently grow into homeowners. The University should take more responsibility for its students living off campus. Substandard individual housing units are sometimes literally a blight on the neighborhood and end up being torn down; large new student housing complexes sometimes seem poorly planned and integrated with the surrounding environs, and are too expensive for many students. There is a need for close and continued communication between the University and its neighbors on these issues.

LRT

Light rail transit is coming down Hiawatha; it may or may not be coming between Minneapolis and St. Paul down a Central Corridor. Some see it as providing much of the solution to the University and its neighbors parking problems; others see it as tearing apart neighborhoods like an intervening freeway. At any rate, funding for a central corridor does not appear likely in the immediate future, with Northstar Commuter Line and Riverview Corridor having more immediate priority in the legislature.

Apart from what LRT may do for or to us, the city should work with the Metropolitan Council to strengthen the bus services in our neighborhoods to provide more timely, cleaner, efficient, and safe service.

Snowplowing

A winter like this past winter is made even more difficult when it takes Minneapolis a day longer than St. Paul to get the streets plowed. It would not take a great deal more money to also plow out the driveways, sidewalks and bus stops that the first plowing barricades. More help for the elderly and others in keeping sidewalks cleared and sanded only makes sense. Broken bones in older people can be slow to heal and a serious matter. The streets plainly need to be kept open so that fire engines, ambulances, and school buses, can safely negotiate them. The outrageous costs of towing and storing “snowbirds,” as well as the tickets and inconvenience to city residents make it imperative that changes be made in the plowing regulations in our city. Simply put, if it is necessary to reallocate funds to get the job done, let’s do it. Joan Campbell, the incumbent Democratic Councilperson, was quoted in the Southeast Angle and Seward Profile as reluctant to leave the City Council because she doesn’t want to quit at halftime. I believe it is time for her to turn the ball over to new leadership.

Prepared and paid for by Zerby for Council Campaign Committee, 97 Orlin Avenue SE, Minneapolis MN 55414

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Paul Zerby

97 Orlin Ave SE

Minneapolis, MN 55414

612-379-8095

pgzerby@yahoo.com