Fifth ward council race may come all the way down to housing, jobs, and public safety 

Residents of North Minneapolis’s Ward 5 gathered in pews at Latest Salem Baptist Church last Wednesday evening, July 26, for a public safety town hall debate between City Councilmember Jeremiah Ellison and Pastor Victor Martinez. The 2 are set to face off once more in the autumn after Ellison’s victory in 2021, during which Martinez got here in third after three rounds of ranked-choice voting tabulation. 

Wednesday’s town hall focused on public safety. But there have been a spread of topics discussed, including inexpensive housing, employment opportunities, and youth resources. Each Ellison and Martinez share a give attention to these issues based on their campaign web sites, though they diverge on their approach to public safety. 

Ellison together with other members of the Minneapolis City Council put forth a motion to interchange the police department with a department of public safety in 2022. That initiative failed with only 43 percent voter approval. Since then, the City has struggled to keep up and retain officers, as staffing shortages proceed to plague the department. 

Martinez’s campaign website describes Ellison’s support for a department of public safety as taking away resources from MPD. He further criticizes Ellison on his campaign website by claiming that his constituents find it hard to succeed in him, and he blames Ellison’s policies for the closure of Breaking Bread Café, which announced it can close its West Broadway location on August 25. 

The town hall between the 2 candidates for the fifth Ward council seat was subdued and facilitated by Latonya Reeves who read questions written by attendees aloud. Each candidate was given an allotted time to reply and a possibility to reply when crucial. Because the questions were read, each candidates did their best to distinguish themselves from the opposite. 

Considered one of the questions that got here up addressed the City’s approach to rent control. The council has approved a charter amendment up to now that will allow them to manage rent. They sought to draft an ordinance that will fix rental increases at three percent a 12 months, a motion that was struck down when Ellison and two other Muslim councilmembers were out for the Eid holiday. 

Ellison responded to the query regarding his approach to rent control as requiring residential input and a process to seek out out what would best serve Minneapolis, not a one-size-fits-all approach. 

“The reply to that query can be borne out through the general public hearing process, through studying policy, through staff recommendations, through council amendments. The reply to your query is borne out through the method, and we have now not yet passed through that process,” he added. 

Martinez took issue with Ellison and his colleagues’ approach to rent control, calling it too strict and arguing it will drive out landlords, who would then displace their tenants once they sell the home. 

“It’s one thing to say that that is what you would like. And it’s one other thing to see the forces which can be in our city which can be pushing rent control. They desire a strict three percent. They’ve a strict vision of what they need. Now if our council member has a unique vision that’s more flexible, I’d love to listen to that in an article. I would love to see that in a tweet,” said Martinez. 

Martinez went on to say that he can be in favor of some measures that will curtail the difficulty of corporate landlords who reside outside of the community, who increase their tenants rent by lots of of dollars. 

In the course of the town hall, an issue arose about recent development projects being built and why inexpensive housing units didn’t appear to be designed to accommodate families on the North Side, since numerous the units were studios and one-bedrooms. Ellison pushed back on this claim and stated that he has been in a position to secure many of the inexpensive housing development funds for area residents. 

“Within the last two years, we’ve gotten each 80 and 70 percent of all of the perpetually inexpensive homeownership money that the City has to supply here on the North Side,” he said. “I take a giant point of pride in that. As well as, we’re constructing a variety of townhomes—about 17 units in Glenwood, which is quickly gentrifying—all geared towards ownership. 

“I not only want people to have a reasonable place to rent. I need people to have a reasonable place where they will own and construct wealth and pass something on.”

Each candidates addressed the recent closures of corporate businesses in North Minneapolis, including Walgreens and Aldi, and the lack of jobs following these closures. Martinez was skeptical about Ellison’s plans to secure work opportunities for North Minneapolis residents in light of those events. 

“We just lost three, 4 major businesses and we’re talking about having more work. That doesn’t work,” he said. “If big corporations that had deep pockets can’t survive in North Minneapolis, what’s gonna help a mom and pop that has less capital, less influence, less ability to get big money from downtown to survive here?”

Ellison responded to Martinez’s doubts by stating that despite the exodus of those larger businesses, locally owned businesses were thriving in North Minneapolis. He pointed to Sammy’s Avenue Eatery and Renewable Energy Partners as examples of companies continuing to operate on the North Side. 

A notable area of difference between each candidates has been their stance on public safety. Martinez referred to the time Ellison and other council members, who took part in calling for the defunding of MPD, as a solution to contrast his approach to public safety from the incumbent council member. 

“Public safety for me is an ecosystem where the several parts have their role to play. I support all the several public safety systems. But to ensure that the systems to work, they must be supported. You don’t take from one a part of the system to present to the opposite,” Martinez said. 

Ellison responded by stating that his office had already been working on the plans to create an integrated public safety approach well before the murder of George Floyd and the next riots, one which he credits Mayor Jacob Frey for adopting. 

“We had already began creating that in my first 12 months in office in 2018. We didn’t wait for the murder of George Floyd to make investments in trying to begin a behavioral crisis response team. We didn’t wait until the murder of George Floyd to say we’d like an office of violence prevention. But they were small things after we first got them began. After George Floyd those programs were in demand and grew rapidly,” he stated. 

Kaytie Kamphoff, an English teacher at Patrick Henry High School and a 1^st Ward resident, was in attendance on the town hall and shared her interest in knowing where every candidate stands regarding one-time funds for Minneapolis Public Schools. 

“I believe a variety of our community members, especially after we say that our students don’t have an area to be—especially in wards 4 and five—that we must be funding our public schools because they’re for everyone,” she said. “I need to know from all of the candidates in every ward, do you support one-time funding.”

Kamphoff’s most important takeaway from the town hall was that Ellison had a more collaborative approach to governance based on his responses in comparison with Martinez, who she views as seeing himself as the answer for each issue.

Matha Holton Dimick, former judge and county prosecutor, believed each candidates did an important job of expressing their views and that the format of the town hall helped get their points across. She stated that she was against the decision to “defund the police,” but based on the problems in MPD with the hiring and retention of officers, it seems as if that effort worked. 

In light of the recent Department of Justice findings, Dimick believes that there must be a united approach between community members and City officials to resolve the general public issues of safety in the town. 

“We’ve got to have the ability to have a cohesive group have a look at those recommendations and really work together to enhance police relations. It’s not all on the police. It’s not all on the community. I would love to see us work together higher. I actually worry about whether or not that’s gonna occur,” she said.