[image_credit]MinnPost file photo by Jessica Lee[/image_credit][image_caption]Minneapolis City Council[/image_caption]
That is what City of Minneapolis staff have had to deal with for decades, and it doesn’t work. I know firsthand, because I worked for the city for 37 years in five different departments before I retired in 2019. Over this period there were five different mayors, six City Council presidents, and 60-plus different council members. Each of these individual elected officials is an honorable person trying to navigate difficult times. The problem is that our century-old system of decentralized authority with no one in charge does not work, especially in times of multiple crises.
The Minneapolis Charter Commission recently studied whether the structure of our city government serves the city’s current needs. This included a review of other cities nationally and within Minnesota, interviews with current and former Minneapolis elected officials, and with city department heads. The conclusion: Minneapolis’ current decentralized structure contributes to widespread dysfunction within city government.
As was evident over the past year, the study found that the lack of a clear executive results in confusion, conflict and chaos. Lines of authority are unclear, and accountability is blurred in a city run by a mayor and 13 council members. Council members sometimes give policy and management directions that conflict with each other and with the mayor, causing department heads and city staff to struggle with whose direction to follow. Minneapolis is the only city of its size in the country that operates on a “14-boss” system. This instability at Minneapolis City Hall blurs governance and management, and has contributed to nine department heads leaving the city over the past two years.
Earlier this year, the Minneapolis Charter Commission unanimously voted to place an amendment on the November 2021 ballot to amend our city charter. The amendment clarifies and defines the roles and responsibilities of the mayor as the executive branch and the City Council as the legislative branch, like our state and federal government systems.
The amendment clarifies the mayor’s role as the city’s chief executive officer, with overall executive and administrative authority. The council maintains its current substantial responsibilities: to set city policy and adopt ordinances; to approve the annual budget and labor contracts (including the contract with the Police Federation); to confirm charter department heads nominated by the mayor; and to appoint more than 700 people to 57 boards and commissions. The amendment actually strengthens the council’s oversight role, by making the office of the city auditor (whose job is to provide financial and performance oversight of city services) a charter department that reports to the council.
[image_caption]Jeff Schneider[/image_caption]
I encourage all Minneapolis residents to learn more about city question one and how it can fix the confusion and chaos in our City Hall.
Jeff Schneider is a long-time Minneapolis resident, retired city employee, and volunteer with Charter for Change, a grassroots, nonpartisan volunteer group that is presenting fact-based information on the amendment.
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Yeah, this side of the street has once set of guidance, the other side of the street another set of guidance, and it changes daily depending on the disposition of the council person or the mayor!
The Charter Commission’s “Report” is anything but. It’s a cherry-picked selection of quotes complaining about the current system and a tiny bit of research into other cities governance models. There was no effort made into actually examining what ramifications removing all Council executive authority would have. The report authors seemingly didn’t interview current Council members who oppose the action and who can provide very tangible reasons for such opposition. This “Report” is just propaganda for the amendment it proposes.
Furthermore, the amendment was put on the ballot by a group of unelected, unaccountable Commissioners (nearly) all appointed by one judge. The same group that deliberately overstepped its intended role as an advisory commission to prevent the police reform amendment from appearing on the ballot last year. It did this by disingenuously leveraging a procedural technicality. The same group then just ‘happened’ to submit this Charter Amendment to the City Clerk before the one they held up last year, ensuring this amendment would appear before it on the ballot.
Also, I’m sure it’s purely coincidence that this ballot amendment directly contradicts the police reform amendment. And, should both pass, it would inevitably delay the fate of police reform by tying it up in extended legal proceedings.
Nonsense.
It isn’t a secret that Minneapolis has a uniquely terrible government structure. And the ballot measure was written by people who understand how government works, which is in sharp contrast to the clueless and dishonest people behind the police defunding measure. That will be a disaster for Minneapolis regardless of what else passes.
The charter amendment to disband the Police Department isn’t reforming anything. It’s doing away with the police in 30 days with no plan to replace them, other than a line that states the new Public Safety Department (which has no management, no budget, no anything) “could” hire Police officers. If you think it’s “reforming” the Police Department rather than literally disbanding it, I suggest you go read the actual amendment. The fact that it’s the white liberals who support disbanding the police and the minority community who suffers the most from the violence opposes it, should tell you something.