The Minneapolis City Council shifted to the left politically after the election in November, prompting a more progressive majority and a mix-up in the balance of power on the council.
That included council leadership and committee chairs. Ward 9 Council Member Jason Chavez, a member of last term’s five-member progressive minority, is now the chair of the Public Health and Safety Committee, which is the first stop for any policies related to policing and public safety, public health, workers’ rights and the environment.
Chavez said he hopes to advance policies on homeless encampment response and workers’ rights, while also exercising the committee’s tools for police oversight.
MinnPost sat down with Chavez at his office for an interview, which has been edited for length and clarity:
MinnPost: Can you talk about your role as chair of the Public Health and Safety Committee in deciding what ends up on the agenda and what moves on?
Jason Chavez: As chair you have the tool of agenda setting, so city staff comes and presents the topics that are going to be presented to the Public Health and Safety committee. I also have the opportunity, as chair of the committee, to set work plans so one thing I’ve been working on is a Public Health and Safety work plan. I’ve reached out to every single council member to send me their priorities of what they want to focus on in the next two years, and part of this work plan is making sure that even if I don’t agree with the different council members, that their priorities are being heard because that’s important. My office is then gonna be working closely with them to figure out how we can get their issues across the finish line.
My perspective is that I want to be more collaborative in this position than in years prior, and make sure that that means working with every single council member on how we can support their ward when it comes to public health and safety.
MP: What are some of the priorities brought to you by other council members?
JC: Some have reached out about expanding infrastructure to support workers. People have reached out about how we can do a labor standards board for the City of Minneapolis, and how we can phase out the sub-minimum wage for people with disabilities (people in Minneapolis with certain disabilities can get paid below minimum wage). Figuring out how we can support code enforcement and making sure we work with organizations to address wage theft, and making sure that we address worker exploitation and improve worker conditions.
Others include the development of a municipal responsive strategy to address the local opioid epidemic. That is a really important topic in the public health component of this committee. People have talked about how this council can explore increasing culturally specific services and initiatives for impacted communities, making sure that when it comes to the East African native community or African American community, for example, there are different ways to address addiction. Increasing access to fentanyl testing strips and making sure that if people are using that they’re using things that aren’t going to kill them. Council Member Andrea Jenkins, for example, reached out about helping establish overdose prevention centers and safe injection sites and overall increasing access to treatment and recovery efforts for substance use disorders.
There’s other priorities like improving community safety at light rail stations, addressing unsheltered homelessness, gun violence prevention, police accountability and more violence prevention strategies. Also, the City Council allocated millions of dollars last year for public safety efforts and ensuring that the council is doing its oversight duties. Just because we allocated it doesn’t mean they’re gonna get implemented necessarily, so we want to make sure that they are implemented.
MP: While the mayor has sole authority over the Minneapolis Police Department, how do you see the city council’s role in police oversight?
JC: So we have the Community Commission on Police Oversight (CCPO) and this committee in particular is looking to work with the council on strengthening the CCPO ordinance. We’ve heard from a variety of commissioners and there’s work being led by Council President Elliott Payne that the committee will take action on. We heard from commissioners about their experiences in the CCPO and the problems of the past and figuring out how we can make that ordinance stronger based on the powers that the state Legislature gave us. We still have to explore exactly what those are, but the Legislature gave more authority to citizen bodies for more changes to happen on oversight.
I think that using our oversight tools, which is calling the police department to do presentations on specific topics, can foster transparency in the public where council members can then ask questions. There’s also a 2022 staffing study that the Minneapolis Police Department did, so this committee is going to dive deep into that and figure out how we can support the implementation of the recommendations in that study.
So it’s kind of complicated. We have no authority to direct the Minneapolis Police Department – that is just the mayor and the chief that can do that. But we can get answers from the mayor through things like legislative directives, where they may have to reach out to the police department to get information.
MP: With implementation of both the settlement agreement with the Minnesota Department of Human Rights and the consent decree with the Department of Justice expected to take place during this term, what is your role in that process?
JC: We have a whole different committee that is going to do the council’s oversight on the consent decree, so consent decree stuff won’t be in the Public Health and Safety committee’s jurisdiction.
I think my role as the chair of the Public Health and Safety is oversight, and making sure that with things that are not in the consent decree but are police related, there’s accountability and transparency and oversight of the police department.
MP: Public safety is an issue that always garners passion and input from community members. How do you plan to harness that input to direct the work that council members are doing?
JC: Every council member has a voice in the city of Minneapolis, and they all represent more than 30,000 residents across the city. The work-plan is developed by council members, but I would expect council members to develop those priorities based on what their constituents want to see get done. And that’s why we were intentional of not leaving anybody’s priorities off this work-plan because everyone is welcome.
Now, when it comes to involvement in the community, we’re exploring how we can bring this committee into the community. Not everybody can come to City Hall when it comes to public health and safety committees, but if we go into the community where these issues are happening, I think that we could learn as a committee on ways to address those issues. Also working with community organizations that are doing work in these neighborhoods that have high crime and livability concerns and bringing them to city council to present to the council, figuring out solutions that can work and if members agree, how we can move forward with those issues. That’s the kind of multi-prong approach that I think we can use to address this work.
MP: How much discretion do you have as committee chair? Does council leadership ask that something be added to the agenda or be done in a certain amount of time, or do you have sole discretion?
JC: It’s complicated, because last year there were times when I wanted to bring things to committees and I was told by committee chairs that I had talked to the mayor first, that I had to talk to other people before it would get on the agenda. That’s how people treated me last year. That happened to me, so I don’t know how to answer that question, because I haven’t done that to anybody.
MP: Now that the city council majority has shifted politically, how will that affect what comes up in committee?
JC: The encampment response policy for the city is something that I am really excited about. I think that we need to completely change the direction of hostility, punishment and dehumanization of unhoused residents in Minneapolis and go towards a public health approach with transparency, humanity and respect of not only unhoused residents, but residents in the neighborhoods with encampments.
It isn’t acceptable that I see the news of rubble on the ground. It is unacceptable that in a city like Minneapolis, where we have a ton of resources, we are going through a punishment and regulatory services approach rather than that public health approach that I believe would help reduce homelessness. And also protect neighborhoods that live by encampments, who are rightfully stressed.
MP: Due to that shift, are there policies that you feel are more likely to pass with this new council majority?
JC: It definitely allows us to bring forward policy that is people centered now. I think when it comes to homelessness, I think the public is realizing that the city’s approach is not working, no matter where you are on the political spectrum, because this is not a political issue. People know we have to do something different. So I would say that it’s not even about whoever who’s in the majority when it comes to homelessness. Our approach is not working and we need to fix it. I think the public knows that, no matter if you’re moderate and progressive. It doesn’t matter.
MP: Are there any policy items that are specific to the Minneapolis Police Department that you’re looking at or want to work on in the committee?
JC: Council Member Robin Wonsley is working on an ordinance that would charge external entities fees for the use of city-owned equipment when hiring off-duty police for security. People are using city vehicles and wearing MPD uniforms but they’re not working on behalf of the city, so she is exploring ways to reign in off-duty police usage.
Mohamed Ibrahim
Mohamed Ibrahim is MinnPost’s environment and public safety reporter. He can be reached at mibrahim@minnpost.com.
