UPDATE: Watch – Pressing for clarity on Hennepin County commissioner’s controversial comments
If you thought the Minneapolis City Council had a monopoly on political grandstanding and ignoring their own job descriptions, I have some bad news for you. It turns out that the same brand of performative ideology has taken root just across the street at the Hennepin County Government Center.
During a recent budget discussion, Hennepin County Commissioner Marion Greene dropped a bombshell that should make every taxpayer in this county sit up and take notice. While discussing the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office (HCSO), Greene didn’t just suggest a budget trim or a shift in priorities. She went much further.
“I’m not willing to fund the sheriff to provide public safety for Hennepin County,” Greene said. She followed that up with an even more baffling assertion: “I don’t think that can be something that office can take on and do well.”
Let’s let that sink in for a moment. The person tasked with overseeing a multi-billion dollar county budget—the person responsible for the safety of 1.2 million residents—explicitly stated she is “not willing” to fund the very department mandated by state law to keep the peace.
It’s one thing to debate how public safety should look. It’s another thing entirely to look at the primary law enforcement agency in the county and say, “I’m done with you.”
The “Jails and Jet Skis” Fantasy
To justify this stance, Greene attempted to redefine the Sheriff’s job on the fly. In her view, the Sheriff’s Office exists for a few narrow tasks: running the jail, moving prisoners to court, patrolling a few small towns in Western Hennepin that can’t afford their own cops, and making sure people follow the rules on Lake Minnetonka.
It was a “jails and jet skis” version of law enforcement that completely ignores the legal reality.
Thankfully, Commissioner Heather Edelson was in the room to provide a much-needed reality check. Edelson interjected by literally reading the state statute to Greene. The law is pretty clear: “The sheriff shall keep and preserve the peace.”
Edelson pointed out the obvious: “That’s public safety.” She reminded the room that the Sheriff is also responsible for pursuing and apprehending felons and executing court orders. These aren’t “optional extras” that a commissioner can opt-out of because they don’t fit a particular political narrative. They are the core of the job.
But Greene wasn’t interested in the statute. She retorted with a bizarre non-sequitur, comparing the Sheriff’s Office to a tour she took of the U.S. border. She scoffed at the idea that the border could ever be secured, no matter the funding, and then tried to apply that cynical logic to Hennepin County.
It was a classic “Council-style” move: taking a complex national political talking point and using it as a shield to avoid doing the actual work of local government.
A Vote of No Confidence from the Front Lines
If you want to know how out-of-touch Greene’s comments were, you don’t have to take my word for it. Just look at the reaction from the people who actually wear the badge.
A coalition of over 30 police chiefs and mayors from across Hennepin County—from Bloomington to Maple Grove—signed a scathing letter rebuking Greene’s comments. These aren’t “partisan activists.” These are the men and women who lead the municipal departments that rely on the Sheriff’s Office every single day for specialized services like the crime lab, the dispatch center, and violent offender task forces.
The letter was blunt: Greene’s comments were “not based in reality.” The chiefs and mayors pointed out that when a suburban department is overwhelmed or a crisis breaks out that crosses city lines, the Sheriff is the one who provides the backbone of the response.
When Greene says she isn’t “willing” to fund the Sheriff for public safety, she isn’t just sticking it to the Sheriff. She is sticking it to the mayors and the local police departments in every corner of this county. She is essentially telling them, “You’re on your own.”
The “I’m Not Willing” Problem
The most chilling part of Greene’s statement isn’t the misunderstanding of the law—it’s the phrase “I’m not willing.”
Budgeting is always about choices. There is never enough money for everything. But “I’m not willing” doesn’t sound like a fiscal constraint. It sounds like a personal refusal. It sounds like an official who has decided that her personal ideology is more important than her statutory duty.
Hennepin County taxpayers pay a significant premium for the Sheriff’s Office. We don’t pay it just so the jail can run smoothly or so someone can check for life jackets on the river. We pay it because the Sheriff is the “Safety Net” for the entire county.
The HCSO Mission Statement says they are there to “ensure justice and safety for all.” Their mandate is to “keep and preserve the peace.” These are not suggestions. They are the fundamental contract between the county government and the people who live here.
When a Commissioner says they are “not willing” to fund the peace, they are essentially walking away from that contract.
A Pattern of Disconnect
Like the Minneapolis City Council’s obsession with Cuba and European banks, Greene’s comments represent a growing and dangerous disconnect in our local leadership. There is a trend among some elected officials to view their offices as platforms for social engineering rather than centers for essential service delivery.
They seem to find the actual work of public safety—which involves things like “pursuing and apprehending felons”—to be distasteful or “not something that office can do well.”
But here is the hard truth: if the Sheriff’s Office isn’t funded to provide public safety, who is? Does Greene honestly believe that 1.2 million people are safer if the county’s primary law enforcement agency is sidelined and demoralized? Does she think that “preserving the peace” is a task that will just take care of itself if we ignore it?
Time to Focus on the Job
Hennepin County is facing real challenges. Crime remains a top-tier concern for residents. The courts are backed up. The jail is a high-stress environment. These are the “potholes” of county government. They are messy, they are difficult, and they require a leader who is “willing” to roll up their sleeves and fund the solutions.
Commissioner Greene’s comparison to the U.S. border was telling. It showed someone who is looking for excuses to fail rather than reasons to succeed.
We don’t need commissioners who scoff at the idea of safety. We need leaders who understand that “keeping the peace” is the baseline—the absolute bare minimum—of what we expect from our government.
It’s time for Commissioner Greene to put away the national talking points and pick up the state statute. If she isn’t “willing” to fund the core mission of the office she oversees, then we have to ask: why is she there in the first place?
Minneapolis and Hennepin County can’t afford any more leaders who find their own job descriptions to be a mere suggestion. We need leaders who are obsessed with the job they actually have, not the one they wish they had on the national stage.
https://kstp.com/kstp-news/top-news/sheriff-witt-pushes-fault-on-15m-budget-overage/
Excerpt….
“I do take my fiduciary responsibilities seriously, but it is also my job to advocate for what we need, for public safety, [as the] chief law enforcement executive of the county, that is my job, and it is becoming more apparent to me that some people don’t know what that means,” Witt says.
“Hennepin County was solely responsible for the disastrous routing of the Southwest Light Rail line”
No, Minneapolis City had a lot to do with that, also.
The obvious (and much cheaper) route would have been down Hennepin Ave to Lake St/Hwy 7, west on that to Hwy 100 or 169, then south to the SW suburbs. Much cheaper & faster to build since all on existing roadway, bridges, etc. (unlike the route chosen). But Minneapolis absolutely refused to consider such a route, saying that there was no way the city could consider losing 2 lanes on Hennepin Ave. Yet now the city has done just that, to add more unused bicycle lanes.
Had this been done, we could have had the SW light rail up and running for a year or more, the Uptown area would not be in such a decline, and a massive amount of taxpayer money would have been saved.
I’m basing it off of this 2023 Star Tribune piece by Jim Brimeyer and Sue Sanger that details, point by point, how Hennepin County manipulated the route selection: https://www.startribune.com/counterpoint-wrong-route-was-the-root-of-rail-line-woes/600275100
The County made similar manipulations with the Blue Line Extension routing, and repeated the exact same mistake of attempting to negotiate with BNSF Railroad on use of the freight tracks (just as they did with the SW LRT).
“The recent front-page article about the construction of Southwest light rail transit included finger-pointing among the Metropolitan Council, its construction contractor and the Legislative Auditor’s office, but it totally overlooked the root cause of this issue — how Hennepin County mismanaged the original planning and route selection for SWLRT.
“Hennepin County was responsible for the planning and route selection of SWLRT until Met Council took over in 2013-14, and the county led a highly skewed process to ensure that SWLRT would run through the Kenilworth corridor rather than through Uptown.”
The City of Minneapolis voted for the line 10-3, with Lisa Goodman, Barb Johnson, and Cam Gordon opposed. All three of them were right in their assessment in 2014: https://www.mprnews.org/story/2014/08/29/minneapolis-southwest-light-rail-vote
💯 unused bike lanes and small business ruin is the legacy of the Benderites.
Hear, hear NewNew2323!
The irony of Greene’s position is that if she really wanted to reform how police in Hennepin County behave, and advance her progressive policies, she should press for the disbanding of all the police departments of each city in Hennepin County and having their functions transferred to the HCSO. This would break a major Republican power base.
Contrary to the author’s assertions, the police, especially the FOP union heads, are not only partisan, they are an important part of the Republican Party’s power structure. Ending the PDs ends the FOP locals: even if the officers all get rehired by the HCSO, they wouldn’t have the FOP to protect them whenever they decided to kneel on someone’s neck for fifteen minutes.
If Greene wants to see the precedent, she should look at how crime decreased in Camden, New Jersey, once the city disbanded its police department and transferred its functions to the Camden County Sheriff’s Department. Expenses went down a lot and the CCSD was able to hire more cops than Camden could have afforded under its own PD.
Well, as usual, total defunding a functioning government agency is very unlikely to be a sensible near term strategy. And I watched the youtube of a press conference by the current sheriff during the Surge and she seemed to be performing reasonably well. On the other hand the sheriff’s department enraged a lot of people in the resistance to the surge when they perceived that she was supporting ICE. I do not have sufficient information to form a judgement concerning whether the department walked that line successfully. It might be appropriate for the county commissioners to initiate and investigation to determine whether they did or not.
Further, my personal experience with the sheriff’s department during more than 50 years of residency has not always been positive and has included unconstitutional behavior by the sheriff’s officers. The sheriff’s department and the city police have what appear to be the same responsibilities and they do not work together or consistently all the time. The city police are famously imperfect but they are more subject to democratic accountabilty than the sheriff. If I were in charge I would propose changing the statute to delineate the respective responsibilities of the two departments clearly and to provide for a citizens’ review board to investigate complaints about alleged misbehavior by the sheriff’s department.
Woods Halley
Woods Halley
Miami and Dade County have a governmental unit called Miami Dade. Other than Miami cities do not have police forces. Most developed countries have national police forces. The US has about 30000. My point: ex SP and Minneapolis.,the County Sheriffs should provide policing. How about the Metro Council act like Miami Dade. Greene could make out a case but she does not seem to have what it takes. There are economies of scale—-you need a big enough force to spread the cost of technology and specialized services such as SWAT. What about servicing a no knock warrant—- requires special training. But the yahoos who vote assume local is better. Many police in Minneapolis do not live in Minneapolis.
Marion Greene has increasingly become an extreme left wing ideologue even though the County Commsioner is a non partisan postion. How she continues to get support from the mainstream Democrats is beyond me. Is she worried about the DFL endorsement regarding one of her oponenets who is DSA aligned ? Doing away with the party endorsement conventions for city and county elections(which are currently just one party, the DFL) would make the ciy and county government more functional and less performative, but probably won’t happen in my lifetime.
David Tinjum
If you think about throwing your hat in the ring for a local position, whether it’s city council or Hennepin County , let us know. I’m sure you would get a lot of support from your readers. Seriously!
Thumbs up to that!
I’m coming to the conclusion that if someone wants to serve on a city council or become a board commissioner, then the prerequisite should be serving a term on an HOA board or serving a term as an officer in a group like Lions Clubs or Kiwanis or the Rotary Club. If you can’t be effective in one of these situations then you have no business directing public (taxpayer) funds.
Yes
Having watched Marion Greene over the years, I believe she’s the least stable and most volatile local politician in Minneapolis and needs to be voted out immediately. I’m glad there are 4 other candidates running for her seat, and I hope people vote for anyone but her at the August 13th primary: https://minneapolistimes.com/whos-running-for-hennepin-county-commissioner-in-2026/
Greene frequently doesn’t respond to constituents or attacks them when they disagree with her. Like Katie Cashman and Katie Jones, she and they are transit and housing density diehards and have no coherent platform or vision beyond YIMBYism.
Marion Greene voted to give herself a 49% raise in a committee meeting and then didn’t have the courage to attend the subsequent meeting where other commissioners (notably the proposer Irene Fernando) reversed themselves and apologized for their idiocy.
Hennepin County was solely responsible for the disastrous routing of the Southwest Light Rail line that is now 10 years behind schedule, a billion dollars over budget, and a destroyer of one of the few remaining urban prairies. It will be a failure on day one and people were saying that 15 years ago. And yet Greene is still pushing for the Blue Line Extension, another debacle-in-the-making, and another poor routing decision by Hennepin County.
In the meantime, HCMC is on the verge of collapse. So much for focus an oversight over a multi-billion dollar budget at the County.
And now Greene makes nonsensical comments about the sheriff, and doesn’t have the time to read a few sentences of the statute after 12 years in office? She is an utter embarrassment.