Dear Council Member Koski,
Thank you, as the neighboring 11th Ward council member, for your email encouraging me, as a 12th Ward resident, to support Aurin Chowdhury for re-election.
I won’t be able to do this, but let me offer a serious and respectful reply.
For starters, I know and respect Council Member Chowdhury. She is an intelligent person, and sincerely motivated in her public service to make things better. Her office may be the best in the city in constituent services. She is one of the few elected officials, past or present, who, as you point out, has recognized that the City Council and the School Board can’t be stove piped. They must collaborate to assure that middle-class families will live here, shop here, send their children to public schools here. I give her much credit for this in particular.
I don’t doubt the truth of the other points you make about Aurin – clean water, Seniors Fair, all good things.
None of this, however, Ms. Koski, addresses the large issues of our city: Public safety. Strong climate for businesses large and small. Strategies to protect residential property owners from declining commercial property values. Providing housing that low-income people can actually buy and build generational wealth.
Neither you nor Aurin nor any of the DSA-affiliated members have any substantial achievements in these matters that truly are important to Minneapolis residents and voters. This is not surprising, if you consider that the current majority leads from ideology instead of solving real problems.
To have any confidence that our city will effectively address these vital issues, we need to greatly reduce the influence of DSA in city leadership. Not to zero; there are enough people in our city who genuinely believe in the DSA vision for a better future that they deserve a seat at the table. But there are not so many that they should actually govern – a task they have shown they are not able to do, nor have they shown even very much interest in doing.
DSA-affiliated people should have two seats, maybe at most even three seats on the City Council. But voters must deny them the majority they now have.
As one who contributed to both of your campaigns, I was of course dismayed to see you join the DSA majority. Your supporters in 2021 and 2023 expected much better of you. It now appears the 11th Ward will indeed get a Council Member better aligned with the values of the 11th Ward and the city as a whole.
In this, I must frankly give Council Member Chowdhury more credit than is due to you. While I disagree with a lot of her positions and a lot of her votes, she has largely voted as she said she would. You did not do this, and the result has been that you lost the trust of both factions of the City Council. Aurin at least gets credit for integrity.
I am of course supporting Becka Thompson for Ward 12 City Council, and I hope she wins. If she does, she will be a fine City Council member.
But when the electoral dust settles, if the City Council has only a couple of DSA-affiliated members, and if Aurin happens to be one of them – well, the city could do worse.
The top priority in the coming election, though must be to repopulate the City Council with a majority of members who have maturity, experience, and judgment. That’s not you, not Aurin, not Aisha, not Katie, not Jason, not Soren, and for sure not Robin. I tend to think most of them are decent human beings, but they need to find another line of work, other than ineptly trying to govern a $1.9 billion enterprise employing 4,000 people.
David Therkelsen has been a homeowner in Minneapolis for 50 years, and attentive to city and school affairs for all of that time. Professionally, he headed two American Red Cross field units, and at one time was co-chief of staff to the President of American Red Cross in Washington, DC. Later he was executive director of Crisis Connection, a state-wide mental health counseling agency. Dave held faculty appointments at the University of Minnesota School of Journalism and Mass Communication, and recently co-authored a book about the history of transfusion medicine and blood banking.
Great article, David, as is always the case with your writing. Logical, fact-based analysis. Thanks!
Absolutely comical to talk about wanting council members with maturity and good judgment while supporting Becka Thompson. Truly, great joke- I can’t think of how to make a better one.
Flecor: There are constructive comments that shed light into origins of thought, and there are name-callers. The former contributes to intelligent discussion. The latter does nothing. If you’re going to criticize Becka Thompson, how about stating documented, legitimate reasons why–if you are capabl of doing so.
Off the top of my head: Comparing young people who oppose her to Hitler Youth, claiming (twice!) that people only voted for currently sitting CMs because they were brown, and of course, trying to sue independent journalists for criticizing her. All of these actions could be described as immature at best, and flat-out racist or undemocratic at worst. The failed lawsuit in particular does not inspire confidence that she has a firm grasp of how laws work, which I consider a pretty important qualification for city council.
I don’t think Thompson is a bad person, and I think the manner in which she gets ridiculed often crosses the line into bad taste. But if we’re being honest, she also commits weird, unforced errors pretty frequently. If you’re so aligned with her policy proposals that you don’t care about anything else, that’s fair, but then say that. Pretending she hasn’t spoken and behaved thoughtlessly on multiple occasions during this campaign is silly, especially when she relentlessly portrays herself as the mature, strategic “adult in the room.”
To correct a few things.
Thompson never tried to “sue independent journalists”.
Thompson did request the courts issue a subpoena to John Edwards and Taylor Dahlin for information they admitted they had in their possession. I assume you are referring to them as the “journalists” in question. That is not “suing.” That is a subpoena. And it is issued by the courts, not Thompson.
Even if Edwards and Dahlin are journalists, as they claim, the law specifically does not protect the kind of information that they were in possession of. So Thompson was well within her rights and accurate in her understanding of the law to request the subpoena even if Edwards and Dahlin are journalists as they claim.
Thompson also raised questions about whether WedgeLive is an unregistered independent expenditure committee, which I assume is who you are referring to as “journalists.” Although we do have a First Amendment, paid political speech is regulated. If WedgeLive is engaged in paid political speech, then it would not be accurate to call Edwards and Dahlin “journalists.”
Maybe “sue” isn’t precisely the correct verb, but there’s frankly no version of dragging any of these people into a legal proceeding that strikes me as rational. We can call Edwards and Dahlin pundits or commentators or something if you don’t think they deserve the designation of journalist, but the idea that they — to say nothing of the woman who actually made the parody website — are engaging in anything close to paid political speech that should be subject to campaign finance laws seems completely unfounded. In this instance, “raising questions” seems like a self-aggrandizing euphemism for guessing and turning out to be wrong. As I said, I think the website was in bad taste and I feel for Thompson on that front. It hurts to be made fun of. But it was also clearly a joke and extremely unlikely to truly mislead any voters. The fact that Thompson apparently still regards it as “election interference” is nuts.
If I truly believed, as Becka Thompson seems to, that I was Minneapolis’ equivalent of Batman, bravely stepping forward to save the city from doom, I would make it my business to thicken my skin, shake off the haters, and spend my limited time and money on trying to run a good campaign. The fact that she and her team couldn’t do that is troubling to me, and is just one of the things that I think people are talking about when they say they don’t buy the portrayal of her as the sober, mature candidate.
I worked with Koski’s dad, Mayor Al Hofstede. He was an amazing fellow. After two terms as mayor, I would be hard pressed to name a political enemy of his. He never ducked a hard issue. He was always straight forward in his dealings and if he made a promise he kept it unfailingly. If he were still here, he would tell his daughter that she had broken one of his political commandments, “You dance with those who brought you”.
Thanks, David, for writing this. I could not have expressed this better, myself, and certainly could not have maintained such an even demeanor, when discussing my incumbent Councilmember, Koski, for as long as it must have taken you to type up the item. I am bitterly disappointed by her utter betrayal of the many Ward 11 voters who supported her, not once, but twice.
Hey quick question for people here so concerned with residency requirements. Does Becka Thompson live in ward 12 yet?
Wade,
Ward 12 residency is not a winning issue for you. I don’t know whether Becka is now in Ward 12; I think she probably is because her intention was to move in August.
But there are some large problems with DSA trying to make an issue out of this. The largest is that Aurin herself moved into the Ward weeks before the 2023 election. And unlike Becka, who grew up in the 12th Ward and thus can claim to know it well, Aurin moved here because the Council seat was open; she grew up in Woodbury (though you’d never know that from her campaign lit); she had no prior connection to Ward 12; I’m guessing she didn’t know where the Mel-o-Glaze bakery was. And now apparently she is living in the 19th Ward, aka Robbinsdale, most of the time.
None of this particularly bothers me, except that when some of the DSA folks put out an ugly flyer accusing Becka of being a carpetbagger, Aurin, in spite of numerous requests from me and others, refused to repudiate the flyer. This has to be the most hypocritical thing Aurin has done while in office. (In fact, in my article, I gave her credit for mostly voting as she said she would vote. There is governance integrity in that which I wish she would show in better campaign integrity.)
I think you need to look for a better issue than who lives where; Aurin does not win on that one.
Hey I was just asking. Last I heard she wasn’t living in the ward yet. I guess it also doesn’t matter that Chowdhury moved into the ward shortly before the 2023 election because she was able to win over her constituency and win!
Now, you can explain away Thompson’s residency question. Good. Can you do that with her blatant racism against Chowdhury and Chughtai?
Untrue, so no need.
Becka lives in W12. That info was/ is EASILY obtainable, but of course that appears not to be the goal, getting to a place of fact based knowing and confirming, at least for some of these Chowdhury supporters.
Sad, and even a bit embarrasing, when that continues to be the ” go to” for these supporters, when we know Chowdhury lives out of Mpls, primarily, with her fiancee in his/their home, as required to meet HIS residency requirement as a Council Member in Robbinsdale.
Then, at the same time we have another one of the Wonsley, DSA aligned voting block, who has taken up residence in MA, but apparently will fly in a couple of times a month to pick up his paycheck.
So, not sure it makes a lot of sense, with early voting around he corner, to keep drawing attention to the ” rules do not matter…too much” group, but ok. 🤷♀️
So if she lives in ward 12 when will she be resigning from her park board post where she is no longer a resident?
With an occasional exception, Chowdhury always stays in lock step with the DSA endorsed/ aligned on the Council.
Just like she did this week when she opposed taking legal action over the “Chavez Encampment” on 28th Ave near Lake Street, which is more of a trap house/ camp, than an encampment for folks stuck temporarily without housing.
Excerpt, below, from the Strib Monday about the City’s decision to move ahead with legal action to require the property owner to remove the trap house/camp.
“Ultimately, a majority — Council Members Michael Rainville, LaTrisha Vetaw, Andrea Jenkins, Linea Palmisano, Emily Koski and Jamal Osman — voted to approve a lawsuit.
Council President Elliott Payne, Vice President Aisha Chughtai and Council Members Jason Chavez and Aurin Chowdhury voted no. Council Members Robin Wonsley, Jeremiah Ellison and Katie Cashman were absent.”
* I do find it interesting, and rather telling, about Chowdhury’s decision to full body join the DSA on THIS one, and so CLOSE to the election. She knew that without Ellison showing up from MA, and Cashman and Wonsley both deciding to play it safe and stay at home for the mtg, ( which Chowdhury would have known about.. before) that she strongly suspected that the opposition would not be successful.
Still, Chowdhury went all in on this, to protect/encourage encampments, aka trap houses/ camps.
Word on the street is that this job is becoming problematic for Chowdhury. More in the community know what the DSA is actually about, as well as Chowdhury’s voting history with the DSA/Wonsley block. So, lots of tension in W12 about her tenure.
With Chowdhury’s fiancee having a residency requirement to LIVE in his own place in a north suburb, working as a Council Member there, and with Chowdhury spending most of her time away from Mpls, LIVING THERE, maybe this particular vote was a way of her trying to step away from the City Council.
We hear little bits and pieces about her reluctance to hit the stoops herself, and be OUT THERE this season, and it really makes some of us wonder. I would like to support Chowdhury in going out, and moving on to other endeavors.
She had so much potential! I ranked her second when she first ran. But I was okay with her winning. And second time around I thought she would just get better and better. Instead, she completely flipped and started voting with the DSA aligned 70 or 80% of the time? Now…. Unfortunately, she is completely irrelevant 😞
100%, agree on all. Koski could have provided that desperately needed service AND guidance on the Council these last two years, instead, she decided to do something quite different, alienating so many in W11, and through out the City.
So for Koski now, on her way out the door, to take an interest, AND in W12, after ALL we witnessed from her, NOPE, no one should listen to her.