Open Letter to Incoming City Council

On January 8, 2024, the current City Council held its first meeting. Frankly, you didn’t get off to a very good start. Your first order of business was the Gaza Resolution, where you presumed to advise Secretary of State Anthony Blinken on how to conduct foreign policy. Your qualifications to speak on foreign policy? None. You had no business considering this matter.  And yet it was your first action in office, what you deemed to be the most important thing that you wanted to do. It was the action that would define your whole term in office.

And it was hugely divisive in our city, a divisiveness we did not need.

This was not a public hearing, so public comments were not in order. But that didn’t matter. Decorum meant nothing to dozens of shouting, sign-waving people supporting the Gaza Resolution. They were loud, rude, and antisemitic. Unsurprisingly, one of the signs was a caricature of a Jewish person, surrounded by dollar signs.

And that is blatant racism. In a public building. In a public meeting.

Council President Payne, you did nothing to stop or even tamp down this conduct. You allowed a pernicious form of racism that has existed for thousands of years happen in front of you. But to be fair, I can’t be too critical of you. I certainly admit to disappointment. When you ran originally, you said you going to be “grounding every one of my decisions and policies … in racial equity.” In your very first test, you failed. But still, you had been council president literally for just minutes. And mobs – make no mistake, this was a mob – are very hard to control. So in judging your leadership at your very first meeting as council president, I’m with Bob Dylan: You could have done better, but I don’t mind; you just sort of just wasted my precious time.

That first meeting foreshadowed the next two years: A lot of noise, self-promotion, not much accomplished of actual benefit to Minneapolis residents – you know, those people who elected you to represent them, all of them.

Now the current council’s run is essentially done. There’s opportunity for a fresh start in just a few weeks, an opportunity for a much better start. 2025 election results were mixed from anyone’s point of view, with the far-left winning handily in their strongholds but practical Democrats taking back some seats. But the voters did make clear their desire to have a council and a mayor dedicated to accomplishing important matters that move the city forward, not to divisiveness and theatricality.

Residents deserve this.  Also your own lives, and that of the Mayor, will be more satisfying when you focus on actually getting things done for Minneapolis residents.

Here are two suggestions that will help.

First, share governance. As I write this, it’s not certain whether one faction or the other on the council will truly be able to produce an unambiguous majority. But even if this can happen, there’s a likelihood of a lot of 7-6 votes and there’s no mandate in that math. So elect a president from one faction, a vice president from the other, and divide up the committee chairs similarly.  This will force collaboration. All 13 council members will have to be attentive to improving the fortunes of the city as a whole.

Sure, there will be disagreements, but with a shared governance model no “side” will be able to force anything on the other. And all 13 of you, and the Mayor, can properly be given the credit or blame for whatever does or does not get done in the next four years because you will stand or fall together.

Second, be more thoughtful your symbolic first initiative that you take up right away in January. In 2024, a racist, divisive vote was not a good choice. Here’s a much better choice: resolve to bring the Minneapolis Third Precinct back to the Minneapolis Third Precinct by July 4, 2026.

An opening on that date would be more than six years after the original building was destroyed, 2,229 days to be exact. Some 2,229 days when those who live in the very large third precinct were served by public safety personnel dispatched from across town. Here’s an interesting comparison. On April 15, 2019, the Notre Dame Cathedral was destroyed by fire. Some $985 million later, Paris reopened the Cathedral on July 12, 2024. That’s five and a quarter years, 1,915 days to be exact. Even if the Third Precinct opens on July 4^th, 2026, Minneapolis would have taken almost a year longer to rebuild it than it took Paris to rebuild Notre Dame, one of the largest and most complex projects in the history of the world. Let’s end that embarrassing record and get the Third Precinct served with public safety responses that are nearby.

Maybe you have something better that merits the honor of being the first action item in 2026. Whatever it is, pick something consciously. Pick it in a very public fashion. Agree to it. Get it done. And most importantly, get it done together. This will be a far better start than in 2024.

I’ll be thrilled to congratulate each one of you when 2026 Resolution #1 is accomplished.

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.