Open Letter to Naomi Kritzer

By Dan Orbin

This letter is in response to your recent blog post, Election 2025: Minneapolis City Council, Ward 9 (https://naomikritzer.com/2025/09/27/election-2025-minneapolis-city-council-ward-9/).  You mentioned that you like most of what Jason Chavez has done as a member of the Minneapolis city council.  I wish you would have gone into more detail here.  Many of us are struggling with your assessment.

Therefore, I have a few questions to ask you. What makes a St. Paul resident qualified to talk about Ward 9 in Minneapolis? Can you see people having sex outside your daughter’s window at night?  Have people been shot and killed behind and in front of your house?  Is it normal to experience mass shootings a block or two away, including where your daughter plays hockey? Do you worry that a stray bullet may hit your kids while they sleep? Do your kids know what a drug deal looks like and how to recognize prostitutes and pimps? Do you have to step around condoms on the sidewalks and streets? Have you ever had a dog traumatized by an encampment in front of your house for three months straight?

My friends have been stabbed, assaulted, and violated. Our houses have been broken into and burned down. Someone even stabbed me with a drug needle, causing my wife incredible emotional pain. She almost did not let me run for office again. The truth is that you don’t know Ward 9 or the trauma we are experiencing under Jason Chavez’s lack of leadership. Many of us have PTSD, still recovering from the endless stream of stressful unrest since 2020. We want peace, safety, cleanliness, and hope. We want thriving communities.

You say Chavez is for the vulnerable and the oppressed, yet he puts them at risk. He continues to encourage encampments and open air drug markets, which keep people addicted to dangerous drugs like fentanyl, eventually leading to death. People who live in encampments and struggle with addiction have told me this (surprisingly, even they don’t think encampments help anyone). At the same time, we in the community experience murder, refuse, excrement, theft, shootings, and human trafficking. Chavez also supports unlicensed vendor activity, causing health violations, pollution, and major safety hazards. This even puts immigrants at risk!

I’ve talked to the neighborhood leaders and business owners at George Floyd Square. They don’t want a pedestrian mall, but that doesn’t seem to matter. Instead leaders ended up gerrymandering their vote out of their own street. People are tired of the trauma tourism. They want healing and their street back. They want an honorable memorial with a thriving community.

Chavez’s policy training and committee experience doesn’t seem to help us. You ask about my experience? Well, I know what it is like to work two jobs, raise a family, live in the neighborhood, and barely make payments. Imagine also running a campaign (Yeah, I don’t sleep). I was there when our city burned. I’ve experienced the unrest, the drug camps, shootings, death, and trash. I know what it is like to live here and be fearful for my children playing outside. Does Chavez know the experience of my neighbors? Does he know what it is like for his kids to watch sex and drugs all winter long in the camper in front of his house? If he did, he would not allow it. He would advocate for immediate solutions and find shelter beds for those who need help. He would make sure health codes aren’t being violated and laws aren’t being broken.  He would listen to business owners and neighbors who want healing. Yes, I have the experience that people need in Ward 9. It is our experience.

Why am I running? I don’t need fame or respect. I have a fulfilling job that I enjoy. I have a beautiful wife and family. If I’m elected, I would even try to take a pay cut, so it isn’t about the money. $109,000 a year is too much for me compared to other similar cities. I want to be paid less, entering into the experience of other public servants who tirelessly work for the city. I’m tired of elections and politics being about money or political parties. As a husband and a father, I must step up when people and children are suffering. I’m running because it is my civic duty to care for all my neighbors.  It’s simply the right thing to do.

People who don’t live here can stop talking as if they have special insight into Ward 9. We’ve been through things that they cannot understand. We are exhausted and drained. Enough is enough. Let’s get people the help they need and bring healing to our neighborhoods.  We simply want to live together in peace and safety.

Thanks,

Dan Orban, candidate

p.s. Getting 20% of the vote in 2023 against an incumbent, with minimal money, a small amount of help, and an extremely short amount of time (2 months) is not my definition of being crushed.  This is a different ballgame.

Dan Orbin is running for City Council in Ward 9