Update on Email to Council Member Aisha Chughtai, Representative Katie Jones, Council Member Katie Cashman, Senator Scott Dibble, and Mayor Jacob Frey about Uptown
By Kevin Norman
I’m following up on the note I sent last week about what’s happening on Hennepin. Thank you to Council Member Katie Cashman for responding, and to the business owners who reached out. I still haven’t heard from the rest of our elected leaders, but I’m hoping this follow-up helps show why people in Uptown are so worried.
I’ve attached a couple photos from my walk this morning. They show used needles, human feces, and trash in two different spots:
This isn’t a one-off, and it’s not about the street looking messy. It’s a sign that our systems aren’t supporting people dealing with addiction and homelessness, and it creates real health and safety risks for the whole community. I’ve lived in Oakland and worked in San Francisco, and I’ve seen firsthand that situations like this don’t magically improve on their own. They get worse when cities don’t step in.
A few people suggested using 311, which seemed like a great idea. But there’s no category for human feces, used needles, or these recurring hotspots. Even when residents want to use the right channel, there just isn’t a clear way to report what we’re seeing.
I’m sending this because I’m still looking for folks who want to actually solve this. Residents, businesses, and the city all have a stake in getting Hennepin back on track, and I’m open to any ideas that help us move toward real coordination.
Please let me know how we can work together or what next steps you’d recommend to start making progress.
Kevin Norman
The Minneapolis City Council bears some responsibility for these circumstances.
The photos show situations that should not be long tolerated in a city that wants to consider itself progressive and modern, and so the perpetrators of these situations should be held accountable for the cleanup. But who, exactly, is the perpetrator? Is it the individual/group of persons who littered/defecated in the particular place? Or is it the property owner who allowed it/did not put a stop to the act?? Assuming the property owner “catches” the miscreants in the act, what are they allowed to/expected to do about it??? Who exactly, in this scenario, bears responsibility?????
Our society has become a large group of ENABLERS!!! Always passing the buck, letting people play the victim card. and not standing up and doing the right thing. And I believe that includes a lot of voters in Minneapolis who elected this city council that wants to cut funding to there own police department, and undercut and undermine their efforts to maintain law and order in the city. This group of city councilors seems to have a great deal of sympathy for people who are homeless, who have addiction problems, whose lives are unstable for a variety of reasons of reasons. And being sympathetic is not wrong. But simply giving them a pass IS WRONG! If the city doesn’t hold people accountable for their actions (or lack of action) then the city will suffer and be in chaos, and I don’t think that is what voters really want or expect.