Voter Guide

This is the city we live in. Where we raise babies and fall in love, play music and grow food. This is the city that we were born in, the city we were reborn in, or just where we’ve landed for now. This is our city. It is a place that smells like the river, wet rain on concrete, wildflowers and taco trucks. Like sambusas and sage. This is the city where we work. Where we build our businesses and create opportunity. This is our city. This is Minneapolis. And we vote.

Your vote is more than just a ballot; it’s a declaration of the values you want Minneapolis to represent. Voices for Racial Justice, Rhymesayers Entertainment, and Pollen have come together to produce a voter guide for the City of Minneapolis elections to help you make the most inspired and informed decision before you cast your vote on November 7.

Vote on Tuesday, November 7, 2017. Polls are open from 7:00 a.m. until 8:00 p.m. Find your polling place at pollfinder.sos.state.mn.us. You can also vote by mail, or vote early in-person. More information at vote.minneapolismn.gov.

MAYOR meet the candidates WARD ONE Neighborhoods: Audubon Park, Columbia Park, Como, Holland, Logan Park, Marshall Terrace, Mid-City Industrial, Northeast Park, Waite Park and Windom Park WARD TWO Neighborhoods: Southeast Como, University District, Prospect Park, Seward, West Bank/Cedar-Riverside, Cooper, and Longfellow WARD THREE Neighborhoods: Beltrami, Bottineau, Downtown East, Downtown West (part), Marcy Holmes, Nicollet Island – East Bank, North Loop (part), Sheridan, St. Anthony East, and St. Anthony West WARD FOUR Neighbordhoods: Shingle Creek, Lind-Bohanon, Victory, Webber-Camden, Cleveland, Folwell, Jordan, McKinley, and Willard Hay WARD FIVE Neighborhoods: Harrison, Hawthorne, Jordan (part), Near North, North Loop (part), Sumner-Glenwood, and Willard-Hay (part) WARD SIX Neighborhoods: parts of Steven Square, Ventura Village, Philips West, Elliot Park, Seward, and Cedar Riverside WARD SEVEN Neighborhoods: Bryn Mawr, Cedar-Isles-Dean, Downtown Minneapolis, East Isles, Elliot Park, Kenwood-Isles, Loring Park, Lowry Hill, and Stevens Square WARD EIGHT Neighborhoods: Central, Bryant, Bancroft, Field, Regina, Northrop, Lyndale, and Kingfield WARD NINE Neighborhoods: Central, Corcoran, East Phillips, Midtown Phillips, and Powderhorn Park WARD TEN Neighborhoods: East Harriet, East Calhoun, Lowry Hill East, CARAG, and Whittier WARD ELEVEN Neighborhoods: Tangletown, Field, Page, Hale, Northrop, Diamond Lake, Wenonah, Windom, and Keewaydin WARD TWELVE Neighborhoods: Ericsson, Hiawatha, Howe, Keewaydin (northeast part), Minnehaha, Morris Park, and Standish WARD THIRTEEN Neighborhoods: Armatage, East Harriet Farmstead, Fulton, Kenny, Linden Hills, Lynnhurst, and West Calhoun PARK BOARD meet the candidates

Pledge To Vote

Throughout this guide, find comfort and inspiration in the rhythms of Rhymesayers.

“This Is Our City”

Written by Ashley Fairbanks /// spoken by Slug of Atmosphere and Brother Ali

This is our city and it is a place where we laugh and dance in the street and ride bikes and cry. Where you are never are far from the water. We’re fighting to make it better for all of us. Into a place where everyone can thrive. A city that recognizes it was built on stolen land. A city that honors the dignity of all people. This is our city and we will amplify the voices of our neighbors who go unheard. We will vote because we demand better from people in power. We demand more of ourselves.

ThisIsMpls is a non-partisan voter guide compiled by staff of Voices for Racial Justice, designed by Pollen Midwest with music from Rhymesayers Entertainment. The sole objective of this guide is to provide accurate and direct communication from campaigns to voters. We did our best to include the voices of all candidates. This process involved sending email through tracking software that saw who, when and what engagement campaigns had with our email. We made multiple attempts to contact every candidate using the same process for all candidates. We will continue to update the guide with submissions from candidates who did not respond to our original request up until election day. Contact Ashley Fairbanks with questions.

This project was made possible through financial support from The Minneapolis Foundation.

Ashley Fairbanks

Ashley Fairbanks is an Anishinaabe woman and citizen of the White Earth Nation. She operates as a socially-conscious designer and public artist. She works with a cohort of artists that do racial justice popular education and organizing. She seeks to use her design skills to activate people around issues ranging from police brutality to environmental justice. She has worked with the Energy Action Coalition, Indigenous Environmental Network and Honor the Earth to create campaigns around the KXL and Sandpiper pipelines and protecting our water from mining. Ashley works for Voices for Racial Justice. She went to the University of Minnesota to study American Indian studies and Political Science, and has completed Intermedia Arts Creative Community Leadership Institute, NACDI’s Native Organizing and Leadership Institute, The Humphrey School’s Roy Wilkins Community Policy Fellowship and is a 2016 Forecast Public Art Emerging Public Artist Grantee.

Pollen Midwest

Pollen Midwest invests in human connection to fuel momentum for social change by mapping critical narratives, hosting events where essential conversations happen, and linking people to new professional and personal opportunities. We serve and engage a network of 10,000+ Pollenites—individuals who want to make a positive impact in their community, who network with a purpose, who want to tackle thorny issues, and who embrace their civic responsibility.

Voices for Racial Justice

Since 1993, we have built a stronger movement for racial justice organizing in Minnesota and beyond. Our mission is to advance racial, cultural, social, and economic justice in Minnesota through organizer and leadership training, strategic convenings and campaigns, and research and policy tools.

Rhymesayers Entertainment

Rhymesayers Entertainment is an independent hip hop record label based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, founded in 1995. Years after it all began, Rhymesayers boasts one of independent Hip Hop’s strongest and most respected rosters in the game. By pushing the boundaries creatively, while maintaining a rigorous touring schedule, significant sales numbers and an ever-growing fanbase, Rhymesayers Entertainment continues to navigate the long but gratifying road of independent success! Through the ROVE initiative, Rhymesayers Entertainment utilizes hip hop as a tool for civic engagement to shift power in politics.

Parks and Power

The Parks and Power Campaign is dedicated to grassroots community organizing for racial equity & justice in Minneapolis' parks system.

Sara Fowler

Sara Fowler is a Minneapolis-based graphic designer and illustrator, working primarily with artists and mission-driven folks. Her great loves are books (designing them and reading them), weaving textiles, and traveling to far flung places of quiet wilderness.

Scott Garrison

Director of Development by day, and freelancer by night, Scott Garrison is a Minneapolis-based Full Stack Web Developer. Scott partners with clients to achieve each of their unique business goals, while putting the highest quality work into each project. He was part of the original development team behind PollenMidwest.org and the developer for the ThisIsMpls.com voter guide.

Andres Guzman

Andres hails from Lima Peru. After receiving his Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Minneapolis College of Art + Design in 2009, he has been working as a freelance illustrator/designer in Minneapolis. His clients include MTV, Nickelodeon, Rhymesayers Entertainment, Wired magazine, Dephect clothing, Colossal Blimp, Picturemachine Productions, ditch Edit, The New Republic, Bloomberg—Business, and many independent musicians such as I Self Devine, Greg Grease, I.B.E, K.Raydio & Psymun, The Maykit, and Sloslylove.

Isabela Cruz Holguin

Isabela Cruz Holguin is an Ecuadorian illustrator living in Minneapolis. She is interested in developing complementary designs that support a healthy, conscious and sustainable lifestyle. She draws inspiration from the natural world by studying leaves and flowers during the warmer months, and the fascinating patterns of ice during wintertime. The organic character of her work exemplifies her deep connection to the natural world of her native land, and her new home in the Midwest.

Greta Kotz

Greta Kotz is a freelance illustrator and graphic designer, based in the Twin Cities. Her business includes illustration, graphic design, fine art, art festivals, and gallery shows. In 2016 she earned her BFA from Minneapolis College of Art and Design, and is recognized by the Society of Illustrators.

Cori Lin

Cori Lin works in the social sector, the creative sphere, and the overlap between those spaces. Whether she’s illustrating, designing, or coordinating programs, her focus is to bring POCI and marginalized narratives to the center. Cori’s passions are lists, cross-disciplinary collaboration, and sashimi.

Line Break Media

Line Break works with artists, organizers, and advocates to craft their stories into powerful instruments for transformative social change. Together, we can refine your communications strategy and produce compelling media to advance your vision.

Niky Motekallem

Niky Motekallem is a freelance illustrator originally from Ohio, currently living in the Twin Cities. She specializes in depicting flora and fauna in various stages of life and decay. When she isn't working in her studio, she is exploring forests for new adventures, rummaging through antique shops, and petting neighborhood cats.

Ryan Stopera

Ryan Stopera is a photographer, videographer, social worker, community organizer,and entrepreneur. He has worked in direct social services and grassroots community organizing for over ten years. This privilege has allowed Ryan to build a vast amount of relationships and experiences constructing a deep analysis of the social issues our communities face today. During the Occupy Wall Street movement, Ryan produced a video sharing the story of five homeowners in foreclosure with Bank of America. The video, which included the cell phone number of Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan, asked the nation to call and demand he negotiate with the homeowners who were victims of the mortgage crisis. By the second day of the video going viral executives from the office of the CEO contacted each of the homeowners to help them negotiate their foreclosure and avoid homelessness. He recognized the power of media as a tool to create powerful narratives that can be used to create social change.

Melanie Stovall

Melanie Stovall is a Minneapolis based designer with 6+ years experience in branding, interactive, social media, packaging, print and illustration. She served on the Board for AIGA Minnesota as the Committee Chair and later the Associate Director of Sustainable Design. Through her board position, she helped implement annual programming using design to educate the community on environmental issues and train designers to integrate sustainable practices into their client work. A Full-Time Part-Timer, she currently splits her time between her designer role at Pollen Midwest and her Communications Manager role at Juxtaposition Arts.