I was proud to have been able to help foster more- and more productive- conversations around community safety within the East African community during my time serving the Minneapolis City Council as a policy aide.

I was able to help bring the elders and the youth in our community together to talk about what safety means to them, how they could use their voices within the halls of City Hall to advocate for their needs, and brought elected and community leaders together to forge sustainable solutions like ensuring there were officers that reflected the communities they were serving and also spoke the language and understood the nuances of the community.
I am proud to say that those elders- particularly the mothers- have since gone on to continue to participate in the decision making processes at city hall and I hope to continue opening the doors to our processes and provide more access points to our programs and services when I am elected.

Public Safety

How will you keep young Black and brown kids safe — those who are simultaneously the most at risk from gun violence but also most at risk during interactions with the police? What do you believe are best practices for solving these issues in tandem, and how will you involve the communities most affected in problem solving and determining next steps?

As a single mother raising a daughter in the city, this is the question that keeps me up at night.

I believe the best practices for solving these issues begin with ensuring that we have policies and systems in place that will make sure that we are not relying exclusively- or even predominantly- on police for public safety. We need to do the upstream work of having the right people with the right training in the right positions to address public safety holistically. That will ensure that we can minimize MPD’s non-essential interactions with the public, while maximizing their accountability.

At the same time, we need to ensure that we are addressing the underlying systemic failures that led us here in the first place. We need to meet the basic needs of our residents- especially our children. Things like access to affordable and stable housing, access to healthcare- including mental health care, access to high quality jobs with worker protections, world class education systems and youth programs to name a few.

We also need to ensure that community voices are heard. So often, those with the most impacted by the decisions being made are the ones who have the least access to systems of power. I saw that first hand when I worked at City Hall, and we need to work together with community members, leaders, and our governmental partners to forge a path that will move Minneapolis forward.

If we are able to ensure that our resident’s needs are not only being met, but they have access to upward prosperity and their voices are heard, that will go a long way toward ensuring that children like my daughter and future generations will have a better and safer city to live in.

People of color in Minneapolis are killed or otherwise harmed by law enforcement at disproportionately high rates, despite many attempts at reform over several election cycles. How do you intend to reshape a policing system that has been resistant to change, and slow to show meaningful strides toward equitable community outcomes?

I intend to reshape the policing system in Minneapolis by working to build a strong and broad coalition of community members, leaders, and elected officials from various levels of government who are galvanized by the common goal the vast majority of us share which is working to reform the systems and unbundle the MPD from non-essential emergencies and replace them with the properly trained professionals who are better equipped to handle non-violent and non-criminal situations.

It is abundantly clear that the systems we have now are not working. All eyes are on Minneapolis to see if we are able to turn the compounding traumas that we have been experiencing as a community into true transformative change- or if we are going to let this moment pass us by.

The thing that sets my vision apart from other candidates, is that I fully understand that this change isn’t going to happen overnight or be done through political gamesmanship or putting us into two opposing camps. We instead need to come together to move forward and ensure that whatever we decide our next steps are, we are not pulling the rug out from under those in our communities who are the most vulnerable and the most underserved and making the situation even more unsafe for our communities.

What are your stances on memorializing public spaces when our community is grieving, and/or demanding action through constitutionally-protected protests? What policies would you put in place or what organizations would you engage to ensure residents can do these things safely?

First and foremost, I believe that our communities need to be given the space they need to grieve together and make their voices heard.

I would work with leaders and with the community to ensure that we are able to respect the rights and the emotions of protesters, while at the same time ensuring that we are not creating opportunities for bad actors to take advantage of them and create even more instability and unsafe conditions.

A few examples of policy areas that I would advocate for would be the demilitarization of police and the ban of “non-lethal” munitions, the protection and preservation of memorials in ways that do not create more issues and dangerous situations for protesters and the communities that they are in, and for more accessible and transparent governing systems in the city so that our communities can make their voices heard not only in the streets, but in our halls of power as well.

Housing

Rental assistance from the federal government has helped keep people in their homes through the pandemic. This funding is not permanent, however, and inability to pay is the leading cause of evictions. What is your stance on more permanent rental assistance, rent stabilization, and/or rent control measures in Minneapolis?

As someone who was raised by a single mother in Section 8 Housing after fleeing civil war in Somalia, I understand the importance of having a safe, secure, and affordable home.

The pandemic exacerbated the housing crisis we were already facing in the city and beyond.

I believe that we need to protect renters any way that we can. Along with protecting out renters, we should also expand on the housing assistance programs like Stable Homes Stable Schools that the city already has in place, and expand pathways to homeownership like the Minneapolis Homes program and other non-traditional lending options so that our communities can actually build wealth for themselves rather than continue to pay rent that benefits landlords and developers.

Gentrification results in cultural loss for communities and major economic impacts for those priced out of their longtime neighborhoods. As our city grows, what plans do you have to combat gentrification and increase the amount of affordable housing available in Minneapolis?

I believe that we need to get creative when it comes to combating gentrification and increasing affordable housing options throughout the city.

Looking at clearing up the logistical red tape that the city causes at times by looking at things like zoning laws in our city is a great place to start. We should also produce more affordable housing options throughout the city- not just in certain neighborhoods- while also working to preserve our current affordable housing options like Naturally Occurring Affordable Housing.

One of the most important ways that we can combat gentrification, is by allowing members of our communities, and particularly those from underrepresented and underserved communities like the Black, Immigrant, Indiginous, POC, and LGBTQ+ communities, to build wealth for themselves by creating more and more accessible pathways to homeownership, business ownership, and other opportunities that will help us all grow as a city.

In the last few years, Minneapolis has experienced a spike in encampments of unhoused people on public land — a high percentage of whom are Black and/or Indigenous. Many of our unhoused neighbors see this as their best housing option over shelters (for reasons of personal safety, pet ownership, or having to abandon property). What will you do to protect these neighbors and connect them with safe and stable housing?

Housing and having a stable and safe place to live is a human right.

We need to meet people where they are at and do everything in our power to help them move forward through a housing first model.

We need to ensure that those in encampments are in safe, stable, and sanitary positions while we work to transition those who are able into low-barrier housing options. We also need to work to ensure that we are increasing our culturally-specific outreach, or mental health-specific outreach, and our opioid and addiction-specific outreach to make sure that we are able to best assist those in our communities who need it.

I also want to acknowledge that this is a complex and emotionally charged issue that we will not be able to address solely on a city level. We need to work with our jurisdictional partners to create a shared and balanced approach to addressing these complex changes and working to ensure that everyone is safe and feels as though they have options in the city that can help them move forward.

Jobs and Economy

Black, Indigenous, and Minneapolis residents of color pay local taxes and contribute to our local economy, but often do not receive the same shared economic benefits as their white counterparts. Through generations of oppression via policy and unequal systems, wealth has been chronically and systematically extracted from BIPOC communities—how do you envision
addressing this legacy of economic harm, in both the short term and the long term?

We need to address this by creating more and more equitable pathways to upward prosperity, while at the same time creating more access to our systems.

That can look like investments in youth programs and education, in higher education pathways like vocational training and apprenticeships, partnership with our friends in labor, and other avenues to ensure that those who’ve been harmed are able to have more accessible options to help them get out from under them rather than continuing to
perpetuate those harms.

We need to ensure that we are creating opportunities for folks to build wealth through home and business ownership rather than continuing to ignore the fact that those who have built our communities aren’t the ones benefiting from it. We also need to invest more equitably across the city, rather than leaving communities behind.

Most importantly, one of the biggest ways that we can address it is by ensuring that people have a voice at the decision making table. So often, decisions are made by those who haven’t experienced the issues that our communities face. I often found myself asking “how can you be creating the solutions to these problems if you have
never lived them?” when I worked at City Hall, and frankly that is what prompted me to run for city council.
We need more diverse representation. We need leaders who understand what it means to be housing insecure, who have lived paycheck to paycheck, and who understand what it means to be “different” in our city and not just empathize with it.

It also can’t just stop at representation. We need to bring community voices into City Hall, ensure that our communities have access to the processes, that they know what resources and services are available, and how they can help move our city forward. .

The power dynamics of work are heavily tilted against low-wage workers, especially immigrant workers. What actions have you taken or what plans do you have to protect and support these workers?

I saw this first hand when my mother worked earning minimum wage as a janitor to support the two of us after we immigrated here from Somalia.
We need to ensure that we are continuing to fight for livable wages- not just minimum wages along with worker protections. We also need to be creating creative pathways to education opportunities so that these workers can gain access to more stable and secure jobs.

Frankly, people get away with treating these workers poorly, because there are not appropriate accountability measures in place. We need to continue to build out our labor coalitions to create more opportunities for collaboration. I am proud to be a multi-labor organization endorsed candidate in this race, and I will continue to do what I can to strengthen union protections and withhold city dollars from businesses and organizations that treat their workers unfairly.

Racial Justice

Explain your understanding of systemic racism, and how—or whether—you believe it affects Minneapolis’s education systems & outcomes, our housing market, our environment, public safety, healthcare, or other major systems.

Systemic racism is embedded in almost every aspect of our lives.

It is not a coincidence that the communities with the lowest educational outcomes, the largest income disparities, the poorest air quality, and the most unjust outcomes from our safety systems.
When you add more identity intersections like being an immigrant, a woman, or a member of the LGBTQ+ community on top of being a person of color, it makes those outcomes even more bleak.

We need to do everything that we can to root out systemic racism and create more and more equitable opportunities for all of our communities in the city.

Our community suffers from some of the greatest racial disparities in the country across many social, educational, and economic metrics—and has for some time. If you’re in government now, what have you done to address this, and do you feel your efforts have been enough despite the lack of change? And if you’re seeking office for the first time, what ideas are you going to put forward that haven’t already failed?

When I am elected, I will work with community members to understand and better address their needs, rather than trying to assume that I know what they need which will ultimately lead to more failed policies.

We need start by working to ensure that all of our community’s basic needs are met. Things like stable housing, health care including mental healthcare, steady and livable income sources are crucial to ensuring that we can address these disparities.

Then, we need to create more pathways to high quality education and programs for our youth, more opportunities to build wealth from within our communities, and create more opportunities for collaboration within our communities and our systems.

Climate

Climate change is already upon us, and its causes are on such a large scale that we can’t expect everyday Minneapolitans to recycle or LED bulb our way to a solution. How would you encourage businesses in our city to adopt practices to mitigate climate change, and/or hold them accountable for practices that worsen it?

I believe that we need to take this issue seriously as a city and as a people if we want to have a livable planet for our children and their children.

The biggest tool that we have as a city to show our values is our budget. We need to ensure that we are investing in and contracting with businesses and organziations that understand the urgency of this issue.

We also need to bring together folks who may seem at odds with each other, like labor and environmental groups to figure out how we can work together toward our common goals and create space for those who have perhaps made their livings in positions that we need to move away from if we are going to become more sustainable.

If we are going to tackle this issue with the urgency and attention that it deserves, we need to make sure that everyone understands how they fit into our new norms. From more accessible recycling and energy education programs to creating greener infrastructure options to choosing where we invest our tax dollars, we all have a responsibility to ensure that we address this crisis head on.

Voters’ Rights

What have you done or what will you do to protect and expand voter access in your ward/Minneapolis?

One of the biggest challenges in any election, particularly municipal elections, is getting people excited about making their voices heard.

I have worked for years on ensuring that people in the East African community and our city as a whole have access to things from early voting options and rides to the polls to hyperlocal processes like caucusing and becoming a delegate. My campaign has been no exception.

I am proud to say that we have been reaching voters every day through multiple avenues and listening to them and hearing what their vision for Minneapolis is.

We worked to turn out unprecedented numbers of delegates during the caucus process by simply ensuring that voters -regardless of their backgrounds- understood how they could make a difference in this race.

I am going to continue working on campus, in the East African community and other communities of color, and engaging every voter that I can so that they know that their voice matters and that we need them to participate in this crucial election for our city.

Governance

Who are the people and/or organizations that would be part of your decision-making process in office?

I have been working throughout my career and now throughout my campaign to build a broad coalition of support that I can rely on to help me make the best and most informed decisions possible.

I am so proud of the coalition that my campaign has put together including community leaders, former and current elected officials, labor unions, and progressive organizations. I am going to rely on them to help me make decisions that impact their constituencies the most.
Most of all, I am going to be relying on my constituents who elect me to be their voice at City Hall. Every day I talk with voters about how they are fed up with our current lack of transparency and the constant prioritization of politics over progress.

I believe that when you are elected, you aren’t there to score political points or worry about how you are going to get re-elected. You are there to do the best work on behalf of those that elected you for the time they elected you to do it. You are there to listen, to provide support, and to advance policy that will benefit those who elected you.

That is the approach that I am going to take with me to City Hall when I am elected.

Last Word

What’s one thing you think Minneapolis does well that you’d like to build upon if elected?

I think that the staff thought the city and at City Hall are truly the unsung heroes.

There are so many folks that are doing the thankless work of constituent services, policy building, research, and so many other tasks that make City Hall hum.

I would like to build upon their work and create more opportunities for their excellence and talents to be highlighted when elected.

Last summer, our city was shook by the public murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers, and the nation-wide uprising it sparked against police brutality. During the early days of the uprising, peaceful crowds, including Ward 2 residents, gathered in front of the 3rd Precinct Station, to demand justice for George Floyd. Instead of receiving the calls for accountability and working to change decades’ worth of trauma and violence, the law enforcement there opted to shoot tear gas, rubber bullets, and flash grenades at grieving civilians and children. Even so, residents continued to show up in spite of the violent repression they experienced.

Like so many others at the time, I wanted to know how I could best show up for the community in their time of need. Mutual aid offered me an avenue to do just that. With the help of my DSA comrades, we distributed more than $100,000 worth of food and household supplies to hundreds of protesters and Hi-Lake neighbors.

Public Safety

How will you keep young Black and brown kids safe — those who are simultaneously the most at risk from gun violence but also most at risk during interactions with the police? What do you believe are best practices for solving these issues in tandem, and how will you involve the communities most affected in problem solving and determining next steps?

Guaranteeing safety for Black and Brown kids requires providing them, their families, and communities with adequate housing, education, public transportation, good jobs, healthcare, and mental healthcare services. Safety results from our basic needs being met, as well as from strong social bonds that mean neighbors look out for each other, intervene in negative dynamics before things go wrong, and support each other in the event of emergencies. The sad reality is that many of our communities have been degraded by an extractive and racist economic system that has created substandard housing, poverty-wage jobs, and environmental and social health burdens endanger residents of all ages. To reverse this dynamic, I will use the full power of my office to hold city-wide organizing meetings, town-halls, participatory budgeting sessions, and targeted canvassing and petitioning to ensure that these communities are actively involved in our fight to fully fund infrastructure and universal programs that expand safety to everyone.

People of color in Minneapolis are killed or otherwise harmed by law enforcement at disproportionately high rates, despite many attempts at reform over several election cycles. How do you intend to reshape a policing system that has been resistant to change, and slow to show meaningful strides toward equitable community outcomes?

Our current system fails the working class every day because it is designed to protect profits, not people. George Floyd’s possibly counterfeit $20 bill is just one of the literally millions of cases where a paid paying dearly for doing negligible damage to a corporation’s bottom line. Our status-quo public-safety system also fails to protect working class people from daily harms like community violence and sexual violence. Our current public safety system s one that polices and criminalizes people of color, poor folks, and working class people. The former is especially true; data shows that the total value of wage theft by bosses against their employees is nearly triple the value of all robberies.

We need a system that does the opposite, preventing exploitation by bosses and slumlords, deterring interpersonal conflict, and fully funding high quality support for struggling people in order to to prevent violence. These are the humane and effective responses to crime that the vast majority of Minneapolis residents are demanding.

You can read my full public safety plan here: https://robinformpls.com/public-safety-plan

What are your stances on memorializing public spaces when our community is grieving, and/or demanding action through constitutionally-protected protests? What policies would you put in place or what organizations would you engage to ensure residents can do these things safely?

I support community-led efforts to memorialize public spaces, especially when tragic events occur.

Housing

Rental assistance from the federal government has helped keep people in their homes through the pandemic. This funding is not permanent, however, and inability to pay is the leading cause of evictions. What is your stance on more permanent rental assistance, rent stabilization, and/or rent control measures in Minneapolis?

I support the policies in the RC Coalition’s demands, such as TOPA, rent control, require all new developments to be composed of 50% affordable units based on 30% of AMI, a vacancy tax, higher taxes on corporate real estate developers to fund and expand affordable and public housing, and a ban on new development that destroys Naturally Occurring Affordable Housing (NOAH).

Gentrification results in cultural loss for communities and major economic impacts for those priced out of their longtime neighborhoods. As our city grows, what plans do you have to combat gentrification and increase the amount of affordable housing available in Minneapolis?

BIPOC residents can resist gentrification and stay in their communities once we create conditions for their safe and affordable housing. This requires us to regulate corporate development, which prices people out of these communities, gentrifies them, and destroys NOAH.

In the last few years, Minneapolis has experienced a spike in encampments of unhoused people on public land — a high percentage of whom are Black and/or Indigenous. Many of our unhoused neighbors see this as their best housing option over shelters (for reasons of personal safety, pet ownership, or having to abandon property). What will you do to protect these neighbors and connect them with safe and stable housing?

Encampment residents should have the expectation of safety and security, confident that they won’t be suddenly and violently ejected from encampments by law enforcement. Minneapolitans must continue providing community-based security to check in on encampment residents, provide them with basic services, offer housing counseling to connect residents with more permanent accommodations and ensure continued stability through employment and healthcare.

The city has historically used concerns about substance abuse as a pretext to clear out camps; residents struggling with addiction are entitled to safe and healthy interventions that keep them and their neighbors safe. Because sexual assault and trafficking have also occurred in these camps, we must create community response teams who can interrupt and de-escalate these situations. We should invite and train volunteers to provide this service, and involve partner organizations such as SEIU 26 and Teamsters to help in this effort. These and other mutual-aid strategies are part of a holistic approach that avoids criminalizing homelessness.

Jobs and Economy

Black, Indigenous, and Minneapolis residents of color pay local taxes and contribute to our local economy, but often do not receive the same shared economic benefits as their white counterparts. Through generations of oppression via policy and unequal systems, wealth has been chronically and systematically extracted from BIPOC communities—how do you envision addressing this legacy of economic harm, in both the short term and the long term?

Racial capitalism underpins every facet of our society. It’s daunting, but it also means there are countless ways to organize creatively to chip away at the structures that have oppressed Black people like me, indigenous communities, immigrants, and other people of color in Minneapolis.

I’m fighting for rent control, TOPA, Just Cause Eviction Protection, tenant unions, rent & mortgage cancellation, and no-barrier housing for all people to combat the legacy of racist and exclusionary housing policy. I’m fighting for union jobs training programs and a Green New Deal to turn a new page on the racial wealth gap. I’m fighting to transfer funding away from MPD and into community controlled, nonviolent public safety programs that protect Black lives and POC lives instead of ending them. I’m fighting for free, publicly funded, diverse healing and community wellness programs to begin to address the health disparities and trauma our POC communities face.

As a Black socialist woman in elected office, I will do my best to educate, agitate, and organize my constituents around the history of racial capitalism and the work we must do to overcome it.

The power dynamics of work are heavily tilted against low-wage workers, especially immigrant workers. What actions have you taken or what plans do you have to protect and support these workers?

As a labor organizer, I am a huge proponent of unions and believe they are one of the best tools that working class people have to address racial, economic, and climate injustices that frequently take place within workplaces.

As an elected leader, I will remain a champion of workers by passing ordinances that strengthen worker’s protections and address their most dire needs, and I will back all unionization efforts led by workers within and outside City Hall. I will continue to amplify the issues that workers organize around, showing up at picket lines, strike actions, rallies, petition signings, and school board meetings—and, perhaps most importantly, mobilizing my constituents to get involved and support those struggles as well.

Racial Justice

Explain your understanding of systemic racism, and how—or whether—you believe it affects Minneapolis’s education systems & outcomes, our housing market, our environment, public safety, healthcare, or other major systems.

As a Black woman, I have witnessed and experienced the many horrific effects of systemic racism. In fact, I became an activist with the sole purpose of dismantling racist institutions and systems that have only served to exploit, imprison, and oppress communities. Over my years of involvement I learned that systemic racism is not an isolated apparatus, but is woven into the fabric of capitalism. There’s simply no way to end racism without dismantling capitalism, and the way to do that is by building collective power that operates outside of—and in opposition to—the capitalist ruling class.

Our community suffers from some of the greatest racial disparities in the country across many social, educational, and economic metrics—and has for some time. If you’re in government now, what have you done to address this, and do you feel your efforts have been enough despite the lack of change? And if you’re seeking office for the first time, what ideas are you going to put forward that haven’t already failed?

Racial capitalism defines every facet of our society—a fact that, while daunting, means there are countless ways to creatively organize and chip away at the structures that oppress Black people like me, Indigenous communities, immigrants, and people of color in Minneapolis.

I’m fighting for rent control, TOPA, Just Cause Eviction Protection, tenant unions, rent & mortgage cancellation, and no-barrier housing for all people to combat the legacy of racist and exclusionary housing. I’m fighting for union jobs training programs and a Green New Deal to turn a new page on the racial wealth gap. I’m fighting to transfer funding from MPD into community-controlled, nonviolent public-safety programs that protect Black lives instead of destroying them. I’m fighting for free, publicly funded, diverse healing and wellness programs to address the health disparities and trauma inflicted on our BIPOC communities.

As a Black socialist woman in elected office, I will do my best to educate, agitate, and organize my constituents around the history of racial capitalism and the work we must do to overcome it.

Climate

Climate change is already upon us, and its causes are on such a large scale that we can’t expect everyday Minneapolitans to recycle or LED bulb our way to a solution. How would you encourage businesses in our city to adopt practices to mitigate climate change, and/or hold them accountable for practices that worsen it?

There is no such thing as green capitalism when short-term profit inevitably undermines sustainability. The racist impact of climate change can’t be compartmentalized and eliminated within a capitalist framework. Only public, democratic control of all resources can effectively respond to the climate crisis; for example, Green New Deal jobs, municipalization of utilities, and taxes commensurate with one’s environmental impact so that the rich and powerful can begin repairing the damage they’ve done.

Voters’ Rights

What have you done or what will you do to protect and expand voter access in your ward/Minneapolis?

Thousands of Minneapolis residents are unable to exercise their democratic right to vote due to criminalization, immigration status, and state-imposed barriers. As a Democratic Socialist, I understand that true democracy hinges on full democratic engagement. To accomplish this, my office will champion granting voter rights to non-citizen residents and to residents who possess felonies. Additionally, I will build support with other municipal and county leaders to work to support statewide efforts to expand and strengthen voting protections for all residents and fight against all voter suppression measures.

Governance

Who are the people and/or organizations that would be part of your decision-making process in office?

As a Democratic Socialist and elected leader, I will remain committed to bringing ordinary people and underrepresented groups into our city’s decision-making processes. I commit to helping extend participatory budgeting and any other practice that allows everyday people the opportunity to shape our city’s priorities, and to ensure that we are allocating our resources towards the things that will keep our communities housed, safe, healthy, and stable.

If elected, I will not only commit to leading on the issues that I campaigned on, but will do so by organizing grassroots and diverse coalitions around the bold and fundamental changes that our community needs, which includes Rent Control & Universal Housing, Public Safety Beyond Policing, and Taxing the Rich.

Additionally, I know that I cannot make these monumental changes happen on my own, nor with a staff of 2. Therefore, I pledge to donate a portion of my salary towards forming an independent community office where residents, grassroots groups, and I can come together to organize around the changes that our communities need.

To make sure that I am accountable to the people and the organizations that endorsed me, I am offering to co-create a Memorandum of Understanding MOU with them that will set expectations and commitments that we will fulfill during my tenure, like scheduling regular policy and organizing meetings with Take Action’s members and staff.

Last Word

What’s one thing you think Minneapolis does well that you’d like to build upon if elected?

Minneapolis residents care deeply about our city’s educational system. As a organizer with the state’s teachers unions, I’ve seen Minneapolis residents show up and advocate for education justice and equity on number of occasions. In 2016, Minneapolis parents and community groups led a successful campaign to get MPS to ban expulsion practices, and to implement restorative justice in all public schools. In 2017, I worked with parents and community groups to get the City of Minneapolis, Minneapolis Parks & Rec, and MPS to invest in creating 3 Full-Service Community Schools.

As a elected leader, I intend to strengthen our city’s commitment to our public schools by working with parents, educators, unions, county and state-wide officials on efforts that will direct more funding to our schools. Additionally, I will support policies and initiatives that will ensure that our students receive the quality and equitable education that they deserve.

One example that comes to mind is that I have volunteered several times to help built houses with Habitat for Humanity. This was organized through my church, St. Frances Cabrini. One project that was most satisfying to participate in is right across from Van Cleve Park in Ward 2. Serendipitously, years after volunteering I got to meet some of the young people living in the Habitat townhome I worked on, when they became friends with someone I was close to. It felt pretty great to know that I’d helped out with their home, even in such a small and quiet way. I would recommend volunteering with Habitat to anyone interested in making this kind of concrete positive impact.

Public Safety

How will you keep young Black and brown kids safe — those who are simultaneously the most at risk from gun violence but also most at risk during interactions with the police? What do you believe are best practices for solving these issues in tandem, and how will you involve the communities most affected in problem solving and determining next steps?

We need a public safety system that keeps everyone safe. To do that, it must be fundamentally transformed.

I led the effort to redefine violence as a public health crisis, which led to the Office of Violence Prevention. We need to invest much more in proven public health interventions that have been shown to interrupt cycles of violence.

We also need to meet people’s basic needs, so they don’t have to act from a place of deprivation, stress, and trauma. That’s why I’ve worked to reduce evictions, increase food security, increase the minimum wage, pass rent stabilization, and support a Universal Basic Income and children’s savings accounts.

We need to reduce criminalization, to reduce the contacts between police and Black and brown youth. That’s why I led the successful effort to repeal the racist, classist “lurking” ordinance.

And we need to come together to find a consensus on how best to do this. After the uprising, I organized dozens of small-block conversations all over Ward 2, attended by hundreds of residents. It was good not just for me to hear from residents, but for people to hear from each other: to hear what divides us, but also where we have common ground.

People of color in Minneapolis are killed or otherwise harmed by law enforcement at disproportionately high rates, despite many attempts at reform over several election cycles. How do you intend to reshape a policing system that has been resistant to change, and slow to show meaningful strides toward equitable community outcomes?

We need to fix our Charter by passing the Public Safety Charter Amendment this fall. I was the first Council Member to call for fixing the Charter, in 2018, and partnered with Yes 4 Minneapolis to get it on the ballot this fall. We need a broader, more holistic Department of Public Safety that answers to both the Council and Mayor.

We need to send the right kind of help when people call. That’s why I helped craft the Safety for All budget, which created new unarmed Mobile Behavioral Health Crisis Teams. It’s also why I strongly support a new approach to traffic safety done by unarmed staff, rather than police, to end “pretext” stops while addressing dangerous driving behavior.

We also need to bring back real civilian oversight of police. I am authoring an ordinance right now to do just that. We need to ensure that every officer not only receives implicit bias training, but bias assessments, and works in an unarmed service capacity before serving as armed law enforcement.

And we need to demand needed changes from the State, including an end to qualified immunity, reducing the power of the police union, ending binding arbitration and more.

What are your stances on memorializing public spaces when our community is grieving, and/or demanding action through constitutionally-protected protests? What policies would you put in place or what organizations would you engage to ensure residents can do these things safely?

I believe that the City should be more willing to follow the community’s lead, when the community is expressing understandable and legitimate grief and anger, and calling for justice.

I have opposed the City’s actions to “reopen” George Floyd Square. I have consistently worked to defend the rights of protesters, including after the “kettling” of a protest on I-94 in Ward 2 late last year, in direct communication with protest groups. I joined the protests into the killings of George Floyd, Jamar Clark and too many others.

I authored the Council’s resolution calling on the Minneapolis Police to stop using so-called “less lethal” weapons such as rubber bullets on protests. That resolution directed the City Attorney to state whether the Council has the power to prevent MPD from using these weapons. When they said that the answer is no, I fought to make that memo public, so that the people of our city know the stakes on the Public Safety Charter question.

Our system of government relies on the consent of the governed. When that consent is eroded – because of horrific actions of the government – we have to do real and intentional work to earn it back.

Housing

Rental assistance from the federal government has helped keep people in their homes through the pandemic. This funding is not permanent, however, and inability to pay is the leading cause of evictions. What is your stance on more permanent rental assistance, rent stabilization, and/or rent control measures in Minneapolis?

I not only strongly support passing rent stabilization in Minneapolis, I authored the Charter amendment to make that possible. I am campaigning for it right now, and I look forward to passing a strong rent stabilization policy next year. We need to prevent out-of-control rent increases from displacing members of our community, in a city where over half of residents rent their homes.

I have also fought to prevent evictions. I authored the ordinance that requires landlords to give tenants fair notice before filing an eviction. I strongly supported the Renters Rights ordinance that put a cap on security deposits and limited the use of background checks and credit scores to deny people housing. And I strongly supported changes to the Conduct on Premise ordinance that had empowered MPD to push landlords to evict tenants.

And the rent is usually not the only housing cost tenants have to pay. That’s why I authored the Energy Disclosure ordinance, which requires landlords of all rental properties to disclose to their tenants the average energy use of the unit they will be renting, before a lease is signed.

I will continue to work for safe, decent, affordable housing for all.

Gentrification results in cultural loss for communities and major economic impacts for those priced out of their longtime neighborhoods. As our city grows, what plans do you have to combat gentrification and increase the amount of affordable housing available in Minneapolis?

During my time chairing the Council’s Housing Committee, the City made record investments in affordable housing, including much more funding for deeply affordable housing and new public housing.

I strongly supported the Inclusionary Housing policy, which requires a certain number of affordable units in every market rate building, and successfully fought to include students in University-area neighborhoods in that policy. I also authored the Built Form zoning rules that incentivize public and affordable housing, as well as sustainable buildings. I strongly supported the City’s new Community Preference policy, which gives people from a neighborhood preference to receive assistance for housing programs or projects in that neighborhood.

I authored the ordinance allowing intentional communities, and supported repealing our ageist and classist maximum occupancy rules, to allow people to share housing.

Right now, I am working to pass a strong Tenant Opportunity to Purchase ordinance, to give tenants protection against displacement and increase cooperative housing.

I strongly support defending and investing in our existing public housing, like the Glendale Townhomes, and building additional public housing. I believe that we should use our maximum housing levy to support maintaining and building new public housing, and keep it public.

In the last few years, Minneapolis has experienced a spike in encampments of unhoused people on public land — a high percentage of whom are Black and/or Indigenous. Many of our unhoused neighbors see this as their best housing option over shelters (for reasons of personal safety, pet ownership, or having to abandon property). What will you do to protect these neighbors and connect them with safe and stable housing?

I have taken many actions to support our unhoused neighbors. I changed the City’s rules for shelters to make it possible for providers to build more shelters in more locations, and to allow City funds to be used for operating costs. I strongly supported efforts to build new targeted shelters for women, Native people, and youth.

I authored the ordinance that allows Intentional Community Cluster Developments, like the Envision model and the successful Indoor Villages project that allows people to have private, locked rooms, to address common concerns about living in shelter – like pets, partners, property, safety, and more. I also recently authored an ordinance to re-allow Single Room Occupancy and Rooming Houses in Minneapolis, to give people another alternative.

We recently had an encampment on a site owned by an Ethiopian church in Ward 2. I brought people together, including the American Indian Community Development Corporation, to find a path forward. The encampment was closed with no violence, no law enforcement, and with most people in the encampment finding housing. I recently hosted a study session about allowing sanctioned encampments.

I will continue to push for better solutions for our neighbors who are living unhoused.

Jobs and Economy

Black, Indigenous, and Minneapolis residents of color pay local taxes and contribute to our local economy, but often do not receive the same shared economic benefits as their white counterparts. Through generations of oppression via policy and unequal systems, wealth has been chronically and systematically extracted from BIPOC communities—how do you envision addressing this legacy of economic harm, in both the short term and the long term?

I believe that our society owes reparations to Black and Indigenous people, and I have worked to move our City towards paying those reparations.

I have fought for the City to direct its economic resources towards BIPOC communities, including in terms of economic development loans and grants, homeownership programs, and more.

I also believe that we need a fundamental change to the way that our property tax system is structured, to put more of the burden on wealthy commercial and industrial buildings and less on residential buildings – and to ensure that people who rent aren’t paying more than their fair share when compared to homeowners.

I strongly support creating a municipal bank in Minneapolis, which would allow us to make targeted loans to BIPOC businesses and individuals, and to directly out-compete businesses that profit off of poverty, like payday lenders.

I support creating a Minneapolis Universal Basic Income and have worked to bring forward a pilot of children’s savings accounts. These programs together are just a start on the kind of reparations I believe we need to make, and I will continue that work.

The power dynamics of work are heavily tilted against low-wage workers, especially immigrant workers. What actions have you taken or what plans do you have to protect and support these workers?

I helped lead the fight to adopt a $15 minimum wage in Minneapolis, and ensured that it does not have a tip penalty that would hurt certain low-wage workers, especially women. I support increasing our local minimum wage. I also helped lead the fight to enact earned sick and safe time.

I strongly supported ordinances prohibiting wage theft, and creating a right to recall for hospitality workers after their livelihoods were upended by the pandemic.

I authored an ordinance, working with the Sex Workers Outreach Project (SWOP) that improves working conditions for adult entertainers in our city. This includes a total prohibition on forced tipping of management by entertainers, better safety and security for entertainers inside clubs, more transparent contracts, and ensuring that the City gets to review contracts for racial and other forms of discrimination.

I have strongly supported unions my entire time in office, and am proud to be labor endorsed in this race. The City must have strong labor provisions in every one of our contracts, for every kind of project.

Racial Justice

Explain your understanding of systemic racism, and how—or whether—you believe it affects Minneapolis’s education systems & outcomes, our housing market, our environment, public safety, healthcare, or other major systems.

I believe that systemic racism is baked into every one of our institutions. The first goal was to get the City to recognize this. I authored the very first policy document that ever passed the Council that acknowledged the existence of institutional racism and committed to fight it.

The next step was to measure the problem. That’s why I led the first-ever diversity audit of City boards and commissions, which has grown to also encompass neighborhood groups.

And then we must put in the hard work to undo the racism that has been woven into our structures. One example of this is our history of redlining and racially restrictive covenants, which were codified in a supposedly “race neutral” way in our Zoning Code. That is one of the reasons I supported the 2040 Plan, which seeks to undo that racist, classist history of setting up some neighborhoods and residents as “good” and worthy of protection, and others as not.

I strongly supported – and cast the deciding vote to create – the Office of Race Equity. This office has helped us address systemic racism with literally every action the Council takes, through a required Race Equity Impact Analysis.

Our community suffers from some of the greatest racial disparities in the country across many social, educational, and economic metrics—and has for some time. If you’re in government now, what have you done to address this, and do you feel your efforts have been enough despite the lack of change? And if you’re seeking office for the first time, what ideas are you going to put forward that haven’t already failed?

I believe that we need to address racial disparities directly. That means measuring these impacts, as I did with our boards and commissions, and as I pushed for us to do regarding racial disparities in traffic stops. It means holding ourselves accountable to these disparities, which I have pushed to do in multiple City strategic plans.

And then we need to use that information to craft directly-targeted interventions. That’s why I led the effort to adopt our environmental justice Green Zones. We looked at the data, and found the parts of our city where past environmental harm intersects with communities of color and low wealth. Inside the Green Zones, the City is doing more to support people: zero percent interest for energy efficiency projects, grants, extra points for organizations serving these areas on City requests for proposals, and more.

We need to systematically repeat this for every disparity we find, from housing to education to jobs. I have pushed for the City to raise its standards for BIPOC workforce participation in our jobs programs, and for community preference in our housing programs. I commit to continuing to push for the City to devote itself to undoing racial disparities.

Climate

Climate change is already upon us, and its causes are on such a large scale that we can’t expect everyday Minneapolitans to recycle or LED bulb our way to a solution. How would you encourage businesses in our city to adopt practices to mitigate climate change, and/or hold them accountable for practices that worsen it?

I have been the Council’s strongest and most consistent leader on fighting climate change. I authored policies declaring a climate emergency, setting a social cost of carbon, and requiring energy disclosure in all residential buildings. I led the fight to municipalize our fossil fuel energy utilities, and have fought to implement Inclusive Financing. I led efforts to put the City on record opposing pipeline projects, including Line 3 and Keystone XL, and calling on the State to divest from fossil fuels and no longer categorize garbage incineration as renewable energy. I authored the resolution committing the City to 100% renewable electricity, and have gotten the City to sign up for community solar. And right now, I am fighting to bring the first-ever aquifer thermal district energy system to Minneapolis, in Ward 2.

I am the first Council Member and the first candidate in this race to call for a Green New Deal for Minneapolis. That will mean a massive increase in our spending on climate change mitigation like energy efficiency and renewable energy, and spending that funding in a way that maximizes equity and health. The funds should come from a fee on carbon pollution emitted by energy utilities.

Voters’ Rights

What have you done or what will you do to protect and expand voter access in your ward/Minneapolis?

I have been one of the Council’s strongest voices for small-d democracy.

I led the effort on the Council to adopt and implement Ranked Choice Voting. RCV did away with the low-turnout primary election that used to disenfranchise people in Minneapolis, especially college students and other young people in the areas around the University – they literally were not eligible to vote in the primary elections that winnowed every multi-candidate race to the top two. RCV also allows independent and minor-party candidates to compete without facing the “spoiler” factor.

I have pushed for the City to do much more to serve voters. In my time in office, we have begun offering voters a multiplicity of ways to vote, from early voting centers to mail-in balloting. I supported the ordinance that required landlords to give tenants a voter registration card when they move in. I have strongly supported sending an election guide to every Minneapolis voter, so that people can see what candidates and questions are on the ballot.

I strongly support direct democracy, and fought to give voters a petition-led pathway to adopting rent stabilization.

I will continue to fight to make it easier and more effective to vote.

Governance

Who are the people and/or organizations that would be part of your decision-making process in office?

I have a clear track record of working with individuals and movements to move ideas for transformational changes into actual concrete progress. Sometimes the ideas start with me. More often, they come from someone else: a collection of people who have come together to advance a particular way to make our city and our world better.

Just this year, I’ve worked with affordable housing providers to pass Single Room Occupancy. I’ve worked with the Sierra Club to pass the Rethinking I-94 resolution that calls on MnDOT to undo the harm that the freeway has caused to our communities. I’ve worked with Minneapolis United for Rent Control and the Home to Stay coalition to put rent stabilization on the ballot. I’ve worked with Honor the Earth to pass the resolution against Line 3. I’ve worked with Communities United Against Police Brutality and the ACLU on bringing back civilian oversight of police. And I worked with Yes 4 Minneapolis to put forward the Public Safety Charter amendment.

This is the way I work, and the kinds of organizations I work with. I will continue to work this way, to bring people together and make real change.

Last Word

What’s one thing you think Minneapolis does well that you’d like to build upon if elected?

I believe that the people of Minneapolis truly care about each other.

Last year, during the uprising after the murder of George Floyd, I saw a lot of destruction, anguish, and pain. But I also saw something beautiful: I saw people come together with their neighbors to keep each other safe, housed, fed, and healthy. I saw people – especially white people – come together to listen to and learn from our BIPOC neighbors and come to a new and deeper understanding of the reality of racism and police violence in our city.

Our city can feel pretty divided right now, along lines of race, class, age, and geography. But I believe that we can come together, build consensus around the real transformations that need to happen to make our city more just, sustainable, democratic and peaceful.

We are building on many strong, connected communities throughout our city. We are facing unprecedented challenges, but we are resilient, we care about each other, and there is true strength in that.

I have dedicated my life to working on behalf of others. As a teacher, as a union representative, as an education advocate, serving on the executive committee for the SD63 DFL, and as a Longfellow Community Council board member. None of the work we did was flashy or performative but it was work that needed to be done to help our students, families, and communities.

Public Safety

How will you keep young Black and brown kids safe—those who are simultaneously the most at risk from gun violence but also most at risk during interactions with the police? What do you believe are best practices for solving these issues in tandem, and how will you involve the communities most affected in problem solving and determining next steps?

A pillar of my campaign is centering the voices and experiences of those who have been the most harmed. It’s also important to me to appreciate the diversity in our lived experiences and understand how these varying perspectives will help us reach the best solutions. In short, I believe in a holistic approach that includes completely transforming our system of public safety to eradicate the racism and other biases that have been perpetuating our systems for far too long, while also investing in crime prevention by ensuring access to deeply affordable housing, living-wage jobs, and moving to a full-service community school model, and increasing access to other basic needs. All of these things disproportionately affect Black and Brown children and I believe it’s crucial that we address this in equity at all levels.

People of color in Minneapolis are killed or otherwise harmed by law enforcement at disproportionately high rates, despite many attempts at reform over several election cycles. How do you intend to reshape a policing system that has been resistant to change, and slow to show meaningful strides toward equitable community outcomes?

Something I’m passionate about is bringing people together under our shared values to create tangible change. Throughout the years, we’ve seen actions and inactions at City Hall that have perpetuated the status quo rather than making deep, systemic changes. Responsible governance is a crucial part of turning a progressive idea into a reality. I believe an important piece to achieving tangible change is to not alienate people based on their lived experiences. While we need to be careful to not let other people’s biases negatively impact the progress we’re working toward, the divisive political climate we’re in right now continues to roadblock progress of any kind. We need to be inclusive and interdisciplinary in our approach to help people understand why we need to make significant changes to our public safety system. If we call people into the work instead of alienating them for not understanding or being onboard right away, we’ll have a great chance at being successful in reaching true, transformative justice. Ending the cycle of state violence isn’t as simple as introducing progressive policy, I believe we also need to change people’s hearts and minds.

What are your stances on memorializing public spaces when our community is grieving, and/or demanding action through constitutionally-protected protests? What policies would you put in place or what organizations would you engage to ensure residents can do these things safely?

We need to be able to give space to those who are grieving and we need to be able to engage the entire community to find a way forward. We need to be able to listen to one another and there is no blanket policy or procedure that will work if we don’t have leaders who understand the importance of listening and learning in order to lead our city through difficult times.

Housing

Rental assistance from the federal government has helped keep people in their homes through the pandemic. This funding is not permanent, however, and inability to pay is the leading cause of evictions. What is your stance on more permanent rental assistance, rent stabilization, and/or rent control measures in Minneapolis?

I believe in making more substantial investments in deeply affordable housing, in addition to creating greater access to living-wage jobs and basic needs. Rental assistance is important, but the bigger issue is financial insecurity. I fully believe in supporting programs to provide immediate aid, but I’m equally passionate about finding long-term solutions to the problems our city is facing. There are a number of housing policy solutions that exist, subsidizing the production of affordable housing, rent stabilization, just cause protection, city-funded legal services for those facing evictions are all progressive tenant protections I believe in and are important ways we can be proactive in protecting people from housing loss. I also believe in increasing investments to the Stable Homes Stable School initiative.

Gentrification results in cultural loss for communities and major economic impacts for those priced out of their longtime neighborhoods. As our city grows, what plans do you have to combat gentrification and increase the amount of affordable housing available in Minneapolis?

Gentrification is an issue that has only been exacerbated in the wake of the George Floyd uprisings. Many BIPOC and local neighborhood owners of commercial property are being driven out by property conglomerates and commercial property flippers. Solutions that have been presented previously often leave room for loopholes, like the idea of assessing fines that conglomerates like these would easily choose to pay if it allows their long-term property investment to move forward. We have community organizations doing great work, like Redesign Inc. who recently purchased the Coliseum in Ward 2 to keep the ownership within the community and repurpose it to support business owners of color. The city can and should do more to support our communities this way, and one idea I support is to establish a city-funded program to procure sites from sellers and provide pathways to people, businesses, and organizations within our communities to have ownership over these properties. I believe this is a more substantial way to protect cultural districts and prevent outside developers from further gentrifying our city and displacing our neighbors.

In the last few years, Minneapolis has experienced a spike in encampments of unhoused people on public land—a high percentage of whom are Black and/or Indigenous. Many of our unhoused neighbors see this as their best housing option over shelters (for reasons of personal safety, pet ownership, or having to abandon property). What will you do to protect these neighbors and connect them with safe and stable housing?

Encampments cannot be the best housing solution for our neighbors experiencing homelessness. Barriers to accessing shelters are an increasing issue in our city and I believe we need to make significant investments in temporary housing that is coupled with social services and creating a more clear pathway to permanent housing. The Avivo Village is a great example of a system we can replicate. This project took collaboration and funding from all levels of government.

In 2019, the council voted to place a navigation center at a temporary location as an alternative to the encampments, but they later declined to relocate the shelter after one year. Additionally, in 2020, the council voted to cut the affordable housing trust fund as a response to budget shortfalls from the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic has only exasperated housing disparities. The decision to cut this funding was shortsighted.

In the meantime, I believe we should provide greater access to basic needs in addition to things like clean needles and access to Narcan so we can support our unhoused residents and provide direct, trauma-informed care while we work to create more solutions.

Jobs and Economy

Black, Indigenous, and Minneapolis residents of color pay local taxes and contribute to our local economy, but often do not receive the same shared economic benefits as their white counterparts. Through generations of oppression via policy and unequal systems, wealth has been chronically and systematically extracted from BIPOC communities—how do you envision addressing this legacy of economic harm, in both the short term and the long-term?

BIPOC residents face the unjust consequences of systemic racism daily, whether it be unequal pay, not having access to quality education, trying to receive affordable healthcare without bias, the inability to access safe and affordable housing, living within a food desert, etc. While frequently intersecting, there is no “one-size fit all” approach to solving these issues and they all contribute to economic inequality. We need drastic, system changes across various systems to achieve economic justice for our BIPOC neighbors. One solution is to follow the lead of organizations like Community Reinvestment Fund and do a better job an ensuring that BIPOC business owners have access to crucial financial services. The reality is that Black and Indigenous people have been oppressed economically from centuries of slavery and genocide. With that said, I believe reparations are an important way for us to achieve economic justice and it is possible for local cities to create reparation programs on their own, independent from the state and federal government. In short, we need public officials to work with the private sector and BIPOC business owners and community leaders to take direct, community-specific actions to redistribute the wealth in our communities so that it’s equitable.

The power dynamics of work are heavily tilted against low-wage workers, especially immigrant workers. What actions have you taken or what plans do you have to protect and support these workers?

Labor exploitation of low-wage workers is a persisting problem in our city that has been made worse by the COVID-19 pandemic. I believe this can be used as an opportunity to create a better, more responsive employment system for both low-wage earners and their employers. Right now, we’re seeing a rise in unionization efforts, which is an effective way to protect low-wage workers. But we’re also seeing employers using various methods to keep unionizing from happening. I believe city leaders should support and encourage unionization efforts, in addition to prioritizing the creation of new union jobs. I also believe in making more significant investments in workforce development and job training. Additionally, I believe undocumented workers should be included in unionizing and that more work should be done to ensure that undocumented workers know their rights and that their employers are following them. I also believe we should work with employers to prevent labor exploitation and establish clear, robust systems of enforcement should they fail to comply.

Racial Justice

Explain your understanding of systemic racism, and how—or whether—you believe it affects Minneapolis’s education systems & outcomes, our housing market, our environment, public safety, healthcare, or other major systems.

I would define systemic racism as the result of perpetual policies that have intentionally placed barriers to withhold equal access to opportunity for BIPOC people. Systemic racism is something that is embedded in all of our systems and is the root our city, state, and country have grown from. For too long, city leaders have made small changes while allowing the status quo (systemic racism) to perpetuate for far too long. As a former public school teacher and teacher’s union representative, I saw first-hand how all of these intersecting issues are affected by systemic racism. Infact, I found that most often the barriers to educational success are almost always directly linked to inequities in other categories of life: access to safe and affordable housing, access to healthy food, access to affordable healthcare without experiencing racial bias, and other major systems. Too often we think of these issues as independent issues and fail to see how they intersect. I strongly believe and recognize that systemic racism affects all of our city’s systems, which is why I’m passionate about finding real, sustainable, tangible solutions to eradicating racism within our city’s systems.

Our community suffers from some of the greatest racial disparities in the country across many social, educational, and economic metrics—and has for some time. If you’re in government now, what have you done to address this, and do you feel your efforts have been enough despite the lack of change? And if you’re seeking office for the first time, what ideas are you going to put forward that haven’t already failed?

As a former teacher and current father, I believe one of the most crucial ways we can address racial disparities is through education. The quality of public education someone has access to can and often does directly affect someone’s access to economic opportunity. This is why I believe so strongly in shifting to a fully-funded community school model, which will provide social and health services to all of our children in Minneapolis. Removing barriers by providing access to basic needs will help close the opportunity gap and ensure all students are college and/or career-ready. Taking this mentality one step further, I also believe we should invest in a Minneapolis College Program, which would guarantee two years of tuition-free post-secondary education to Minneapolis students. Providing greater access to both K-12, higher education, and job training programs is a direct way we can create sustainable, greater access to living-wage jobs and achieve economic equity. I believe these new ideas and making these significant investments in education will help to address a number of issues, including education inequity, crime prevention, and increase access to economic opportunity.

Climate

Climate change is already upon us, and its causes are on such a large scale that we can’t expect everyday Minneapolitans to recycle or LED bulb our way to a solution. How would you encourage businesses in our city to adopt practices to mitigate climate change, and/or hold them accountable for practices that worsen it?

I agree that climate change cannot and should not be an issue that is placed on individuals. I believe in investing in grants for energy efficiency improvements for local businesses and city departments through solar energy, lighting retrofits, and energy-efficient equipment, and push for inclusive financing so that everyone can access the energy-saving improvements they need. We also need to target vacant and unproductive properties for conversion to non-profit community food production and distribution centers, or locally-owned, sustainability-based businesses.

Voters’ Rights

What have you done or what will you do to protect and expand voter access in your ward/Minneapolis?

This is something I’m passionate about both personally and professionally. At my current job, as the Director of Government Relations for Students United, it’s an important part of my job to help increase the voter participation of college students. We’ve fought to keep polling places on campus and continue to find innovative ways to reach young voters. In my free time, I have countless hours under my belt of voter outreach volunteering. There are varying and intersecting reasons why certain marginalized groups have historically and currently faced is enfranchisement. Door knocking, phone banking, hosting community events, organizing poll shuttles, etc. are all ways we can protect and expand access to voting.

Governance

Who are the people and/or organizations that would be part of your decision-making process in office?

I will always want input from trusted interest groups, field experts, and my neighbors in Ward 2. I intend to have a firm open-door policy to ensure accessibility and transparency. The specifics of this would largely vary based on the decisions I would be making if elected. I feel strongly about centering the voices of those who have historically been the most harmed by our inequitable systems. I also feel strongly about bringing in community organizations to help us make the best decisions. For example, I would work with organizations like Zacah, Envision Community, and other housing advocates and experts when it comes to making a decision on housing policy, or look to MNA if making a decision on making changes to a local healthcare facility. These are just examples, but in short, I strongly believe it’s going to take collaborative, inter disciplinary work from all of us across our city to make the sustainable, deeply rooted changes our city needs.

Last Word

What’s one thing you think Minneapolis does well that you’d like to build upon if elected?

Minneapolis has STRONG communities. Our communities are connected, caring, and engaged. We need to invest in our communities and leverage the work that our communities are doing to find solutions to our problems. We have too many leaders who claim they have it all figured out but each community needs to have input and we need to be able to adapt and work with communities to find solutions.