City briefs - Feb 2025

The Metropolitan Council has approved its ‘Imagine 2050’ plan which sets the long-range policy foundation for housing, land use, regional parks, transportation, and water for the seven-county region. The plan includes the council’s local forecasts for population, households and employment and predicts that the area will add 650,000 people by 2050, with Minneapolis reaching 500,000 total residents for the first time since the 1950s. In accordance with state law, this plan serves as a development guide for local governments to create consistent, compatible, and coordinated local comprehensive plans within the regional policy framework.

 

Effective Law Enforcement for All (ELEFA), the evaluator hired to track the city’s compliance with the Minnesota Department of Human Rights settlement agreement, issued their first semi-annual report. The report covers work done from March 18 to Sept. 30, 2024, and identifies some changes in policy, training, and the handling of misconduct complaints, as well as plans for equipment, technology, facilities, and data systems. The report is on ELEFA’s website. The next review period will cover work completed between Oct. 1, 2024 to March 31, 2025.

 

The city council has voted to delay a final decision about the street layout at George Floyd Square and further evaluate the pedestrian mall concept.  They gave directions to staff that would help develop language for a corresponding pedestrian mall that would be adjacent to 3744 Chicago Ave. (aka The People’s Way), which the council approved earlier and action is consistent with a resolution they passed in December that expressed support for the pedestrian plaza, which allows for vehicular access to local residents and businesses only while maintaining access for emergency vehicles. This allows the city to pursue the pedestrian plaza concept in compliance with the state law.

 

Josh Bassais has announced his candidacy for Ward 8 City Council member. The seat is currently held by Andrea Jenkins, who has yet to announce a reelection campaign. Soren Stevenson has also formally announced his candidacy for the position.

 

The council has voted to appoint southwest Ward 13 resident Peter Ingraham to the zoning board of adjustment.  This city board decides matters of zoning variances and appeals. 

 

The city council has appointed the following new southwest Special Service District (SSD) advisory board members for two-year terms.  Any property owner, or their representative, who pays the district’s service charges, is eligible to serve on the district’s board. Boards advise the city council and staff on desired services, an annual budgets, district activities and concerns. 

• Uptown - Jacqueline Knight, Jeff Herman, Mocholas Hall and Andrew Finn

• Lowry Hills - Thomas Fletcher, John Winter and Dan Leitner

• Lyndale Lake - John Meegan, Stuart Ackerberg, Denise Arambadjis, and Christina Le

• Linden Hills Special Service District - Mark Dwyer, Mark Settergren and Felicity Britton

• 50th & France - Steve Young and Heidi Bing

 

The city has identified the details of location and improvements of certain existing streets in the Nicollet Ave. and Cecil Newman Lane street construction project, including proposed special assessments, and setting a public hearing for April 10, 2025, to consider the assessments, and the abandonment and removal of areaways in conflict with the project. The  total estimated cost is $23,345,000. 

 

Junauda Petrus has been named this year’s Minneapolis Poet Laureate. Among her extensive work in the city, she was lead artist with the Heart of the Beast Theatre’s May Day Parade from 2015-2017, and City Page’s Artist of the Year in 2016. Her 2019 novel, “The Stars and the Blackness Between Them,” is about two teenaged girls living in Minneapolis. Petrus also wrote a piece entitled “Sweetness for George” following the police killing of George Floyd ,and is a co-founder of the Minneapolis-based Free Black Dirt, a collective of writers and creators who seek to “spark and engage in critical conversations.”