Tensions rise at city workshop amid calls for police reform

More than 100 people packed The Square event center (3737 Chicago Ave.) on Sept. 24, 2024, for the city of Minneapolis’ fifth and final visioning workshop for George Perry Floyd Square (GFS). While attendees enjoyed dinner and fellowship with their neighbors, tensions were high as many in the room voiced frustration with the city’s process and lack of demonstrable police reform.
As in previous workshops, the evening was split into breakout groups to separately address road reconstruction, memorials, the Peoples’ Way and racial healing. This time another group was convened by resident Marcia Howard to discuss the ongoing protest for the 24 demands of Justice Resolution 001 (bit.ly/georgefloydsquare-a), created by community in 2020 in response to the question by city leaders, “What does justice look like”?
“Everything we are considering here has to be considered within the context of everything we are,” Howard told the room. “Because you did not just fall out of a coconut tree, you fell into the middle of a protest.”
In the road reconstruction breakout room, transportation consultant Craig Vaughn presented three concepts for reconfiguring the right-of-way at 38th and Chicago: Flexible-Open, Transit Mall and Pedestrian Plaza. Susan Heineman, a member of the former Co-Creation Team (CCT), pointed out that a bus shelter on the map was placed directly on the memorial for Dameon “Murphy Ranks” Chambers, who was killed in 2020. Three of the 24 demands relate to investigating his death and holding police accountable for “impeding EMS response, mishandling and compromising evidence, and refusing to treat the site of his death as a crime scene.”
In discussing transit access, an attendee expressed that it was “at odds that you’re actively putting transit in a memorial site.”
“We are trying to bring transit back into the Square in some way, shape or form,” said Vaughn. “It’s feedback we’ve heard from many members of the community.”
Jenny Jones, a nearby resident who participated in most of the Learning Table groups at Sabathani and subsequent meetings, interjected: “There’s a significant segment of those groups that wanted pedestrian only,” she said. “So you’re saying it’s based on feedback, but it isn’t based on all the feedback.”
Several members of the CCT were present. Appointed by the city, the CCT met for more than a year to discuss the 38th St. and Chicago Ave. right-of-way capital improvement project before disbanding in order to broaden the scope to include memorials and the Peoples’ Way. According to its former co-chair Jeanelle Austin, neighborhood resident and executive director of Rise and Remember, the CCT voted unanimously for a community-led vision before starting construction on the streets.
“What you all are doing from my understanding is the construction of the streets are to begin first, before we even know and crystallize what the Peoples’ Way will even become,” said Austin at the workshop. The city purchased the Peoples’ Way in 2023 and issued a Request for Proposals (RFQ) on Sept. 23, 2024, to develop the site.
“When you have this driving force, ‘We have to do the streets, we have to do the streets, we have to do the streets,’ transit is leading this and not the community,” said Austin. She said the community asked for a lot of things that would bring equity into the neighborhood, but redoing the streets was not among them.
“Rather than letting the community lead, you still created these spaces and leading with transportation and not with the fact that we’ve got hundreds of names of Black people who are killed by systemic city violence,” she said. In its investigation into the Minneapolis Police Department (MPD), Austin pointed out, the U.S. Department of Justice found civil rights violations by both the MPD and the city of Minneapolis.
There’s a strong feeling by some that the city was being dismissive of the CCT’s recommendation by hosting these workshops, which have taken place in parallel to the Community Visioning Council (CVC) that meets on third Saturdays at Belfry Apartments/Calvary Church (3901 Chicago Ave.).
“I worked my butt off to even just create the Community Visioning Council so that the community could take that over and have a space [to talk]. And then what does the city do? Sideline that with other meetings,” Austin said.
As Austin spoke to the need to make real investments in the neighborhood, another attendee expressed that the city hosting these public meetings was an investment.
“I wanna live in a city that works for me,” he said. “I chose this community because of this.”
“This is an investment in the Square,” he added, pointing to the concepts displayed on easels. “I want to bike to work. I want to take the Metro Transit.”
“And I wanna live. Period,” responded Austin, who is Black. “I wanna live.”
A resident of 11th Ave. said that other transit hubs in Minneapolis make the place feel “a little seedy,” “not safe” and don’t serve the residents around it.
“I’ve never seen it done well. And I’ve never seen it done where it actually respects the actual residents that live there,” she said. “It has never made a place feel safer.”
Another resident was distraught over people loitering under the bright lights of the bus shelter in front of her home.
“It’s brought a lot of problems to the neighborhood,” she said. “It’s partly because it’s a big ol’ huge bus stop with a huge bright light that encourages all sorts of… dangerous behavior at all hours of the morning.”

A project in need of a vision
Art Serotoff, also a member of the former CCT, expressed concern about the city leading the workshops.
“The thing that gets me is the city controls the questions. If the city controls the questions, your perspective is narrow,” he said, and explained that the CCT repeatedly called for the creation of a vision for the area.
“A vision is not five different plans slapped together. The five different plans need an overall idea,” said Serotoff. He read one of the metrics on a Concept Evaluation Matrix handout, that states: “Acknowledge the significance of GFS as a sacred space visited by nearby residents and people from around the world by designing areas that support daily living, gatherings and communal activities and celebrations. ...
“To me that stands out as at least a guide to what a vision might be. But this stuff…?” said Serotoff, pointing to the easels. “Why is it stalled? There’s no vision. There’s no unified view of what this area could be.”
While the city has held many community meetings in a variety of formats over the last few years and has summarized public sentiment in each, these 2024 workshops are covering a lot more ground in a lot less time than the CCT. They have held five workshops that last 2.5 hours each, minus time for dinner and mingling. That equals 10 hours this year for people to process concepts and provide feedback. If participants have attended each meeting but gone to different breakout groups (right of way, memorials, the Peoples’ Way and more), they will have spent less time on each area.

Next up
According to Alexander Kado, Office of Public Service, reconstruction of the right of way will begin in 2025. The city is hosting a “Dinner Dialogue” at 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 29 at Belfry Apartments/Calvary Lutheran Church (3901 Chicago Ave.). Project leaders expect that the summary provided at that meeting will be reported to the City Council Committee of the Whole on Nov. 12.
Proposals for developing the Peoples’ Way are due Nov. 22, and a recommendation to award development rights is scheduled to be provided to the city council and mayor in April or May 2025.
The Community Visioning Council meets again at 10 a.m. on Saturday, Oct. 19, at Belfrey Apartments/Calvary Church.