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Join local artisans, makers, growers, educators, small businesses, nonprofits, contractors, and community organizations sharing their talents, knowledge, and passion for sustainable living.
At the heart of this festival is a simple vision: share generously, celebrate the creativity and resilience of our community, and care deeply for one another and our planet. We would be delighted to have you join us in making this festival a place where curiosity blossoms, collaboration flourishes, and everyone leaves inspired.
North Star Sustainable Living Festival
October 10th, 2026
9am-6pm
University Lutheran House of Hope (601 13th Ave SE)
Learn more here!
The rise of mass surveillance goes far beyond Flock cameras and drones. Come hear from local experts about the ever-increasing use of surveillance technologies, the impacts on our communities, and how we can organize to push back to protect our rights and our neighbors. Register here.
The panel will be facilitated by Saint Paul Council Member HwaJeong Kim, and the panelists are Minneapolis Council Member Robin Wonsley, Professor Jessica West from Mitchell Hamline School of Law, Matthew Guariglia from Electronic Frontier Foundation, State Representative Athena Hollins, John Boehler from ACLU Minnesota, and Anna Madison from Women Against Military Madness.
Technofascism: community panel on mass surveillance and AI
Monday October 19th from 6-7:30
New location: North End Community Center (145 Lawson Ave W, Saint Paul MN 55117)
Register here
Technofascism community panel flyer
The annual free South Minneapolis Seniors Fair will take place on Wednesday, October 21st. This fair is tailored for our senior community members and caregivers. The day will feature workshops, an elected officials panel, a resource fair, and a free lunch. The workshops will cover the City Budget, Election and Voter Services, public safety and crime prevention, and connecting with the community. The resource fair will feature vendors from the City of Minneapolis, as well as community partners and organizations that provide services to seniors.
Details 9 a.m. - 2 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 21 Diamond Lake Lutheran Church, 5760 Portland Ave. S.
Schedule
9 a.m. - Breakfast, Welcome address
10 a.m. - Breakout sessions: How to Build Community – Your Voice Matters; City Budget
10:45 a.m. - Attorney General Keith Ellison’s Office & Congresswoman Ilhan Omar’s office; breakout session on fraud, scams, & federal updates
11:30 a.m. - Lunch
11:45 a.m. - Elected Officials Panel
12:45 p.m. - Raffle
1 p.m. - Yoga
1:20 p.m. – Break out sessions: Crime Prevention; Elections and Voter Services
The Seniors Fair is sponsored by Wards 8, 11 and 12; the City of Minneapolis; and TRUST, inc
For ASL and other language interpretation, please send requests to christina.kendrick@minneapolis.gov by Wed., Oct. 14.
Flyer for South Minneapolis Senior Fair
Summary: The Frey administration is proposing major changes to Behavioral Crisis Response, one of the most successful public safety programs in the city. Council Members are launching an initiative to protect and strengthen the program by bringing it in-house.
Background: The City’s Behavioral Crisis Response (BCR) program provides crisis intervention, counseling, and referrals and connections to support services free of cost to Minneapolis residents. BCR has responded to over 35,000 calls since it was created in 2021. It has been widely celebrated as a successful public safety program that reduces calls to police and ensures specialized mental health responses to residents in need. The federal Department of Justice, Minnesota Department of Human Rights, and New York University Policing Project have all commended BCR and emphasized its importance in the City’s work creating a comprehensive public safety system that respects human rights and constitutional law, and provides high-quality responsive services to residents.
The Frey administration has proposed fundamentally changing BCR to include a wide variety of other services, including responding to unsheltered homelessness and “quality of life crisis.” These services are duplicative with other City services like Homeless Response Team (HRT) and a newly transitioned in-house program called Community Safety Ambassadors. It does not make sense to a contracted vendor covering the same scope as our in-house teams like HRT and Community Safety Ambassadors.
I strongly oppose changing the scope of BCR because I believe mission creep threatens what has been a very effective program. I support protecting the original, successful scope of BCR. The City should develop or improve other programs to respond to other issues, rather than trying to force one specialized and successful program to absorb a lot of new types of work that it was not designed to do.
I also believe we have a great opportunity to bring this program in-house instead of contracting out to an external vendor. This possibility has been discussed for years and many Council Members have expressed support for it. Incorporating BCR into the City enterprise would likely be more cost-effective and could provide more long-term stability than contracting to a vendor. It also further solidifies our commitment to making this successful service a permanent part of the City’s public safety system beyond policing.
The Frey administration asked the Public Health, Safety and Equity Committee PHSE to approve a two-year contract with a vendor to provide a completely overhauled version of BCR starting in January. The proposed contract does not advance our goal of protecting the original successful scope of BCR and bringing the program in-house. In light of that, my colleagues and I voted to recommend that the City Council deny the contract.
I look forward to working with my colleagues and the administration on a transition plan to bring BCR in-house.
Key votes: The Public Health, Safety and Equity Committee voted 4-2 against the contract for Mobile Crisis Response. The City Council will vote on the contract on October 15th.
Summary: Mayor Frey vetoed Workers Drive Minneapolis, a commonsense regulation to protect workers and residents from robotaxis run by Tesla, Amazon and Google. The CIty Council will vote on overriding the veto next week.
Background: Last week, Mayor Frey vetoed Workers Drive Minneapolis, the policy that would protect 10,000 drivers from losing their jobs to robotaxis, and protect pedestrians and riders from dangerous and unregulated vehicles on our streets.
The co-authors of Workers Drive Minneapolis (Council Vice President Osman, Council Members Chavez and Chowdhury, and I) released the following statement about the veto:
Workers Drive Minneapolis is a commonsense basic regulation to put public safety and workers’ rights ahead of Big Tech’s profit motives. This is a starting point to ensure that we are prioritizing safety in real time and protecting workers instead of relying on outsourcing safety controls to workers in the Philippines. Mayor Frey’s veto means Minneapolis residents and workers have no protections from AI robotaxis owned by Tesla, Amazon and Google.
Progress cannot mean telling thousands of workers that their jobs no longer matter. Drivers are our neighbors. They pay rent here, raise families here, and contribute to our communities every day. We are asking our City Council colleagues to stand with them and override this veto.
The mayor has not shared a meaningful way to ensure that workforce displacement would not occur. It is not progress to risk 10,000 driver workforce shrinking at the hands of trillion-dollar tech industry that also has the potential to disrupt both the transit and trucking workforce.
Minneapolis can embrace innovation without leaving working people behind. Local government isn’t powerless to stop automation that harms our communities, it’s simply a question of political will. Rideshare drivers’ income is in danger today, but Big Tech will threaten more jobs tomorrow in industries across our city. That’s why organized labor and residents across the city have supported Workers Drive Minneapolis from day one. City Council stands with immigrant workers and working families, and we are deeply disappointed that Mayor Frey has chosen to veto that approach.
If tens of thousands of people lose their jobs to AI automation we will see declines in our local economy, growth in poverty, and a demand in social services local governments will not be able to meet as they are already strained for resources.
Overriding the mayor’s veto and passing Workers Drive Minneapolis puts public needs above corporate profit.
Key votes: The City Council will vote on whether to override Mayor Frey’s veto on October 15th. Nine votes are required to override a veto.
Summary: City Council is working to end subsidies for slumlords.
Background: In October 2025, Council Vice President Osman and I led the City Council to pass STOP Slumlords, an ordinance to bring greater transparency and accountability for landlords who have multiple property violations. Without STOP Slumlords, landlords whose properties had multiple serious violations were having their rental licenses renewed year after year without any improvement. STOP Slumlords goes into effect on January 1, 2027. Under STOP Slumlords, the City Council will hold public hearings for the lowest tier rental licensees. This gives tenants and the public an opportunity to participate in the process before the City Council takes a public vote on the rental license for any landlord with the lowest ranking for property quality.
Stronger enforcement on slumlords requires extra staff time and resources. It’s not fair to make taxpayers and other landlords subsidize these extra costs. In the most recent years, the City’s rental license program has undercharged landlords, leaving taxpayers to cover over $3 million to run the Inspections division. The City has the authority to charge rental licensing fees to slumlords that recover the costs of the increased service. Mayor Frey’s proposed fee schedule for 2027 did not take advantage of this opportunity, and would have had the public cover the cost of the STOP Slumlords ordinance going into effect next year. Last year, the mayor’s proposal also neglected to recover about $3 million from all landlords to cover the costs of the City’s existing rental licensing program. Next year, the STOP Slumlords ordinance will go into effect January 1st, and unless the administration provides proper numbers for the 2027 Fee Schedule, taxpayers again will be footing the bill.
I am working with Council Vice President Osman, Council Member Chavez, and staff from Housing Inspections, IT, Budget, and the City Attorney’s Office on updated fee rates for landlords and slumlords that ensure everyone is paying their fair share and taxpayers aren’t forced to continue subsidizing slumlords.
Key votes: The Business Housing and Zoning Committee held the 2027 License Fee Schedule in committee until October 20th. Council Members will amend the Fee Schedule to reflect accurate costs of rental licensing and end the subsidy for slumlords before the City Council approves the final Fee Schedule.
Summary: Council Members are requesting that MPD provide updates on MPD’s progress implementing audit recommendations to prevent fraud, waste and abuse in off-duty and fleet management. Council Members are also requesting an after-action review of the City's response to domestic violence-related calls for service by Mariah Samuels, as well as the City’s investigation into her death.
Background: This week, Council Member Chavez, Stevenson and I brought forward requests that MPD provide public updates on their progress implementing recommendations from an independent audit of two different areas of concern in the department, off-duty work and fleet management.
Off-duty work has been a subject of intense scrutiny for years. The federal Department of Justice has named that it is ripe for abuse. There was an independent audit of off-duty in 2019 that listed specific recommendations for how to prevent fraud, waste and abuse of off-duty. Each of these to-do items had a target remediation date in spring or summer of 2020, meaning they are all more than six years overdue. We are requesting status updates, an explanation of the multi-year delay, any barriers to completion, a specific list of the corrective actions the administration is taking and its expected completion date.
Residents should be outraged by the Frey administration’s lack of progress on off-duty management. For six years, manageable recommendations by the audit have sat unaddressed which demonstrates that this is not a priority for the Frey administration. Residents pay at least $1.4 million annually in unnecessary taxes to subsidize officers’ personal profit through a program which continues to be unregulated and ripe for abuse. Regardless of whether the Frey administration sees this as a priority, I am glad several of my colleagues join me in ensuring we are utilizing all tools to have better oversight of the off-duty program. In the upcoming weeks we will finally receive a legal memo from the City Attorney’s Office that will inform the City Council of our legal options to fully regain authority over managing off-duty.
The second request for updates relates to an audit of fleet management. Fleet management refers to MPD’s use of vehicles, such as squad cars and personal use cars. Many residents may be surprised to learn that MPD has personal use cars that officers can drive home. The audit into fleet management that was published at the end of 2024 raised many concerns around the policies and procedures to prevent fraud, waste and abuse of the MPD fleet system.
The audit recommendations all have target remediations dates between January and December 2025, which means they are all between 6 and 21 months overdue. The legislative directive requests status updates, an explanation of the multi-year delay, any barriers to completion, a specific list of the corrective actions the administration is taking and its expected completion date.
Lastly, Council Members Chavez, Chughtai and I requested an independent after-action review of the City’s handling of the case of Mariah Samuels. Mariah was murdered in an act of domestic violence despite repeatedly asking MPD for help and protection. Mariah’s life mattered. Her family and community are rightfully demanding full transparency into how MPD and the City handled her case. An after-action review is a tool to thoroughly review how the case was handled. While an after-action review cannot bring Mariah back, it demonstrates that the City takes her case seriously and gives us an opportunity to learn about any gaps or failures in responses to domestic violence so that the City can improve.
Key votes: The Public Health, Safety and Equity Committee voted in support of all three requests. The City Council will vote on the items on October 15th.
Summary: Council leadership is requesting information on authority to subpoena the mayor and his administration.
Background: Over the last several weeks, Mayor Frey has significantly limited the City Council and public’s access to his administration. The mayor is the sole executive leader of about 4,000 employees who run the day-to-day operations of the City departments and divisions. These staff give reports at City Council meetings, which are open to the public and livestreamed. Committees typically meet once every two weeks, with a few months out of the year having periods where committees may not meet for three weeks. Committees are organized by subject matter, and departments request action on items that are within scope of the subject matter jurisdiction. Many of these items are requests for funding in the form of contract authorizations, loans, or grants.
In my five years at City Hall, it has been commonplace for staff who are requesting action from the council to be present to speak and answer questions about their items. About a month ago, Mayor Frey unilaterally announced that he would not allow his staff to present at City Council meetings except when he chooses to. Since then, City Council and the public have been denied crucial information that impacts public safety, taxes, major development projects, and more.
Without access to City staff, the City Council is unable to fulfill our responsibilities in policymaking, budgeting, and oversight. For example, the Mayor is going to ask the City Council to approve a nominee for police chief without ever having answered the City Council’s questions about MPD’s organizational structure, long-term stability, leadership, operations, and internal affairs. Last cycle, the administration asked the Business, Housing, and Zoning committee to forgive a city $4.5 million dollar loan. Several council members had questions about this because of the significant dollar figure, and the fact that the loan had only been taken out in 2021. No one from the Frey administration was present to answer questions about the vote, but later stated that it was a highly time-sensitive issue. The City Council cannot make an informed decision about a multi-million dollar action without basic information. Another example is that Mayor Frey refuses to answer questions about off-duty management, but is expecting the City Council to vote on a budget that assumes no revenue from off-duty fees. This revenue factor also impacts residents’ property taxes.
In light of this, Council leadership is requesting that the City Attorneys write a legal analysis as to whether the City Council has authority to subpoena the Administration for information, and what legal avenues may be available to give the City Council such authority.
Residents deserve transparency in local government and the City Council needs access to information to do our jobs. It is incredibly unfortunate that our current mayor is unwilling to be collaborative and transparent. But simply surrendering access to information is not an option. I look forward to working with my colleagues on City Council subpoena power for the mayor’s administration.
Key votes: On October 13th, the Committee of the Whole will vote on whether to request a legal analysis of City Council’s subpoena power for the mayor. The City Council will vote on the item on October 15th.
Contact Ward 2
Visit: minneapolismn.gov/ward2
Email: robin.wonsley@minneapolismn.gov
Phone: 612-673-2202
City Hall
350 S. Fifth St., Room 370
Minneapolis, MN 55415
For reasonable accommodations or alternative format please contact 311. People who are deaf or hard of hearing can use a relay service to call 311 at 612-673-3000. Para ayuda, llame al 311. Rau kev pab, hu 311. Hadii aad caawimaad u baahantahay, wac 311. |
