COMMUNITY VOICES | Mark Andrew will not be good for the poor or women

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In a recent mayoral candidate forum Mark Andrew said he wants to do for education what he did for MFIP, Minnesota’s version of welfare. I was alarmed by this because MFIP as a policy has succeeded in getting thousands of poor woman and families off of public assistance, but little attention has been paid to how it has failed us all.The bottom line: Minnesota now has far more children living in extreme poverty than it ever had, and many woman have been shuttled into dead end jobs in just a few industries that tend to keep them poor (retail, low-end health care, hospitality, and temporary clerical work). In short, MFIP has feminized poverty by failing to prepare woman for poverty-ending work, and, instead, creating a ready crop of woman serfs for a few industries that survive on poverty labor.Has Mark Andrew been paying attention? I’m not so sure.Internationally we have learned a few things about treating woman as assets to society rather than problems. Traditionally we thought investing in men was the answer, but we learned that when you go into poor countries and give aid solely to men they often drink beer and start wars. Woman and children suffer.Conversely, when you invest in woman they nourish and educate their families and form cooperative economies that change nations.This respectful principle of investing in woman was missing from Mark’s white paternalist vision for poor mothers when he prosed a “workfare” program in Hennepin County. Instead of providing education and training that would lift woman and children out of poverty, his “Operation Clean Sweep” required mothers recieving AFDC to pick up trash along with convicted offenders.This wasn’t a response to the needs of poor woman and chilren, it was more imperialist than that. At the time he is quoted as saying: “I try to look at it more as a Park Board issue than as a welfare reform issue, although the two are obviously linked together…I think the (litter) problem has become more serious in the past couple of years.”Another benefit of the Andrew plan for poor woman and other criminals? He said it would “take pressure off the jail, which is experiencing severe overcrowding on weekends.”And, one highlight for his friends in Minneapolis’ golden crescent: the first crew of litter-fighting poverty moms would tend to the trash of Lake Calhoun and Lake of the Isles. Continue Reading

Ward 9 city council candidate forum: A summary

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Ward 9 voters gathered at the Midtown Farmers Market on the morning of September 21 to hear the first Ward 9 city council candidate forum since the DFL ward convention. Here are each of the 5 candidates spoke to their strong points followed by the one or two word term they were asked by the moderator to distinguish themselves by.Ty Moore “Social justice” has spent his whole adult life winning victories in community struggles as an organizer such as saving homeowners from predatory bank foreclosures and saving North High School. He offered a consistent theme of people over profits vowing to stand up to the chamber of commerce, big developers and structurally embedded racism. While the candidates expressed unanimous opposition to the Vikings Stadium tax vote Ty answered that it is just the tip of the iceberg as far as widespread corporate welfare offenses within the city.Alondra Cano “Powerful feminism” has a community organizer background like Ty Moore. For the past 12 years Alondra organized for immigrant rights, education reform, and environmental justice from an equity analysis and being a voice for cultural inclusion. Continue Reading

North Minneapolis mayoral forum disappoints community members

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When DeVon Nolen asked her question on food justice at the October 8 mayoral candidate forum at Folwell Park, she expected them to answer. But the 10 candidates recited stock phrases from their print literature. She was disappointed and frustrated with them all.”I asked a multi layered, multi-textured question,” said Nolen, a community activist and lifelong resident of the North Side. “I asked about food justice. I asked about racial justice. Continue Reading

COMMUNITY VOICES | Streets.mn voter guide: Betsy Hodges

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Twin Cities Daily Planet media partner Streets.mn developed a short series of questions related to transportation and land use designed to give voters more information on Minneapolis mayoral and city council candidates and expand the conversation about these topics. This is candidate Betsy Hodges’ response to that query.

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COMMUNITY VOICES | Third Ward Candidate critique

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Jacob Frey has proclaimed twice in the last month that what the third ward needs, as part of the city, is organization.  Organization that he has put together and will bring to the city; organization that he has personally assembled through his activism in the Great Gay Race.  Does the city not already employ organizational tools?  Do we really want the ward to be run by the minions of the candidate with the biggest private army of pretty boy thugs?  Tammany Hall never looked so good.  These would be the followers who trail along behind him at events. Jacob Frey’s campaign took it on itself to write their own rules for the forum at DMNA, bringing proponents in campaign t-shirts who cheered at will, in contravention of the rules everyone else followed.Mr. Frey has declined to accept that our constitutional rights come first before his ideas.  He is pushing gun control as a public safety policy, taking control of our lives from our own hands and throwing it to the winds.  Hiring more police does not keep us safer; the only strategy that will is to prepare ourselves to protect ourselves.  Elimination of victimhood is the only way to stand up to the bullies who may threaten us; when each of us is trained to stand up against all bullies and violent threats, violence will not loom over us as a threat. Jacob Frey told the Star Tribune that “the Southwest corridor must be built”.  Why?  Why must it absolutely be built if the only option is to run it through our federally protected parklands?  Parklands can not so easily be rebuilt once destroyed, you know…  Why must it be built to the demands of suburbanites such that no city residents can even use it?  If it must go through our neighborhoods, endangering our children by its very existence in our backyards, should we not at least insist on stops within walking distance of our homes?  How can the Met Council fail to run it down the greenway, a natural conduit through South Minneapolis already replete with infrastructure? Qui bono?Jacob Frey has taken it on himself to promise a new school over northeast in a year or two.  A little beyond his pay grade, or what?  He thinks that young families will want to move into new crackerbox apartments he will approve for development after the developers tear the foreclosed houses down, that families might have been more attracted to… Jacob Frey doesn’t think the property owners in Ward Three should make any choices on their own.  He will protect us from ourselves.  If a lot is empty, the owner should not earn income by selling parking space, which has “no overhead, only an eight dollar an hour attendant to collect the fees” (because there was no expense to the capital investment that provided the space in the first place).  The owner of that lot should be forced to make expensive improvements to make it a garden until the improvement expense forces the property to the market so a developer can take it over and build a structure.  Yay, civilization!Signed, Katch 4 Council Campaign Continue Reading