Minneapolis: the best city for kids,
the arts and the environment...
Let’s make this simple: To create a better city for everyone once again, we can focus on few key areas:
- Safe and Stable Streets
- Lower the cost of Living
- Be good Neighbors…
Sound easy, right?
Let’s unpack what I will do when I get to city hall to make this happen.
First -SAFETY.
COST OF LIVING...
“Our property taxes are up and our home valuations are down.”
Does this resonate with you?
There is a reason for that. Our city is desperate for funds largely because our commercial sector has been pushed to the brink, downtown is largely quiet, and businesses are struggling.
To revive downtown we need, first and foremost, safe streets. Many partner agencies and even our legacy Fortune 500 companies believe that a return to safety will bring many workers down to our city’s core. When this happens it supports the restaurants and entertainment venues as well.
But this is not the only thing we need to do. We need to convert some office buildings to residential mixed use and then incentivize the businesses and owners there to consider moving to the downtown towers which are extremely challenging to convert, like the IDS center.
The problems in downtown don’t exist in a vacuum. They have profoundly challenged our arts community. Theaters, Dance Companies, music venues and other staples of our once vibrant community have been, lets be plain, decimated. To bring them back we must restore downtown.
This takes amending the MPLS 2040 comprehensive plan, or rewriting it entirely in the mpls 2050 plan. I am prepared to do either one.
The mpls 2040 plan is largely responsible for challenges in rebuilding Lake Street. I will make sure this is no longer a barrier.
GOOD NEIGHBORS/GRANTS...
We have lived through challenging times. I think it’s fair to say that we led the nation, and even the world, into the conversation of racial reckoning. I firmly believe that we can also lead the nation, and indeed the world, OUT of the vitriol and anger that has come out of this. Being a good neighbor might seem simple but it means , to me, leading with integrity and honesty, working with anyone willing to behave in an honorable manner, living in alignment with my word and treating others how I want to be treated. It means fighting for our waterways and our parks – because that is what makes our city beautiful. It means partnering with other city organizations – namely MPRB and MPS, to discover partnerships to better serve our children.
I know it’s hard to consider all that we’ve lost in the last 5 years, but in order to rebuild, we have to face it. I know we can do it together.
As an alumni of The Juilliard School, I have a profound interest in seeing our great city once again called ‘The Minne-apple’. I know that we can do that, and when we do, we will once again be the envy of the nation.
