Minneapolis City Council

Campaign contributors and volunteers for former Minneapolis city council candidate Charles Carlson are sending letters to Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman urging him to investigate Carlson. Fabrications in Carlson’s biography “were not merely unethical and wrong, they also likely were illegal,” says one volunteer.

Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak and City Council President Barbara Johnson recommended today that the city implement a hiring freeze. The proposal is slated to be taken up by the council’s Ways and Means Committee next Monday and likely will be voted on by the full council on December 12.

“These are among the most challenging economic times that our nation has faced in its history,” Rybak said in a statement announcing the recommendation. “Every sector of the economy is feeling the impact of this financial crisis, and certainly government is not immune.”

A minority of the Minneapolis City Council decided Wednesday against requesting answers from Chief Tim Dolan on police actions during the Republican National Convention. And by killing a proposed staff directive, four members of the council’s Public Safety and Regulatory Services Committee made sure that the council majority not on the committee won’t have a say on the issue. MnIndy has audio highlights with transcription after the jump.

Minneapolis recently entered into a “sister city” agreement with Cuernavaca, the capital of Morelos, a small Mexican state that is the homeland to nearly 30,000 immigrants who have resettled in the area. That pre-existing relationship, which is unusual for sister cities, was cemented in a signing ceremony in Minneapolis on Sept. 13.

Thursday’s vanishing post on a Minneapolis City Council member’s blog highlights the hazards of online ruminations within a face-to-face City Hall culture that hasn’t yet adapted to the ways of the Web. On Tuesday, Council Member Cam Gordon’s aide, Robin Garwood, posted a five-graf gripe on Gordon’s 2nd Ward blog that questioned the progressiveness of [...]

If elected officials hang around a public chamber with intent to take action but don’t actually decide anything, can they be guilty of governing?

Who “lurks” and with what intent were the questions of the day at Wednesday’s meeting of the Minneapolis City Council Public Safety and Regulatory Services Committee. Council Member Cam Gordon said the [...]

Minneapolis City Council Member Cam Gordon prodded his peers a bit during today’s meeting about the city’s slow-moving progress preparing for instant run-off elections. Minneapolis voters passed a ballot amendment in 2006 ordering the city to switch to instant run-off, or ranked choice, elections beginning next year.

“I think there is a pretty big time crunch [...]

The clock is ticking for Minneapolis to get its instant run-off voting ordinances and equipment in place in time for next year’s city elections. The City Council’s Elections Committee hears an update this morning on a state group that’s been trying to work out the legislative and technical hurdles standing in the way.

Minneapolis voters approved [...]

A downtown Minneapolis City Council member says shoddy work — and possibly ulterior motives — are to blame for a new report’s conclusion that Target Center can’t support the weight a green roof.

Council Member Lisa Goodman, who co-chaired an green-roof conference in Minneapolis last summer, said she wants to know why a report to the [...]

First Kanye cancels, now more disappointing news for Target Center: an architecture and engineering firm has concluded a green roof isn’t feasible on the arena.

The Target Center’s roof is close to two decades old, and the City Council had been discussing the possibility of replacing it with a green roof. Several cities are using green [...]