2023 election: Thoughts for Minneapolis voters as a whole, and on the First, Second and Third Wards

Opinion editor's note: Editorials represent the opinions of the Star Tribune Editorial Board, which operates independently from the newsroom.

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As Minneapolis holds an election that technically revisits all 13 seats on the City Council — some competitive, several not — voters will not find the city in finest form.

The most basic guarantee a municipal government can make is public safety — the security that allows residents to go about their lives and livelihoods. It's a serious weakness in Minneapolis. While the city as a whole is not the hellscape envisioned by some who don't live there or visit, there are many areas where social disorder threatens livability. The Police Department is woefully understaffed, part of the fallout of the murder of George Floyd by an officer, the subsequent riots, the ill-defined "defund the police" movement that is gone but not forgotten, the more legitimate but challenging work to rebalance the hard and soft aspects of public safety, and the federal and state consent decrees under which this work must proceed.

Another set of problems is brought on by a shortage of affordable housing, despite progress on that front. That, along with unwelcome trends in drug addiction, has manifested in unauthorized encampments of people who lack a permanent place to live. The encampments are spilling into parts of the city where they haven't existed previously.

The city's responsibility is not necessarily to build all of the necessary housing but to provide the conditions under which private investors can and will. Unfortunately, Minneapolis still flirts with the possibility of having a strict rent control cap, like that already enacted to detrimental effect in neighboring St. Paul, which would restrain the housing market in the long run.

Minneapolis is riven by these issues, with political dividing lines between young and old, economically advantaged wards and disadvantaged ones, and, in particular, the pragmatic and progressive wings on the council. In Minneapolis, liberal politics are a matter of degree. Allowing for wiggle room, it can be said that the pragmatists align more with the DFL Party and the progressives with the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).

Those selected in an election that began with mail-in and in-person balloting Sept. 22 and ends at traditional polling places Nov. 7 will serve two-year terms. They must continue to adapt to the strong-mayor form of government that voters approved in a city charter change in 2021.

Each election season, we members of the Star Tribune Editorial Board collectively make endorsements in key races within our coverage area. We invite candidates who are mounting a serious campaign and are in a competitive race to meet with us (and by proxy, the electorate). We're sorry to report that several candidates, specifically those on the progressive wing, declined to do so this year. Those decisions not only forgo possible endorsement but also the opportunity to move the needle of opinion. They're self-defeating.

We're also disappointed this year in the candidate recruitment efforts of the DFL Party. As the longtime standard-bearer in the city, the party must be able to field and endorse qualified candidates in each ward.

Despite this, voters are asked to make decisions on their ballots, giving a preferred order if they wish under the city's ranked-choice voting system. (For guidance on this system, see tinyurl.com/rcv-mpls.) So without further fuss — and, yes, this has been more preamble than we would've wished necessary — here's the landscape for the first three Minneapolis wards.

Incumbent City Council Member Elliott Payne, a DFLer seeking his second term, is generally aligned with the progressive wing of the council (elliottpayne.org). He supports a strict 3% cap on annual rent increases, funding for alternative responses for public safety needs and "bold climate action." He declined to seek the Editorial Board's endorsement and therefore does not receive it, even though he's the realistic choice for voters in the ward.

Payne faces Edwin Fruit, a member of the Socialist Workers Party (which is not to be confused with the DSA). Fruit said in an interview with Socialist News and Views that his primary goal in running is visibility for his party's message. That message, on issues across the board, is that no constructive change is possible without the upheaval of capitalism. It's not a useful framework for problem-solving, and it's not city-focused.

Incumbent City Council Member Robin Wonsley, a Democratic Socialist active on the council's progressive wing, is running unopposed for her second term (robinformpls.com). Earlier this fall she leveled unsupported accusations of corrupt behavior by Mayor Jacob Frey and failed to either recant or back them up with evidence. We would have preferred to see a substantive challenge to her re-election.

The Third Ward is competitive in the arena of ideas and is one of the wards that, if it shifted, could alter the balance of power on the council. We do not believe it should shift, though. Incumbent Michael Rainville, a DFLer, receives our endorsement for election to a second term on the council (rainvilleward3.org).

Rainville, who worked in the hospitality industry before joining the council, is among the group of pragmatists who have held a majority on the council up to this point. He's a lifelong resident of the area he represents and describes himself as someone who gets things done. He recognizes the likelihood of unintended consequences with rent control and believes in the benefit of a fully staffed Police Department amid reforms. In 2022, he made poorly received comments about young Somalis following public disorder surrounding July 4th celebrations; he subsequently apologized. While we believe he's well-supported in the ward, his challenge going forward is to convey to younger and more politically restless residents that his approach to governing is up to the needs of an evolving city.

He's opposed by Marcus Mills, a self-described idea hunter (mills4millcity.org), small-business owner and active member of commissions and committees in the ward. Mills is a DFLer but leans decidedly toward the progressive side of key issues, favoring the proposed strict 3% cap on rent increases, believing the lower current number of active police officers could be sufficient, and promoting the idea of centers where those addicted to drugs can use them in a supported environment, away from the public sphere (which Rainville notes amounts to government-sanctioned drug use). To his credit, Mills sees his stances as working in conjunction with broader reforms. Yet they retain the hopeful nature of progressivism that sometimes can fail to account for real-world repercussions. In different times we might find him a welcome presence on the City Council, yet too much is at stake in this election.

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For more on the Nov. 7 elections, see the Star Tribune newsroom's voter guides for Minneapolis and St. Paul. Our recommendation for approval of St. Paul's ballot question on a 1% sales tax increase is here. See also our full list of endorsements in City Council races in Minneapolis and St. Paul. The Editorial Board operates separately from the newsroom, and no news editors or reporters were involved in the endorsement process.