Former Council Member Lisa Goodman is back at Minneapolis City Hall

While Minneapolis City Council members went over budget issues on the third floor of the temporary city hall downtown Thursday, two floors up, their former colleague, Lisa Goodman, was settling into a new role as a city employee after serving on the council for 26 years.

Less than 10 months after retiring from her seat representing Minneapolis’ Ward 7, Goodman began working as director of strategic initiatives for the Office of Public Service. She’s so new in the position she had to check the title on her new ID badge to make sure she said it correctly during an interview.

Deputy City Operations Officer Brette Hjelle announced the hiring in a Friday email to staff, saying she will focus on “implementing economic development and recovery strategies and building partnerships to help revitalize key areas like downtown and cultural districts.”

Hjelle said Goodman brings a “wealth of institutional knowledge” from her years on the council, where she chaired economic development committees.

“She has a proven track record as a creative thinker with a penchant for bringing people together to get things done,” Hjelle wrote. “In particular, she has a strong track record of building public-private partnerships to accomplish city goals.”

Goodman also has a reputation for throwing sharp elbows and fiercely advocating for her position. But this week, she found herself undergoing orientation in a roomful of new city employees, learning about the city from the inside out.

“In my real life, outside of my public persona that people want to give me, I am this really kind, loving normal person,” she said in an interview.

Former Minneapolis Mayor RT Rybak acknowledged Goodman’s reputation, saying “Lisa spent more time giving people uncomfortable truths than trying to build warm and fuzzy relationships. That will be an asset in a moment of time where right now what we need is a lot of reality therapy.”

Goodman started the job Monday after what Hjelle called a rigorous, thorough months-long interview process. A city spokesman said the position was posted to the city job board on May 23; the application period closed June 13; first-round interviews were done in mid-July and finalists were interviewed in mid-August.

Goodman said she first heard about the position when someone sent her the job posting, and then went through a months-long process with multiple interviews. In fact, she first applied to be the director of Animal Care & Control, and was one of two finalists, but didn’t get the job, she said. She did, however, previously land a six-week, $5,000 contract with the City Clerk’s Office for training council members on “best practices for agenda-setting and chairing committees,” according to a city spokesman.

While some speculated on social media that Mayor Jacob Frey handpicked her for the new job, Goodman denied that. Asked whether she’d ever talked to Frey about the position before being hired, Goodman said, “I don’t believe so.”

Frey released a statement saying Goodman is an excellent choice for the position because there are few people who have the “pedigree she does in building public-private partnerships to get big things done.”

“I am proud to have her join our team,” he said.

Goodman said she left the council because she said she was stressed about the state of the world and “done having people bad-mouth me on social media.”

This position better matches her skills, she said. In fact, she had a hand in creating it. She was part of the Vibrant Downtown Storefronts Workgroup, which recommended a position be created in the Community Planning and Economic Development Department to connect CPED divisions and other departments and coordinate with external partners to focus resources and energy downtown.

The mayor recommended funding the workgroup’s recommendations.

“Of course I would vote for it,” she said. “I wouldn’t have had any idea that this would have been the job that was created from it. This isn’t exactly the job that was created from it, because the cultural corridors weren’t part of it.”

Her annual salary will be $165,538.

Goodman said she will work to streamline and collaborate on private and public work in cultural districts.

“I’m not in a position where I have to have a battle or where I have to fight for resources: the council and the partners and the government and the private sector, we’re all on the same side. So it isn’t going to be people fighting with each other. It’s going to be working to bring them together, to bring out their best selves,” she said. “I really felt like my [council] job was to try hard to make 30,000 people happy, respond to them. 24/7, be their person, be their connector, and do the policy work and do the transactional work.”

Rybak and Goodman partnered to restructure the city’s development functions, and he said it will be helpful to have someone with her “deep knowledge” at a time when the city needs to marry public money and tools with philanthropy and business.

“I would advise her and the people working with her to not try to boil the ocean, but pick a few key shots, especially uptown, downtown, the cultural corridors and addressing the persistent economic gaps that break too often along racial lines,” he said.