Ninth, 10th Ward City Council contenders focus on commercial districts, homelessness

First-term Minneapolis City Council Members Jason Chavez and Aisha Chughtai, who represent the densely populated, centrally located Ninth and 10th Wards, are asking voters this fall to return them to City Hall.

Two of the youngest council members to ever assume office, they are Democratic Socialists endorsed by the DFL. After winning their wards handily in 2021, they spent much of the past two years pressing unsuccessfully — as part of a progressive minority on a majority centrist body — to change how the city responds to homeless encampments, institute rent control and expand public safety operations beyond policing.

All their challengers are running to their right, saying they have better ideas to tackle the interwoven problems of crime, public drug use, homelessness and commercial decline.

Chughtai, a former political organizer with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), is facing her strongest challenge from real estate developer Bruce Dachis, who has repeatedly invoked Chughtai's support of "the abolition of MPD through defunding" to illustrate how his own pro-police platform is the polar opposite.

While this is Dachis' first bid for office, he recently supported Don Samuels' unsuccessful campaign against Rep. Ilhan Omar and — also working with Samuels — sued to throw out the failed 2021 ballot question that would have replaced the Minneapolis Police Department with a new public safety agency in the city charter.

"Clearly, I disagree with most of the things [Chughtai] does," Dachis said. "I bring a lot to the table as far as life experience and knowledge of the area, since my business has been here for 40 years."

While Chughtai co-sponsored an ordinance that would have capped rent increases by 3% annually, Dachis opposes all forms of rent control.

Chughtai doesn't want any city resources spent on clearing homeless encampments, proposing instead to supply portable toilets while outreach workers continue to work through their complex cases.

Dachis said he supports Avivo, a tiny home indoor village style of shelter housing. But he is opposed to allowing people to stay in any shelter if they are using drugs. Avivo Village operates under a "harm-reduction" approach to substance use, in which people using drugs are not denied shelter and support. Dachis recommends jail as a form of intervention for encampment occupants who decline sober shelter, with drug treatment as an optional diversion.

"I will tell you, as will every expert on this issue across the country, that harm reduction is an important part of how we meaningfully address homelessness," responded Chughtai, who said she has spent more time in encampments than anyone running for Minneapolis City Council.

Chughtai does not support increased police funding, citing the millions allocated for staffing that have gone unused while the department continues to shrink. Dachis wants to spend more, hoping that hiking salaries would improve hiring.

Asked whether she still supports abolishing MPD, Chughtai declined to answer yes or no, but said she supports "safety beyond policing."

Two years after law enforcement killed Winston Smith in an Uptown parking ramp, months of protests, drag racing and looting have reduced the once-vibrant commercial center to a ghost town. To revive small businesses, Dachis calls for abating city taxes on the area's commercial properties and preserving on-street parking. When a plan to implement 24-hour bus lanes along Hennepin Avenue split the City Council last year, more than 100 local businesses pleaded with the city to keep their parking instead. Chughtai sided firmly — though unsuccessfully — with transit and climate advocates calling for around-the-clock bus lanes.

Also running is Nasri Warsame, who last worked as an airport community service officer from January to April. While his campaign account on X (formerly Twitter) claims he is a police academy trainee, Warsame clarified in an interview that he is still taking criminal justice classes at Hennepin Technical College. He supports Dachis on all the issues, calling his Somali heritage the main difference between them.

Warsame was banned from seeking DFL endorsement after his supporters upended the convention in May. He apologized without taking responsibility, saying the convention chaos was one of the worst things he'd ever experienced in life.

Greg Kline, who filed as a member of the nonexistent "Abolish Bike Lanes" party, is also on the ballot.

Council Member Jason Chavez, a former aide for various DFL state legislators, had no problem rising to the top of a crowded field when he was elected in 2021. This year he is facing just one challenger: Dan Orban, an East Phillips technology teacher for the nonprofit Create Mpls with no political machine and little fundraising. Orban said he's running for office for the first time to represent the voices of ordinary residents who have shouldered the burden of large and unremitting homeless encampments.

There was an encampment behind Orban's house this summer, and with it unsanitary conditions and a fatal shooting. His children didn't play outside. It was a "bittersweet" relief when the camp was cleared weeks ago, Orban said, because the people who were living there still need places to live.

Orban believes laws that are on the books, including those prohibiting drug use in public, need to be better enforced. And he wants the state and county to help exert more control over encampments so that traffickers don't fill the power vacuum.

"You could say, especially for repeat offenders, the options are to actually go through a drug treatment rather than incarceration, which seems like a much more compassionate approach than just leaving them on the streets to die or be exploited," he said.

Chavez, who supported a moratorium on closing homeless encampments in his first term, now has a new approach: to create a "humane" policy that ensures basic sanitation for encampments and alternative shelter for people displaced by closures. Last year, there were 7,000 instances of people being turned away from the county's shelter reservation system.

He's also calling for overdose prevention sites in the Ninth Ward, which advocates hope would contain drug use and concentrate addiction treatment outreach. Recently he co-sponsored a $1 million commitment from the city to build a second Avivo in south Minneapolis, but that concept is far from reality as no location has been proposed.

In his first term, Chavez managed to close a nearly 10-year fight between the city and East Phillips neighborhood over control of the former Roof Depot warehouse. The city is now in the process of selling the warehouse to environmental activists for redevelopment as an urban farm. The saga highlighted the Ninth Ward's outsized share of heavy industries and highways.

During a League of Women Voters forum on Oct. 26, the candidates were cordial and often in agreement, including on ideas around reducing pollution, expanding public transit and efforts to rebuild and fight crime on Lake Street. Key distinctions include Chavez's support for rent control, which Orban opposes, and the council member's support for an ordinance that failed this year to ensure minimum wage for Uber and Lyft drivers. Orban said he does not believe government should intervene in setting wages.

Chavez said he and other council members are looking into how much it would cost to recreate the Downtown Improvement District — with regular street cleanup and friendly ambassadors — along Lake Street and other cultural corridors. "It's an idea that has been floating around for years," he said. "My office wants to do something about it this year."

Read the candidates' responses in the Star Tribune's voter guide online.

Clarification: 10th Ward candidate Bruce Dachis' position on shelters for people experiencing homelessness has been clarified to reflect that he has expressed support for the tiny home indoor village Avivo, but opposes its harm-reduction model of offering shelter to drug users.