Readers Write: Electric cars, addiction recovery, Jacob Frey, JD Vance’s visit

Opinion editor’s note: Strib Voices publishes letters from readers online and in print each day. To contribute, click here.

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In Carol Becker’s recent commentary (“The future is electric — which is to say, still mostly on four wheels,” Strib Voices, Oct. 11), the author offers an overly narrow vision for reducing transportation emissions in Minneapolis. She suggests that privately owned electric vehicles (EVs) are the only strategy to pursue and goes so far as to advocate for “removing bike and bus lanes.”

As a convener of Drive Electric Minnesota, I recommend taking a broader view. Personal EV ownership will work for many people and should be encouraged. Many lower-income residents depend on other modes (biking, walking, transit, shared EVs) to get to where they need to go. In Minneapolis there are more multifamily housing units than single-family homes, and those units are harder to serve with EV charging. We must work to make low-cost EV charging universally available, while remembering to include in our plans the residents who can’t afford to own a car or who choose not to. There are other ways to benefit from an electrifying transportation system, including using Evie Carshare or riding one of Metro Transit’s electric buses. Also, more e-bikes than EV cars were sold in 2022, enabled in part by Minnesota’s improving bike infrastructure.

The IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report finds that multiple transportation strategies offer “substantial potential to reduce net emissions by 2030,″ including EVs, public transportation, and bikes and e-bikes. The U.S. National Blueprint for Transportation Decarbonization states that “decarbonizing the entire transportation sector will require a diverse portfolio of solutions and technologies.” Minneapolis can ensure that it serves all of its residents by pursuing a similarly multifaceted approach.

Brendan Jordan, Minneapolis

The writer is vice president of transportation and fuels at the Great Plains Institute.

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Becker’s commentary on transportation and the Minneapolis 2040 Plan shed some needed common sense on the unrealistic assumptions this plan was based on. Instead of increasing, Minneapolis population is decreasing. Has anyone asked why? Could it be because people don’t wish to live in crowded apartment buildings with noisy tenants (like humans and dogs), often with inadequate parking and sparse green space? Could it be because mature residents would rather drive than zip around on electric scooters, and resent having their traffic lanes converted to bike lanes or painted red and reserved for buses only? Many buses go downtown, a place where fewer people wish to go now that more are working from home. And many people fear riding transit because of bad behavior and homeless people on the trains and buses. Do any of the city planners actually use the streets to see how many users there are on the bicycle lanes?

As Becker suggested, electric cars are liable to play an increasing role in both private and rideshare transportation, yet the glut of high-density apartments makes little provision for charging the cars of residents. Homeowners can easily install home chargers and avoid using the inadequate public charger network. A lot of apartment chargers could be installed for the $3 billion spent on the Southwest Light Rail. It is time for city planners to devote less attention to the Our Streets-type activists and spend more time seeing how residents actually live and get around. Otherwise, many who have the means will flee the increasingly gridlocked city for the greener pastures and more open spaces of the suburbs.

Donald Wolesky, Minneapolis

In Andy Brehm’s recent column, “A sobering mistake by Minnesota legislators,” Brehm, who is on the board of directors for a nonprofit recovery service, shared his opinion of how new legislation could be “more limited and less safe” for many seeking short-term residential refuge from alcohol and drugs. While I congratulate Brehm for his sobriety, I worry that this viewpoint of denying the use of medications to treat addiction or mental illness in sober housing is indicative of perhaps a lack of understanding — and hopefully not a stigma — that exists within some of Minnesota’s recovery community.

No one should have to choose between the medications that keep them alive and supportive sober housing. Is it OK if a pregnant patient seeking sober housing must hide her medication in the trunk of an abandoned car so she won’t be denied sober housing? This type of denial of service is heartbreaking, and it is illegal. The use of appropriately prescribed medications treating addiction and mental illness has been federally protected under the Americans with Disability Act and the Fair Housing Act for decades. Brehm is an attorney, and he understands the law. It is only because of ongoing flagrant disregard of federal law that Minnesota recently passed the legislation.

Further, the opinion piece posits that the use of such medications may place housemates in jeopardy through “havoc” caused by indirect exposure. Would insulin-dependent diabetics equally be banned from sober housing out of fear that their syringes may lead to mass relapse? Likewise, should we cry havoc at the spoons and straws in sober homes due to potential triggering effects of drug paraphernalia? Let’s not slip on the dog-whistles of the war on drugs but instead support the rights of people in recovery to care for their addiction and mental health — even when medications are at the foundation of their recovery.

Gavin Bart, Hopkins

The writer is an addiction medicine physician.

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey’s latest statement following the City Council’s adoption of legislation creating a carbon emissions fee (“Frey vetoes carbon fee, says it was not legal,” Oct. 11) that even if his veto is overridden he will “not direct staff to collect the fee” should trouble anyone in Minneapolis who cares about the separation of powers. As the chief executive of the city, the mayor has the clear authority to oversee the daily operations of department heads. He also has the obligation to implement legislation even if he disagrees with it. Hiding behind a legal opinion from the city attorney, whose appointment he controls, does not excuse this abuse of power. If the mayor or anyone subject to the ordinance wishes to sue to block its enforcement, our third branch of government can resolve the dispute. In choosing to act as the legislative, executive and perhaps even judicial branch of government, Frey has gone too far.

I write this letter both as a former Minneapolis City Council president and a public attorney for 25 years. As a former council member, I believe in a strong legislative branch of government. As a former public attorney I believe that the city attorney has the obligation to provide impartial advice to elected officials. That advice must include advising the mayor when he or she has overstepped the authority granted in the city charter.

Paul Ostrow, Minneapolis

Regarding “Vance slams Minneapolis in Twin Cities visit”: Believe it or not, I actually saw this coming as early as last year. A politician (in this case, vice presidential candidate Sen. JD Vance) spoke in front of the burned-out Third Precinct police station in Minneapolis, denouncing the attacks of law enforcement and insisting the city is in anarchy. It was no surprise. The same thing happened in 2022 as a political stunt for then-gubernatorial candidate Scott Jensen. Honestly, this is going to keep happening with conservative politicians grandstanding on its premises until the building is torn down or rebuilt. And right now, the blame goes to the far-left City Council members who put their rigid ideological agendas over trying to realistically solve the problem (“No more delays: Get moving on former MPD 3rd Precinct site,” Strib Voices, Oct. 11). Keep in mind almost all of these controversial City Council members were endorsed by the Democratic Socialists of America, Our Revolution or both. If the building is in the same state as it is now with no plan in place by the end of 2024, I think it is time that Minneapolis voters start giving these council members the pink slip in the 2025 city elections.

William Cory Labovitch, West St. Paul

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What was VP candidate Vance thinking — or not thinking — in his comments about Minneapolis on a campaign stop here? Why would anyone seeking our vote make such derogatory comments about our city and state? Is he just echoing Donald Trump? I consider Vance, author of “Hillbilly Elegy,” a bright man. I enjoyed his book about Appalachia. He can do better.

Myron Just, Minneapolis