Readers Write: The election, ranked-choice voting, homelessness in Minneapolis

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

•••

The presidential candidates are being criticized for not presenting detailed policy information, a view reinforced after the Sept. 10 debate. In fairness, the debate format allows only a few minutes, using no notes, to respond to questions on complex issues.

I suggest changing future formats. Schedule two or three events with four or five topics each. Candidates would be required to submit to the host network a detailed plan on each of those four or five topics at least two days before. The network would put the plans online. The network also could show the plans on a split screen during the event. Each candidate would have a set time per topic to present and defend their plan, say 10 or 15 minutes. The other’s microphone would be off. Unfortunately, having both microphones on seems to take attention away from the issues. The political fallout could be significant for a nonparticipant under this format. Since this is a presentation and not a debate, if only one takes part, they have the stage to themselves.

A moderator would merely introduce the topics and shut off the speaker’s microphone when time is up. No extra time. No moderator interaction with the candidates, including no fact-checking (leave that to media outlets and the internet). Candidates could use their time as they choose, but anything that’s not a presentation and defense of their plan for the topic at hand would reflect more negatively on them under this format.

There was a time when candidates could respectfully disagree. Today we are treated to a style show. Who had the best line? Who out-zinged the opponent? I don’t know who won the Sept. 10 debate, but I know who lost it: the voters. We don’t need any more style shows. We need substance shows.

Rick Preiss, Sartell, Minn.

•••

I just returned from voting early at my polling place in Plymouth. I have voted this way for years, but today I was struck by the heightened tension in the air and wariness of the voters to any direction, to every form needing to be filled out and to the concern for secrecy.

The procedures are the same as in the past, but the perceived distrust of this voting process is there in spades.

Voting is one of the cornerstones of democracy. Everyone take a deep breath and believe in and relish it, rather than distrusting it!

Phil Engel, Plymouth

•••

I always read the Minnesota Star Tribune/MPR News/KARE 11 poll results, as I am interested to learn what my fellow Minnesotans think. And sometimes, I am surprised. The most surprising data point in the latest poll is that a plurality of Minnesotans support having abortions laws made state by state.

I understand that Minnesotans have widely diverging views regarding abortion. I also understand that a clear majority of Minnesotans, including myself, think there should be some rules — but not draconian ones. What I don’t understand is why anyone, despite where they might come down on these rules, thinks it is a good idea for acts that are perfectly legal in Duluth and Moorhead to be felonies in Superior or Fargo. Really? These aren’t parking regulations.

John Trepp, Minneapolis

The Sept. 16 article on the effort to repeal ranked-choice voting (RCV) in Bloomington missed the broader political context (“Bloomington to decide on ranked-choice voting for city races”). The push to overturn RCV in the state’s fourth-largest city isn’t just about whether Bloomington voters like the system they adopted in 2020 during a high-turnout presidential election.

The repeal effort is part of a nationwide campaign to ban or roll back RCV, similar to the opposition against abortion rights. RCV is banned in 10 Republican-controlled states, and the same Heritage Foundation-aligned groups that are challenging RCV in Alaska are now targeting Minnesota. After failing to repeal RCV in Minnetonka last year, they’re now focusing on Bloomington.

Bloomington voters chose RCV because it works. In over 60 jurisdictions — from Maine and Alaska at the state level to New York City, Utah and the Bay Area locally — RCV gives voters more choice, promotes diverse candidates, boosts voter participation and leads to elected leaders who better represent their communities. Perhaps that’s why RCV is on the ballot in four more states and Washington, D.C., this year.

RCV also saves money and hassle by eliminating unnecessary runoffs or primaries, saving Bloomington $100,000 every two years. RCV opponents, for reasons unclear — less turnout, fewer choices, less diversity? — want to bring back costly, low-turnout primaries and burden taxpayers.

I’ll be voting “no” in November and urge my Bloomington neighbors to do the same. Let’s keep RCV and advocate for the RCV local options bill, which nearly passed last session, to give all Minnesota jurisdictions the choice to adopt it.

Anita Smithson, Bloomington

The writer is a volunteer for RCV Bloomington.

The “Encampment Removal Reporting Ordinance” adopted by the Minneapolis City Council does nothing to end homelessness or encampments (“Murder charge in string of shootings,” Sept. 21). Although it is a compassionate, thoughtful analysis developed by caring city employees, it will increase bureaucracy and increase expensive bean counting but not solve the homeless challenge. It is not structured to record the crime, filth and disruption that is ruining Minneapolis neighborhoods. There will be no record of the harm done to our hardworking, taxpaying residents — the people we want in our neighborhoods — who pay for: road repairs, clean water, safe sewage, trash disposal, city lights, firefighters, officers of the peace, schools and clean, safe parks for all to enjoy. The proposed ordinance provides no record of the residents who sustain our diverse communities but move out of unlivable neighborhoods and leave our city’s tax base because of homeless encampments.

Encampments need to be removed as soon as they start by whatever means needed. Establishing, perpetuating and expanding encampments normalizes them, making them a way of life that helps no one. Many services are needed, need to be created and need to be sustained. If individuals do not want services, then collecting data solves nothing. We must top counting select numbers and eliminate encampments.

George Lundgren, Minneapolis

•••

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey appears to finally be at his wits’ end over the drug dealing, violence and recent deaths in the roving city encampments, suddenly vowing to ramp up destruction of all such sites in Minneapolis proper. Those who live in these unstable communities under relatively sparse conditions, never knowing when they may be uprooted, claim to have some sense of safety living free with those they have learned to know and trust. They prefer these encampments to temporary, day-by-day mass shelters, and permanent housing is not available for them, so where will they go?

Many of the homeless suffer various mental or physical impairment challenges; some are addicts and others may be down on their luck. They all need some form of assistance, from social services to treatments, assisted living or safe independent living. To complicate this, we are also a so-called “sanctuary city” unable to handle our own people, much less any more migrants requiring every basic need to get them settled: jobs, housing, food, clothing, medical care and all the rest; social services have their budgets and limits.

Finally, to Mayor Frey, where will you send homeless people for adequate care and treatment? No other community wants our problems (suburbs, outstate, other states), so what is the plan? You own the problem and any solutions as our city leader and after taking into account our ever-growing tax obligations.

Michael Tillemans, Minneapolis