Mill City Hall: Minneapolis politics, slightly ground down

Angry resident testimony, surveillance, new technology and the ethics of hungry corporate vendors: the debate over a proposed first responder drone pilot program had a lot going on. This could still be a live issue going forward: Mayor Frey used it as a talking point just days after the vote failed. We explore this topic, including past examples of technology adoption and policy shifts by the Police Department. Recorded 7/22/26.

South Minneapolis legislator for district 63A, Samantha Sencer-Mura, joins us for an interview to talk about the intersection between local and state politics. We talked about the special role of safe seat legislators, what it takes for the city legislative agenda to be effective, and how to move policy work in the divided legislature. This included insights into issues like funding for municipal recovery, the police/emergency trai...

The Park Board voted 8-1 to begin the work of decommissioning the well-used Minnehaha off-leash dog park. We tackle how this emerges from the efforts of that board to meaningfully incorporate Native folks as important community stakeholders, and also the loud backlash that the Board now must manage. Cam also reports on efforts by Minneapolis Schools to build a permanent home for the Anishnabe Academy magnet school at the former Coo...

The City un-banned bathhouses as part of a Pride month policy agenda. We talk about this ordinance in context of query history, and discuss some of the past city dynamics around regulating business and sex. This is a round-up episode, so we also talked about the latest semi-annual report on Minneapolis Police Department reform progress. In short: not looking good! Recorded 6/24/26.

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As anger at the Big Tech data center boom seems to be boiling across layers of society, data center politics landed in Minneapolis last month. The City Council passed a temporary moratorium - with generous exceptions - on new data centers in the city. We look at some of the data center projects that exist today, and those that appear to be in-progress. How do we think about hyperscale? We also examine the downtown vacancy dilemma, ...

Just weeks after Mayor Frey challenged the City Council to support the re-nomination of his Police Chief, that same Chief has resigned under threat of discharge by that same Mayor. It is hard to remember a more dramatic climbdown in recent city politics. But for this Mayor, it is one of a series of high profile public safety hires to end in disappointment. We talk through what was said, speculate on what actually happened, review t...

Mayor Frey instructed us to basically get serious in his annual State of the City address. Or to seriously get back to the basics? Whatever the case, it was a somewhat jarring call for goverment to do less after Minneapolis communities went above and beyond to push out ICE. Cam and Jesse talk through the speech, and ask what a parallel address by a more visionary mayor might have sounded like, in this historic moment. We also recap...

The vision: build pedestrian and bike safety on 10% of all streets - 450 miles - connected in a grid throughout Chicago. Mill City Hall is in the Windy City this week, and we interviewed Charna Albert and Chris Buie-Gentry from the Chicago Bike Grid, Now! steering committee. Turns out they have built some real momentum, with endorsements from mayoral candidates and legislation moving at the state level. What can we learn this effor...

Once again the Mpls Charter Commission has proposed to diminish the power of the City Council, this time with confusing amendment language that would strip from the the Council the ability to review a number of high-level city staff appointments. This does not come out of the blue: we trace the lineage of people using the Charter Commission as a decisive instrument of City Father-style politics over the last decade. We also discuss...

There is a spectre haunting the Hennepin County Attorney race... and that spectre is Mary Moriarty... who is NOT running. That leaves a full field of candidates in this open race. We welcome special guest Darcy Sherman, 13-year public defender here in Hennepin. Did you know that this office is considered the largest law firm in the state? We learned what the work looks like behind the scenes, and looked past the platitudes and figu...

A couple of explosive meetings saw a Minneapolis Cop City (or Corner Store) proposed, and then pulled back. Would a one-stop $48m training center - with purpose-built realistic scenario areas and virtual reality rooms - reform our police? Where did this come from, and why now? This proposal will be back, so we dig deep into those and many arguments around them. We also cover the extraordinary open conflict between councilmembers th...

Three key city leaders will soon be up for re-appointment: the Community Safety Commissioner, the City Attorney, and the City Operations Officer. We delve into their records, including a progress report on police reform that raises big questions. Do you feel safer in Minneapolis? This is a rare opportunity for the public and for City Councilmembers to scrutinize the record and make demands of highly-paid city staff. We also start w...

The broad impact of the ICE invasion is coming into view as the city, state and researchers attempt to measure it. We talk numbers for arrests, wages, businesses, mental health and more. How are we going to get the help to survive and recover this enormous hit to our social fabric? Increasingly it looks like the weight is on regular people, as demands for an eviction moratorium and meaningful economic aid are being resisted by city...

With the surge of federal agents into the Twin Cities metro continuing, we take a step back and assess several dynamics. The agends who killed Alex Pretti were established officers at the southern border, pointing to one of the roots of this crisis. We discuss what strategies and tactics seem to be working - either better or worse - and some of the genesis of those from advocacy non-profits to grassroots leaders. Horizontal initiat...

Operation Metro Surge continues, with federal agents killing Minneapolis residents and terrorizing people across the metro. In a wide ranging discussion, we talk about how the community, cops and city council are responding. Continuity and contrast with the crisis of 2020. Whether a press conference means Trump has lost the support of local law enforcement. How can we think about the wildly different accounts of what is actually ha...

Did you know the city council basically cannot ensure that allocated money is spent on the thing for which it was allocated? The city council ended 2025 with a flurry of action, often revealing a power struggle between the lines. We start with the continued federal campaign of aggression against our immigrant neighbors and the now-rewritten immigration separation ordinance. The budget passed with last minute negotiations amidst poi...

With a Dec 18 town hall coming up, the Zero Burn Coalition is building momentum to close the HERC, a garbage burner that burns almost half of our trash and pollutes the air. Consensus is emerging to shutter this source of environmental injustice, but county staff have pushed back against real deadlines. Our own Cam Gordon is a member of the Coalition, and he and Robin Garwood worked on zero waste plans for the city. What will it ta...