In the wake of the commotion surrounding some members of the Minneapolis City Council, sometimes with each other and other times with regular citizens, Councilwoman LaTrisha Vetaw recently sat down for an episode of “Tracey’s Keeping It Real,” a popular podcast hosted by Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder CEO and Publisher Tracey Williams-Dillard.
“As for me, I try to communicate with my colleagues via email, private meeting, or phone,” said the 4th Ward representative. But if they choose not to reciprocate in like manner, then often a public display is the only option.
“Now we have what some in the public call hostile discourse,” she said. “And I’m okay with this. But, if I’m asking a question with respect or speaking about something, I also expect respect.”
The councilwoman continued, “What happened with my situation [with Councilman Jason Chavez] is that I was talking about my own story with addiction, my mom’s situation with addiction and how that affected me and my family, and how going into one of these encampments triggered that for me. And what I saw there and how it wasn’t okay for us as a city to keep creating this narrative that these homeless encampments are some Utopian vacation paradise.
“Some of my colleagues were trying to develop this narrative by implying that the people should stay in these encampments because the camps were not as bad, as if they were healing camps, and they are not!
“So, as I was speaking counter to that position, I was interrupted and asked, ‘Do you have a question?’ And, of course, I said, ‘I don’t need to have a question. There are no floor rules that state I need to have a question—I can say what I want.’”
Asked about possible alternatives for the encampment, Vetaw said, “My alternative is that first, all those people aren’t simply homeless. A lot of them have addiction problems, and so those with addictions, we need to get them into treatment.
“What I saw in the encampment was a drug dealer’s paradise. You can identify where the people with an addiction are because they are in one place; I saw much dealing, using, and possible sex trafficking—there were young girls in there.
“Some of them are not homeless, some are there preying on the addicted and helpless, some are just avoiding real life and not going home to face their families, and some don’t want to get help and get clean. But they can’t all be lumped together because they have different needs. And we should at least try and identify those needs individually.”
In response to what initiatives are there to address this issue, Vetaw explained, “The City Council put a million dollars into a village on the South Side, but a more significant issue is that it’s not just the City Council. The Hennepin County Board of Commissioners has way more money for housing than the city. But what has happened is that some City Council members have adopted this as their political issue.
And so now, many things have fallen upon the City Council to fix this particular problem, which Hennepin County and the state should be helping with. Let’s be clear: The city has put much money into housing, but the county has far more to work with regarding housing and homelessness.”
Asked about the recent firing of the city’s civil rights director, Vetaw was clear that that office was not under the City Council’s review. “The Council votes on that position after the mayor recommends, and then the mayoral office works with that person. There is no reporting or interaction from the time of the vote.
“As I understand it, this stems from the city of Minneapolis being under a consent decree, which hasn’t come down yet, and a settlement agreement. We were told of the numerous problems with MPD and that we would be sued until the city could figure this out. So we’re under court order to have certain things done within the civil rights and police departments and the city attorney’s office.
“I learned about the director’s termination through a reporter who called me for comment. I had no idea this had occurred. But what I later read in the documentation was that hundreds of cases hadn’t been reviewed and were past the deadline.
“Last year, a commission comprised of citizens and officers was created to review the cases and make recommendations to the chief, who then figured it out. That’s a big part of what we must do for the Minnesota Department of Human Rights (MDHR) and soon-to-be for the DOJ, and I understood this was not happening.
“Where we are now is the consent decree, which is under review. We recently hired an independent monitor who will come in, so the thing about a consent decree or this MDHR settlement is we don’t get to say anything. They tell us what we will do, and we have to figure it out instead of hiring staff and putting people in place.”
Concerning the proposed Metro Transit Blue Line that would run through North Minneapolis, Vetaw spoke of the many routes discussed over time. “I was on the Blue Line Coalition years ago when it was supposed to go down Olsen Highway and then cut through the railroad tracks down by Theo Wirth and then through Robbinsdale. That’s when I originally started advocating around this,” she explained.
“I thought this was a much better route because Olsen Highway is a disaster, and anything that could make that safer was better. But what they are proposing now is like down Broadway to get to North Memorial Hospital, which brings it through the neighborhood down Lowry…and I don’t think we’re ready. Especially right now when so much investment has gone into Broadway Avenue, and the redevelopment has been phenomenal.
“I don’t know what the goal would be, but I think we’ve missed the window for the light rail. I think the light rail could be bad for Broadway. If you bring the light rail down Broadway, what are you moving or tearing down?”