Soren Stevenson - Minneapolis Ward 8

Following the trend that we are seeing across the country, data center developers are now attempting to bring data centers to Minneapolis. Over the past month, lobbyists have been visiting City Hall and making it clear that they want to open new data centers soon.

Despite repeated pushback from the City Council and community, the Mayor’s administration brought back the proposal to acquire land for a $38 million Public Safety Training & Wellness Center.

It should not be possible for any department in the City to overspend their budget by $20 million without the knowledge of anyone on the Council or any City Official. We need to be responsible and exercise careful oversight of our public tax money.

Public health advocates are clear that in order to do the important work of preventing the spread of deadly diseases like HIV and Hepatitis C, we need to decriminalize the possession of drug paraphernalia to allow for harm reduction measures.

Thank you to Council Member Jason Chavez for bringing forward the Care Over Criminalization Ordinance, I am proud to be a co-author. Yesterday we heard from public health advocates who spoke to how important this ordinance is to doing their work.

The Frey administration is proposing that the City of Minneapolis spend at least $40 million on a “Public Safety Training and Wellness Center.”

During a time when experts are maligned and the truth is ignored, it’s more important than ever that we listen to what experts are telling us.

I want to thank everyone who came out to today’s hearing on Pause Evictions, Save Lives, an ordinance to temporarily extend the eviction notice period from 30 to 60 days in response to Operation Metro Surge.

This morning 5 ICE vehicles parked illegally in a bike lane and in MPD parking spots directly outside of City Hall. Myself and several other Council Members and city staff went outside to observe them and blew our whistles to alert people nearby. After about 45 minutes they left

ICE is terrorizing our community. We need to freeze them out. On Friday, we are calling for no work, no school, no shopping. Join us: https://buff.ly/JxuwKlb

In order for our neighbors and communities to feel safe we need to get ICE out of our city and state. I call on elected leaders at every level of government to work alongside the City Council and community leaders towards this goal.