Welcome back to The Flyover, your daily digest of important, overlooked, and/or interesting Minnesota news stories.
Is the MPD Failing Domestic Violence Victims?
Family members of Mariah Samuels gathered at City Hall yesterday to draw attention to what they consider a failure by the Minneapolis Police Department to protect victims of domestic violence.
Samuels was shot and killed outside her apartment on September 14. Her boyfriend, David Wright, has been charged with the murder. Samuels had a restraining order against Wright and had called 911 just hours before she was killed to report that Wright had violated that order.
“Samuels did everything a domestic violence victim is supposed to do,” Liz Sawyer writes in an detailed Star Tribune story about Samuels. “But an inspector was never assigned to the case.”
Hennepin County Board Chair Irene Fernando held her own press conference on the issue Thursday. Fernando had previously issued a statement related to the Samuels case saying “Mayor Jacob Frey lacks the intrinsic leadership, effective due diligence, and moral resolve to pursue community safety for all Minneapolis residents.”
In response to the Strib story, Chief Brian O’Hara has ordered a “thorough review” of the case and has mandated department-wide retraining on domestic violence protocols. True to form, however, he is also blaming staffing levels. “This is not an excuse, but it is the reality,” he says.
“I certainly think there are things MPD could have done better,” Mayor Jacob Frey told the Strib in a statement.
That Empty Building Could Cost Ya
Over at Axios, Kyle Stokes discusses a proposal from mayoral candidate Sen. Omar Fateh to tax the owners of vacant commercial properties in Minneapolis. Though Fateh has not provided details, Stokes looks at a comparable ordinance in San Francisco to estimate what the effects might be.
"We're witnessing the slow erosion of our city's commercial corridors, where they have remained underutilized, blighted, and ultimately abandoned," Fateh tells Axios.
This wouldn’t be the first time the city has taken action against vacant properties. A measure to triple fines and work to rehabilitate condemned or deteriorating buildings passed the council unanimously last year.
But this ordinance would affect rentable properties that landlords are, perhaps, keeping vacant rather than accepting lower rents from tenants. I’m no economist, but such an ordinance could be a meaningful proposal that would go a-ways toward establishing the proposition that owning property in Minneapolis brings certain responsibilities with it as well.
And Speaking of Landlords…
Ever had a landlord who just wouldn’t get around to making necessary repairs, no matter how often you pestered him, her, or them? Well, as Dan Kraker at MPR News tells us, if Duluth voters vote "yes" on a Right to Repair ballot initiative next week, renters in the Zenith City won’t have to wait around anymore. Two weeks after notifying their landlord of a needed repair, they’ll be allowed to hire someone to do the work and deduct the cost from their next rent payment.
The initiative is backed by a new union, Duluth Tenants, and opposed by landlords (oh really?) and the Duluth Area Chamber of Commerce. In response to the ballot question, the Duluth City Council passed an ordinance that some council members considered a compromise. Now, if landlords don’t make a repair within two weeks, the city can fine them and revoke their rental licenses.
Emergency Food Resources Available
Federal judges in Rhode Island and Massachusetts have both issued orders to the Trump administration to continue disbursing SNAP benefits despite the federal government shutdown. But those decisions will be appealed, and it’s not like the current president is known to be a stickler for obeying the law. So it’s still possible that some SNAP recipients will need emergency food.
Fortunately there are efforts in place. Bring Me the News has this excellent rundown of the places that are making food or food vouchers available to people with EBT cards in November. Mpls.St.Paul has a guide to food banks, food drives, free meals, and other free services. Even if this particular crisis is averted, there will always be hungry people in need of assistance and resources.
