Key Minneapolis leaders pitch to keep job, plans to keep costs down

Three key leaders in the state’s largest city are making their pitches to keep their jobs — all of them have been part of some major and controversial work over their years of service.

It’s work, they say, isn’t over and want to finish. 

Earlier this year, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey renominated the city attorney Kristyn Anderson; community safety commissioner Todd Barnette; and the city’s operations officer (COO) Margaret Anderson Kelliher. 

“As a lawyer, as a public sector lawyer, there is no more exciting place to practice law than the City of Minneapolis,” Anderson said. “The issues that we’re involved with, the complexity, legally [and] policy-wise, for a nerd lawyer like me, [this is] the place to be.”

Commissioner Barnette says he’s taken great strides overseeing the five departments in the Office of Community Safety and wants to build on it. 

“Residents and visitors here should be proud of all the hard work,” Barnette said. 

And for COO Kelliher, she says it’s the resident and visitors that drives her passion for the work, which includes overseeing major projects in the city, like the transformation of George Floyd Square.

The controversial project has cost the city millions in planning and outreach, and while it’s far from over, construction is set to start this summer. 

“I think the team has done an amazing job of adapting along the way to a number of things that have come up,” Kelliher said when questioned how she thinks she and her team have handled the project work. 

“It’s all about teamwork, and so the teamwork is key in being able to also control for cost that we need to make sure that each department is talking to one another, and that we’re staging things in a way that makes sense,” she added, when asked how she plans to keep the project on track while keeping costs down. 

The city council will discuss the three nominations in a committee meeting early next week ahead of their vote on their employment with the city at Thursday’s council meeting.