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Minneapolis, MN

Mayor Frey talks Minneapolis safety, homeless encampments in sit-down interview

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Mayor Frey talks Minneapolis safety, homeless encampments in sit-down interview


How will public safety in Minneapolis look different in the new year? What’s next for downtown Minneapolis? How does the mayor feel about the new state flag? FOX 9 asked Mayor Jacob Frey these questions and more during a one-on-one interview on Wednesday.

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FOX 9 asked the mayor about a whole host of topics, from crime, his vision for downtown Minneapolis, and the plan for the homeless encampments. He’s also sporting a new look heading into 2024.

With a new mustache in tow, Frey outlined his plans for Minneapolis in the new year, starting with public safety.

“This next year, you’re going to see a very aggressive campaign to recruit officers into the Minneapolis Police Department and retain the incredible officers that we have,” the mayor said.

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New data shows MPD is budgeted for 731 officers and currently, the department has 568 officers with 25 on leave, meaning the force is down almost 200 officers from its minimum staffing number. This news comes after a violent 30 days in Minneapolis during which there have been 13 homicides, compared to five during the same time period last year.

“2023 was marked by pretty significant reductions overall in violent crime … December was an outlier. We did see an increase. And so we want to continue the trajectory that we saw for those first, say 11 months of the year,” Frey said.

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Carjackings and shot-fired calls are down significantly from last year, for example. However, the city’s crime dashboard shows some categories have increased slightly, such as sex offenses and assaults. Non-violent crimes like car thefts and property damage are up from 2022.

Heading into 2024, the mayor said he has confidence in Chief Brian O’Hara and the new community safety commissioner, Todd Barnette.

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“The work that we’re doing and the team that we have in place, I’ll tell you, is the right one,” Frey said.

The mayor also provided an update on the homeless encampment called Camp Nenookaasi in south Minneapolis. A few months ago, the city contracted with Helix to help transition people in the camp to stable housing and indoor shelters. City officials said as of Wednesday, 73 people have been connected with housing options and another 14 are scheduled to move into housing soon.

“Our job is to provide the kind of compassionate care that people need, that they deserve. And at the same time, we recognize that these homeless encampments on a large scale like this are not safe,” the mayor said.

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Meanwhile, the mayor touted the 1,800 events in downtown Minneapolis this year. He said the city is moving forward with Nicollet Mall becoming a social district, but it must be done thoughtfully with businesses, entertainment, and music.

“If we’re going to make a pedestrian-style mall, we want pedestrians to go there,” he said. 

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As Target, which employs more than 8,000 people at its downtown offices, continues its hybrid work approach, Mayor Frey said he’s a big believer in in-person work but feels cities also must embrace the change that came with the pandemic.

“Things aren’t going to be like they were in 2019. That doesn’t mean worse. That just means different,” he said.

He also believes in changing how spaces are used and said there are office buildings that are being converted into residential buildings, such as the Northstar East. One barrier to making these conversions, he explained, is the costs. 

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Overall, he’s committed to shifting downtown Minneapolis and working with businesses to do so.

“What we see in neighborhoods like a North Loop or a Near East Side, we could also see in the core of downtown, and that means embracing change. That means having a number of different potentially weird uses that we haven’t seen in the past,” he said.

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Mayor Frey told FOX 9 he does like the new state flag design and said he would welcome a new city flag in Minneapolis.



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Minneapolis, MN

July 4th Firework Shows Threatened By Storms: MN Weather

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July 4th Firework Shows Threatened By Storms: MN Weather


MINNEAPOLIS — Fourth of July firework enthusiasts may need to rethink their holiday plans. Showers and thunderstorms are set to blanket much of Minnesota, including the Twin Cities metro area, on Thursday and Thursday night.

“Multiple chances for showers and storms this week, starting with late Monday into Tuesday and another round arriving Thursday,” the National Weather Service said.

The rest of the Fourth of July weekend will feature additional chances for showers and thunderstorms.



Here’s the full NWS forecast from the Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport:

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Monday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 76. Breezy, with a south southeast wind 10 to 20 mph, with gusts as high as 30 mph.

Monday Night: Showers and thunderstorms likely, then showers and possibly a thunderstorm after 10pm. Low around 61. South southeast wind around 15 mph, with gusts as high as 30 mph. Chance of precipitation is 100%. New rainfall amounts between a half and three quarters of an inch possible.

Tuesday: A 50 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 81. South wind 10 to 15 mph becoming west southwest in the afternoon. New rainfall amounts between a tenth and quarter of an inch, except higher amounts possible in thunderstorms.

Tuesday Night: A 20 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms before 1am. Mostly cloudy, then gradually becoming clear, with a low around 64. West southwest wind 5 to 10 mph.

Wednesday: Sunny, with a high near 82. West wind 10 to 15 mph.

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Wednesday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 65. West wind 5 to 10 mph becoming south southwest after midnight.

July 4th: A chance of showers and thunderstorms, then showers likely and possibly a thunderstorm after 1pm. Partly sunny, with a high near 79. South southeast wind 5 to 10 mph. Chance of precipitation is 60%.

Thursday Night: Showers and thunderstorms likely, mainly before 1am. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 63. Southeast wind 5 to 10 mph becoming west after midnight. Chance of precipitation is 60%.

Friday: A chance of showers and thunderstorms, then showers likely and possibly a thunderstorm after 1pm. Partly sunny, with a high near 75. Northwest wind 10 to 15 mph. Chance of precipitation is 60%.

Friday Night: A 20 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms. Partly cloudy, with a low around 61. North northwest wind 5 to 10 mph.

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Saturday: A 20 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms. Mostly sunny, with a high near 79. West wind 5 to 10 mph.

Saturday Night: A 30 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms. Partly cloudy, with a low around 64. South southwest wind 5 to 10 mph.

Sunday: A 50 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms. Mostly sunny, with a high near 80. Southwest wind 5 to 10 mph.



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Minneapolis, MN

Twin Cities Pride Parade kicks off in Minneapolis

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Twin Cities Pride Parade kicks off in Minneapolis


Sunday is the last chance to check out the Twin Cities Pride Festival.

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The Twin Cities Pride celebration continues with the parade heading down Hennepin Avenue in Minneapolis before ending in Loring park.

A livestream of the parade can be seen above. 

The parade started at 11 a.m. Sunday and is set to go until 2 p.m. 

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More than 650 vendors and several community resources can be found at the park. 

A full lineup of events and times for Twin Cities Pride events can be found here. 



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OPINION EXCHANGE | Police contract delivers change for Minneapolis residents and officers

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OPINION EXCHANGE  |  Police contract delivers change for Minneapolis residents and officers


Opinion editor’s note: Star Tribune Opinion publishes a mix of national and local commentaries online and in print each day. To contribute, click here.

•••

Minneapolis is at the forefront of change in policing and community safety in this country. From formally establishing a new comprehensive model for community safety to a court agreement that provides the framework for lasting change, the people of Minneapolis and our entire local government have embraced reform and begun the hard work of redefining what safety looks like in our city. Together, we are embarking on a journey that will fundamentally change the way we do business for future generations.

That same push for progress guided our city’s approach to negotiating a new police contract.

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With 40% fewer officers today than this time four years ago, Minneapolis is at an inflection point. That’s why we approached negotiating this contract with a willingness to think bigger on both changes to the contract and officer pay.

For decades, city officials have gradually given away managerial oversight to the police union in exchange for modest pay increases. The results: limited authority for police chiefs to manage a culture they were charged with shifting and limited ability to recruit and retain officers with below-market pay.

Even before negotiations for a new police contract began nine months ago, it was clear that we would need to approach negotiations differently. That’s why last year we hosted a series of listening sessions across Minneapolis that sought community input to guide the city’s priorities and included several City Council members on the labor negotiations workgroup. Thanks to months of input from residents across our city, we developed and successfully pushed the union to agree to significant reforms.

The city fought for and secured increased transparency, accountability and oversight. This agreement moves us in the right direction by:

• Giving the chief more discretion over job assignments and staffing requirements, so that the department can assign officers to areas of the greatest need and make promotions based on candidate readiness rather than arbitrary staffing percentages.

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• Ending old and outdated side agreements and zipping up all of the written agreements into the contract so the city, the union and the public know exactly what has been agreed to in writing at the start of the term of the contract.

• Getting the union to agree that we can use non-sworn employees for investigative work, which will allow the chief to put more officers on the street focused on critical safety work instead of sitting behind a desk.

These are just a few key ways this contract answers the call for change. Taken together, these terms will increase the tools available to the chief of police to instill accountability and shift the culture.

This contract can also help us deliver on change residents from across every neighborhood are rightly demanding: replenishing the ranks. The downward trend in officer staffing is not going to correct itself, and the raises negotiated in this contract will help Minneapolis compete for a limited pool of candidates.

The increased pay and financial incentives will help give Minneapolis and the MPD an opportunity to stabilize staffing levels, which would in turn reduce reliance on overtime to fill shifts and response times to get to people who need help. Overreliance on overtime is a cycle that leads to burnout, causing more officers to leave and fewer potential applicants wanting to apply. This exacerbates the staffing crisis we are already experiencing. Making pay competitive is not a nice-to-have — it’s a need-to-have for the overall health of our city’s safety ecosystem.

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Does this contract deliver on every change we sought? No, of course not. It is a contract negotiation, and compromise is the essence of this work. After months of engagement, good faith negotiations with the union and hard-fought reforms secured, this contract represents an opportunity to deliver meaningful change in policing and deliver more than lip service to the police officers who go to work every day to help make Minneapolis safer.

We are a city of progress. Further delaying this contract is not progress; voting on it is. We encourage City Council members to vote yes and to vote yes now.

Jacob Frey is mayor of Minneapolis. Todd Barnette is community safety commissioner. Brian O’Hara is chief of police.



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