Readers Write: The election, ranked-choice voting, homelessness in Minneapolis

I’ll be voting “no” in November and urge my Bloomington neighbors to do the same. Let’s keep RCV and advocate for the RCV local options bill, which nearly passed last session, to give all Minnesota jurisdictions the choice to adopt it.

Anita Smithson, Bloomington

The writer is a volunteer for RCV Bloomington.

The “Encampment Removal Reporting Ordinance” adopted by the Minneapolis City Council does nothing to end homelessness or encampments (“Murder charge in string of shootings,” Sept. 21). Although it is a compassionate, thoughtful analysis developed by caring city employees, it will increase bureaucracy and increase expensive bean counting but not solve the homeless challenge. It is not structured to record the crime, filth and disruption that is ruining Minneapolis neighborhoods. There will be no record of the harm done to our hardworking, taxpaying residents — the people we want in our neighborhoods — who pay for: road repairs, clean water, safe sewage, trash disposal, city lights, firefighters, officers of the peace, schools and clean, safe parks for all to enjoy. The proposed ordinance provides no record of the residents who sustain our diverse communities but move out of unlivable neighborhoods and leave our city’s tax base because of homeless encampments.

Encampments need to be removed as soon as they start by whatever means needed. Establishing, perpetuating and expanding encampments normalizes them, making them a way of life that helps no one. Many services are needed, need to be created and need to be sustained. If individuals do not want services, then collecting data solves nothing. We must top counting select numbers and eliminate encampments.

George Lundgren, Minneapolis