Sen. Omar Fateh said his constituents’ concerns over city issues and his own disagreements with how Mayor Jacob Frey is running the City is motivating him to run for mayor.
Fateh is the son of Somali immigrants. His dad came to the United States in 1963 on a college scholarship, followed by his mom in the 1970s.
Born in Washington, D.C. and raised in Virginia, Fateh earned a bachelor’s and master’s degree in public administration from George Mason University. After a few visits to Minneapolis, Fateh moved to the city to work as a non-partisan voter outreach and education staff member for the City of Minneapolis, with a specialization in the East African community.
Fateh was elected as a State senator in 2020 and re-elected in 2022. His District 62 encompasses Stevens Square, Whittier, Lyndale, and Kingfield in Southwest Minneapolis, among other neighborhoods.
Melody Hoffmann interviewed Sen. Omar Fateh on March 25 at Hosmer Library. This interview has been edited and condensed.
Southwest Voices: What drove you to get into politics?
Omar Fateh: There were many reasons I got into organizing and politics. One of the key reasons was a high school project we had my senior year. I was taking a government class and we took a quiz on party affiliation or general politics. And then from that quiz, you were placed on a campaign that went against what we were. If you're a Democrat, you’re on a Republican campaign. I was placed on a very conservative Republican campaign for county attorney. A lot of the stuff he was talking about did not sit well with me.
A lot of the organizing I did with my friends was to get younger people involved. And I remember going to the county party meeting and the city party meeting. It was very, very old and not very representative of the area. There was no youth. So I got to work talking to college and high school folks.
SWV: How would you describe your leadership style?
OF: I would say, collaborative. I really believe in centering community and those that are impacted by the policies and decisions that are being made. For example, when I first got selected to be the chair of the Higher Education Committee on the Senate, I immediately went to work and connected with the different student groups across different campuses statewide.
We crafted the North Star Promise for working class families. That came as a direct result from stories I heard from students.
I partner with all the members, whether it's the moderate Democrats, progressive Democrats, or Republicans. Because regardless of our differences, at the end of the day, you're elected to get work done for the people.
SWV: Why run for a City-level position when you’re doing all of this work at the State level?
OF: I'm running because obviously I do love the city and I'm hurt by some of the challenges it’s facing. When I have office hours or community meetings or some of the emails I'm getting–they relate to city issues a lot of the time. I've had coffee meetings with constituents on the lack of response from 911 calls.
But also issues like my strong disagreement with the administration just bulldozing encampments without any strategy or any plan. It's despicable and something that I think the city as a whole disagrees with. We got to treat all of our neighbors with compassion and humanity. I want to bring that approach to our city.
SWV: So how would you address unsheltered homelessness as as the mayor?
OF: I think that we need to take a public health and housing first approach. We've got to treat our folks struggling with unsheltered homelessness with compassion, with dignity. Not just moving them block by block, and bulldozing and throwing away their belongings and making their lives more difficult.
I want to ensure that we are taking a public health approach by way of putting the encampment response back into the City’s Health Department rather than Regulatory Services. We want to make sure that we have washing stations and sanitary items for them to make sure that we are preventing illness and diseases. We know that there's a large spread of infectious diseases that are going on in the encampments. I think that's horrific.
We want to also ensure that we're identifying reasons why folks don't want to go into shelters. At the same time, our case managers are calling and hearing that they're full, that there's no spots available. As a senator, I've tried my best to pass legislation to increase funding for Agate and Simpson Housing to make sure that our shelters have that support. And we passed it, it’s been successful. But we know we have a lot more to do.
We want to make sure that we're not criminalizing addiction, we're not criminalizing mental health issues, that we're treating folks, and ultimately finding stable, secure housing for them. But none of that's happening.
And it seems like not only is there no plan, but there's no intent to have a plan from Mayor Frey’s administration. There's too much effort on trying to explain away why we can't do things rather than how we get things done together.
SWV: How would you approach working with the City Council as mayor?
OF: I already am a senator right now. Myself and Councilmember Koski, we're both running for mayor, but we're working on legislation at the Capitol for traffic calming, because that's one of the areas of need in our city, and we're both champions of that.
Whether or not we disagree on issues, we have to find a solution. There's areas of need in which we can see as low-hanging fruit, that we can get done together. But having a toxic relationship will prevent that from happening.
SWV: And that's what's going on right now?
OF: Absolutely. We cannot have an adversarial relationship with our members. It's okay to have disagreements. People have disagreements all the time. You're not going to always agree on everything, no matter where you fall on the spectrum politically.
What's most important is communication, maintaining that open line of communication, having your door open, being comfortable enough to reach out and say, ‘I think you're wrong about this.’ Or be comfortable enough for them to tell you you're wrong about something. I think that's really important, healthy, and needed to find a solution.
SWV: What are your ideas on how the City of Minneapolis should or can support small businesses?
OF: I'm a believer that small businesses are the backbone of our city and they need our support. As mayor, I'll take the same collaborative approach to speak with them about some of the issues that they are facing.
I want to have a more extensive office of small business support to make sure there's a one-stop shop where people can come to get their issues addressed. Where, if someone wants to start a business, they can go there and say, ‘Hey, walk me through how I do this.’
If the City is making decisions that might affect a small business, like maybe road or sidewalk construction, we can provide grants to help support them. We can provide multilingual support and services for our immigrant communities.
I think we’ve got to get creative in ways in which we can help them financially as well. Whenever we're making decisions, we have to include our small businesses in that process. What I've been hearing from our folks, especially the district that I've been representing, is that there's more focus on big businesses and the wealthier corporations. I want to bring more parity to that.
SWV: What’s your opinion on the labor standards board that’s been trying to make its way through City Council?
OF: I was a big supporter of it. I connected with our City Council members, I spoke with members of our immigrant populations that were small business owners, that might have had some concerns with it as well. And to be honest with you, in the interactions that I've had, we've learned that there was a lot of misinformation that was being spread.
I had business owners talk to me, when I sat with them about hoping that the labor standards board would get passed, and they were told that it would be a decision-making body. That's just not the case. I felt like in defeating this board, there was a lot of misinformation to spread fear, to add more headwinds against it, and to cause councilmembers to vote against it.
SWV: How would you approach public safety in Minneapolis, especially considering our homicide rate remains higher than similar cities?
OF: In talking to residents, no matter where they live within the city, they want a public safety system that works for everybody. We have two consent decrees, one from the State, one from the federal government. We have a Safe and Thriving Community Plan that's ready to go from the City that can be implemented, that has not been yet. The City has released a report that showed that 47% of non-Minneapolis Police Department calls can be diverted to alternatives to police, like behavioral crisis response, so my focus would be implementing that.
I think there's just been poor strategy. I want to put more money into the alternatives to policing, because now that we know that close to half of MPD calls do not need an armed officer, armed officers can go to the more needed or violent situations that you talked about. And if someone calls 911, they need to have the appropriate response for them, not just an armed officer every single time.
I want to see more of a more ambitious youth agenda citywide. When we passed Teen TeamWorks legislation, there wasn't really good outreach by the City on letting families know about it. So I had to partner with some local organizations to go door knocking so our youth and families know about it. That really opened my eyes.
Our job doesn't end when we pass legislation. We have to also let people know what's out there and meet them on their terms.
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