By Jim Meyer, Ward 11 resident

I couldn’t agree more that Minneapolis citizens need careful oversight of their City Hall, where 13 councilmembers, a mayor and City staff run a complex $1.7 billion dollar enterprise. But I’ve been reading the Southwest Alliance for Equity’s frequent attacks on Ward 13 Councilmember and Council Vice President Linea Palmisano with skepticism. Given their propensity for exaggeration, guilt by association, missing context and factual gaffes, I affectionally call them Southwesterners Wrong About Everything.

I first began to distrust the group when they published an opinion piece titled “Michael Rainville’s troubling comments, and Linea Palmisano’s harmful silence” on MinnPost. Not only do I question the main premise of the piece, but even worse, they go on to accuse Palmisano of blatant racial bias within council proceedings. SWAE claims Palmisano scolded Ward 2 Councilmember Robin Wonsley, but that at another meeting Palmisano allegedly let Ward 7 Councilmember Lisa Goodman berate Ward 9 Councilmember Jason Chavez. For starters, Palmisano wasn’t even the chair of both meetings they compared. Secondly, and as they often do, SWAE tried to manufacture malice from a molehill.

In one of the video links in the MinnPost piece, it shows the soft-spoken Palmisano trying to break up a conflict between Wonsley and our oft-miffed Mayor Frey by redirecting the question to the city attorney. Wonsley even thanked Palmisano during the meeting, quite graciously I should add, for intervening. The full meeting can be viewed here. In the other instance involving Goodman and Chavez, Goodman was merely defending the 2017 council and the work of current Ward 5 Councilmember Jeremiah Ellison from assertions that the prior council had not done much for renters. I’d say that’s a fair counter, not an outrage. The full meeting can be viewed here.

SWAE’s latest piece in Southwest Voices, “Palmisano's Rhetoric Versus Record,” is an exhaustive try at landmining the City Council’s vice president before the upcoming election. In the piece, SWAE puts their own spin on Palmisano’s rather obvious statement during the forum that she works within a fiercely competitive majority-minority council and has a tough balancing act between Ward 13 sentiment and citywide concerns. Is that even controversial? From that imagined “gotchya,” SWAE listed numerous betrayals they perceived of Palmisano. Readers can peruse the list to see if the bullet points are compelling or persuasive, but SWAE highlighted two points that may have been their most ill-formed.

Voting to potentially reopen the Minneapolis Police Department’s Third Precinct building: The authors of the Southwest Voices piece rightly pointed out Palmisano was the lone vote against never reopening the old precinct building at its former location “against the wishes of those who live there.’’ As a resident of the Third Precinct, I assure you opinions throughout the precinct are strong and deeply divided on where to or even if we should locate a new precinct building. The City Council vote was quite far-reaching to never use the 3000 Minnehaha Ave. space for any police service ever again. At this time, the City Council also had no clear plan where they were going to build a Third Precinct. It soon became clear that removing 3000 Minnehaha Ave. from talks without clearly stated future plans deserved more push-back, not less.  

Voting to demolish the Roof Depot: Someone could write a book about the highly charged, decades-long debate among Minneapolis Public Works and various City Councils, scientists, lawyers and judges, financial interests, regulators, State legislators and the many affected area residents united by – among others – the East Phillips Neighborhood Institute. MinnPost explains the situation pretty well here.  It’s important to note that the extraordinarily raucous 7-6 vote on January 26 to demolish the Roof Depot, which still stands, was in a totally different political landscape than over the past decades. The City had already made large investments in a sensible water works consolidation plan and could not absorb sunk costs already dedicated to the Roof Depot. Nonetheless, a task force of the new council, led by Chavez and Councilmember Emily Koski worked through 2022 to update a detailed memorandum of understanding for a shared-used “three-acre compromise” that sought the Roof Deport’s demolition in a trade-off. City Council approved the terms unanimously. The East Phillips Neighborhood Institute ultimately rejected the deal. That is their right. The building is a huge bargaining chip. But even East Phillips Neighborhood Institute leaders have said the City’s “last best offer” had some appeal against an all-or-nothing bet. In May, when the State legislature took unusually swift measures to help make the City financially whole in a sale, the partnership was fractured. This story’s not over, it just got very interesting.

Yes, it’s absolutely a stirring victory for the peoples’ movement in East Phillips, but anyone oversimplifying the arduous negotiations diminishes years of hard work on all sides. Ward 12 Councilmember Andrew Johnson wrote eloquently of the environmental concerns, toxic exposure safeguards and the mutual benefits of the City’s offer before his yes vote. It’s odd that SWAE belittled Palmisano’s concern for environmental remediation when that is perhaps the crux of the fight. SWAE claimed Palmisano’s focus on the environmental remediation was to mask her prior record. Not to overstate it, but Palmisano was actually on the underdog side of this in 2021 when the council’s battle lines were very `South against North’ (plus then City Council President Lisa Bender and Ward 6 Councilmember Jamal Osman).

Elsewhere in the article when SWAE pointed out that Palmisano is misaligned with the council’s “progressive colleagues of color.” By drawing a line around Ward 8 Councilmember Andrea Jenkins and Ward 4 Councilmember LaTrisha Vetaw they revealed it’s not about race, but ideology. SWAE deciding which accomplished Black women are worthy seems like its own special blend of supremacy.

Authors for SWAE have repeatedly stated they are so ashamed of Palmisano, who beat her more progressive challenger, Mike Norton, by 45 points in 2021. I think I’d be more embarrassed if I moved to affluent, safe, and picturesque Ward 13 expecting my three-time representative to align with first-term Democratic Socialists who serve a radically different voter base and push very different governing principles (for better or worse). Vive la difference! Because Palmisano doesn’t align with SWAE’s politics, they try to paint her more as a racist than a realist. It’s a desperate last resort for those lacking strong policy argument support.

I trust residents in the high-turnout Ward 13 to think for themselves, and I invite them to view the League of Women Voters forum unfiltered. It was one of the more engaging, and often humorous, ward panels I’ve ever heard, where the four wide-ranging candidates had a respectful debate that stuck largely to policy, and not personal attack. I invite SWAE to mirror the same if they are to become the trusted positive force we need in community organizations.

Jim Meyer is a resident of Ward 11, and writes occasionally about intimidation of and by local elected officials. This is not meant as an endorsement of any Ward 13 candidate over the choices of Southwest voters.