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naomikritzerI mentioned yesterday that policing in Minneapolis is a problem in various ways, and that the current process for dealing with complaints wasn't working well. Today's Star Trib had a front-page article about that current process, with the headline, No Minneapolis Cops Disciplined after 439 Complaints. This is such a startling bit of information that I initially misread it, assuming that "No" was an abbreviation for "North" and that they were saying a couple of cops who normally worked in a North Minneapolis precinct were FINALLY being disciplined after 439 complaints. I think the actual meaning of the article was even worse.
Anyway, I spent some time this afternoon leaving questions on the Facebook walls of the various campaigns, asking what they intended to do to solve some of these problems. I'm going to give the campaigns more time to respond before I write about that issue in more detail (and I may follow up with some of the campaigns by e-mail, since while it is an amusing metric for who's actually paying attention to their social media presence, not everyone is completely on the ball with a Facebook page.)
Don Samuels (DFL), City Councilmember, Ward 5
Ole Savior (Republican)
Captain Jack Sparrow (Count All Rankings)
James "Jimmy" L. Stroud, Jr. (The People's Choice)
Jeffrey Alan Wagner (DFL)
Don Samuels (DFL), City Councilmember, Ward 5
http://www.samuelsformayor.com/
1. Is there any reason to think he can plausibly do the job? Yes. He's served for two terms on the City Council, representing one of the poorest areas of the city.
2. Could he plausibly win? Yes.
3. Should you vote for him? Maybe.
So, I knew that Don Samuels was an immigrant, and I knew he represented a North Minneapolis ward, but something I hadn't realized until I read his bio just now is that he and his wife moved into the Jordan neighborhood "because they both firmly believe that to make meaningful changes in a community, you have to go to the source of the problems." After years as a citizen-activist he ran for and won the seat on the City Council.
Probably Don's signature issue is public safety. He lives in a part of town widely considered to be dodgy (and in fact six people were shot in his neighborhood within weeks of him moving in) and has continued to be an activist for all the different things he think reduce crime -- gun control, economic development, all of it.
One of the rather fascinating news stories that caught my eye while researching: Don's plan for a safer Minneapolis involves explicitly targeting six families who he thinks are the source of a lot of problems. I'm willing to believe that's a good idea. (I mean, two years ago there were a series of muggings over near the Lake Street Target, in the parking lot, which ended when an armed vigilante shot the mugger dead. The mugger was working with his sister, who was also present and is now serving time for armed robbery. His outraged mother, who couldn't believe they weren't going to prosecute the man who shot him in self-defense, was caught on video spending the stolen checks of the victim, but seems to have avoided prosecution.) Targeting specific families for interventions is weird, but very efficient, if it's true that there are six families creating a grossly disproportionate amount of the crime around town.
Other things in his safety plan (which you can find in its entirety here):
1. Using the power of (social) science to reduce crime by analyzing data. If a certain location sees a lot of crime at certain peak times, send some cops there before you start getting 911 calls. (I am a fan of this idea.)
2. Restrict gun show permits to gun shows that do on-site background checks. (I am a BIG fan of this idea and I'm shocked they're not already doing this.)
3. Enact a municipal ordinance requiring that gun owners immediately report lost or stolen (or "lost" or "stolen") guns, to make it harder for people to buy guns for friends and family that can't legally own them. (I am a BIG fan of this idea and frankly, I would be in favor of legislation that makes it possible to sue someone for damages if a crime is committed with a gun that they purchased, unless they took steps to secure it.)
4. He thinks it's a problem that 44% of the Level III sex offenders in the state wind up living in Minneapolis (even though Minneapolis is only 7% of the population of the state, and most of them committed crimes elsewhere.) He thinks the Department of Corrections is dumping freed offenders in Minneapolis. I think he's sort of right, but I think probably a major contributing factor are policies against renting to felons (it's not just sex offenders that get hit by this) that result in a lot of ex-offenders winding up homeless. Minneapolis and St. Paul have shelters and other resources, so of course people would end up here. That said, his strategy is to do a study (which is actually already going) to figure out what's going on. I'm totally in favor of collecting data on anomalies like this, because my assumptions about why we have so many sex offenders living in Minneapolis may be totally wrong.
5. He wants to push for more community-oriented, neighborhood-based policing, so that officers know residents (and vice versa). I'm a big fan of community policing. It's something that usually requires an outside push, because it's more work for the officers -- but it pays off in the long run. (Madison did it this way for years and years. It works.)
6. He talks about using regulatory services to improve public safety -- for instance, by revoking the business licenses of convenience stores that are magnets for trouble. (He notes, "Prior to my time, there were 2,400 complaint calls to law enforcement for the 8 worst convenience stores with business licenses. The year after I cracked down on certain convenience stores by revoking their business licenses, only 40 complaint calls to law enforcement were from those 8 locations.") I think this sort of regulatory harassment can be abused (and has been abused in the past)...but he's also right that it can be an excellent strategy for dealing with problem properties. It's a lot like targeting the six crime families -- it can be a very efficient way to solve problems.
Anyway. On other topics -- he's pro-streetcar and like everyone else he talks about reducing unnecessary regulations, increasing jobs, improving education, etc. He doesn't talk much about property taxes, the solid waste controversies (should Minneapolis continue burning garbage? roll out citywide composting? etc.).
I really like his public safety agenda. I'm going to say that if public safety is one of your big issues, or if you're very pro-gun-control, you should take a closer look at Don. (If my mother lived in Minneapolis, I would tell her to ABSOLUTELY mark Don as her #1 choice. Abi -- you should definitely take a close look at Don.)
Ole Savior (Republican)
http://www.olesavior.org/
There are a couple of people in this race whose hobby is running for office, but Ole Savior may arguably be the single most dedicated hobbyist. He was on the New Hampshire primary ballot in 2012, I think. I can't remember what all else he's run for, just that he's always on the ballot for SOMETHING.
Startlingly enough, he has a donation link on his website! His platform seems to have been recycled from a run for the Governor's office, and consists of a demand that oil companies reimburse the public for overcharging us for gas. He also wants a nuclear-free world, so presumably if he's elected mayor he'll safely decommission of the cache of nuclear weapons presently located under City Hall.
1. Is there any reason to think he can plausibly do the job? No.
2. Could he plausibly win? No.
3. Is there any other reason to vote for him? No.
Captain Jack Sparrow (Count All Rankings)
http://occupirate.blogspot.com/
The obvious joke here is to evaluate the fictional character for Minneapolis mayor, and in fact, someone's on it. There are any number of fictional characters I could imagine supporting for elected office. Jack Sparrow isn't one of them. If I specifically wanted a God of Chaos as mayor of my city, I think I'd go for the Marvel (movies) Loki over Captain Jack. (Loki would probably be an AWESOME mayor. I mean, with that wand-of-mind-control-power he carries around, he could totally get Local Government Aid money fully restored!)
The Southwest Journal did a profile on him. He doesn't appear to have much of an agenda or any particular reason to to be running. Captain Jack Sparrow is his legal name because he legally changed it, because he's filing a lawsuit against the city for torturing him during an arrest and obviously, the best way to get yourself taken seriously when representing yourself in a lawsuit is to change your name to match that of a deranged fictional character.
1. Is there any reason to think he can plausibly do the job? No.
2. Could he plausibly win? No.
3. Is there any other reason to vote for him? People are totally going to vote for him because of his name. Restrain the impulse. You only get three votes, and you can use them better than that.
James "Jimmy" L. Stroud, Jr. (The People's Choice)
You know the information is sparse when my own LJ is in the first page of hits. I'm not sure which People he thinks will be Choosing him, but apparently it's not the sort of people who want to know anything about their candidate before voting for him.
His address is in his Affidavit of Candidacy and he apparently lives in North Minneapolis, near Wirth Park. He has nice clear printing.
1. Is there any reason to think he can plausibly do the job? No.
2. Could he plausibly win? No.
3. Is there any other reason to vote for him? Nope.
Jeffrey Alan Wagner (DFL)
Jeffrey listed a facebook.com page "jetblast" as his web page; I deliberately didn't hyperlink that because when I went to look, this appeared to be a Facebook page of a completely different guy.
So here's what else I found:
1. A video (I guess) that wouldn't load or play properly at archive.org, with the following description: "JEFFREY ALAN WAGNER FOR MAYOR OF MINNEAPOLIS....LET'S MAKE ALL MEN IN MINNEAPOLIS OUR SLAVES LADIES...BACK RUB'S EVERYDAY.....WE NEVER DO DISHES AGAIN...HE'LL US LADIES JUST SIT AT HOME AT WATCH ''THE VIEW'' ON TV AND MAKE THE MEN WORK AND GIVE US THERE PAY CHECK....LADIES WE HAVE THE POWER...HE'LL MEN DON'T WASH WHEN THEY TOUCH THERE PENIS'S WHEN TAKING A PEE....BUT US LADIES DO...JEFF ALAN WAGNER FOR MAYOR 2013...."
...I don't even.
OK.
2. An interview from when he was running for City Council (against Lisa Goodman) in 2009, where he says that he filed for office because he was drunk.
3. A statement about spending made during the 2009 race where he makes it clear that his abuse of the apostrophe is chronic and habitual.
Also, he signed the letter about how they are TOTALLY SERIOUS CANDIDATES OMG HOW DARE YOU COMPARE US TO A CLOWN CAR but passed up the opportunity to say anything about his actual agenda in the letter.
1. Is there any reason to think he can plausibly do the job? No.
2. Could he plausibly win? No.
3. Is there any other reason to vote for him? Probably even less reason than is true for most of the clowns in the clown car.
The Southwest Journal profile on Jack Sparrow noted that City Council member Cam Gordon tried last year to raise the filing fee to $250, but the attempt failed. Apparently it requires a unanimous vote of the City Council, and it was felt that raising the fee in the election year would look too self-serving for the Council Members who were running. And fair enough, but you'd think that right after the 2009 race might have been a good time. Far enough out to not look totally self-serving and addressing a problem that any idiot could see coming.
NEXT UP: TheRepublican Independent responsible inclusive, the Communist Laurist, and a Libertarian with a totally awesome web page. I BET YOU CAN'T WAIT. I can't believe I'm almost done, and it's not even September yet.
It is dawning on me as I find my own page (again and again and again) while looking up some of the fringier candidates that I may wind up being the go-to source for all the other obsessive researchers out there (instead of just my friends and the friends-of-friends who got sent to me by my friends' facebook pages). I don't usually get my stuff up nearly this early; I decided I wanted to get started, and then Ed and Molly went backpacking so I didn't have anyone to talk to in the evening and VOILA I AM ALMOST DONE.
Election 2013 Index of Posts.
Anyway, I spent some time this afternoon leaving questions on the Facebook walls of the various campaigns, asking what they intended to do to solve some of these problems. I'm going to give the campaigns more time to respond before I write about that issue in more detail (and I may follow up with some of the campaigns by e-mail, since while it is an amusing metric for who's actually paying attention to their social media presence, not everyone is completely on the ball with a Facebook page.)
Don Samuels (DFL), City Councilmember, Ward 5
Ole Savior (Republican)
Captain Jack Sparrow (Count All Rankings)
James "Jimmy" L. Stroud, Jr. (The People's Choice)
Jeffrey Alan Wagner (DFL)
Don Samuels (DFL), City Councilmember, Ward 5
http://www.samuelsformayor.com/
1. Is there any reason to think he can plausibly do the job? Yes. He's served for two terms on the City Council, representing one of the poorest areas of the city.
2. Could he plausibly win? Yes.
3. Should you vote for him? Maybe.
So, I knew that Don Samuels was an immigrant, and I knew he represented a North Minneapolis ward, but something I hadn't realized until I read his bio just now is that he and his wife moved into the Jordan neighborhood "because they both firmly believe that to make meaningful changes in a community, you have to go to the source of the problems." After years as a citizen-activist he ran for and won the seat on the City Council.
Probably Don's signature issue is public safety. He lives in a part of town widely considered to be dodgy (and in fact six people were shot in his neighborhood within weeks of him moving in) and has continued to be an activist for all the different things he think reduce crime -- gun control, economic development, all of it.
One of the rather fascinating news stories that caught my eye while researching: Don's plan for a safer Minneapolis involves explicitly targeting six families who he thinks are the source of a lot of problems. I'm willing to believe that's a good idea. (I mean, two years ago there were a series of muggings over near the Lake Street Target, in the parking lot, which ended when an armed vigilante shot the mugger dead. The mugger was working with his sister, who was also present and is now serving time for armed robbery. His outraged mother, who couldn't believe they weren't going to prosecute the man who shot him in self-defense, was caught on video spending the stolen checks of the victim, but seems to have avoided prosecution.) Targeting specific families for interventions is weird, but very efficient, if it's true that there are six families creating a grossly disproportionate amount of the crime around town.
Other things in his safety plan (which you can find in its entirety here):
1. Using the power of (social) science to reduce crime by analyzing data. If a certain location sees a lot of crime at certain peak times, send some cops there before you start getting 911 calls. (I am a fan of this idea.)
2. Restrict gun show permits to gun shows that do on-site background checks. (I am a BIG fan of this idea and I'm shocked they're not already doing this.)
3. Enact a municipal ordinance requiring that gun owners immediately report lost or stolen (or "lost" or "stolen") guns, to make it harder for people to buy guns for friends and family that can't legally own them. (I am a BIG fan of this idea and frankly, I would be in favor of legislation that makes it possible to sue someone for damages if a crime is committed with a gun that they purchased, unless they took steps to secure it.)
4. He thinks it's a problem that 44% of the Level III sex offenders in the state wind up living in Minneapolis (even though Minneapolis is only 7% of the population of the state, and most of them committed crimes elsewhere.) He thinks the Department of Corrections is dumping freed offenders in Minneapolis. I think he's sort of right, but I think probably a major contributing factor are policies against renting to felons (it's not just sex offenders that get hit by this) that result in a lot of ex-offenders winding up homeless. Minneapolis and St. Paul have shelters and other resources, so of course people would end up here. That said, his strategy is to do a study (which is actually already going) to figure out what's going on. I'm totally in favor of collecting data on anomalies like this, because my assumptions about why we have so many sex offenders living in Minneapolis may be totally wrong.
5. He wants to push for more community-oriented, neighborhood-based policing, so that officers know residents (and vice versa). I'm a big fan of community policing. It's something that usually requires an outside push, because it's more work for the officers -- but it pays off in the long run. (Madison did it this way for years and years. It works.)
6. He talks about using regulatory services to improve public safety -- for instance, by revoking the business licenses of convenience stores that are magnets for trouble. (He notes, "Prior to my time, there were 2,400 complaint calls to law enforcement for the 8 worst convenience stores with business licenses. The year after I cracked down on certain convenience stores by revoking their business licenses, only 40 complaint calls to law enforcement were from those 8 locations.") I think this sort of regulatory harassment can be abused (and has been abused in the past)...but he's also right that it can be an excellent strategy for dealing with problem properties. It's a lot like targeting the six crime families -- it can be a very efficient way to solve problems.
Anyway. On other topics -- he's pro-streetcar and like everyone else he talks about reducing unnecessary regulations, increasing jobs, improving education, etc. He doesn't talk much about property taxes, the solid waste controversies (should Minneapolis continue burning garbage? roll out citywide composting? etc.).
I really like his public safety agenda. I'm going to say that if public safety is one of your big issues, or if you're very pro-gun-control, you should take a closer look at Don. (If my mother lived in Minneapolis, I would tell her to ABSOLUTELY mark Don as her #1 choice. Abi -- you should definitely take a close look at Don.)
Ole Savior (Republican)
http://www.olesavior.org/
There are a couple of people in this race whose hobby is running for office, but Ole Savior may arguably be the single most dedicated hobbyist. He was on the New Hampshire primary ballot in 2012, I think. I can't remember what all else he's run for, just that he's always on the ballot for SOMETHING.
Startlingly enough, he has a donation link on his website! His platform seems to have been recycled from a run for the Governor's office, and consists of a demand that oil companies reimburse the public for overcharging us for gas. He also wants a nuclear-free world, so presumably if he's elected mayor he'll safely decommission of the cache of nuclear weapons presently located under City Hall.
1. Is there any reason to think he can plausibly do the job? No.
2. Could he plausibly win? No.
3. Is there any other reason to vote for him? No.
Captain Jack Sparrow (Count All Rankings)
http://occupirate.blogspot.com/
The obvious joke here is to evaluate the fictional character for Minneapolis mayor, and in fact, someone's on it. There are any number of fictional characters I could imagine supporting for elected office. Jack Sparrow isn't one of them. If I specifically wanted a God of Chaos as mayor of my city, I think I'd go for the Marvel (movies) Loki over Captain Jack. (Loki would probably be an AWESOME mayor. I mean, with that wand-of-mind-control-power he carries around, he could totally get Local Government Aid money fully restored!)
The Southwest Journal did a profile on him. He doesn't appear to have much of an agenda or any particular reason to to be running. Captain Jack Sparrow is his legal name because he legally changed it, because he's filing a lawsuit against the city for torturing him during an arrest and obviously, the best way to get yourself taken seriously when representing yourself in a lawsuit is to change your name to match that of a deranged fictional character.
1. Is there any reason to think he can plausibly do the job? No.
2. Could he plausibly win? No.
3. Is there any other reason to vote for him? People are totally going to vote for him because of his name. Restrain the impulse. You only get three votes, and you can use them better than that.
James "Jimmy" L. Stroud, Jr. (The People's Choice)
You know the information is sparse when my own LJ is in the first page of hits. I'm not sure which People he thinks will be Choosing him, but apparently it's not the sort of people who want to know anything about their candidate before voting for him.
His address is in his Affidavit of Candidacy and he apparently lives in North Minneapolis, near Wirth Park. He has nice clear printing.
1. Is there any reason to think he can plausibly do the job? No.
2. Could he plausibly win? No.
3. Is there any other reason to vote for him? Nope.
Jeffrey Alan Wagner (DFL)
Jeffrey listed a facebook.com page "jetblast" as his web page; I deliberately didn't hyperlink that because when I went to look, this appeared to be a Facebook page of a completely different guy.
So here's what else I found:
1. A video (I guess) that wouldn't load or play properly at archive.org, with the following description: "JEFFREY ALAN WAGNER FOR MAYOR OF MINNEAPOLIS....LET'S MAKE ALL MEN IN MINNEAPOLIS OUR SLAVES LADIES...BACK RUB'S EVERYDAY.....WE NEVER DO DISHES AGAIN...HE'LL US LADIES JUST SIT AT HOME AT WATCH ''THE VIEW'' ON TV AND MAKE THE MEN WORK AND GIVE US THERE PAY CHECK....LADIES WE HAVE THE POWER...HE'LL MEN DON'T WASH WHEN THEY TOUCH THERE PENIS'S WHEN TAKING A PEE....BUT US LADIES DO...JEFF ALAN WAGNER FOR MAYOR 2013...."
...I don't even.
OK.
2. An interview from when he was running for City Council (against Lisa Goodman) in 2009, where he says that he filed for office because he was drunk.
3. A statement about spending made during the 2009 race where he makes it clear that his abuse of the apostrophe is chronic and habitual.
Also, he signed the letter about how they are TOTALLY SERIOUS CANDIDATES OMG HOW DARE YOU COMPARE US TO A CLOWN CAR but passed up the opportunity to say anything about his actual agenda in the letter.
1. Is there any reason to think he can plausibly do the job? No.
2. Could he plausibly win? No.
3. Is there any other reason to vote for him? Probably even less reason than is true for most of the clowns in the clown car.
The Southwest Journal profile on Jack Sparrow noted that City Council member Cam Gordon tried last year to raise the filing fee to $250, but the attempt failed. Apparently it requires a unanimous vote of the City Council, and it was felt that raising the fee in the election year would look too self-serving for the Council Members who were running. And fair enough, but you'd think that right after the 2009 race might have been a good time. Far enough out to not look totally self-serving and addressing a problem that any idiot could see coming.
NEXT UP: The
It is dawning on me as I find my own page (again and again and again) while looking up some of the fringier candidates that I may wind up being the go-to source for all the other obsessive researchers out there (instead of just my friends and the friends-of-friends who got sent to me by my friends' facebook pages). I don't usually get my stuff up nearly this early; I decided I wanted to get started, and then Ed and Molly went backpacking so I didn't have anyone to talk to in the evening and VOILA I AM ALMOST DONE.
Election 2013 Index of Posts.
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no subject
Date: 2013-08-29 03:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-08-29 05:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-09-03 01:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-09-14 01:39 am (UTC)I think the stadium litmus test is definitely a legit litmus test. I have pretty much given up caring because it so clearly doesn't matter how many people are outraged, what proportion of local citizens object, they're going to ram this stuff down our throats anyway (I mean we PASSED A LAW saying YOU HAVE TO HOLD A VOTE and they didn't, because they knew it would fail, because a majority of Minneapolis citizens opposed it!) I swear to God I am not mis-remembering that in 2001, R.T. was the anti-public-money-for-a-ballpark candidate and we got a ballpark and a football stadium under his leadership. And people happily re-elected him despite the ballpark. If we'd actually lost the Twins to another city, he probably would've been thrown out of office -- which is the real problem right there, I guess. People don't tend to punish politicians for building stadiums they say they don't want, but they WILL punish politicians for losing the sports teams that move in order to blackmail cities into building them stadiums.
I have no real solution here, I just wanted to rant.
no subject
Date: 2013-09-14 07:29 pm (UTC)My comment after viewing the ad, in which he climbs out of a lake Darcy-style but with far less clothing and then incoherently shouts at the viewers to "WAKE THE fffff[censored] UP!!!"
....wow.
Revised assessment:
1. Is there any reason to think he can plausibly do the job? No.
2. Could he plausibly win? No.
3. Is there any other reason to vote for him? If you really, really, really, really liked the ad.
It's worth noting that he's had 277,234 views at this point. Jackie Cherryhomes' self-proclaimed Viral Ad has had 2,901. Also, you have to watch an ad before you watch Cherryhomes' ad -- I don't know what triggers that, but surely she could pay YouTube to just show her ad to people straight off. (Probably not worth it, given what a boring ad it is. Maybe she should try again and this time dress in a bathing suit and climb out of a lake.)