The Minneapolis City Council overrode a veto by Mayor Jacob Frey to finalize language on a ballot issue that would eliminate the police department in favor of a “public safety” department.
The final language that will appear on the November ballot is:
Shall the Minneapolis City Charter be amended to strike and replace the Police Department with a Department of Public Safety which could include licensed peace officers (police officers) if necessary, with administrative authority to be consistent with other city departments to fulfill its responsibilities for public safety?
What does that mean? Mayor Frey fretted about it, which is why he vetoed two different versions of the language.
Frey has argued the question lacks enough information for voters to understand all of the impacts, such as removing the police chief and mandatory staffing minimums for police officers, and having the new department head report to the mayor and all council members instead of just the mayor.
This information was included in an explanatory note, but a judge ordered the city to remove the note from the question after the activist group Yes 4 Minneapolis filed a lawsuit. The order stated that while the city is allowed to have an explanatory note, the proposed explanatory note “read much like a warning label.”
No wonder the activists don’t want people to understand what they’re voting for. Having the “department head” of “public safety” report to the radicals on the city council in addition to the mayor will paralyze any “peace officers” still dumb enough to be on the streets.
“We’ve been spending all morning and most of the afternoon today to this point trying to come up with some resolution to ensure that we honor and respect the petitioners we have put this amendment this forward and to really begin the process of reimagining public safety as it is in the city of Minneapolis,” said [council member Andrea] Jenkins. “This has been a really good faith effort to come to this compromise.”
This is a recipe for chaos and disaster. This is apparently the whole point of the effort by the radicals to not only “reimagine” the police department but to castrate it.
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Frey sees what’s happening but can’t stop it.
“We have an obligation to voters to tell them their consequences of their vote is,” Frey said. “It would remove the position of chief of police. It would get rid of requirement to fund police and finally it would change the reporting structure so that the head of public safety would have to report to 14 different people, the mayor and city council.”
Maybe it won’t be that bad. Maybe the radicals are right and fewer police will mean less crime. Maybe the entire concept of policing is wrong and only the radicals have the solution.
No chance.
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