Council members call for adoption of Safety Beyond Policing plan

The report includes a plan to bring transformational change, improve safety services and increase transparency.”

Amanda Harrington

VOTE BREAKDOWN ON POLICE RAISES

This summer, on July 18, the Minneapolis city council approved a collective bargaining agreement with the Police Officers Federation of Minneapolis that includes a 21.7% wage increase over three years, covering Jan. 1, 2023, to Dec. 31, 2025. The contract (negotiated in a series of private meetings) was already approved by the federation members and makes Minneapolis police some of the highest paid in the state. Under its terms, in 2025, a new officer will have a starting salary of about $85,000.

AYE VOTES

Elliott Payne

Emily Koski

Aurin Chowdhury

Linea Palmisano

Michael Rainville

LaTrisha Vetaw

Katie Cashman

Andrea Jenkins

NAY VOTES

Robin Wonsley

Jeremiah Ellison

Jason Chavez

Aisha Chughtai

ABSENT

Jamal Osman

Audio

Council members call for adoption of Safety Beyond Policing plan_Cam Gordon.mp3

The Minneapolis city council has set the stage to approve a comprehensive Safety Beyond Policing Action Plan early next year that could drive change for years to come.
The chair and vice chair of the council’s public health and safety committee, Ward 9 Council Member Jason Chavez and Ward 2 Council Member Robin Wonsley, as well as Ward 1 Council Member and Council President Elliot Payne, have called for the council to adopt a plan.
This could mean that the council will be more involved in transforming public safety in Minneapolis in the future.
In August, the council passed a motion to formally work on the plan.
But they will not be starting from scratch.
“In 2021, the city council authorized a contract with Leadership for a Networked World at Harvard University to create a Minneapolis-specific report and plan for building out our unarmed public safety infrastructure,” said Ward 2 Council Member Robin Wonsley.
The result was the Safe and Thriving Communities Report and Plan. It was presented last July by Dr. Antonio M. Oftelie, executive director of the Leadership for a Networked World, who grew up in Minneapolis.
That report included a vision, goals and detailed recommendations for a comprehensive public safety system with a 10-year action plan broken into three separate phases.
“While the Safe and Thriving Communities Report has been widely celebrated in the media and in public statements by many in city leadership, it has never been officially adopted by the council as a guiding framework or comprehensive plan,” said Wonsley. “It is unclear what steps, if any, have been taken to date to support implementation of the Safe and Thriving Blueprint. Additionally, actions taken by the administration have left the council and the residents confused on when and how comprehensive safety services will be available for public use.”
“In order to rebuild trust with residents,” said Chavez, “it is imperative that the city approaches all public safety work with an emphasis on transparency and community engagement. The first draft of the Public Safety Beyond Policing Action Plan formalizes and standardizes that transparency to last through the next decade of city leadership. Like other comprehensive plans, the public will have opportunities to share their feedback and thoughts, which will inform the creation of a second draft. The second draft will incorporate feedback from the public, council members, and the administration, and be considered by the full council this fall.”
“The report includes a plan to bring transformational change, improve safety services and increase transparency,” said Minneapolis Director of Community Safety Design & Implementation Amanda Harrington, who is the city staff person leading efforts to implement the recommendations of the report.
The report outlines safety “ecosystems” and strategies aimed at prevention, response and restoration related to crime and safety.

WHAT’S BEEN DONE SO FAR
In her presentation to the public health and safety committee, Harrington outlined near term recommendations in the report that have not yet been implemented, including creating a community advisory board, creating dashboards for non-police services, exploring performance-based contracting and conducting a gap analysis of preventive, responsive, and restorative services.
She said that much of her time since taking on this job last December has been devoted to getting new safety centers established in south Minneapolis but said that the work is also connected to the larger plan.
She said that the city has already added “dedicated project management capacity,” established an internal city infrastructure, contracted with the Policing Project at New York University to help with early-stage implementation, and completed an initial round of community engagement.
“We’re still within the first year of implementing the report,” she said. “Much of our work is about creating agreements among city departments, analyzing policy and procedures and creating opportunities for collaboration and coordination both within the city and with other government agencies.”

ASSETS AND GAPS ANALYSIS NEXT
Looking ahead she advocated improving and expanding current efforts, including the use of unarmed safety ambassadors along commercial and cultural corridors, better use of violence interrupters, and adding social workers to 911. She said that an “assets and gaps” analysis is already underway that could help inform next steps. The city already has citywide, unarmed behavioral crisis response teams working 24 hours a day.

PLAN TO HOLD CITY ACCOUNTABLE
One public health and safety committee member, Ward 13 Council Member, Linea Palmisano, said, “I’ve been left out of the conversation.” She said she is confused and concerned about the need for the council to approve a 10-year plan. Still, after some discussion, she voted in favor of the direction.
“We need to keep the momentum going,” said Payne. “You do need actual 10-year plans, and you need check-ins, or they will just get dusty, and we won’t know if we’re actually advancing the work.
“We’ve all felt very stuck in this universe of building comprehensive safety and being stuck in the slogans of both/and, but now we need to start unsticking ourselves to the rhetoric and start having more flow into action.”
Following updates at the public safety committee, in August the full city council voted to have staff return with detailed recommendations for changes to action steps, policies and funding that could be included in a final plan.
Wonsley is hopeful that the city council will formally approve the comprehensive multi-year action plan by March of 2025.
She believes that a lack agreement and understanding between the administration, the council, and the public on when and how the Safe and Thriving Blueprint will be executed is hurting the delivery of services and the confidence people have in the city’s ability to administer successful public safety strategies beyond policing.
Wonsley and Chavez contend that passing this comprehensive plan will help support implementation of a multitude of strategies and programs, and demonstrate to the public that the city is serious about moving forward with safety services beyond policing.
They said that it will also offer the public a way to hold both the council and mayor accountable regarding actions, timelines, and funding.
They hope that a refreshed and approved plan will serve as a unifying guide for the mayor, council and all city staff, help rebuild trust with residents, and provide transparency to last through the next decade of city leadership.
The plan can be found at https://www.minneapolismn.gov/government/departments/community-safety/work/design-implementation-work/. People are invited to review it and submit comments about it to CouncilComment@minneapolismn.gov.