Those of us on the Northside continue to hear gunshots, have cars stolen, homes and cars burglarized, people driving recklessly and causing accidents, etc. The Minneapolis mayor and the city council have decided that instead of hiring 14 additional police officers — which the mayor originally proposed for the city budget — they’d add another cadet class in 2020 saying that would actually give us more new officers. Don’t believe that for a minute, it’s all smoke and mirrors!
That extra cadet class won’t even cover replacing officers who retire. We will have less officers on the street not more. Take a look at the following statements councilperson Cam Gordon (whose Ward 2 includes Prospect Park and the East River Rd) put out about the budget for MPD:
“Among the most consequential were a set of amendments related to public safety that were negotiated by CM Fletcher, Mayor Frey, and CMs Cunningham and Goodman. You can read about those changes here: lims.minneapolismn.gov/…/Mayors%20Police%20Departme…. The passage of this deal means that the total number of sworn officers will not change, with most of what had been proposed for the new officers going instead to an extra cadet class, so that the actual number of officers on the street will be closer to the existing total sworn number.” And “I also voted, along with Council President Bender and CM Ellison, to move still more of the proposed increase to MPD to other, more holistic public safety needs, including opioid response and further increases to violence prevention and GVI.”
The city council and mayor aren’t even listening to Minneapolis Police Chief Arradondo, who told them we need 400 additional officers over the next five years. As you can see, the city council and the mayor have no regard for the crime issues we see on the Northside.
Buzzy Bohn,
Folwell