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Opinion editor’s note: Strib Voices publishes a mix of guest commentaries online and in print each day. To contribute, click here. I love Minneapolis. This is the city where I want to raise my family. From morning coffee at Code Blu to pick up games at Peavey Park, this city is home. I’m eager to send my son to a Minneapolis public school, because I believe in what this city can be. We aren’t reaching our potential, but I see it — and I know you do, too. I’m deeply concerned with the world my son has been born into. I want to raise him in a city that gives him the tools he needs to spread his wings and enough support to lift him up if he stumbles. I’m not just running to fix a broken system, I’m running to help build the city to grow up in. It’s time we had a mayor who will work as hard as we do to ensure Minneapolis is a city working people can afford to call home. I delivered in the state Senate, and I worked across the aisle with Republicans to pass transformative policy. I passed free college for working-class families making less than $80,000 annually, led the fight to pass a living wage for Uber and Lyft drivers, and invested $19 million in Minneapolis public safety. Despite corporate interests throwing their weight around at every turn, I still got the job done — and I did it with a broad coalition of support. For the last seven years, we’ve had a mayor who has failed to deliver meaningful change. He failed to work collaboratively with 13 fellow Democrats on the City Council, by prioritizing his ideology and political ambitions above the needs of Minneapolis residents. You deserve better than broken promises and endless vetoes. You deserve a mayor who puts you first. If the historic 2023 session taught me anything, it’s that when you have the opportunity to make change, you seize it. You stay up all night with workers because people are making poverty wages, struggling to feed their families and they have waited long enough. What I have never done, and what I will never do, is look the people of this city in the eye and ask them to wait their turn. I won’t run from President Donald Trump; I’ll build the line of defense from the masked federal agents breaking into your home in broad daylight, separating families from their loved ones and disappearing our neighbors. I will fight for a stronger sanctuary policy that guarantees that the Minneapolis Police Department never supports Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and I’ll stand up against the federal government’s attacks on health care and bodily autonomy.
