Star Tribune
Uber, Lyft pay causes Capitol conundrum after Minneapolis vote
Gov. Tim Walz urged the Minneapolis City Council on Monday to reconsider the minimum-pay requirement of $15 per hour for rideshare drivers before Uber and Lyft make good on their pledge to leave the state.
“Let’s get back and figure this out,” he said at after a budget-related news conference at the Capitol.
Walz said he’d like to find a statewide solution on driver pay and lamented that the council made a decision affecting the whole state without a back-up plan to replace the rideshare services. With no indication the council is willing to reverse course, Walz said he wasn’t optimistic even as legislators raced to offer solutions.
“We’re willing to try and play a role in it,” the governor said. “But again, I’m just very frustrated because I view this as a utility that is needed and to lose this, I don’t think it’s a plan to think somebody might step in. That’s not really a plan.”
Republicans and DFLers have introduced divergent bills that aim to give the state control over rideshare regulations. Uber and Lyft say they will leave on May 1. Uber said it would quit the entire metro while Lyft said it won’t operate in Minneapolis because the council overrode Mayor Jacob Frey’s veto of the minimum pay requirement.
Many rideshare drivers have complained that it has become increasingly difficult to earn a living, even as customers have seen rising prices for rides. The pay issue surfaced late in the 2023 legislative session and Walz vetoed a bill to boost driver pay. He assembled an advisory group on the topic with the aim of developing legislation for 2024.
Walz said the council should have waited until a statewide study on driver earnings was released because it pointed to a sweet spot that could accommodate both the drivers and the companies.
“We certainly want to see folks be paid a fair wage for their work,” Walz said. “We also want to make sure that that wage structure allows for the business to go forward.”
But Walz repeatedly said he wasn’t hopeful because of the City Hall action. He said the companies and the city are playing a “game of chicken” that hurts those who rely on the rides, including those with disabilities.
The governor said he’s not a fan of the state pre-empting local communities, but he was upset that the council action came just hours before the state report on driver pay came out with a roadmap to addressing pay. He also said the rideshare companies need to work with the Legislature.
“My hope here is that at the end of the day, we can take a step back and then everybody comes to the table,” he said. “It is not acceptable to not continue.”
Sen. Omar Fateh, DFL-Minneapolis, introduced a bill earlier this month that would establish a statewide standard of pay, similar to his bill the governor vetoed last year. Fateh has said the bill could be brought up again in the rules committee later this session.
House Republicans have a counter-proposal. On Monday, Rep. Elliot Engen, R-Lino Lakes, introduced a bill that would ban any local regulations on ride-hailing, putting all the power with the state. He called the Minneapolis ordinance well-intentioned, but said drivers now worry about being unemployed. Engen said he does not have DFL support for his bill.
As of Monday in Minneapolis, there appeared little chance of anything changing, although some players spent the weekend exploring options.
The mayor traditionally opposed to state laws pre-empting city authority, but said last week he was open to it in this case.
In the meantime, his administration has shifted focus to the practical: Prepare for the exodus of the city’s only two licensed rideshare companies.
Frey is trying to set up a meeting with a number of stakeholders next week, potentially including advocates for people with disabilities and officials from the airport, hospitality industry and downtown business community, spokeswoman Katie Lauer said.
Staff writer Dave Orrick contributed to this report.
Star Tribune
Trump denigrates Detroit while appealing for votes in a suburb of Michigan’s largest city
NOVI, Mich. — Donald Trump further denigrated Detroit while appealing for votes Saturday in a suburb of the largest city in swing state Michigan.
”I think Detroit and some of our areas makes us a developing nation,” the former president told supporters in Novi. He said people want him to say Detroit is ”great,” but he thinks it ”needs help.”
The Republican nominee for the White House had told an economic group in Detroit earlier this month that the ”whole country will end up being like Detroit” if Democrat Kamala Harris wins the presidency. That comment drew harsh criticism from Democrats who praised the city for its recent drop in crime and growing population.
Trump’s stop in Novi, after an event Friday night in Traverse City, is a sign of Michigan’s importance in the tight race. Harris is scheduled for a rally in Kalamazoo later Saturday with former first lady Michelle Obama on the first day that early in-person voting becomes available across Michigan. More than 1.4 million ballots have already been submitted, representing 20% of registered voters. Trump won the state in 2016, but Democrat Joe Biden carried it four years later.
Michigan is home to major car companies and the nation’s largest concentration of members of the United Auto Workers. It also has a significant Arab American population, and many have been frustrated by the Biden administration’s support for Israel’s offensive in Gaza after the attack by Hamas against Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
During his rally, Trump spotlighted local Muslim and Arab American leaders who joined him on stage. These voters ”could turn the election one way or the other,” Trump said, adding that he was banking on ”overwhelming support” from those voters in Michigan.
“When President Trump was president, it was peace,” said one of those leaders, Mayor Bill Bazzi of Dearborn Heights. ”We didn’t have any issues. There was no wars.”
While Trump is trying to capitalize on the community’s frustration with the Democratic administration, he has a history of policies hostile to this group, including a travel ban targeting Muslim countries while in office and a pledge to expand it to include refugees from Gaza if he wins on Nov. 5.
Star Tribune
‘Take our lives seriously,’ Michelle Obama pleads as she rallies for Kamala Harris in Michigan
”We are looking at a health care crisis in America that is affecting people of every background and gender,” Harris told reporters before visiting the doctor’s office.
Meanwhile, President Joe Biden went to a union hall in Pittsburgh to promote Harris’ support for organized labor, telling the audience to ”follow your gut” and ”do what’s right.”
Harris appeared with Beyoncé on Friday in Houston, and she campaigned with former President Barack Obama and Bruce Springsteen on Thursday in Atlanta.
It’s a level of celebrity clout that surpasses anything that Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, has been able to marshal this year. But there’s no guarantee that will help Harris in the close race for the White House. In 2016, Hillary Clinton lost to Trump despite firing up her crowds with musical performances and Democratic allies.
Trump brushed off Harris’ attempt to harness star power for her campaign.
”Kamala is at a dance party with Beyoncé,” the former president said Friday in Traverse City, Michigan. Trump, the Republican nominee for president, is scheduled to hold a rally in Novi, a suburb of Detroit, on Saturday before a later event in State College, Pennsylvania.
Tired of hearing about north Minneapolis kids having to go trick-or-treating in the suburbs, business owner KB Brown started throwing a costume bash at the Capri Theater with the goal of bringing together families and the organizations that care for them.
Now in its fourth year, that Halloween party has become a stone soup of community organizations cooking out, roller skating and giving away tote bags of candy to tiny superheroes and princesses.
Elected officials, including state Rep. Esther Agbaje, DFL-Minneapolis, and Hennepin County Commissioner Jeff Lunde, dropped in on the festivities Saturday to get out the vote in the final stretch of door-knocking season. KMOJ’s Q Bear DJed the party.
KB Brown and his grandson Zakari, 3. Brown founded Project Refocus, a nonprofit dealing with youth mentorship, security along the West Broadway business corridor and opioid response in the surrounding neighborhoods. (Susan Du/The Minnesota Star Tribune)
Farji Shaheer of Innovative SOULutions provided a bounce house and inflatable basketball hoops. A violence intervention professional who offers community training on treating traumatic bleeding, Shaheer recently purchased land in Bemidji to redevelop into a retreat center for gun violence survivors.
He in turn invited Santella Williams and Dominque Howard to bring Pull and Pay, a former Metro Mobility bus retrofitted as a mobile arcade full of vintage games such as “NBA Jam” and “Big Buck Hunter.” The bus was a pandemic epiphany for Williams and fiancé Howard when they suddenly found themselves with four kids and nowhere to take them after COVID-19 shut everything down. Pull and Pay now shows up to community events throughout the North Side.
Pull and Pay owner Dominique Howard showed kids, squeezed elbow to elbow, how to play “Big Buck Hunter” inside his homebuilt mobile arcade. (Susan Du/The Minnesota Star Tribune)
“This is the first time I’ve been able to come through, but we figured we’d stop by check it out. It’s so perfect, and such a beautiful day,” said Shannon Tekle, a Northside Economic Opportunity Network board member attending with her two-year daughter, both of them dressed as monarch butterflies.
“North Side, we’re a big family,” said Brown, proudly toting his grandson Zakari (a 3-year-old Chucky with candy-smeared cheeks) on one arm. “Everybody here is from the community.”
Navy issues apology for destroying Alaska Native village in 1882
Trump denigrates Detroit while appealing for votes in a suburb of Michigan’s largest city
‘Take our lives seriously,’ Michelle Obama pleads as she rallies for Kamala Harris in Michigan
Navy issues apology for destroying Alaska Native village in 1882
Trump denigrates Detroit while appealing for votes in a suburb of Michigan’s largest city