Star Tribune
Why rent control is not on Minneapolis ballots
There is no rent control question on Minneapolis ballots in the city’s upcoming elections.
That might surprise some. After all, voters in 2021 approved a ballot question that raised the likelihood of a future ballot question on the subject. As recently as this spring, a majority of City Council members supported putting a question about rent control — often called rent stabilization by supporters — to voters this fall.
Then in June, a group of five council members effectively killed that chance in a contentious maneuver that took advantage of the absence of the council’s three Muslim members during an Islamic holiday.
Debate on the topic continues, and several council candidates are campaigning on their support for rent control. But a direct question to the voters isn’t happening yet.
There has never been agreement among council members and Mayor Jacob Frey as to what type of rent control, if any, the city should have. Frey is generally cool to the idea, and several council members are dead set against it.
Here’s the backstory:
Voters in 2021 approved, by roughly 53% to 47%, an amendment to the city’s charter that gave the council authority to enact a rent control policy, or to put a policy to voters. Numerous council members, including Council President Andrea Jenkins, said they planned to put a proposal to voters this year.
A working group that included landlords, tenants and advocates met and sent two ideas to the council in December.
The favored option was a 3% cap on annual rent increases, mirroring a policy approved by St. Paul voters in 2021. The second Minneapolis idea was a softer version that would have allowed more rental properties to raise rents by higher rates. In May, the council voted 7-5 to move ahead with the first plan — although Jenkins, who voted in favor of it, said she wouldn’t support those specifics; she wanted the process to continue so a compromise could be hammered out. Frey said he’d veto the plan before it could reach voters.
Then on June 28, while Council Members Aisha Chughtai, Jamal Osman and Jeremiah Ellison were absent observing Eid al-Adha, five council members — a majority only because of the absence of the Muslim members — forced a procedural vote that meant no substantive rent control policy could be approved in time to be printed on the ballots.
The five were Council Members Michael Rainville, LaTrisha Vetaw, Lisa Goodman and Emily Koski, and Vice President Linea Palmisano.
A driver who hit and killed a man who ran into a busy Minneapolis street has been spared prison and was sentenced on the lesser of two charges.
Camoreay L. Prowell, 38, of St. Paul, was sentenced Thursday after pleading guilty in Hennepin County District Court to failing to stop for a traffic collision in connection with the death of Wilson G. Chinchilla, 26, of Minneapolis, on Oct. 19, 2022, on West Broadway near N. Logan Avenue.
Judge Hilary Caligiuri set aside a 13-month term and placed Prowell on probation for three years. He has about 3½ weeks left to serve in jail. As called for in the plea agreement, the more serious charge of criminal vehicular homicide was dismissed.
When asked about dropping the higher charge, the County Attorney’s Office said in a statement, “This office weighs the specific facts of each case to determine the appropriate resolution. In this instance, the charge for which Mr. Prowell was sentenced [Thursday] is correct and appropriate.”
The complaint said that Prowell was driving at the time after his license had been canceled. Court records in Minnesota revealed he’s been convicted three times for drunken driving and at least twice for driving after his license had been revoked.
According to the criminal complaint:
Police found Chinchilla’s body in the left lane of westbound West Broadway. Video surveillance showed that he ran out of a nearby home moments earlier toward the street.
Witnesses told police that a speeding SUV hit Chinchilla, slowed briefly as it continued west, then made a U-turn and returned to the scene of the crash. Prowell stopped, looked at the body and left.
Mychel Stowers was released on parole from prison about seven months ago after he pleaded guilty to second-degree intentional murder in 2008 for fatally shooting a man in a drug deal gone wrong. According to charging documents, Stowers was living at a halfway house and granted a pass to visit his ex-wife at her North End apartment on the same day that she was killed.
Mychel Stowers’ description also matched the man witnesses saw fleeing Damara Stowers’ apartment moments after the shooting. One witness said they heard no fights or arguments before four gunshots rang. They heard another gunshot five seconds later, and another witness reported seeing a heavyset man with a white shirt and blue shorts run south afterwards.
The apartment’s owner said they were preparing to evict Damara Stowers, adding that her ex-boyfriend, a stocky man in his 30′s or 40′s, was living with her.
Police heard reports of a carjacking minutes later, finding a man shot in his leg on 99 Acker Street. Surveillance footage reviewed by authorities show someone approach that man and point something at him before a flash appeared. The man fell and the shooter ran away, but returned moments later to take the man’s vehicle and leave. That man was treated at Regions Hospital for a broken femur from a gunshot wound.
Authorities believe the gun used to carjack that man on Acker Street was the same used to kill Damara Stowers in her apartment.
There have been 25 homicides in St. Paul so far this year, according to a Minnesota Star Tribune database. There were 28 by this time last year.
The Minneapolis Police Department is on track to rack up $26 million in overtime this year — about $10 million over budget — as the number of extra hours officers work continues since a flood of officers left the force after George Floyd’s 2020 police killing and unrest that ensued.
Police Chief Brian O’Hara provided the OT figure to City Council members during a budget presentation Thursday in which he added that the department has about 210 vacancies.
“We’re using overtime every day to do the most basic functions of a police department,” he said. “It is critically low staffing right now.”
Last year, MPD paid nearly $23 million in overtime — about half of that “critical staffing overtime,” in which officers are paid double their hourly wage.
Overtime is being driven by a wave of resignations and retirements at the department, which had 578 sworn officers as of Thursday, down from nearly 900 in 2019, a 36% decrease that has left it with one of the nation’s lowest ratios of officers to residents.
MPD was averaging about $7 million in overtime prior to 2020, when it shot up to $11 million and has increased every year since, reaching $23 million last year.
Mayor Jacob Frey has proposed a $230 million budget for MPD next year, a 6% increase from 2024, or $13.7 million. Of that, $13 million is budgeted for “constitutional policing” to comply with a state human rights settlement. State and federal officials are forcing the police department into court-sanctioned monitoring for civil rights violations.
Most of that goes to personnel, which comprises 77% of the budget, according to MPD Finance Director Vicki Troswick. The mayor proposes 966 full-time total MPD employees next year, compared to 935 this year. Of those, 731 sworn officers are budgeted for 2025. The city charter requires the city to employ 1.7 officers per 1,000 residents, or 731 officers, although the city has struggling to reach that number amid a nationwide law enforcement staffing shortage.
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