Star Tribune
Uber tells drivers it’s shutting down only Twin Cities service center
Uber is notifying drivers in Minnesota that it will close its only Twin Cities service center in less than a month, a concrete step toward its pledge to pull out of the metro area entirely over a pay dispute with the Minneapolis City Council.
The letter to drivers from the San Francisco-based rideshare company’s head of Mobility Operations in the U.S. and Canada says Uber will close its Greenlight Hub in Richfield on April 15. That will leave drivers with nowhere in the city to get face-to-face help with renewing documents, getting vehicles approved and inspected, or resolving other issues.
The letter, to be sent this week, also reaffirms the company’s intention to exit the market and stop service at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport on May 1, the day the new regulations go into effect.
Both Uber and the other major rideshare company, Lyft, are pulling out in response to last week’s vote by the Minneapolis City Council to raise pay for rideshare drivers. Uber has gone further, saying it plans to leave the Twin Cities entirely.
“We know that this decision will have a huge negative effect on the Twin Cities,” Uber executive Camiel Irving wrote in the letter. “It will put thousands of drivers — like you — out of work. And it will strand people looking to get to the office, to school, or back home safely after a night out.”
Uber driver Howard Snitzer, of Kenyon, Minn., said the Greenlight Hub is “helpful when you need somebody.” He just visited the tiny office at 60th Street and Lyndale Avenue S. on Tuesday, he said.
Snitzer, who says he has made “great money” driving for Uber and Lyft full time for the past five years, said closing the hub might be Uber’s way of negotiating and applying pressure on Minneapolis to roll back the driver pay ordinance. And in fact, some on the council may be considering a move to reconsider the vote.
“The City Council does not need to be in the middle of my business,” said Snitzer, who said he pays his mortgage and expenses and can afford a vacation with what he makes driving. “They did not speak to enough players. They have no business representing me. I hope Governor Walz will step in and fix this.”
Republicans and Democrats at the State Capitol have introduced a series of bills that aim to give the state control over rideshare regulations.
“This wasn’t a decision we made lightly,” Irving wrote, noting Uber trips in Minneapolis would be some of the most expensive in the nation under the new pay ordinance.
Uber driver David Ralls says he believes Uber is not bluffing.
“They have done it before,” he said, noting the rideshare company left Austin, Texas under similar circumstances. “The Council is looking out for the little guy, but the real little guy in all this is the passenger.”
Ralls, a Uber driver for the past 7 years, said he spends a lot of time in Minneapolis and makes the equivalent of $30 per hour.
“I’m always busy,” he said. “These drivers [who pushed for the pay raise] claim you can’t make minimum wage. If they can’t, they are doing it wrong, or not trying. There is no reason they can’t make over minimum wage.”
Irving wrote that Uber supports legislation that would ensure all drivers in Minnesota earn at least the minimum wage after expenses, and in the letter encouraged drivers to contact state lawmakers in support of legislation that, he wrote, “raises your fares, protects your flexibility, and keeps ridesharing affordable.”
Many residents in the apartments next to the proposed nightclub are visiting workers such as travel nurses or farm laborers, he said. “It makes no sense to have a nightclub that has concerts next to a place where people need to rest to work in the community,” Zuleger said.
He has said that the company also partners with addiction centers and women’s shelters to house Willmar’s most vulnerable residents, and some of these tenants would be too close for comfort to the new nightclub.
Instead of a nightclub, the site should be used for a Somali community center where children from the nearby apartments can play, Zuleger said. Willmar, a city of about 21,000 people, is about 24% Hispanic and 11% Black, with 16% of the city born overseas, double the average rate in the rest of Minnesota. About 43% of the company’s tenants are Somali, and Zuleger called them his “best-paying renters.”
But Doug Fenstra, the real estate agent helping sell the property at 951 High Av., said he had never heard about the possibility of a Somali community center before Zuleger brought up the idea at an October planning commission meeting.
On Wednesday, the planning commission deliberated whether a nightclub would fit the character of the neighborhood. They noted that there was already a brewery in the area.
They passed a motion granting the conditional-use permit.
“DHS and our state and federal partners have seen evidence that kickbacks are happening in Minnesota,” Inspector General Kulani Moti said in a statement. “That’s why we brought an anti-kickback proposal to the Minnesota Legislature last session. We will continue to work with the Legislature next session on ways to strengthen the integrity of our public programs.”
Nuway Alliance, one of the state’s largest nonprofit substance use disorder treatment providers, pays up to $700 a month for someone’s housing while they are in intensive outpatient treatment, the organization’s website states. The site lists dozens of sober housing programs clients can choose from.
Nuway leaders said they got an inquiry from the government about two and a half years ago indicating they are conducting a civil investigation into the housing model.
But officials with the nonprofit said in an email they believe what they are doing is legal and clients need it. More than 600 people are using their assistance to stay in recovery residences, Nuway officials stated. They said having a safe, supportive place to stay is particularly important for the vulnerable people they serve, more than half of whom reported being homeless in the six months before they started treatment.
Health plans knew about, approved and even lauded their program, Nuway leaders said, noting that health insurer UCare even gave it an award.
“The state of Minnesota has been fully aware of our program for a decade,” the organization said. “Since payors are fully aware of, and support the program, we struggle to see how anyone could argue it is improper, let alone fraudulent.”
Mounds View, the first Minnesota city to require homeowners to discharge racist language buried in deeds before they sell their homes, is celebrating a milestone: at least 100 homeowners have completed the process.
Officials say discharging the language is a symbolic step, but an important one.
“How could we call ourselves an inclusive community with the words ‘This home shall not be sold to a non-white person’ buried in the deeds?” Mayor Zach Lindstrom said at the state of the city address Monday.
Racially restrictive covenants, found in deeds around the Twin Cities and Minnesota, were legally enforceable tools of racial segregation for the first half of the 20th century. They barred homes’ sale to, and sometimes even occupancy by, anyone who wasn’t white until 1948, when they became unenforceable. Mapping Prejudice, a University of Minnesota research project uncovering these covenants, has found more than 33,000 of them in Minnesota, including more than 500 in Mounds View.
Many local cities have partnered with Just Deeds, a coalition that helps cities and their residents learn about and discharge covenants. In 2019, the Legislature passed a law allowing homeowners to add language to their deeds that discharges racist covenants but doesn’t erase them from the record. Earlier this year, Mounds View was the first to pass an ordinance requiring it. The city is also helping residents navigate the process.
Just because these covenants are no longer enforceable doesn’t mean they haven’t had long-lasting consequences, Kirsten Delegard, Mapping Prejudice project director, said at a Mounds View City Council meeting this summer: Minneapolis homes with racial covenants are worth 15% more than those without, she said. And neighborhoods with covenants remain the whitest parts of the Twin Cities.
Mounds View residents Rene and Steven Johnson were troubled to learn from Mapping Prejudice that their house, and many homes in their neighborhood, had racially restrictive covenants on them. It took some effort, including a trip to the Ramsey County Recorder’s Office, to find the document, which not only contained race restrictions but barred unmarried couples from owning the home.
The couple got their covenant discharged, and educated the city about the process, Rene Johnson said. That helped lead to the ordinance requiring covenants to be discharged before sale.
