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Minneapolis council revisits off-duty work of police officers
Council Members say businesses should compensate taxpayers for moonlighting officers.
MINNEAPOLIS — Some members of the Minneapolis City Council want to take a closer look at the private security work police officers do using department squad cars, uniforms and other city-issued equipment.
Council Member Robin Wonsley is seeking a study of the costs that taxpayers incur when officers use department assets while moonlighting during their off-duty hours. If her idea is approved by the full City Council, it would be the first step toward setting up a system to charge fees to businesses that hire off-duty officers.
“We want to make sure there are standardized fees, so that business owners know what they will have to pay if they are soliciting services for officers for their off-duty work,” Wonsley told reporters Monday.
“Ideally, these regulations both ensure protections for officers but also for business owners seeking these services as well as the general public.”
There’s a long tradition in the United States of law enforcement of officers working freelance security jobs in their off time while in their department uniforms. Some departments bill the business for the officer’s time, while others simply allow the officer to contract directly with a business.
In Minneapolis, officers, for the most part, are paid directly by the business for their off-duty security work.
Defenders of the tradition assert it’s a way to expand the coverage of the police department because officers that would otherwise be sitting at home are instead in a position to improve safety and, if necessary, make arrests. They say it wouldn’t be practical for them to use their personal cars, especially in situations where they have to arrest someone while working security and haul them to jail.
But City Council President Elliott Payne said a fee system would add more transparency to the moonlighting system. A 1997 court decree bars the city from ending the practice of moonlighting.
“There is a challenge in tracking the amount of hours officers are working when they’re off-duty by having a fee associated with this,” Payne told reporters.
“This will allow us to make sure we’re tracking those moments so that we’re not overworking those officers.”
A city audit report in 2019 showed that 71% of the officers worked at least one off-duty shift that year, while 8% of officers did so much moonlighting their combined public and private workweek exceeded 64 hours at least five times.
That was before the COVID pandemic and the mass exodus of officers from the MPD following the murder of George Floyd. The Minneapolis Police Department was unable Monday to provide updated moonlighting data on short notice.
City Council Member Linea Palmisano asked for the original audit after the Officer Mohamed Noor fatally shot Justine Ruszczyk in South Minneapolis in 2017. Officer Noor had finished a seven-hour private security shift just 90 minutes before starting his official police department shift on that night.
Palmisano said she’d prefer to go to a system of billing businesses for officers’ freelance work, but she doesn’t believe it’s allowed under the 1990s court order.
“I’d rather bring this entire entity in house, but to do that we will have to go back to the settlement agreement of 1997 and the original injunction from 1995,” Palmisano told her colleagues.
“Right now, the only changes that can be made are outlined in that settlement agreement and this isn’t one of them.”
Palmisano said he believes MPD has made progress recently in tracking the off-duty work of officers.
“We do know that Chief O’Hara has implemented some very significant policy changes so the city knows when and where his police are working, with significant penalties if we don’t.”
A United States Department of Justice review of MPD prompted by the murder of George Floyd was critical of the department’s moonlighting system. The report pointed out that officers typically earn more on their freelance jobs than they can make if they worked overtime for the city.
The Justice Department also noted that lower ranking police officers can control which freelance jobs their own supervisors get, which could, in theory, make it harder for those supervisors to instill discipline.
Wonsley said the system needs reforms because officers are allowed to use city equipment in ways that wouldn’t be allowed in any other city department.
“Public works cannot take a city truck and say, ‘I’m just gonna go and pick up trash for my local block and tell all my neighbors you pay me instead of the city’.”
Tuesday will be the first statewide election since lawmakers changed the law, enabling ex-offenders to vote even when on probation.
MINNEAPOLIS — The state’s top elections officials, faith groups and other nonprofits are working to remind formerly incarcerated persons they can vote in Tuesday’s election, even if they’re still on probation.
This is the first presidential election since the law was changed in 2023, which instantly restored the right to vote to more than 50,000 former felony offenders still serving the community portion of their sentences.
“There was some murkiness, some confusion before this law was implemented,” Secretary of State Steve Simon told reporters Tuesday. “Now it’s real clear. If you’re in prison for a felony, you know you can’t vote. But the minute you step out in Minnesota and many other states now you can vote.”
Simon joined Brian Fullman of the interfaith nonprofit ISAIAH for a press conference at All Square, a Minneapolis café that helps people reenter society beyond prison walls. Fullman is one of several advocates in the state who’s been working to get the word out about the law change.
“A lot of my work I’ve been doing around the house meetings, from barber shop to barber shop, from business to business, from church to church has been about lifting up the news to whoever will listen,” he said.
Fullman is a longtime barber who went to prison at the age of 19 on a drug rap. His voting rights were restored in 1994 after just one year on probation, but he didn’t know it. He said he missed voting in every election until 2008, because he had been told his voting rights were stripped for life.
“I was told in my neighborhood that I couldn’t vote. But I was told by somebody else who was a felon in my community, unfortunately, so misinformation travels. It’s like cancer,” he said. “It just continues to travel and it decays.”
Fullman was part of the citizen lobbying effort at the State Capitol to get the law changed and was there for the joyous celebration at the State Capitol on a cold night in February of 2023, when the Minnesota Senate took the final vote on the Restore the Vote bill.
That came after two decades of failed attempts by the Second Chance Coalition and allies, who couldn’t get past Republican opposition. Most GOP lawmakers asserted the ban on voting should apply to the full sentence handed down by the courts, including time served in the community, commonly known as probation.
Governor Walz signed the bill in early March of 2023, making Minnesota the 22nd state to allow former felony offenders living outside of prison to vote regardless of probation status. Opponents have launched multiple legal challenges, but none of them have succeeded thus far.
“And the national trends are all in this direction,” Simon said. “I know of no other state looking to be more punitive or go in the other direction. Minnesota is really riding the wave of a national trend.”
Advocates asserted that Minnesota’s judicial system traditionally leaned towards shorter time in prison but longer probation sentences that could stretch for decades. One of the advocates who came to the Capitol several times had a check writing felony in her 30s but would’nt be able to vote until she reached her 70s.
The other argument made by supporters was that regaining the right to vote can reduce recidivism because it makes released offenders feel more like they’re part of a community and have more of a voice in local elections.
“I understood that I was a first-class citizen, and not somebody that needed to be patted on the head and told ‘Wait your turn, your voice is not valuable yet.’ So. I just really appreciate what the state of Minnesota has done,” Fullman remarked.
Steve Simon has visited every state prison speaking to inmates who are nearing release. He asserts the Minnesota Dept. of Corrections is doing a good job getting the word out to inmates on the verge of heading home.
“For folks who are about to get out, say within five or six weeks, there’s typically a class of some kind, that helps reorient folks. This is a part of that curriculum. Then they get written information upon actual release,” Simon explained. “And they’ve connected not just us, but nonprofits, faith groups and others with the county corrections system. They’re typically the ones who run the probation system.”
But Fullman is also hoping to reach people who’ve been out of custody for a long time, who may still be operating in the dark when it comes to their voting rights, the way he once was.
“So, yes, this is about our brothers and sisters who are now reentering society right away, but it’s also about our brothers and sisters who’ve been walking around with the wrong messaging, misinformation about how they can use their voices publicly, so I’m very passionate about this work,” he said.
Removing the voting ban for felony offenders eliminated the most common form of election law violations in Minnesota in recent history.
Double voting, non-citizen voting, ID fraud are extremely rare here, but in 2008 dozens of people were prosecuted for voting -— or just registering to vote — before they were off probation.
The system of cross-checks between the judiciary and election officials was tightened after that. Under the new law, it’s much easier to track. Incarcerated inmates don’t have access to voting booths or absentee ballots.
City staff helped support Gyropolis by removing an abandoned gas station and securing appropriate funding.
BLOOMINGTON, Minn. — Even before noon, the lunch line was long at Gyropolis on Tuesday. The Greek restaurant was closed for renovations for several months but returned this week under a soft opening.
Dino Contolatis first opened Gyropolis in Bloomington in 2005, following in his parents’ footsteps. They opened a deli in the city in 1996 after emigrating from a picturesque but poor Greek village in 1971.
“My customers, I want to thank them for getting us to this point,” Contolatis said. “I couldn’t have done it without them.”
One such customer, Chuck Pittman, says he’s eaten at the restaurant for at about 10 years now.
“There are lines that would go out the door,” said Pittman, who lives in St. Paul but works in Bloomington. “The parking lot was always super full.”
There have been so many customers, Contolatis decided in 2022 it was time to expand. Only, there was an abandoned gas station next door.
“It got broken into many times,” Pittman said. “It was just kind of an eyesore on the corner.”
The restaurant is located on 90th Street W and Penn Avenue S, which lead to places including City Hall and I-494. It’s considered a busy area, though not as busy as the Mall of America. Still, the city was eager to get involved in the restaurant’s expansion plans.
Economic development analyst Michael Palermo says the city helped demolish the gas station.
“This was a way to kind of redevelop a site that was kind of difficult to develop on its own,” Palermo said.
Palermo says city staff helped secure $58,400 in grant funds from the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development, making the demolition possible in Fall 2023. Tax increment financing also made the project possible.
“This just speaks to the greater effort we have to support our local commercial nodes,” Palermo said. “We have these big prominent regional destinations but we also want to support our small businesses.”
Gyropolis employees worked from a food truck over the last few months as the restaurant building nearly tripled in size.
The expansion includes a larger kitchen, more parking spaces, more indoor seating and a new patio for outdoor seating.
Pittman joked that gyros are somewhat challenging to eat in the car or on the go.
“I’ve done it, but it’s one of those things that you really want to sit down and enjoy it fresh because they make it perfectly,” he said.
Unlike before, there’s also enough room indoors to wait in line. There’s a pick-up window now, too.
“We used to be 10 employees and now we’re 14 and probably gonna need more, as we can see today,” Contolatis said. “My team are the best people I could possibly work with and the city has been great in helping me navigate this process and to help create a self-determining business on a very important corner in Bloomington that I hope has a bright future.”
Contolatis said a grand opening will take place next week.
After more than 300 suggestions were submitted, city officials have narrowed the finalists down to 10.
DULUTH, Minn. — Halloween can often be a reminder that snow is just around the corner… just ask any Minnesotan who was living in the state back in 1991.
While the idea of snow may not always be welcomed, city officials in Duluth are hoping to make the transition a little more fun.
Voting is now open online for the city’s first-ever snowplow naming contest after more than 300 suggestions were submitted. The 10 finalists to choose from include:
- Enger Plower
- Blizzard Wizzard
- Dewaagonebidood (“the one whi is pishing/plowing snow” in Ojibwe)
- Lake Snowbegone
- Sled Zeppelin
- Snow Dozer
- Edgar Allen Plow
- Plowus Maximus
- D’Lhut Drifter Lifter
- Plowabunga
People will have until Nov. 4 to vote, and the winning name will be announced during the Christmas City of the North Parade on Nov. 22. To vote, click here. The person or persons who submitted the name will win a photo opportunity and will ride in the plow during the parade.
The idea stems from the Minnesota Department of Transportation’s “Name-A-Plow” contest that was introduced back in 2020.
