Mayorapolis: 2017 Interview with Jacob Frey

In 2017, we created the podcast Mayorapolis, where The Theater of Public Policy host, Tane Danger, interviewed all of the leading candidates who were running for mayor.

Current Minneapolis Mayor, Jacob Frey, won and is in his second term. Just yesterday he announced that he will be seeking a third. Listen to, or read the transcript of our conversation to see what his initial promises were and whether he lived up to them.

Our talk with Frey covered his plans to bring more affordable housing to every part of the city, how he would like to reform police training in the city, and how we could build a moat of parking lots around the city.

If you’re interested in Tane moderating or conducting an interview for your event, please reach out to us.

Transcript was created using Rev.com, apologies for any errors.

Transcript:

Brandon Boat (00:13):

Hello, my name is Brandon Boat with the Theater of Public Policy. Normally for our podcasts, we feature an excerpt from one of our live shows. We talked to someone about a public policy issue, and then a team of improvisers brings it to life through unscripted improv comedy. However, there's currently a mayoral election happening in Minneapolis for 2017. We thought we would sit down and talk to the candidates because if nothing else, it would help us decide who to vote for. Our guest today is Jacob Fry. Council member Jacob Fry is finishing his first term representing Ward three in Minneapolis. He began his career as a professional runner competing for the USA and the Pan-American Games. He moved to Minneapolis, began a law career at Fig and Benson, now F Baker Daniels, and then Helenan and Associates. Apologies for any mispronunciation. Our talk with Fry covered his plans to bring more affordable housing to every part of the city, how he would like to reform police training in the city and how he could build a moat of parking lots around the city.

Tane Danger (01:13):

No, so thank you so much for being here. I've been doing this intro, which actually I don't know if these will end up in the actual finished product, but my name's Tae Danger. I'm with Brandon Boat here, and we've been doing these fantastic, I'm calling it fantastic. I think it's fantastic. Series of conversations with the candidates running for mayor of Minneapolis. Today we have council member Jacob Fry joining us, which is very nice and exciting, and so thank you so much for being here.

Jacob Frey (01:42):

Thanks for having me.

Tane Danger (01:43):

So I've been just starting with a question that when we did the Minneapolis mayoral forum over in Ward 10, this was the same question I started with there, but I think it's probably the best sort of opening question that I at least can come up with, which is just why Mayor, you're on the city council already, you're doing good stuff there. I presume you're proud of the stuff you've done there. So why leave that to go do mayor? What can you do as mayor that you'd not do in a city council person?

Jacob Frey (02:09):

Well, I think right now we need a fresh start. We need a mayor that's going to be in there front and center digging into these controversial issues and then ultimately getting results. And I say this a lot, but being in public service is not about being somebody. It's about doing something. And there's a lot that we can be getting done citywide right now, and when I look back at it, I certainly could have run for my city council spot again, but the things that I promised when I ran for office that I was super passionate about, they've happened, they're done. So yeah, I could have come up with some new bs, new platform.

Tane Danger (02:44):

Wait, you feel like you're done? You got have, is there a Jacob Fry diary in it? You had like get these five things and you have little check marks?

Jacob Frey (02:53):

I have the check marks. I have crossed them off and yeah, they are either done or substantially set place to the point where whoever is the next council member could finish it off in a brilliant way. So I didn't want to just stick around to keep the bench warm. I'm sure there's somebody who's really passionate about doing what's next, and that's not to say that there's nothing else to do in that the war because there's a whole lot of other stuff.

Tane Danger (03:16):

Call

Jacob Frey (03:16):

Upper Midwest, we've done

Tane Danger (03:18):

It.

Jacob Frey (03:18):

No, and there's still a lot of stuff that we need to accomplish, but the things,

Tane Danger (03:22):

What were those things then? Just curious.

Jacob Frey (03:24):

The things that I wanted to do was one affordable housing in middle and upper income areas along the central riverfront. And we've done Mill City Quarter, which is now occupied. It's at 50% of area median income. We've got the Cameron building in North Loop also at I think 50 and 60% of area median income. We just approved some of the final zoning for the Great River Landing, which is housing at 30% of area median income for people with a felony record.

(03:52):

And then very shortly I hope to approve even owner occupied affordable on the east side of the river. So we've done actually more affordable housing developments than anywhere else in the city. That was the first thing was affordable. The second thing was just density and growth in general. And we've done that at record levels. We've gotten rid of the vast majority of the surface parking lots in just the three or four, three years, three and a half years now. And areas that were previously just oceans of dead space are now occupied with either green space and public realm improvements or office and residential. And we've got almost 40 or 50% of the total growth in terms of residential in the entire city. So that's done. The third thing was a new community-based public school, which happened and is now getting awards. We talked about small local business growth and we accomplished that at record levels as well. And so that's the stuff that is specifically ward centric. Now of course, there's a whole lot of things that we could be working on citywide, and obviously we've done a lot in those categories as well. But no, the things that I promised go on down the line, there's five or six of them every one.

Tane Danger (05:04):

So how much of those then is a mirror for what it would look like if you're mayor? Is it the same sort of No,

Jacob Frey (05:10):

No, no, no, it's not. I mean, the third ward is not representative of the city as a whole. We've got different neighborhoods that have different challenges.

Tane Danger (05:20):

You'll take their surface parking lots from their cold dead hands.

Jacob Frey (05:23):

Oh, I'm taking surface parking lots that I can say as a not blanket statement, but pretty darn close. I think that surface parking lots and dead space that is only to be occupied by cars with no people in it is a thing of the past. So yeah, that is a thing that is fairly applicable in most areas of the city, but North side obviously has its unique challenges as well as potential south side as well. So there's a macro vision I think here for the whole city.

Tane Danger (05:59):

So that was one of the, I mean if we want to just jump in, that was one of the, we put this out on Twitter and the Facebook for folks, and one of the things people asked was very much about the north side and they wanted to know sort of folks have been talking about investing differently in the north side for a really long time. And I think that probably one of the things in particular that they're concerned about or they've said in these questions that they're concerned about is how do you do it in a way that actually brings up the community there, gives them the tools to, without just sort of bringing in a bunch of folks from outside developers or whatnot to sort of create things for them.

Jacob Frey (06:37):

Well, first we need to be highlighting the wonderful things that are taking place in North Minneapolis a whole lot more. Anytime people start talking about North Minneapolis, one of the first things that come out of their mouth is, oh my gosh, it's awful. And there are bad things happening. And yes, there are struggles, but I also want to highlight the wonderful people, the entrepreneurs, the spirit and the culture that makes Northside really an awesome place. And by the way, we do have people that want to live on the north side right now. They've called their neighborhood for 30 years and some of them they want to move there. So I don't want to undermine that. We've got art and culture and restaurants and beautiful parkland as well on the north side. But yeah, the north side has suffered from a hundred years worth of intentional segregation, a hundred years worth of redlining, a hundred years in some cases. We've got mortgage fraud left and right, a hundred years worth of intentional separation of the north side from one of its most important assets, which is that riverfront by a whole lot of heavy industrial followed by a massive highway. And all that stuff together leads to the situation where it's no coincidence that the highest rates and levels of pollution and asthma are on the north side and the entire state.

Tane Danger (07:58):

So So what do we do? And we have 30 seconds ready, set, go. No, what do we do?

Jacob Frey (08:04):

Yeah, well, there's a lot we need to be doing first, as you said, ta, I do think we need to be giving the communities that are there the potential to, they need to be part of the investment. They need to be part of the growth. It can't just be a bunch of outside interests from one state or another, coming in with a whole bunch of money and putting up condominiums and calling it a day. That's not how this works. We want to build generational wealth. And to me, a big part of that is property ownership. And we have 370 some odd vacant parcels right now on the north side that are city owned. I mean, they are city owned. We can write the land price down to zero, we can help with down payment assistance, we can help with forgivable loans. These are things that the city to a certain extent is involved in now, but we can bolster those programs a lot more.

Tane Danger (08:56):

I mean, we're policy guys. We like talking policy. So how much do you bolster? How much money do you put into something like that? Give me some specifics of how we actually make some of that work.

Jacob Frey (09:07):

Well, the first piece is I do believe that the land values should be written down to $1. So you have a nominal fee that you're paying to get the land, because one of the problems right now is you put up a home if one didn't already exist there, you put up a home, it costs you $280,000 to put the home up and you can only sell it off for 180. So there's obviously a deficit. You do all this work and then you lose money.

Tane Danger (09:30):

I was not a math person, but I could follow that.

Jacob Frey (09:32):

That's good. But in addition to that, we do need to be doing more as well. And so you asked how much money? I mean, I think it depends on the parcel. I think it depends on the economic situation of the particular neighborhood. I can't give you an exact figure right offhand, but we do have these revolving loans that are going through our community planning economic development department right now. And I think they could be real strategically focused on areas of the north side, keeping allowing communities of color to generate wealth, allowing them to own a home, particularly those that live on the north side.

Tane Danger (10:12):

Yeah, I mean, I don't think anybody who's running would be against any of this. It is sort of the how. I mean, I feel like there's a lot of this that folks have heard for a long time and they're like, yeah, but the actual mechanisms to turn that crank are challenging because you run into not only as you've articulated these economic pieces, but also historical pieces and just people's perceptions of what is possible or what isn't possible in an area. So again, understanding that there's a lot out there. I give us something to chew on here. In terms of the actual ways that you start to turn that dial,

Jacob Frey (10:53):

You mean the ways you start turning the dial in terms of the finances of the

Tane Danger (10:56):

Operation? Well, in terms of trying to get some of these goals that you're talking about in terms of giving folks in the north side, these tools we can say, but even that is just sort a meaningless metaphor. What does that mean? By the way, if you say anything about bringing people to the table, then every podcast drinker has to drink.

Jacob Frey (11:14):

I will never say that. Or I'll say that a whole lot.

Tane Danger (11:16):

Yeah. What the, you're running for office. I assume that there's a lot of bringing people to the table.

Jacob Frey (11:21):

There's a lot of bringing people to the table. It's cliche to say, but you do need to give north side and people of color a voice, a very strong one. And it's not just for their sake, it's for the whole city's sake. But more than that, and by the way, I'm happy to get into this specifics on how you pay for this stuff, but the riverfront I mentioned, we have a whole lot of heavy industrial that's been focused along that corridor on the north side, riverfront, whether it's GAF, Northern Metals, Northern Metals is finally moving out GAF. I think there's some possibilities there as well. And as this space is transformed, the big question is then how do we develop it in a way that benefits the community as a whole? So how do you retain some lighter industrial? How do you ensure that people who are graduating from high school from these areas have the vocational skills and training necessary to have a fast pipeline right into a living wage job on the north side? How do you have mixed income housing, both market rate as well as affordable along these areas? Because a massive amount of space there, I mean, we're talking about a mile and a couple miles, even a mile and a half worth of riverfront that is just primed.

Tane Danger (12:39):

So I am tempted to just ask, okay, answer your own series of three questions there. So how do you sort of set folks up with that educational pipeline, make sure that there's a mixed use of industry and residential and that there's sort of mixed income housing?

Jacob Frey (12:57):

Well, a couple of those things, you just decide to do it and then you make it happen. But I'll explain how you make it

Tane Danger (13:02):

Happen.

Jacob Frey (13:02):

Yeah, so well first was with the vocational training. I believe that in our schools we should have it. And I'm not just talking about welding and painting and glazing. I'm talking about coding. You can start teaching a five-year-old to code, and by the time they've graduated from high school, even if they don't go on to college and college is not for everybody, you've got access to a living wage job. We're teaching five-year-olds to weld. Why not code? Why not code? I mean, that's most definitely going to be the next thing. I barely even know what coding is. I know it has to do with computers, and I know there's a lot of jobs for coding, and I know the basics. I'm exaggerating a little bit, but this is the future and you don't need to go to college to do it. And so we need to be accounting for that after they've got the vocational training. It's the city that I believe that should be connecting these young adults with the jobs and with industry. I mean, that's part of what the city does. And the city by the way, controls a lot of the land. One of the biggest powers that the city has that often goes unmentioned is their authority over land. What you do on it, what you put up on it, what's allowed to take place there. And that's a pretty big lever that we can use to both attract as well as restrict certain kinds of changes.

(14:23):

And I think specifically on the north side, we've got a very strong hand to play. Some of the property we own, we have site control like Upper Harbor Terminal. And so we can say, Hey, you know what? Here's where we want to do, see mixed income housing. We want retail at the base. We want light industrial. We want info and tech jobs that are available to people graduating from North High. I mean, we can do that. We can write that right into the contract

Tane Danger (14:52):

So we can broaden this out maybe to talk a little more about housing and development throughout the city, because you've been very upzoning, which I've been criticized before, just using the term upzoning without explaining it, but generally the idea of more density in different parts of the city. And it's one of the things you pointed to in Ward three. Is that something again that we want to see everywhere or is it in particular places for you? Where do you sort of land on where Upzoning happens under a fry administrative?

Jacob Frey (15:22):

You never want to make a blanket statement except about surface parking lots except about surface parking lots. And I didn't even quite go there, even on parking. No, you didn't. Very parking smart. I can't think of a single surface parking lot at this point that I would want to save.

Tane Danger (15:35):

Have you seen the new, this is a total tangent. Have you seen the new series season of Fargo, like the television program? No. The whole premise is that he, the main characters, the parking lot, king of the Twin Cities. Yeah,

Jacob Frey (15:47):

It's actually a big, I mean, it's a very lucrative deal.

Tane Danger (15:49):

It is. And apparently it has ties to international crime and low level parolees. So just before you get into that, you should watch the series. It might be incredibly dangerous if this series is to be taken as fact. So I'm sorry, you were saying you don't want to do a blanket statement on Upzoning, but so give me a sense of how do you figure that out then? Where do you go? Look,

Jacob Frey (16:11):

I'm for growth. There's no doubt about it. I have a long record of being a pro-growth, pro density candidate and elected official. I am. I believe that to be a world-class city, world-class city needs people. It needs activity, it needs life. I want to walk down the street and have a thousand different tastes and smells and sounds and people all packed in on the same street. If you close your eyes and you picture yourself walking down your favorite street in the entire world, whether that's in Paris or in London or in Amsterdam, you're not passing by one big vanilla conglomerate. You're not passing by one or two people with a whole bunch of nothingness on the block. It's alive. Cities should be alive, and you don't have that without people. And right now, we're a full a hundred thousand below the population that we once were in Minneapolis. And so

Tane Danger (17:03):

Should our goal be to get back to that,

Jacob Frey (17:06):

I can't tell you what's the exact number of people that would make this magnificent utopia. There isn't one. But we can certainly both recruit and attract more and retain more talent within our city.

Tane Danger (17:23):

So we want more density, we want more room for more people. Again, though, going back to my original question, just where, anywhere, everywhere, are there sort of parameters that you think about? These are the kinds of places?

Jacob Frey (17:36):

Yeah. Well, I mean the obvious, the easy, they're obvious ones, which I think are around the core of downtown. Those are the really easy ones. You won't hit a lot of, I mean, you will hit a lot, you'll hit controversy anytime you make a substantial change. The only thing that people hate worse than the status quo is any change at all. But yes, cities evolve and they change. And if they don't, then they remain stagnant and they start falling behind. So yes, around the periphery of downtown. Yes, along the light rail, yes, along significant commercial corridors and activity nodes. And yes, there are also neighborhoods that have been single family homes that as they transition, yes, they can take additional density as well. I can't go through every single neighborhood just to tell you

Tane Danger (18:27):

We've got a couple hours, but how much should the city be driving that versus the neighborhoods saying like, oh, this is something we want or whatnot. I think a lot of folks would say, oh, if you wait for the neighborhoods to say they want it, then we will probably be stagnant for a long time because people don't change. Change, yeah,

Jacob Frey (18:48):

Change. Yeah. I mean, in the third ward, we did a whole lot of work to work with forward minded progressive. And by progressive, I don't mean in the ideological sense, I mean in the progress sense, progressively minded people.

Tane Danger (19:08):

So progressive, not versus conservative, but versus regressive, right? Regressive.

Jacob Frey (19:13):

Why don't I just say forward thinking?

Tane Danger (19:15):

Okay.

Jacob Frey (19:15):

It makes it a little easier. A lot of forward thinking people on some of these neighborhood associations and boards, they created these subcommittees so that developments were reviewed. And in the third ward on the superior plating site, for instance, as far as I know, a neighborhood association for the very first time ever rejected a proposal because it was too short. They wanted it taller. They knew that this site and they were right, had a massive amount of potential. And right now you've got a 20 plus story building that's going up.

Tane Danger (19:50):

And so again, just going back to, so it's the city working with these, I am just trying to figure out again, the mechanism of how some of this stuff plays out. Because there is this tension sometimes between the city has a vision of growing in these different ways, and a lot of neighborhoods might say, yes, that's great. Somewhere else in the city.

Jacob Frey (20:11):

Yeah. Yeah. I mean there is in every single city in the country, in every single neighborhood in the country, there is to a certain extent, not in my, backyard mentality via some, not everybody, some. So what do you do about it? Well, I think when you create a plan, a comprehensive plan for the entire city, you lay out what are the goals and is everyone going to agree on all of those goals? No, they are not. And in my mind, in my vision, I want to see affordable housing in all areas of the city. I do not believe in concentrating all affordable, all section eight, all low income on the north side or in East Phillips. I believe that affordable housing should be throughout. I believe that there should be opportunities for growth in many areas of the city. The easy lifts are the underutilized space, the surface parking lots, the one story 1965 structured that is no longer in good condition and can be transitioned to something more productive.

Tane Danger (21:23):

Well, you say those are the easy ones, but in fact, I think that there's actually a lot of spaces just in that that are potential, but it's just, and again, maybe not in the third ward, but in other parts of the city, you try and build something that's tall enough that you can't see over it, and there's a panic in certain parts of town.

Jacob Frey (21:45):

Well, and let's not forget though, that there is these controversies in the third ward as well. I mean, I'm literally getting sued right now. The city is getting sued because a project was in their minds too tall. Now, that wasn't the whole neighborhood, that was a subgroup. There were a lot of people that were for the 40 story tower on the east side of the river as well. But there were a lot of people against it. I heard them out. I totally respect their opinion. And at the end of the day, I was very honest with them. We don't agree on this one. I thought it was a tremendous opportunity for our city for a ton of different reasons. So I'm a little specific here. I'm talking about there's a 40 story tower that went up on the east side of the river on the east side of the central or third Avenue bridge on the old Washburn McGreevy site. It was 40 stories. It was owner occupied, and by the way, there's a dearth of owner occupied. There was a dearth of owner occupied getting built. It is lead certified. It improves the public realm substantially. They're adding lighting, they're adding bumpouts, contributing somewhere in the range of $300,000 to public art and taking the street scape from something that is presently crap. It's a surface parking lot with nothing happening and putting up what will be a beautiful building,

Tane Danger (23:06):

The Berg preview place. It was nice. I mean, mostly it was mostly the dead and their relatives who were appreciating it probably. But yeah, so this is much better. So those folks, they're suing you. So is that just like you plow forward and you say, yeah, sue me. I don't know.

Jacob Frey (23:27):

Well, no, look, you really did. We did work with everyone. Substantially mean into their credit, a lot of these additional perks may not have become a reality without their pushback. And so that was me saying, alright, what do we need? What are we looking for? How can we get the most out of this particular development so that even if you don't like the height, at the very least, you like walking by the site and it will be beautiful. Not to mention it takes a parcel that was previously generating $35,000 a year in annual tax revenue and will very shortly be generating 2.5 million a year in annual tax revenue. So that's like a, well, $2.5 million increase every single year. That's a big deal. And by the way, all this other stuff that we were just previously talking about, how do you pay for it? There's $2.5 million right there.

Tane Danger (24:24):

That's

Jacob Frey (24:24):

One parcel.

Tane Danger (24:24):

More people. Okay, so let's talk about some other things that potentially cost money. Oh, so this is fun. Let's talk about policing. So because talked to some degree about increasing or revamping, reassessing some of the different programs and trainings that the police department goes through. I'm just curious, maybe you can give us a sense for you of what, because there have been some introduced new trainings and whatnot in the last few years. So what has happened that needs to either happen more, what's not happening at all that you think needs to happen in terms of the MPD and training and how that program works

Jacob Frey (25:08):

A whole lot? First off, we need police reform, not tomorrow, not next week. We need it really right now.

Tane Danger (25:16):

And what does that mean?

Jacob Frey (25:17):

Yeah, it means a lot of things. First, I'll talk about the additional restrictions and policies that should be put in place, and then I'll talk about the trainings. Okay. Well, on the policy side, first, I believe there should be a rebuttable presumption of misconduct if a police officer fails to turn on their body camera and then something bad happens, and we can incorporate that. It should have been incorporated years ago. And by the way, the mayor is an exclusive control and authority over the police department. This is the mayor's job. Second, I believe that officers should have to exhaust all reasonable alternatives before resorting to deadly force. This was a proposal that I believe came forward from the civilian review

Tane Danger (26:05):

To, I think you meant a police officer should have to exhaust. You said the mayor should have to, oh,

Jacob Frey (26:10):

I'm

Tane Danger (26:10):

Sorry. You can use deadly force if you're mayor. I maybe, I don't know

Jacob Frey (26:13):

Exactly

Tane Danger (26:14):

How it works.

Jacob Frey (26:15):

The mayor can always use deadly force. Clearly. No, I meant police officer, police officers should have to yes, exhaust all other alternatives before resorting to deadly force. I think that should be, it seems common sense to me.

Tane Danger (26:31):

So in a situation as we had with the case in southwest Minneapolis, Justine, is that one then where say if you were mayor, you would say, well, this officer just has to go that with absolute control of the force, you would say, I'm making a decision here to fire this police officer.

Jacob Frey (26:58):

Yeah, I think that that particular officer, based on the facts that I know right now, yeah, messed up horribly. It's indefensible. I think the Philando Castile incident was indefensible. I do not think that they should be dead right now. And so there's a legal process obviously that has to take place. Everybody, and I believe everybody is entitled to due process and is innocent until proven guilty, period. I believe that as a lawyer, I believe that as a resident of the United States, but based on what I know now, yeah, these are indefensible.

Tane Danger (27:36):

Yeah. I'm just trying to reconcile those two things because the folks say, well, yes, we have this process or whatnot, but the power does rest with the mayor, I believe, right? To actually just to demand the resignation of these folks or fire them, I guess, is much more directly. And so is it something where you sort of wait around for that process to play out, and is it something where you act?

Jacob Frey (28:07):

I am one that does not like to assume anything, and so no, I don't think you can just act without knowing all of the facts and don't, all I know is what I've read in the newspaper and what every single other person knows based on what I do know. They should be gone yesterday based on what I know, but I would need to actually see everything else.

Tane Danger (28:28):

Yeah. Okay. So we kind of took a little bit of a tangent there, but so you were talking already about some of these policy pieces. What about the training pieces? So what has to look different in that side of it?

Jacob Frey (28:39):

Well, first off, how many classes have you taken where you weren't paying attention, where you just didn't give a crap? It is like you're not listening. This is not your subject. You don't care. And so you're sitting there on, I don't know, daydreaming for an hour or 50 minutes until the class ends a lot, right?

Tane Danger (28:57):

I don't assume that, but maybe you can ask. Yeah, sure. Go ahead. Yeah,

Jacob Frey (29:02):

So just having the training that only gets you part of the way there. You actually need the officers to be invested in the program. You need to get them on board. You need to have them have a commitment to the public, to the police department, and to each other that they are going to hold each other accountable to doing the right thing.

Tane Danger (29:24):

Do you think that's not there right now

Jacob Frey (29:26):

Then? No, I don't. No, I don't. No. I think that I want to have our police officers and take a pledge to the public, to the city as a whole and to each other that they are going to hold each other to the very highest standards. And you do have this kind of camaraderie where something bad goes down and there's this whole don't ask, don't tell mentality. And no, that's not right. I think that police officers should be saying, you know what? We have a job that is very important to our city that should be honored, but it's not going to get that way unless they're holding each other accountable and unless they themselves are invested in this training. And so I could talk about the training. I could say. So

Tane Danger (30:13):

You're saying, at least in practical terms, so we do, we've introduced an implicit bias training and some other pieces. But you're saying they happen once or not often enough right now that they should be an ongoing thing or that there should be, what are you talking change?

Jacob Frey (30:29):

Well, there's two pieces here. The first is an overall cultural shift and how the police department operates. And to me, yeah, that's kind of like, that's taking a pledge, that's taking a very serious pledge, and I've got a couple ideas. It's just a few sentences. It's a pledge that you take to the city of Minneapolis, to the residents and to each other that you're going to hold each other accountable and accountable to operate the very highest of standards of professionalism and respect and dignity. And we can do this. They take that pledge ahead of time and you make a big deal about it because it is a big deal. Then next, yeah, the training, it just can't be one seminar. It's not like you can go in and take a five or a six or an eight or whatever hour seminar and suddenly, well, you're rid of all implicit bias.

(31:14):

All of us have implicit bias. I have implicit bias, and I'm not going to rid myself of implicit bias in eight hours, not to mention I don't carry a gun. And so yeah, these trainings are very important and it goes beyond that. I mean, we shouldn't have our cops taking the gun out of the holster if they hear loud noise. We shouldn't. If you have to take the gun out of the holster, you shouldn't be putting your finger in the trigger. It should be a two step process. So your finger is alongside of the gun, and then the first step is put your finger in the trigger, and the second is you pull back. And so you don't have those knee jerk reactions anymore where suddenly you get a little bit scared or frightened and you've clenched your fist and somebody dies.

Tane Danger (31:54):

So is it like pop quizzes on implicit bias? Is it the mayor pops in and is like, Hey, everyone, implicit bias review, or, I am just trying to figure out how this actually plays out?

Jacob Frey (32:06):

No, I think it's programmed into the training. It's baked into the yearly cycle where you're doing it on a fairly consistent basis. I don't know. I'm not a psychologist and I'm not certain as to how often or how much, but I do know statistically speaking, that what we're doing right now is not quite cutting the mustard.

Tane Danger (32:25):

So one other piece on the policing, so many folks are critical of you because you've taken or you've gotten money from, and I can never get it right, is the police union or federation of police officers. It's the thing, it's the same thing. So folks have been very critical of that, and I've just often wondered, I don't know, just as a cold political thing, why not just give it back then?

Jacob Frey (32:51):

I did. You did? Yeah, I gave it, yeah. This happened two years ago. This happened two years ago. I got a $200 or $250 donation. I didn't even know. I got it.

Tane Danger (33:04):

Those are nice. Brandon, have we gotten any donations lately that we don't know about?

Jacob Frey (33:09):

Yeah, all the

Tane Danger (33:10):

Time. What are you doing with them? Sorry, go ahead. You're

Jacob Frey (33:13):

Buying water and fish crackers though.

Tane Danger (33:15):

Goldfish over there. Yeah, exactly. Goldfish. That's the improv comedy lifestyle. So yeah. So you got it two years ago.

Jacob Frey (33:21):

Got it. Two years ago. I didn't know about it until months after. There were some restrictions as far as the law goes, as to when and how you could donate it back. I mean, trust me from a political situation, there's no upside for this. I'm doing fine in terms of fundraising. I don't need the $250. We were trying to figure out how you give it back legally. And finally we just did. It's not clear how we could or couldn't, but we just did it. So not only did I donate, not only did I give the money back, I also donated more than that amount to a good cause that is indirectly related.

Tane Danger (33:57):

What cause is that?

Jacob Frey (34:00):

I don't want to tell you the specific person, but it was a young woman or a young person that had committed suicide.

Tane Danger (34:10):

Okay.

Jacob Frey (34:12):

Because of interaction with officers.

Tane Danger (34:13):

Yeah. One other piece that somebody suggested we ask as sort of a practicum for candidates is, we had this situation a couple months ago now with officer or soon to be precinct Captain Delmonica being appointed, and folks were just wondering, that played out in a very particular way. How would you have dealt with that situation where you have the chief appointing someone to a position that maybe you as a mayor don't think that they're the right person for that? Do you then trump the police chief and as Mayor Hodges did, I am just trying to figure out how would you have approached that situation and then actually played it out?

Jacob Frey (34:59):

You work it out ahead of time, is the answer. You are inconsistent. The mayor should be inconsistent. Communication with the chief. We know that Mayor Hodges and Chief Harto had a tenuous relationship. At best. There was not a lot of communication there. There's not a lot of communication between the mayor and the chief, the mayor and the city council, the mayor and the independent school and park board. The mayor and the public communication is lacking in a massive way. And clearly in this instance, communication was lacking between the mayor and the chief. I think there should be a practice put in place where you say, on all significant appointments, and certainly to inspect for inspector appointments, we're going to sit down ahead of time and hash it out and say, all right, who are you thinking? Who is most experienced for this position? Who has the best relationships with the community? Who is able to lead a precinct, which is a difficult job? And you work it out, you get it on the same page ahead of time, and then you can come out as one concerted voice. That clearly did not happen. This was over a series of text messages.

(36:03):

That is not the way you lead a police department. That's not the way you lead a city.

Tane Danger (36:10):

No text messages or just handwritten notes or owl grams or whatever it is.

Jacob Frey (36:17):

Well, you sit down ahead of time. This was, we're talking about hours before an announcement is made. We're talking about on the, no, that's not the way you do inspector appointments. And this is apparently the way they had been doing inspector appointments in numerous occasions in the past. And that's just not the way you do it. You have got to be deliberate. It can't be reactive. You got to be proactive with how you're setting up the police department. And this was not.

Tane Danger (36:40):

So one other piece, actually, this dovetails really well into communication and whatnot that I'm really interested in is there's a variety of issues where the pro side would say Minneapolis is leading, whether it's the safe and sick time, or whether it's minimum wage and different reforms in different areas of the city. And then there's other folks who might say, oh, but we're actually getting way out ahead of ourselves, especially considering that we're part of a larger region and we have seven county metro that all kind of people come and go from Minneapolis. So this question of sort of regionalism and what the job of the mayor is in terms of working with other cities, potentially trying to bring them around to following some of the precedents that Minneapolis sets, or maybe having Minneapolis slow down and follow them in certain ways. I am curious how you think about that part of your job where it sort of falls on a list of priorities. And if you can sort of talk us through how you'd approach it.

Jacob Frey (37:43):

Well, we do live in a regional economy. Minneapolis is not an island in Intu itself. Not

Tane Danger (37:50):

Yet. Not until we dig that moat.

Jacob Frey (37:52):

Yeah. Are you? Well, that's coming undoubtedly. That's also on my dock

Tane Danger (37:55):

Mode of surface parking

Jacob Frey (37:56):

Lots

Tane Danger (37:57):

On the outskirts of the city.

Jacob Frey (37:59):

Perfect. Alright, we'll set that up and then we can become some magnificent utopia. Yeah,

Tane Danger (38:03):

Exactly.

Jacob Frey (38:03):

With great parking around the circumference. Yeah, I mean, we are a regional economy. That's just a fact. And I believe I was the only person on the city council anyway that voted to retain the funding for greater MSP, which is kind of our regional recruiting arm to the city. And I do think having an organization like that matters. That being said, I also like the competition. I don't like to think of Minneapolis and St. Paul as one entity. I like to compete and to push each other to try and improve and be better and to meet that world-class city status.

Tane Danger (38:47):

So if you're elected in Dai Thao or Melvin Carter or one of the other candidates and say, is it that we will have regular, I don't know, arm wrestling contests as the cities

Jacob Frey (39:00):

Or Melvin was a very good hurdler back, and actually he was a good 400 meter runner too.

Tane Danger (39:05):

So we could literally

Jacob Frey (39:06):

Have, we could have a race. And as a matter of fact, the last time that Melvin and I went out for a run, I do want to say for the record that he busted his ankle pretty bad and I had nothing to do with it.

Tane Danger (39:16):

Nice. Good. Even though you have that power of deadly force that you will not use. That's right. So can you give us any examples of places where you think this is the part that's actually most interesting to me? Are there things that the region is setting a good example for Minneapolis, we think all the time about things Minneapolis is doing that everybody else should follow. Are there things that the region is doing that we should be paying more attention to and maybe taking a cue from?

Jacob Frey (39:43):

Yeah, I think so. There's been this push in the region as a whole for attraction and retention of millennial talent. And we know a couple statistics. We know that we are producing more jobs right now than we are able to fill with a skilled workforce. We know that. We also know that by the year 2020, about 50% of the workforce is going to be millennials, a staggering figure. And that means that 50% of the workforce is either going to look like us or substantially younger. And that's scary.

Tane Danger (40:20):

Yes. Young people are terrified.

Jacob Frey (40:21):

And so how are we going to step up to the table to make sure that we are recruiting and retaining this talent? I mentioned vocational training and making sure that we access every single bit of talent we presently have in this city, making sure that they are productive and that they're able to fill these skilled jobs. But yeah, it's also looking elsewhere as well. We can't shut ourselves down to the talent coming out of the coasts or Chicago or New York City. And I mean, these are metropolitan areas and Minneapolis can compete and we should be.

Tane Danger (40:52):

I've just got a couple last questions. One, somebody asked specifically, and this is one I think is particularly interesting for you because you're not running for reelection, your council seat, so they wanted to know all these things that you're talking about that you think that the city needs or would do if you don't win. Mayor, how do you keep doing that? What does the work look like for you to keep some of that passion and work alive?

Jacob Frey (41:19):

That's a good question. I was just talking with my wife about this the other day because I'm very confident at this point that we're going to win this race. We're feeling good. The message is resonating. We're working hard as hell. But yeah, I could. And then what's next on the docket? For me personally and for my family, the truth is I don't know. That's the real truth. I know what I'm passionate about. I know things that I want to get done. I believe strongly in diverse neighborhoods and desegregation. That's something that I'm extremely passionate about. I believe in living amongst a thousand different people that don't look just like yourself. I believe in socioeconomic diversity and age, demographic diversity and racial diversity. And God, we are so far from that right now in Minneapolis, we're very segregated, extremely segregated. And that was done by very racist and intentional policies going a hundred years into the past. And I want to find a way to push back on that. And whether that's from the mayor's office or anywhere else, people should have the ability to live in a neighborhood of their choosing.

Tane Danger (42:24):

One question on that, that actually it takes us all the way back to housing, but I did want to ask because one of the other pieces, there's a lack of affordable housing people point to in a lot of cases as to in certain parts of the city to try and affect it that way. They also point to though, and there was a big study that came out that suggested that Minneapolis is really bad in terms of certain regulations and whatnot over what can be built, how different homes and whatnot in terms of the design guidelines and things like that. Also, in terms of what does a family constitute one way or the other? And those kinds of rules that then limit how many people can live in a particular space. You have to be maybe a direct relative in order in certain parts of the city. So are those things that you foresee sort of taking on or changing? Are there elements of that?

Jacob Frey (43:16):

Well, the final thing you mentioned I'm taking on right now as a council member. So the final thing you mentioned was a restriction in our city that prevents more than three people who are not related by blood to live with each other. And by the way, this happens all the time, that more than three people that aren't related by blood, they live together. And if you've got a big old house with 10 bedrooms, and this is just an example, if you've got a big house with 10 bedrooms in, every single one of those bedrooms has adequate light and adequate square footage. You're not throwing a mattress in the kitchen or the bathroom. It's habitable and it's fair. Why should it be that you can only have three people that aren't related by blood living there? That's

Tane Danger (43:58):

Ridiculous. How else are we going to get the real world Minneapolis to happen?

Jacob Frey (44:04):

Exactly.

Tane Danger (44:05):

Exactly.

Jacob Frey (44:06):

And we can move in that direction that we're going to this year.

Tane Danger (44:10):

Okay. And what about design guideline things? Is that something that

Jacob Frey (44:14):

Yeah. Yeah. Design guidelines. I mean, I wouldn't necessarily call that within the mayor's purview, and I don't claim to have any sort of monopoly on good taste. If anything, it's probably the opposite. And so I don't know that I'd be the one to determine design guidelines. I would leave that to the pros. And the great thing is that we've got some very talented people on the council that have unique expertise areas, and I want to work with them. I want to work with the city council and let them run with the particular issues that they're passionate

Tane Danger (44:45):

About. So the last question that we've been asking everybody, and it was Brandon's idea, was so your mayor, and let's say you can do one big thing that you get a mulligan on. So if it doesn't work out, you can just take it back and it's like it never happened. So high risk, high reward, what would you try? Well, I'll give you two. Oh, okay. Only one of them gets to mulligan. So you better hope one works out.

Jacob Frey (45:11):

Yeah. Well, the first, and we didn't really get into this, is, I mean, this is a big idea and I'm doing it regardless because I believe in it. And this has to do with affordable housing and specifically deeply affordable housing. So a lot of people, they talk hypothetically about, well, we need more affordable housing. We don't need any more housing. At 50 and 60% of area media income. We needed 30% of area media income, which I totally agree with it. But then you need to pay for it, and…

Jacob Frey (45:45):

You need to figure out how to get it done. And so we are in this era right now where we're losing a lot of subsidy that we previously got to build affordable housing. We often rely on 4% and 9% low income tax credits to build affordable housing. We rely on community development block grants, CDBG funding from the federal government, and supposedly that's all going by the wayside or a whole lot of it. So where is the city going to get this money from? I believe that we have to step up and put our money where our mouth is. If we're really going to make sure that everybody can live in a great city, our great city, to me that looks like this, hopefully working with some of these other surrounding jurisdictions, Hennepin, Ramsey Bloomington, Edina St. Louis Park, Brooklyn Park, et cetera, et cetera. I want to set up a separate pot of money that's not competing with some of your classic city issues like fire and cops and streets and say, this is for affordable housing.

(46:37):

And then you take parcels, parcels valued at say $400,000 and above. And you say, alright, we can anticipate that these parcels are going to gain in value over the next, say, six years. So it's $400,000 now it's $460,000, six years from now. Well, that additional $60,000 worth of value results in new tax revenue. If we were to pool a percentage of it, say 30 or 40% in a separate pot, then a one fell swoop, we would have enough money to really end this crisis. We would solve this crisis. We could end homelessness. We could end homelessness if we do this right. And this is a big, big thing. And so I'm not really asking for a mulligan on this one, but it's going to be difficult. It's going to be controversial. And I'm kind of going all in on it. I believe it, full heartedly. and the other one, and this is potentially, this could work beautifully and this could be a bust.

Tane Danger (47:31):

Yeah. Is it Ice Town from Parks and Rec? We're going to have a big ice village that we're all going to. You don't watch Parks and Rec. I

Jacob Frey (47:39):

Watched Parks and Recs, but I didn't see this particular,

Tane Danger (47:42):

Ben Wyatt has a whole thing where he is going do ice. He did Ice Town. Really? He was a mayor. But if that's not your idea, that's fine.

Jacob Frey (47:49):

It, well,

Tane Danger (47:50):

It didn't work for

Jacob Frey (47:50):

Him. I'll have to catch up on Parks and Rec, I guess. And then maybe I'll change my answer. So if you go down to, there's a couple of things here. I think great cities find ways to highlight that, which sets them apart. And a big part of what sets us apart is the Mississippi River and the central riverfront. I mean, people don't realize that the Mississippi River goes right through the center of Minneapolis, and this is a masterpiece right there that we should be highlighting. And so one, I think the post office should be transformed, revamped, and not just pitching snail mail anymore. You could have cafe space on umbrellas. On the backside. You've got these alcoves along the riverfront that are presently not activated. That could be some form of market. And this is the potentially weird part. If you look around the apron to the falls, there are these large cylindrical concrete slabs, and you know what I'm talking about. They used to be used for, I'm assuming when a boat would come down, and this was the last ditch effort, we made a horrible wrong turn here, bail out. Let's see if we can throw the anchor on one of these concrete slabs. Something like that.

(49:03):

They're large, they're very stable. There's a lot of 'em. They circle the entire apron that leads to the falls. You could put a boardwalk on there. You could have a boardwalk that starts on the west side of the river that wraps quite literally around the falls. This would be our version of the high line, but like five times cooler. I mean, that's a highlight to the city. That could be, I mean, you could have kind of cafe and bar space out there. You could have it programmed with games and activities all while looking over the Mississippi

Tane Danger (49:37):

Falls at the end of our time. I don't want, it is tricky to build a new bridge over the Mississippi. I believe that there's federal regulations sort

Jacob Frey (49:46):

Of, oh, there's tons of regulations. This is not going to be an easy thing. And it's also not a bridge.

Tane Danger (49:51):

It's not a bridge. So Walter Mondale won't try and fight you to stop it from happening.

Jacob Frey (49:55):

This is no bridge. This is, he mean, it has to be. This ain't no bridge. Yeah, this is just a walk that even extend. It doesn't extend from one side of the river to the other. It's just literally built on a top of the cylindrical concrete.

Tane Danger (50:12):

So you have to swim to the edge of it, or

Jacob Frey (50:15):

No, it just wouldn't go across. So it would start on the west side. It wouldn't go all the

Tane Danger (50:18):

Way to the side. It wouldn't go all the way to the other side. Right. And it's more,

Jacob Frey (50:21):

At least that's the way I've

Tane Danger (50:22):

Been picturing it all though.

Jacob Frey (50:23):

Talk to the engineers. It's a Gangplank or something.

Tane Danger (50:25):

Yeah, yeah. It's like

Jacob Frey (50:26):

A pier, but really, really long. That wraps all around the

Tane Danger (50:29):

Apron. That's beautiful. Yeah. Kind of cool. That's nice. Yeah. And what will it be

Jacob Frey (50:33):

Named? We have to think about this

Tane Danger (50:35):

One. Did Jacob Fry? Not memorial breach. Alright. Well on that note, I want to thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us. So good luck on the campaign trail. I hope that it's fun. That's what I've been saying to

Jacob Frey (50:51):

Folks. Well, this is fun. This is

Tane Danger (50:52):

Fun. Alright, thank you so much. Alright,

Jacob Frey (50:54):

Thank you guys. Yeah,

Brandon Boat (51:03):

Thank you for listening. These were recorded live at Folklore. Folklore is a digital experience company with offices in Minneapolis and San Diego. They specialize in digital strategy, user experience, design, and development for small businesses and large corporations alike. Learn more@folklore.digital. Our music was composed by Keegan Fraley. If you want to find out more about the Theater of Public Policy or come to an upcoming show, you can find us on the web at www.t2p2.net.