Division among the Minneapolis City Council surfaced Monday during a long, and at times, emotional discussion about the city’s plan to turn the former Third Precinct building into a voter services center.
Disagreement about the old police station’s future delayed the full council’s first vote on the city’s plan from this week until late April at the earliest. City staff had wanted the council’s Committee of the Whole to vote Monday on a draft plan for the site so the full City Council could vote on it at Thursday’s council meeting. While the Committee of the Whole is composed of all 13 council members, it forwards recommendations to the full council for additional vetting.
Council Member Jason Chavez, who represents Ward 9, where the old Third Precinct building is located, said he doesn’t think the plan encompasses what residents want or what the community needs.
“Not everybody in Ward 9 is a citizen that can go vote at a democracy center,” Chavez said. “But they have a voice that deserves to be heard. They have a voice that deserves to be heard and listened and engaged.”
City Operations Officer Margaret Anderson Kelliher and other city staff presented plans Monday to turn part of the building at 3000 Minnehaha Ave. in south Minneapolis into an elections and voter services center where people could vote during elections. The center would also provide other voting programming and outreach.
“It does many things together to enhance our outreach in the community,” Anderson Kelliher said.
The entire space would occupy about 34,000 square feet; about 8,000 square feet of that would be reserved for community use separate from the voter services. City staff said Monday that they planned to inform community members about the proposal this spring. The city would then hold public engagement sessions about the site starting this summer, and present updated plans to the City Council in the fall for another vote.
Chavez and other council members questioned why less than 25% of the site would go toward community use. Some council members highlighted how community members had organized their own engagement sessions about what to do with the space, such as turning it into a Black cultural center, and said the city needs to engage the community more.
Council members also said that city staff worked in reverse order by first deciding what they wanted to do with the site, and then planning to gather community feedback afterward.
“I will not vote—or ever vote—[for] any plan without community engagement first,” said Council Member Jamal Osman. “Let’s start from scratch. Let’s ask them what they want to do. Let’s not have a predetermined plan.”
But some committee members, including Council Member Andrea Jenkins, support the plans, arguing that a voter services center would qualify as community use for the space.
“It is a community use, it is a function of our responsibility to ensure that our residents of the city have an opportunity to engage in the democracy of this city,” Jenkins said.
The city already owns the building, and does not need council approval to move forward with its plans for the site. But Alexander Kado, a project manager with the city’s Office of Public Service, told council members that this is a “unique” situation due to the history and importance of the building.
The building was set on fire during protests following Minneapolis police’s murder of George Floyd in 2020, and has sat vacant since. The City Council voted last year not to return police to the site, and approved opening a new Third Precinct a few blocks away.
The committee voted 8-3 to delay Monday’s vote until April 23. Council Members Chavez, Osman, Elliott Payne, Robin Wonsley, Katie Cashman, Aisha Chughtai, Emily Koski, and Aurin Chowdhury voted to postpone the vote.
Council Members Jenkins, LaTrisha Vetaw, and Linea Palmisano voted against the delay. Council Members Michael Rainville and Jeremiah Ellison were absent.
The city plans to begin removing razor wire and concrete barricades from the old Third Precinct site this spring. Community members who live and work in the area have criticized the city for allowing the building to stand damaged for nearly four years. Some say it’s a traumatic reminder of what happened in 2020.
