Minneapolis City Council considers Mayor Frey pick for new community safety job, listens to public input
MINNEAPOLIS -- Minneapolis residents on Tuesday weighed in on Mayor Jacob Frey's choice for a new position that will oversee multiple public safety-related departments and merge them under one office, including the city's depleted police force and emergency dispatchers answering 911 calls.
Minneapolis City Council during a committee meeting held a public hearing on the appointment of Cedric Alexander to be the Commissioner of Community Safety, the first role of its kind in the city. Council members later voted to recommend his appointment to the full council, which is set to take final action at its next meeting Thursday.
Alexander, a 40-year law enforcement veteran who once served as a police chief and on a White House task force under President Obama, said he recognized the challenges facing the city: violent crime is up, while staffing for key departments like police and 911 dispatch is down.
"I'm not God. I'm not Batman. I'm not going to be the guy who saves the community in and of itself, by myself," he said during the hearing. "It's really going to take all of us to be able to do that."
If approved as commissioner, he would lead a new Office of Community Safety, which integrates 911 operations, the fire and police departments, emergency management and neighborhood safety—formerly violence prevention.
"I don't think that we will find someone of this caliber who can take on the task at hand, which is helping to transform a police department and a system public safety—that is seen in a very negative light nationally and internationally—into world class institutions," said Nekima Levy Armstrong, a civil rights attorney and community activist.
He would be the highest paid employee in city government with a salary ranging from $295,000 to $350,000.
That proposed compensation concerns Minneapolis resident Brenda Short, who urged the council to lower his salary and wait until it evaluates his performance. She noted the city's large payouts for police misconduct costing taxpayers millions.
"I'm not saying this man is not right for the job," Short said. "I'm saying we should not throw so much money at this man who has not been in our city."
"I don't think that is right for our citizens to pay this kind of money for so-called miracle workers," she added.
As Minneapolis grapples with crime, the pleas for solutions took center stage at the meeting. Community leader Lisa Clemons, founder of A Mother's Love, expressed outrage after she witnessed a shootout in north Minneapolis earlier in the day. She asked the council to approve Alexander.
"I couldn't get my car turned around to get out of there with my kids in the car, ok? Let's be real about what's happening in the street," Clemons said. "My kids were traumatized today eating McDonald's in my car. I don't care what you've got to pay him—hire him."
Chuck Turchick told council members he met Alexander years earlier at a talk at St. Thomas Law School, praising him for his frank honesty answering his questions. But he said he feared his appointment would mean he's treated like a "magician" who will solve police misconduct and crime problems in the city.
"Yes, it's good to appoint competent people," he testified. "But Mayor Frey likes to make grandiose public relations appointments with the biggest name possible at a huge salary, hoping they'll perform such magic to bail us out of the mess we, and that includes the City Council, helped create in the first place."
