Four years ago, as Minneapolis prepared to launch the Office of Community Safety, Mayor Jacob Frey said that its commissioner would be “arguably the most consequential hire I’ll ever make.”
A year later, the man tapped for that role, Cedric Alexander, resigned, frustrated by his interactions with the Minneapolis City Council and lacking clarity about his role.
His successor, Todd Barnette, is currently locked in a death spiral with the Council. Twice, Frey has renominated him to another term as commissioner. Twice, the Council has voted it down. Twice, Frey has vetoed that rejection. Twice, the Council has failed to overturn that veto.
Related: Uptown looks to Office of Community Safety ambassador program to promote safety and boost vibe
And whether Barnette or someone else is eventually approved, one thing seems to be driving much of the frustration: very little agreement among officials, activists and other stakeholders about what exactly the office’s role is and what they should prioritize.
‘You got the wrong people in the room’
When the OCS was created in 2022 – two years after the murder of George Floyd and nearly a year after voters approved a strong-mayor form of government – the idea was that with the mayor now serving as a chief executive, it would make sense to have the city’s public safety offices wrapped into one department, headed by someone reporting directly to the mayor.
That would help coordinate the work of the police and fire departments, the city’s 911 dispatch and emergency management teams and their neighborhood safety programs. In theory, having them under a single umbrella would improve both communication and accountability.
“On paper, this office sounds good,” Michelle Gross told MinnPost in an interview. Gross is the president of Communities United Against Police Brutality, which has operated in the Twin Cities since 2000.
Gross didn’t support the strong mayor concept but acknowledged that with it in place, it would be unrealistic for Frey to be managing the city’s public safety departments on a day-to-day basis.
“I wouldn’t say I had optimism,” Gross said. “What I would say is I had a recognition that there is a need for coordination for public safety, and so what I thought this would do is possibly provide that coordination. What it has turned into, however, is a boondoggle.”
She said she felt too much of the office’s role was a focus on public relations, and said some programs, like the city’s violence interrupters, were not providing data on their work and results when asked, or were unable to do so.
“Yes, this office probably should exist,” Gross said, “but it needs a major revamping, significant revamping, because you got the wrong people in the room.”
That’s not where Cynthia Wilson, the president of the Minneapolis branch of the NAACP, lands on the issue.
“We know change is not going to happen overnight,” Wilson said. “I don’t think we’ve had a person in office long enough to give them time to peel back the layers and get at the issues involved.”
Wilson said she likes Barnette and thinks he’s willing to work with the community, and wants to see him given the resources and time to succeed.
Under Barnette’s leadership, the office has progressed on a number of goals laid out in the city’s Safe and Thriving Communities Plan, ranging from collaborating across city departments to developing “second responder” teams to deal with the aftereffects of crime – although a number of the goals have passed their stated deadlines with no updates.
‘We need this office’
Frey, too, wants to give Barnette more time in the role – four years, in fact. But with a Council with the votes to deny the nomination but not to overturn a veto from Frey, the process could be in a holding pattern until Aug. 2, when Frey would be required to name an interim commissioner. This person could, somewhat amusingly, be Barnette himself.
In a letter renominating him to the position, Frey wrote that Barnette had “led through crisis with steadiness and skill,” and that during his tenure the 911 office returned to full staffing, and recruit classes for the police and fire departments became more diverse.
Council President Elliott Payne (Ward 1) wrote his own letter, stating that Barnette had supervised the Minneapolis Police Department as they overran their budget by $20 million, erred in their responses to the cases that led to the death of Allison Lussier and the shooting of Davis Moturi, and that Barnette himself was often absent from meetings and unresponsive to requests.
The Council’s six moderate members filed a response in May, criticizing Payne’s memo and praising Barnette’s leadership during crises like the Annunciation mass shooting and Operation Metro Surge.
Council member Robin Wonsley (Ward 2) – who has voted against Barnette’s renomination – said she felt the issues stemmed less from the OCS and more from Frey’s management of the office.
She cited instances like a 2023 effort in which Frey tried to use millions in one-time public safety dollars from the state to fund recruitment and retention incentives for the MPD as part of a union negotiation. That frustrated some Council members who felt their calls to use the funds for other purposes were ignored.
What she sees as the successes of violence interrupters and the Behavioral Crisis Response team happened largely in spite of the administration, she said, not because of it.
“We need this office,” Wonsley said. “It absolutely needs to be restructured.”
Some of Wonsley’s colleagues appear to be on the same page.
At a May 21 meeting where Payne had introduced a resolution to invest in a national search for candidates for the commissioner, Council member LaTrisha Vetaw (Ward 4) said she would prefer a departmental evaluation before such a move.
“I think we’re in a unique position where we can take some time as a body. Especially with the conversations around tight funding coming up and other things, I would prefer to do an evaluation of the entire department.”
Michael Rainville (Ward 3) agreed, saying “I think we gotta look at the whole department. We want different public safety, but are we getting it?”
In an interview, Rainville said he had specifically been talking about the Neighborhood Safety Department, a division of the OCS focused on reducing the impacts of violence. He added that while he supported many of the unarmed public safety programs the city was operating, he wanted to see more proof of their effectiveness.
City officials did not respond to requests for comment about the office’s future or the concerns that have been raised by Council members.
‘I went in there thinking I understood what my role was’
Alexander told MinnPost in an interview that his time in the role of commissioner began with a “rich conversation” with Frey about what the role should look like.
Related: How Cedric Alexander aims to tackle Minneapolis policing woes as commissioner of the city’s Office of Community Safety
As Alexander understood it, his goal was to take the various public safety departments and make sure they were not only functioning effectively in their individual roles, but also that department heads were sharing information and providing support for each other.
It was fairly similar to the Director of Public Safety role he’d held in DeKalb County, Georgia for four years, he thought. But it wasn’t long before he began to think differently.
“I went in there thinking I understood what my role was,” Alexander said, “but I left out there really not understanding what the frick it is they wanted from me.”
Immediately, he found himself frustrated by Council members, especially those further to the left, whom he said “seemed to have a totally different concept, which I never grasped, of what that role should be.”
Disagreements between Frey’s administration and the progressive-majority Council were blurring the clarity he thought had been present.
But it was his frustrations with Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara that ushered him to an early exit, he said. By Minneapolis’ charter, only Frey could dismiss O’Hara even though Alexander was his direct boss. When Alexander brought up his concerns, he felt Frey ignored them.
If he’d had the authority, Alexander said, he would have fired O’Hara as internal, anonymous complaints about the chief started to arise in 2022 and 2023.
Alexander doesn’t know Barnette well, he emphasized, and he didn’t want to criticize him, saying it’s possible Alexander is going through the same issues Barnette struggled with. But no matter who’s the commissioner, he said, something needs to change.
“Whoever goes in – either do away with the friggin role, or either that Council and that mayor need to have clarity on exactly what it is they want that person to do.”
Related
