Career
In 1983,Sayles Belton was elected by the Eighth Ward to the Minneapolis City Council. She was inspired by working with mayor Donald M. Fraser. She represented the state at the 1984 Democratic National Convention,where Minnesota politician Walter Mondale was nominated for President of the United States. A member of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party,Sayles Belton was elected city council president in 1990.
In 1993,she announced her candidacy for mayor. With the help of three phone banks and a staff of ten,she was elected on a platform that included reform of the police department,the first African American and the first woman mayor in the city's 140-year history. She defeated DFL former Hennepin County Commissioner John Derus. She was reelected in 1997,defeating Republican candidate Barbara Carlson. Sayles Belton held the position for two terms,from January 1,1994,to December 31,2001. [4]
The city also addressed archaic utilities billing,outdated water treatment and neighborhood flooding. By the end of the decade,Minneapolis had increased property values,the city had its first increase in population since the 1940s,and there was reversal of a "50-year economic slide." Fraser credits Sayles Belton with stabilizing neighborhoods amid racial tensions,supporting the school system,and being an able and savvy city manager. Critics opposed the use of city subsidies for downtown development,said to total $90 million combined for the Target store and Block E. [5] [6]
In the 2001,election Sayles Belton lost her party's endorsement and the Democratic primary to R. T. Rybak,who received the support of the powerful Minneapolis Police Federation. After leaving the mayor's office,Sayles Belton became a senior fellow at the Roy Wilkins Center for Human Relations and Social Justice. The center is part of the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs.
Sayles Belton worked in community affairs and community involvement for the GMAC Residential Finance Corporation,headquartered in Minneapolis. In 2010,she joined Thomson Reuters as vice president of Community Relations and Government Affairs,based in Eagan,Minnesota.
Raymond Thomas Rybak Jr. is an American politician, journalist, businessman, and activist who served from 2002 to 2014 as the 46th mayor of Minneapolis. In 2001, Rybak, endorsed by the Minneapolis Police Federation, defeated incumbent mayor Sharon Sayles Belton by a margin of 65% to 35%, the widest margin of victory over an incumbent mayor in city history. He took office in January 2002, and was reelected in 2005 and 2009. In December 2012, he announced that he would not run for another term and would concentrate on his family. Rybak called being mayor his "dream job".
Minneapolis is officially defined by its city council as divided into 83 neighborhoods. The neighborhoods are historically grouped into 11 communities. Informally, there are city areas with colloquial labels. Residents may also group themselves by their city street suffixes: North, Northeast, South, and Southeast.
Barbara Carlson was an American politician and radio host from Minneapolis, Minnesota.
The I-35W Mississippi River bridge was an eight-lane, steel truss arch bridge that carried Interstate 35W across the Mississippi River one-half mile downstream from the Saint Anthony Falls in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. The bridge opened in 1967, and was Minnesota's third busiest, carrying 140,000 vehicles daily. After only 39 years in service, it experienced a catastrophic failure during the evening rush hour on August 1, 2007, killing 13 people and injuring 145. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) cited a design flaw as the likely cause of the collapse, noting that an excessively thin gusset plate ripped along a line of rivets. Additional weight on the bridge at the time of failure was also cited by the NTSB as a contributing factor.
The 2006 Minnesota's 5th congressional district election was an election for the United States House of Representatives for the open seat of incumbent Martin Olav Sabo (DFL), who retired after serving the Minneapolis-based district for 28 years.
Margaret Anderson Kelliher is an American politician, Director of the Minneapolis Department of Public Works, former Commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Transportation, and a former member of the Minnesota House of Representatives. A member of the Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party, she represented District 60A, which includes portions of the city of Minneapolis in Hennepin County, located in the Twin Cities metropolitan area. First elected in 1999, she served until 2011, also serving as the Speaker from 2007 to 2011. She is the second woman to hold the position of House speaker. She was an unsuccessful candidate for the DFL nomination for Governor of Minnesota in the 2010 gubernatorial election, losing to former Senator Mark Dayton. Anderson left the Minnesota House of Representatives at the conclusion of her term in 2011 and re-entered politics when she ran for the DFL nomination to the U.S. House of Representatives in Minnesota's 5th congressional district in 2018, losing to Ilhan Omar. Since 2019 Kelliher, has worked in transportation management roles for the government, first as Commissioner of MnDOT, and later as Director of Public Works for the City of Minneapolis. She currently serves as the City Operations Officer for the City of Minneapolis.
William Harry Davis, Sr. was an American civil rights activist, amateur boxing coach, civic leader, and businessman in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He overcame poverty, childhood polio, and racial prejudice to become a humanitarian. Davis is remembered for his warm and positive personality, for coaching Golden Gloves champions in the upper Midwest, and for managing the Olympics boxing team that won nine gold medals. His contributions to public education in his community are enduring. A leader in desegregation during the Civil Rights Movement, Davis helped Americans find a way forward to racial equality.
Minneapolis is the largest city by population in the U.S. state of Minnesota, and the county seat of Hennepin County. The origin and growth of the city was spurred by the proximity of Fort Snelling, the first major United States military presence in the area, and by its location on Saint Anthony Falls, which provided power for sawmills and flour mills.
Minneapolis, the largest city in Minnesota and the county seat of Hennepin County, operates under a Mayor–council government system. This article provides an overview of the structure and functions of Minneapolis's city government.
The Minneapolis Police Department (MPD) is the primary law enforcement agency in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. It is also the largest police department in Minnesota. Formed in 1867, it is the second-oldest police department in Minnesota, after the Saint Paul Police Department that formed in 1854. A short-lived Board of Police Commissioners existed from 1887 to 1890.
Elizabeth A.Hodges is an American politician who served as the 47th Mayor of Minneapolis from 2014 to 2018. A member of the Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party (DFL), she represented Ward 13 on the Minneapolis City Council from 2006 January 2014.
Richard W. "Rich" Stanek is an American politician and former law enforcement officer who served as the sheriff of the Hennepin County Sheriff's Office from 2007 to 2019.
Occupy Minneapolis (OccupyMN) is a grassroots collaboration that began in October 2011 with a series of demonstrations in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Protesters have staged numerous occupations, most notably of the Hennepin County Government Center plaza.
Elizabeth Peterson "Lisa" Bender is an American politician, city planner, and a former member of the Minneapolis City Council from the 10th Ward. In 2018, she was unanimously elected president of the Minneapolis City Council.
The following is a timeline of race relations and policing in Minneapolis–Saint Paul, providing details with a history of policing in the Twin Cities in the U.S. state of Minnesota from the nineteenth century to the present day. The Hennepin County Sheriff's Office, with its headquarters in downtown Minneapolis, is one of the "largest law enforcement agencies in Minnesota" with division and unit facilities throughout Hennepin County. Twin cities, Saint Paul and Minneapolis, have their own police departments, the Minneapolis Police Department, which was established in 1867 and the Saint Paul Police Department. A union for rank and file officers in Minneapolis—the Police Officers Federation of Minneapolis —was established in 1917.
A mayoral election was held on November 2, 2021, to elect the mayor of the U.S. city of Minneapolis. Incumbent DFL mayor Jacob Frey won reelection to a second term, becoming the first Minneapolis mayor to win a second term since R. T. Rybak in 2005. Minneapolis mayoral elections use instant-runoff voting, also known as ranked-choice voting. All candidates appear on the same ballot and there is no primary election, nor is there a runoff. Minneapolis's twin city, Saint Paul, also held a mayoral election on the same day, using the same system.
The 2022 Hennepin County Attorney election was held on November 8, 2022, to elect the county attorney of Hennepin County, Minnesota. On September 1, 2021, incumbent county attorney Michael O. Freeman announced that he would retire at the end of his term after 24 years in the role. Former Hennepin County Chief Public Defender Mary Moriarty defeated former Hennepin County judge Martha Holton Dimick and became the first openly LGBTQ woman elected as Hennepin County Attorney.
The 2023 Minneapolis City Council election took place in the city of Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States on November 7, 2023. The Minneapolis City Council is made up of 13 members, with one council member representing each of the city's 13 wards. Typically, council members serve four year terms, but due to census redistricting, the 2021 and 2023 elections were for two-year terms. The 2023 election was the first to elect members to redrawn districts and the first election since the city's form of government moved to an Executive Mayor-Legislative Council structure. The change was prompted after voters narrowly approved a ballot measure in 2021 to shift certain powers from the city council to the mayor. Topics surrounding public safety, affordable housing, rent control, and racial justice were at the forefront of the campaign.
