CM Payne said housing costs around 400k/unit to build and I’m assume that unit is something like a 500ish sqft studio suitable for a single person. He also talked about funding this with a wealth tax.
How many units of city built/operated housing does he envision creating and how much will it cost to build and maintain this housing?
What does a wealth tax mean within the context of Minneapolis? Even if one accepts the idea of wealth taxes, and that’s a big if, Minneapolis simply doesn’t have the relatively large numbers of extremely rich people that live in NYC or California. Given that Minneapolis doesn’t have that many billionaires how deep down the local income/wealth distribution would the city need to go to get enough money to pay for a significant build out of city funded housing?
These are critical questions to answer if Payne wants his proposal to be taken seriously. It’s pretty easy to move out of the city and there’s always the risk that once the moving vans are loaded up and on the move they don’t stop until after they cross the state line. Maybe this isn’t really a serious proposal…maybe it’s just more empty political talk intended to energize the base in an election year but not solve real problems.
Well, Payne’s comments did nothing to improve my opinion of him. The big tent propaganda implies the people inside the tent have a common objective, which is false. There is little in common between the far left socialists and moderate democrats that I can see, and using the big tent idea is a ploy to hold on to those who identify as democrats no matter what and attract disenchanted Trump voters. The MN DFL made the correct decision to rescind Fateh endorsement based on the numerous rule violations, and stood up for democracy….and Payne views the decision as devisive. That kind of logic appears to have been used by Walz and Ellison while ignoring whistleblowers for fear of inciting racism claims.
This guy had very limited ( or successful) work experience before coming onto the Mpls City Council, despite being quite impressed with himself.
If something is not supported and advanced by the DSA aligned voting block on the Council, these Wonsley inspired DSA adherents, Payne is not going to go for it.
Regarding public safety and policing, and Payne's "analysis" ( a loosely used term) about the needs and requirements for the MPD, as he asserted just last fall that our city should have LESS than 300 police officers, although not that long ago we had almost 1 K, pretty much settles it.
This guy, the President of the City Council, is a hardcore defund, dismantle, and firmly on the road to abolish, DSA er.
So, NOPE, zero respect for Payne on anything. Just sorry, as like with a Wonsley, they both ended up in this vulnerable city.
Double down on your NOPE about Payne. I noticed it wasn't much of an interview, unfortunately, mostly his non-stop pontificating. So many questions could be asked along the way to what he saying. If, for example, "local control" (i.e. City of Minneapolis) as advocated by Payne on social housing or any other experiment is actually a workable concept here, you would first have to have clear definitions and parameters of what that is, how it can be implemented and maintained, and how it can be successful on an ongoing basis regardless of who is holding what elected office at a given moment in time. In other words, for starters you'd need citywide and beyond local public trust that there is an experienced, collaborative and unified city government leadership that is capable of and accountable to functioning together on a sustained basis to successfully reach that objective. That means cooperation, maturity, the ability to go for the greater good based on the realities of city resources and priorities and what the city community as a whole can support. He seems to be someone who needs to have his ego stroked a lot, and basically still resentful that he doesn't have more "power" under his City Council seat.
Retired librarian here, appreciating your literary note re Marlon James, who once split his time between Minneapolis and Brooklyn, NY, and had an office overlooking Franklin Ave. in the Stevens Square-Loring Heights neighborhood. "I grew up in a noisy house, in a noisy town, in a noisy country. When I’m at the office, I immediately open the window so I can hear traffic. I need energy. I feed off energy. I don’t know if I could handle silence."
Bozeman is definitely expensive. Home prices there rival Seattle, which may in part explain why your bison burger was $24. (Ted's has a good one; not sure which you got.) Neko and I will make our annual trek out there in about a month.
Thanks for conducting and publishing the interview. It gave me a lot to think about:
Social housing - I have a better idea of what it is, but I am skeptical of its viability.
If you want to get serious about the city, you have to rein in the MPD budget - I agree MPD needs to be run by a budget hawk, but come on, a City budget that has doubled in 10 years is all because of the police?
Is the Heritage Park disaster supposed to make us feel confident that public and social housing can work? It makes me even more cynical.
I love the parks as much as the next guy, but do they always get a free pass?
Wealth tax?
Is Payne kidding when he pretends he is pro-capitalism?
Sadly, Payne may be the most level-headed of the left majority of the then City Council.
When borrowing is expensive and inflation is high that is a screaming red indicator to stop adding new capital projects. His description of countercyclical government spending is 180° off of what it is supposed to be.
Terry, thanks for interviewing Council President Payne.
I was educated as an engineer, but went on to grad school, and then to 3M to do R&D for 15 years, and then managed patent portfolios for several divisions and function groups of the company for over 20 years. For the last 5 years or so of my career, the Engineering group was one of my clients. I got to know many of them well. These are "engineer's engineers" - folks who are comfortable at work even though they know that when some big thing they designed and built - sometimes an entire factory - is "turned on" by some executive throwing a ceremonial switch, it has to work nominally and immediately.
R&D is different. "Move fast and break things!" "Try it and see if it works." One is allowed "failures" so long as one learns something from the failed experiment.
I have long wondered about former engineer Payne's apparent lack of "engineering mentality". I have asked many in local politics (including, I think, once, you!) about this, and have mostly gotten back bemused shrugs. There can be little doubt, from some of the things he espouses, that his mindset is NOT "...if we do this, it has to work!".
So it was enlightening for me to learn that, as an engineer, Payne worked in "process improvement and change management". This is another sub-field in engineering, which, like R&D, attracts engineering students who are not altogether comfortable with a life of "it HAS to work!" - or at least it attracts engineers who would prefer some other form of professional challenge and tension.
This speaks to the pitfalls of public perception as to what traits characterize members of certain professions. Engineering conjures in the mind NASA or folks who design and build bridges. Not all engineers DO these things. Shame on me for not "getting" this - since, as an R&D guy, I, too, was a nominal "engineer" who was not living the engineering life most of us imagine...
I've tuned him out, and I'm happier for it. Jumped ship the the GOP, where I can speak freely, disagree and enjoy civil conversation about the state of our state, laugh when I feel like it, show respect and receive it in return.
CM Payne said housing costs around 400k/unit to build and I’m assume that unit is something like a 500ish sqft studio suitable for a single person. He also talked about funding this with a wealth tax.
How many units of city built/operated housing does he envision creating and how much will it cost to build and maintain this housing?
What does a wealth tax mean within the context of Minneapolis? Even if one accepts the idea of wealth taxes, and that’s a big if, Minneapolis simply doesn’t have the relatively large numbers of extremely rich people that live in NYC or California. Given that Minneapolis doesn’t have that many billionaires how deep down the local income/wealth distribution would the city need to go to get enough money to pay for a significant build out of city funded housing?
These are critical questions to answer if Payne wants his proposal to be taken seriously. It’s pretty easy to move out of the city and there’s always the risk that once the moving vans are loaded up and on the move they don’t stop until after they cross the state line. Maybe this isn’t really a serious proposal…maybe it’s just more empty political talk intended to energize the base in an election year but not solve real problems.
Well, Payne’s comments did nothing to improve my opinion of him. The big tent propaganda implies the people inside the tent have a common objective, which is false. There is little in common between the far left socialists and moderate democrats that I can see, and using the big tent idea is a ploy to hold on to those who identify as democrats no matter what and attract disenchanted Trump voters. The MN DFL made the correct decision to rescind Fateh endorsement based on the numerous rule violations, and stood up for democracy….and Payne views the decision as devisive. That kind of logic appears to have been used by Walz and Ellison while ignoring whistleblowers for fear of inciting racism claims.
This guy had very limited ( or successful) work experience before coming onto the Mpls City Council, despite being quite impressed with himself.
If something is not supported and advanced by the DSA aligned voting block on the Council, these Wonsley inspired DSA adherents, Payne is not going to go for it.
Regarding public safety and policing, and Payne's "analysis" ( a loosely used term) about the needs and requirements for the MPD, as he asserted just last fall that our city should have LESS than 300 police officers, although not that long ago we had almost 1 K, pretty much settles it.
This guy, the President of the City Council, is a hardcore defund, dismantle, and firmly on the road to abolish, DSA er.
So, NOPE, zero respect for Payne on anything. Just sorry, as like with a Wonsley, they both ended up in this vulnerable city.
Double down on your NOPE about Payne. I noticed it wasn't much of an interview, unfortunately, mostly his non-stop pontificating. So many questions could be asked along the way to what he saying. If, for example, "local control" (i.e. City of Minneapolis) as advocated by Payne on social housing or any other experiment is actually a workable concept here, you would first have to have clear definitions and parameters of what that is, how it can be implemented and maintained, and how it can be successful on an ongoing basis regardless of who is holding what elected office at a given moment in time. In other words, for starters you'd need citywide and beyond local public trust that there is an experienced, collaborative and unified city government leadership that is capable of and accountable to functioning together on a sustained basis to successfully reach that objective. That means cooperation, maturity, the ability to go for the greater good based on the realities of city resources and priorities and what the city community as a whole can support. He seems to be someone who needs to have his ego stroked a lot, and basically still resentful that he doesn't have more "power" under his City Council seat.
Retired librarian here, appreciating your literary note re Marlon James, who once split his time between Minneapolis and Brooklyn, NY, and had an office overlooking Franklin Ave. in the Stevens Square-Loring Heights neighborhood. "I grew up in a noisy house, in a noisy town, in a noisy country. When I’m at the office, I immediately open the window so I can hear traffic. I need energy. I feed off energy. I don’t know if I could handle silence."
2019 article: https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2019/02/where-marlon-james-finds-inspiration
Bozeman is definitely expensive. Home prices there rival Seattle, which may in part explain why your bison burger was $24. (Ted's has a good one; not sure which you got.) Neko and I will make our annual trek out there in about a month.
I don't really care what he has to say any more.
Thanks for conducting and publishing the interview. It gave me a lot to think about:
Social housing - I have a better idea of what it is, but I am skeptical of its viability.
If you want to get serious about the city, you have to rein in the MPD budget - I agree MPD needs to be run by a budget hawk, but come on, a City budget that has doubled in 10 years is all because of the police?
Is the Heritage Park disaster supposed to make us feel confident that public and social housing can work? It makes me even more cynical.
I love the parks as much as the next guy, but do they always get a free pass?
Wealth tax?
Is Payne kidding when he pretends he is pro-capitalism?
Sadly, Payne may be the most level-headed of the left majority of the then City Council.
When borrowing is expensive and inflation is high that is a screaming red indicator to stop adding new capital projects. His description of countercyclical government spending is 180° off of what it is supposed to be.
Terry, thanks for interviewing Council President Payne.
I was educated as an engineer, but went on to grad school, and then to 3M to do R&D for 15 years, and then managed patent portfolios for several divisions and function groups of the company for over 20 years. For the last 5 years or so of my career, the Engineering group was one of my clients. I got to know many of them well. These are "engineer's engineers" - folks who are comfortable at work even though they know that when some big thing they designed and built - sometimes an entire factory - is "turned on" by some executive throwing a ceremonial switch, it has to work nominally and immediately.
R&D is different. "Move fast and break things!" "Try it and see if it works." One is allowed "failures" so long as one learns something from the failed experiment.
I have long wondered about former engineer Payne's apparent lack of "engineering mentality". I have asked many in local politics (including, I think, once, you!) about this, and have mostly gotten back bemused shrugs. There can be little doubt, from some of the things he espouses, that his mindset is NOT "...if we do this, it has to work!".
So it was enlightening for me to learn that, as an engineer, Payne worked in "process improvement and change management". This is another sub-field in engineering, which, like R&D, attracts engineering students who are not altogether comfortable with a life of "it HAS to work!" - or at least it attracts engineers who would prefer some other form of professional challenge and tension.
This speaks to the pitfalls of public perception as to what traits characterize members of certain professions. Engineering conjures in the mind NASA or folks who design and build bridges. Not all engineers DO these things. Shame on me for not "getting" this - since, as an R&D guy, I, too, was a nominal "engineer" who was not living the engineering life most of us imagine...
Thanks for an "AHA! moment".
I've tuned him out, and I'm happier for it. Jumped ship the the GOP, where I can speak freely, disagree and enjoy civil conversation about the state of our state, laugh when I feel like it, show respect and receive it in return.