Spring specialties

Two recipes for the season page 16

Double Barrel
Northeast cartoonist friends publish a college textbook and an online series page 4

May 20June 2, 2012

the journal

Serving Downtown & Northeast Minneapolis

a transformation for downtown east

Vikings reveal new stadium and Ryan Cos. releases stadium area revitalization plan
Page 10

submitted images

2013 city election

// Mayoral candidate profile //

Samuels campaign focused on reducing inequalities

By Michelle Bruch

Minneapolis lawmakers lead the way on same-sex marriage

/ / Scott Dibble, Karen Clark shepherd passage of historic legislation / /
By Sarah McKenzie

p h oto by k r i st i n l e b b e n

City Council Member Don Samuels.

Fifth Ward City Council Member Don Samuels doesnt scare easily. When he arrived in North Minneapolis Jordan neighborhood in 1998, he said his street included two prostitution houses, three drug-sellers and lots of slum properties. To deal with one chaotic party house on the street, Samuels and 15 other neighbors knocked on the front

door. To deal with a West Broadway business allegedly allowing drug activity, Samuels picketed the owners home in Medicine Lake, leaving fliers at neighboring doorsteps and picket signs on the lawn. In an October Star Tribune editorial, Samuels said he pulled over his car to chastise a young man urinating on West Broadway, only to be threatened and
See samuels Page 14

Gov. Mark Dayton signed the same-sex marriage bill into law on the south steps of the state Capitol on May 14 one day after the Minnesota Senate voted to approve the measure. The legislation will go into effect Aug. 1. Minnesota is the 12th state in the nation to legalize gay marriage. The vote

comes six months after Minnesota voters defeated a proposed amendment to the state Constitution that would have banned samesex marriage. The debate over allowing gay and lesbian couples to marry has been a deeply emotional and divisive issue in the state. The Senate passed the same-sex marriage bill 37-30 a few days after the
See marriage Page 8

14 // May 20June 2, 2013 // journalmpls.com

2013 city election

// Mayoral candidate profile //

terms that the project should reach 32 percent minority participation. Large, dense development projects should be concentrated in the citys transit corridors, Samuels said, but the details should always be negotiated with the neighborhood. As for property taxes, Samuels said increases should naturally end as the economy improves. Property values will rise, he said, and a more cityfriendly state government will end cuts to local government aid. I dont foresee any increase in taxes at all, Samuels said. And frankly, anybody that becomes mayor is going to benefit from R.T.s making very tough decisions and allowing us to have a free ride on that one. A mayoral priority for Samuels would be tracking Results Minneapolis, which features data-driven progress reports and five-year business plans designed to meet city goals. He said he advocated for that kind of analysis during his first City Hall speech in 2003, endorsing Baltimores CitiStat program. I was in business for myself for 15 years and I worked with corporate America for another 15, Samuels said. You have to get the job done, otherwise you dont have a job. I want to take that kind of approach to government.

Samuels
f r o m Pa g e 1

have his iPhone stolen. In response, Samuels worked with police to immediately track down the suspect and gave him a lecture and a hug. My wife and I moved into North Minneapolis to make a difference. We could live in Linden Hills. It was a deliberate move, with an intent to be very deliberately intrusive, Samuels said. One thing that Ive learned over the course of my life, if youre willing to walk into the most dangerous, most unacceptable situation, that you automatically become a powerful person. You can take the prerogative of your nations expectations and your expectations as a human being with you, and that is power. You have the right on your side.
p h oto by k r i st i n l e b b e n

From small business owner to City Council member

Samuels immigrated to the U.S. from Jamaica in 1970 to study industrial design. He worked at Playskool as senior director of research & development, and left the company to start his own small business designing toys for major toy manufacturers. He said his creative work experience aids him today at City Hall. He described a standard example: There are 30 million Barbies in America, and youve got to come up with a new doll thats different. Every Barbie has been done. But they want a new one, he said. You sit there with your blank paper, and suddenly you have to go the bathroom. And then you come back from the bathroom, and suddenly, youve got the munchies. ... There is this

Don Samuels is one of six mayoral candidates seeking the DFL endorsement.

Top priorities
If Samuels became mayor, he said his biggest priority would involve closing regional gaps in academics, income and employment. Being the council member I am from the area that I am, I would No. 1 be carrying those burdens in my heart, Samuels said. We have already made a lot of promises. One of the challenges is how we stay the course on them. The theme of balancing inequality crops up in many of Samuels positions on city issues. On potential streetcar and light rail projects, he wants equitable hiring and equal access to new infrastructure. On bike infrastructure, he said he wants every neighborhood to have a share in city amenities and receive extra eyes on the street. On the Vikings stadium, he wanted the city to take an early seat at the table and dictate

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// Mayoral candidate profile //

healthy panic that strikes you, thats also stimulating your creative juices. You have to double down and do it, because they gave you a week to get back some rough drawings. Samuels said he carries the same attitude to City Hall. A blank page is not acceptable, he said. We cant say there is nothing to do; we tried everything. And we have to say that what is going on now is totally unacceptable, that it has to stop now. ... When you have that attitude, life gets pretty simple. He supported city regulations that repeatedly doubled fines for violations by property owners. A fine that might start at $30 could rise over $1,000, he said, quickly bringing violators into compliance. He thinks the same sort of strategy works with behavior-related crimes. Twenty-five percent of the crime downtown is committed by people from 55411. If you create an environment where crime is normalized, then people go somewhere else and act that way, he said. Its one city. We cant have one kind of behavior in one part, and not in
At a glance: Don Samuels Age: 64 Neighborhood: Jordan Family: Wife Sondra, one adult son and two daughters. Resume snapshot: Former senior director of research and development at Playskool, former small business owner of toy design firm, Minneapolis City Council member since 2003. Education: Masters of divinity from Luther Seminary, 2001 Fun fact: Samuels immigrated to the U.S. from Jamaica in 1970 to study industrial design. Twitter: @Don_Samuels Facebook: facebook.com/DonSamuelsForMayor

2013 city election

other the part. Otherwise downtown is in danger, and once downtown is in danger, then people start to look for residence all over the suburbs. Despite his conviction, Samuels strategies havent won uniform praise on the North side. Pastor Jerry McAfee of New Salem Missionary Baptist Church said he thinks the state of North Minneapolis has grown worse during Samuels tenure. He has failed at pulling everybody to the table for a solution in North Minneapolis, McAfee said. The only person he cares much about is the mayor. Samuels disagreed and pointed to his efforts to close the Wafana Food

Market, which generated 1,200 911 calls in its final year and is located a block from McAfees church. To say the [North side] is no better off than it was back then is insulting to all of the hard work my neighbors and I have done, Samuels said. McAfee also criticized Samuels decision to gut the Civilian Review Authority, saying that police brutality incidents continue to be a problem. In 2012, Samuels supported an overhaul that created a new agency with both civilian and sworn investigators to field allegations of police misconduct. He said the CRA had become dysfunctional and unproductive. Samuels is no stranger

to conversations about racism. He co-founded the Institute for Authentic Dialogue with Jon Odell, the author of books including The View from Delphi, which covers the struggle for equality in Odells home state of Mississippi. Odell said he and Samuels stunned dinner parties with their candid conversations about race. They founded the Institute to teach others how to discuss race, providing seminars at companies like General Mills. You can stumble, make mistakes and forgive each other, and not fall into political correctness, Odell said. I still hear from people who said [the Institute] began their ability to talk across race. They didnt have the language to do it. VJ Smith of MAD DADS said he and Samuels spent many conversations strategizing how to build community and improve outreach before Samuels cofounded the PEACE Foundation in 2003. Today, under the leadership of Samuels wife Sondra, the renamed Northside Achievement Zone works to end

poverty in North Minneapolis by supporting children and preparing them for college. Smith said he and Samuels went on to partner in response to homicides, planning vigils and working to bring peace to the impacted families. I think he sees a vision, and I think he knows the pain that we suffer in our community, Smith said. I think that he would give it his all. When Samuels and 15 neighbors approached the scary people on their block to improve safety, he felt security in numbers the partiers

Editors note The Journals will be profiling the self-declared candidates for mayor for the next several issues leading up to theDFL City Conventionon June 15. This is the third profile in our series. We have profiledMark Andrewand Jackie Cherryhomes and will be publishing stories in coming weeks on Gary Schiff, Betsy Hodges, Jim Thomas and Cam Winton, an Independent candidate not seeking the DFL endorsement.

would have needed to slash 15 tires, he said, or beat up 15 people. He thinks the city should take that mentality. We have a hugely dominant number of good-will people in our city. But we have subordinated ourselves to one slum lord who owns 18 properties, or a gang that has 50 kids, Samuels said. This is amazing to me. A gang with 50 teenagers? I have two in my house and they cant even control the bathroom, let alone the whole neighborhood. This is what Im talking about. I want to bring a new kind of understanding to the order of society. To sanity, to fairness, to justice. Its very simple, once you think about it. Were putting up with a lot of stuff and being intimidated by people who are much weaker than we are. We just have to walk into the situation and face it.

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