The Minneapolis City Council has reached an impasse over the future of the former Third Police Precinct, with a divided council declining to endorse Mayor Jacob Frey’s proposal to establish a community space and voting center. The council voted 7-6 to remove the proposal from the agenda, with some members insisting that the city should not prescribe a new purpose for the former police station before having more conversations with residents.
Council Member Robin Wonsley led the opposition to the plan, calling it ‘completely out of line with what residents have been asking for.’ She added that the city had not completed ‘authentic engagement’ with residents.
However, other council members expressed frustration with what they characterized as another delay in the process of determining a new home for the Third Precinct and finding a use for the building at 3000 Minnehaha Av., which remains vacant and vandalized.
The city will soon make some cosmetic upgrades and remove the razor wire that has surrounded the building since it was burned by protesters following the 2020 murder of George Floyd by a then-Minneapolis police officer. Frey’s administration can still move forward with the concept plans for the building without council support.
On Tuesday, the mayor issued a statement indicating that he planned to keep going with the voting center plan. ‘Independent of the confusion and discord on the Council, we are moving forward with a realistic plan to establish a voting center with a large space designated for community use,’ he said. ‘We gave the Council an opportunity to weigh in, and instead, they punted.’
The city has already tried several strategies to gather community feedback on the future of the Third Precinct. Last summer, the council voted to prohibit the city from ever reopening a police station on the site of the former station, despite a council-ordered survey finding that 44% of respondents wanted to restore 3000 Minnehaha Ave. to a police station.
The survey was criticized by some council members and residents for precluding the option of not having a precinct at all in the locations offered by the city. The Longfellow Community Council gathered feedback from 118 participants, 94% of whom wanted the community to determine the building’s use and only 6% of whom were interested in seeing it become a voter center.
City Operations Officer Margaret Anderson Kelliher had proposed dividing the ground floor of the former precinct into an early voting center, elections warehouse, and community space, with administrative offices on the second floor. The move would allow the city to relocate Elections and Voter Services from a leased space on East Hennepin Avenue, saving more than $372,000 a year and increasing ballot access in a part of Minneapolis with lower voter turnout rates.
Some public feedback has indicated residents want a restoration of trust and the creation of a public safety model that goes beyond policing before any decision is made. There is also a community proposal to transform the entire building into a Black cultural center.
The future of the Third Precinct remains uncertain, with further community engagement and discussion needed to reach a consensus on the best path forward.
