InTheArenaOnline

We must create more affordable housing, protect the rights of tenants, and make sure development in our community benefits everyone, not just wealthy developers. We need massive investments in public and affordable housing to ensure adequate levels of affordable housing in diverse areas. These units must be built in areas where there is strong access to resources, transportation, capital and jobs. By providing greater financial and social incentives to home-ownership, subsidy and resources for communities to become buyers in community land trusts, we can provide strategies and policies that increase standards of living across the board.

Currently there is a pre-emption law in the state that limits Minneapolis’ ability to set rent control measures. This is something I would like to see changed, as our neighborhoods become increasingly unlivable as rents increase. This is essential to our district, as renters make up a majority of our district. We need to allocate more state funds to revitalize affordable housing, create new units, and to protect naturally occurring units.

Despite those who wish to scapegoat our immigrant and refugee communities we know that America was built by immigrants and we will ensure each and every person in our State is treated with dignity.

We will fight to make sure our local law enforcement is not getting involved in federal immigration enforcement and make Minnesota a sanctuary in every sense of the word. We must pursue initiatives that allow immigrants to safely participate in society, such as the drivers license and municipal ID proposals immigrant rights groups have been pushing for for years.

Neighborhoods in our district and throughout the city have rates of asthma, lead poisoning and other environmental risks that are shocking and untenable. We need to better fund clean-up efforts, create greater public education around these issues, and create policy that will lessen and eliminate these health risks.

Fully funding sustainable multimodal transportation solutions for drivers, pedestrians, bikers, and public transit users will be central to building healthy communities across our city and state.

I will promote a greater reliance on green energy. As we move towards more use of renewable energy sources, I will still recognize that many working families rely on the fossil fuel industry for jobs, and I believe it’s our responsibility to create green jobs and training programs that will make sure our communities are supported in the transition to a more sustainable economy.

I will pursue green job creation, a cleaner environment and be a voice for these issues in the state legislature, as this will be the face of future of growth in a changing economy responding to the pressures of climate change.

Minnesota must be a state that welcomes the immigrants, refugees and new residents that make our communities vibrant and strong. Yet we currently have the worst racial disparities in the country when it comes to education, employment, housing and incarceration rates.

I will be a voice and a fighter for new residents like myself, and to work to make our district a safe place for people of all backgrounds.

Equality in pay and in the workplace are issues that affect all Minnesota women, and we need strong voices in the state legislature to address them head on. We need to fight for equal pay for women, because there is no reason why a woman today should be making less than their male counterpart.

Residents of color are over policed, resulting in reduced access to a myriad of rights and increased consequences due to higher rates of incarceration. We need police force that involves community oversight measures and greater police accountability, and more officers in the MPD who come from our communities and look like our residents and neighbors. A civilian oversight commission that actually has a say in providing disciplinary action to police officers, and a registry that more effectively tracks infractions by police should be central to changing conceptions on how to stop police brutality before it happens.

Policies I want to implemented:

• Expand community policing with more police officers coming from the communities that they are intended to serve.
• End preemption of civilian oversight of police and residency requirements, in order to make sure more police come from our communities and that we have the ability to address infractions and negligence from our policing bodies as municipalities.
• A civilian oversight committee could help to track police misconduct, and provide a public structure with stronger remedies for police discipline.
• Promote better training programs for de-escalation and cultural competence for our police officers.

We need a universal single payer health care system in the state that will support all residents regardless of income, and we need to stop giving tax breaks to corporations while people suffer.

Healthcare is basic human right, and access to strong mental and chemical health is key as we lift up at risk communities and remove stigma from these kinds of treatments.  We need to better fund and educate around mental illness.

We need more transparent services, greater focus on these preventative care and mental health measures, and we need to address price swings between health care providers for similar procedures. Providing people with the most transparent health care services we can offer in Minnesota is what we need in order to deliver access, cost savings and effective patient specific care.

Greater focus on harm reduction methods to save lives and to help people with addiction is something that we need to integrate into community health measures. This is going to be central to any continuing debate on the opioid epidemic ravaging the State and the Country, and I will be a strong advocate for this.

Minnesota has an achievement gap that is one of the worst in the nation. Our kids deserve better, and education is a key facet to lifting low income children out of poverty. Strong public education, greater support for our teachers and teachers of color, access to affordable pre-k and child care services, and free public college education are all things we can and should provide as paths to opportunity in Minnesota.

All people can reach their full potential when we create the policies that empower people to aspire for a better future. That is why I feel that we need to create greater incentives to attend college, increase access to technical skills training and college readiness tools in our high schools, and create a path for students to receive subsidized/free college when they cannot pay. Crippling college debt is bad for our residents, families and the economy, as it causes people to put their lives and major life decisions on hold, such as marriage, home ownership. Etc.