Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey vetoes City Council's encampment staff directions

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey on Wednesday vetoed a pair of directives seeking a review of city practices on the closure of homeless encampments over their wording. The measures were passed last week by the City Council.

The first, proposed by Council Member Aisha Chughtai, directed the Regulatory Services department to tally the costs and health and safety impacts of removing encampments.

The second, by Council Member Jason Chavez, directed the Office of Performance and Innovation and the Race, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging Department to analyze the city's camp closure strategies — particularly the role of law enforcement — and come up with recommendations for minimizing police involvement, among other best practices.

Mayor Jacob Frey turned down both actions via nearly identical veto letters. In them, he described technical objections to the wording of the staff directions and the new government structure, and encouraged council members to resubmit their requests.

He said rather than order certain city departments to analyze city practices, such a request should be made to him, the mayor, instead. The mayor would then determine how to marshal administration resources to comply.

"I continue to support the City's collaborative cross-departmental and multiagency effort to address homelessness," Frey wrote. "Should it be the desire of the Council to pass another request to the Mayor to direct the resources of the Administration to provide a study or analysis relating to the closures of encampments, I will sign that action."

Revised staff directions could be passed at the next council meeting, Nov. 3, the mayor wrote.

Chughtai and Chavez could not be immediately reached for comment.