My name is Jason Chavez, I was born and raised in the East Phillips Neighborhood, and I’m proud to run for re-election to continue serving the community that helped raise me. 

I’m a renter, a proud son of Mexican immigrants, and I am committed to continue serving Ward 9 residents with a community-led and community-centered vision. In 2021, you elected me to serve, becoming the first LGBTQ+ Latino on the Minneapolis City Council. Representing our community has been the greatest honor. I hope we can continue on this journey again.

Before joining the Minneapolis City Council, I worked at the Minnesota House of Representatives helping pass the 2020 Police Accountability Act after the murder of George Floyd. Along with the 2021 Omnibus Employment Economic Development Bill to support small businesses and residents impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. 

I’m committed to addressing our issues head on. There has been decades-long disinvestment in our community that has caused economic hardship, a broken public safety system, housing instability, along with environmental injustice. Together, we can continue to find community solutions to our most pressing issues.

It’s clear that economic disparities have a disproportionate impact on our community. From the 2020 uprising to the decades-long disinvestment in our neighborhoods, we have seen the need for community development to center community. Here is what I’ve done:

• Lake Street: Through our community's hard work, we invested more than $3 million to rebuild  Lake Street.

• Small Business Support: Approved $400,000 in cultural market support that will assist BIPOC and Immigrant owned businesses  in malls impacted by the pandemic. 

• Technical Assistance: Led the Council to pass a $700,000 amendment for our Cultural Districts in Business and Technical Assistance. This will provide consulting services for free on Lake Street and 38th and Chicago. 

• Economic Development and Jobs: Secured $250,000 to create the Rise Up Center which will be a hub for employment training in our backyard and will create job opportunities. 

• Fair Rides, Safe Drives Ordinance: Authored an ordinance that passed 7-5 to pay fair wages to Uber and Lyft drivers, improve working conditions, safety precautions and more. The Mayor vetoed this ordinance.

We continue to have a public safety system that is failing our residents. Everyone deserves to be safe from both community and police violence. Here is what I’ve done:

• Comprehensive Safety Funding and Transit Safety: My office hosted a listening session regarding safety in our transit system, which led to a weekly Friday morning meeting with Metro Transit and community partners to discuss and prevent ongoing challenges. I led the effort and secured $1.7 million  in community safety initiatives to address these issues next to transit hubs (Lake Street, East Franklin Ave, and 38th Street were included).

• Community Safety Strategies Program: I successfully secured funding and passed a Legislative Directive for the City’s Community Safety Strategies Program to create a South Minneapolis community-led safety initiative and violence prevention program. 

• South Minneapolis Crime Prevention Specialist Position: Worked with City Staff to secure financial resources to fill a vacant Crime Prevention Specialist position for Central, Corcoran, and Powderhorn Park. This included a variety of meetings to secure funding and help with the interview and selection process. 

• Truth and Reconciliation Process: Passed a Legislative Directive and funding to go over specifics of the process, set forth a workplan, and earmarked $265,00 for this work to begin.

• Community Commission on Police Oversight:  Improved the commission with a variety of amendments that will bypass the discriminatory FBI background check, allow for Ward 9 and citywide representation, and established a process for performance evaluation of the Police Chief. 

• Auto-Theft Prevention: Passed a budget amendment to lead the effort and create initiatives to address the increase in auto-theft. It has provided more than 500 people with auto-theft protection.

• Immigration Services: Passed an amendment to increase free immigration services for people experiencing deportation, immigration concerns,  DACA, and more. 

• Lake Street Safety Center: Secured funding that will lead to the creation of this violence prevention center and continuously working with community partners to ensure its creation. 

• Behavioral Crisis Response: Working on the City Budget to ensure we are on our way to 24/7 access to ensure everyone having a behavioral and mental health crisis can get assistance and a response. 

• Needle Clean-up Services: Worked with the Health Department and Regulatory Services Department to increase dollars in clean-up services.

Rent hikes, evictions, and the displacement of our neighbors make it clear that housing should be treated as a human right. It should be built to meet the needs of the individual person.  Here is what I’ve done:

• AVIVO Village South Chief authored a motion and led the Council to allocate and approve $1 million to support AVIVO applying for a $10 million grant from the Minnesota Department of Human Services. This grant could help create an additional 100 tiny indoor villages in South Minneapolis to ensure we have housing first options for unhoused residents.

• AVIVO Village Funding: We approved $1.2 million in funding for Avivo Village, which is a first-ever, indoor community of 100 “tiny houses” that provides shelter and wraparound services to individuals experiencing unsheltered homelessness. 

• Little Earth Preservation: We approved a $1.5 million Affordable Housing Trust Fund award for Little Earth. 

• Eviction Prevention: Permanently funded the right to counsel for people facing evictions.

• Homelessness Representation: Amended the Housing Advisory Committee to add representation of people who have experienced homelessness. We must be able to work with those directly impacted on solutions. 

• Affordable Housing Trust Fund: Successfully amended our Affordable Trust Fund to add “Youth” as a qualifier in the Equitable Development eligibility criteria. As we seek to reduce homelessness, it is important we address youth homelessness as well.

• Homeless Employment Initiatives: Passed a budget amendment to create an employment trash clean-up program for unhoused neighbors.

• Encampment Response: Worked with my colleagues to lead and pass an encampment response Legislative Directive to get data on our current practice and costs. My office is in the process of establishing a citywide policy with the goal to address a non-police response, secure the storage of belongings, notice, ensure services are provided and that housing is being met.

• Rental Payments Work Group: Passed a Legislative Directive to explore legislative options to relieve the cost burden of added fees to tenants by property managers.

Our community has taught me to not take NO for an answer and instead, figure out how. I've taken this with me in the fight for clean air, water and soil.  Here is what I’ve done:

• East Phillips Indoor Urban Farm: I was able to secure 8 votes to stop the Hiawatha Campus Expansion in order to build the East Phillips Indoor Urban Farm. For the first time ever, our community had its shot. While this $14 million project was ultimately vetoed, my commitment is to continue to fight for our neighborhood, its health, and find a pathway to success. 

• Worked with the State Legislature and the East Phillips Institute on the approval of state funding to purchase the roof depot site. We have until September 7, 2023 to come up with $3.7 million to return the Roof Depot back to the community and, in result, create the East Phillips Indoor Urban Farm.

• Climate Equity Plan: Passed this plan that aims to eliminate greenhouse gas pollution and create a more equitable and prosperous future for all. The plan focuses on actions that benefit diverse and low-income communities, especially in the Green Zones, where environmental justice is most needed. The plan also seeks to create green jobs, plant thousands of trees, lower utility bills, and make our streets more walkable.

• Require Expansions to Prevent Environmental Impact: Passed an ordinance to ensure we are requiring any polluting expansions to decrease its environmental impact. This is a big win for environmental justice advocates in Phillips and both the Northside and Southside Green Zones.

• We made significant investments in the Southside Green Zone: First in the Nation, Childhood Lead Elimination Poisoning Program, expanded our Green Cost Share Program for upgrade assistance, Green Zone Weatherization to help lower bills for residents, and a Climate Resiliency Program to maintain trees.

• Environmental Checklist Legislative Directive: Passed a directive with the hope of developing an environmental justice checklist to evaluate new moderate- and high-impact polluting uses. 

• Neighborhood-Serving Commercial Uses in Residential Areas Legislative Directive: Passed a directive that would examine an amendment to the comprehensive plan that would authorize neighborhood-serving commercial uses in areas guided for residential use. This process includes the need for community engagement and changes to the comprehensive plan.  

• Banned New Animal Fur Shops: Worked CPED staff and community members on banning establishments where either a majority of the products available for purchase or a majority of the sales are dedicated to the sale of animal fur.

• Transit Assistance Program Legislative Directive: passed this directive that will explore joining a transit affordability program. We want to join the Transit Assistance Program (TAP) by Metro Transit through a partnership with the City of Minneapolis where people with lower incomes can use a bus or train for just $1 per ride. 

This work is only the beginning. I have enjoyed my time serving you on the Minneapolis City Council. We are not done yet. This upcoming year and term I am committed to: 

• Create a city-wide participatory budgeting process to ensure our budgets reflect our values and our community.

• Fully fund the People’s Climate and Equity Plan. I am committed to a dedicated fund and direct investments in the Green Zones. 

• Reduce homelessness by ensuring a South Minneapolis AVIVO Village becomes reality. 

• Create a humane encampment response policy that is dignified, centers public health, provides storage, and housing stability. 

• Secure and establish ongoing public safety responses and violence prevention programs on East Lake Street, 38th Street, and East Franklin Ave. 

• Prioritize disability justice so it is not left out of our equity conversations. We can end the subminimum wage for people with disabilities and create more employment and economic opportunities for people with disabilities.

• Improve our city’s traffic calming process. We need more staff and funding to ensure our residents and pedestrians are safe. It’s clear that we should be prioritizing more projects with a community lens. 

• Create new renter protection programs and improve current renter rights ordinances.

• Pass a safe outdoor space ordinance.

Nos Vemos En La Calle,

Jason Chavez (He/Him)