Dear neighbors and friends,

Thank you for the tremendous honor of serving as your Ward 4 City Councilmember these past four years.

During my time as the Ward 4 councilmember, we have together faced a global pandemic and subsequent economic recession. A global racial reckoning and civil rights movement launched from our city’s streets following the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis Police Department. We have mourned together as we have lost neighbors and loved ones to violence during a national surge in gun violence. All of this took place in less than 18 months. It was unimaginably hard on us as a community, but we got through it together.

Four years ago, I ran on a platform of building community wealth through breaking intergenerational cycles of poverty and violence. That is long-term work, but we could lay a solid foundation together to get us moving towards our shared vision as a community.

Outgoing Ward 4 Councilman Phillipe Cunningham

For the first time in modern history, Ward 4 sees unprecedented amounts of investment ranging from launching Northsider-led entrepreneurial ventures to more than $300 million in projected assets for Upper Harbor Terminal. More than 100 homes have been built on the vacant lots and leveraged to close the racial disparity gap in homeownership, with a vast majority of those purchasing homes through the city being BIPOC first-time homeowners. In addition, there are 12 infrastructure projects underway helping to increase safety on our streets and access to multimodal transportation.

We have improved opportunities for our young people by banning LGBTQ+ conversion therapy, creating Group Violence Intervention, Jr., and forming a Youth Development Fund to increase access to high-quality out of school time programming. Equally important, we have expanded worker protections in our City by passing local wage theft and freelance worker protections. Further, we have fought for and won renter protections with the Tenant Relocation Assistance and Emergency Housing Repairs ordinances and revolving funds.

Of course, public safety has been - and remains - a severe issue in our community. However, we have put the pieces into place to help us get to the root causes of violence. We have our still somewhat new Office of Violence Prevention with its myriad of evidence-based strategies alongside nationally recognized diversion programs that produce dramatically lower recidivism rates than the national average. Shotspotters were expanded into Lind-Bohanon to help improve response times in the neighborhoods furthest north. We will soon have the option of unarmed Behavioral Crisis Response teams to answer 911 calls for mental health crises.

Work had unfolded in neighborhood-led conflict mediation and restorative justice, eliminating childhood lead poisoning, commercial sexual exploitation interventions, and community trauma response. We answered calls from the Hmong community and invested in a Southeast Asian Navigator to help our Southeast Asian neighbors successfully navigate public safety and criminal justice systems. The city has systematically supported community-based violence prevention groups through the Blueprint Approved Institute and the Violence Prevention Fund for the first time.

Despite all of the challenges we have faced, we got a lot of work done together in four short years. We have come a long way, but there is still a long way to go. I wish Ward 4 Councilmember-Elect LaTrisha Vetaw the best of luck as our new city councilmember. Thank you again for the opportunity to serve our community. I love North Minneapolis with my whole heart and soul.

Best,

Phillipe M. Cunningham

Minneapolis City Councilmember, Ward 4 (2018-2022)

Phillipe Cunningham says goodbye in final North News column