By David Pierini staff reporter

LaTrisha Vetaw, newly elected to the Minneapolis City Council Ward 4 seat, has two hour glasses, neither of which seem to work.

The sand passes smoothly from top to bottom. Yet when the final grains fall, Vetaw remains engrossed in conversation. Vetaw, a longtime Northsider, admits to operator error.

Caption: The mug shot could just say LaTrisha Vetaw. If you use the other one, caption could read: LaTrisha Vetaw may need to watch the clock more closely as a city councilwoman. Her stamina for conversation helped her win the Ward 4 seat. Photo by David Pierini

“I don’t know how to wrap it up,” said Vetaw, who unseated incumbent Phillipe Cunningham in Nov. 2 general election. “It seems rude to cut it short. But I want to lead as a listener. I want people to feel like they can walk away from me in my office knowing they were heard and that I value what they are saying because that’s been missing here. Every door I knocked on, people felt detached from City Hall.”

A reluctance to cut people short likely won over more than a few voters. Vetaw, an out-going commissioner on the Minneapolis Park & Recreation Board, easily defeated Cunningham in the first round of a ranked-choice ballot with more than 60 percent of the vote.

Cunningham was a driving force behind a complete overhaul of the Minneapolis Police Department in the wake of George Floyd’s murder in police custody. Cunningham stood firm, supporting a ballot measure that would have triggered the change, despite representing a constituency living with soaring violent crime and asking for greater police protection.

Vetaw presented a more measured vision for police reforms and echoed the sentiments of voters who wanted to see specific details on how a holistic public safety model would provide security. The debate was acrimonious, and Northside voters rejected the measure by a wide margin. It nearly cost Jeremiah Ellison his seat (Ward 5) on the council. Ellison faced a slew of candidates against scraping the current police department set up. He edged out Kristel Porter by about two percentage points in the final rounds of ranked-choice vote tabulation.

Vetaw believes the two sides of the police issue have more in common, such as using mental health workers, substance abuse counselors and housing specialists to respond to certain calls. Vetaw’s goal is to call both sides to the table to work together on meaningful reform.

“I think if we come together, we definitely are gonna have the best solutions,” she said. “You don’t eliminate people from the table because they’re on the opposite side. You want to hear them out. I like people who don’t think like me or have the same opinion. A lot of times, they open your eyes to things you never think of. (Public safety) is the one issue that drove us apart, but it's the thing we care about the most.”

Vetaw possesses a gift rare in politics – attacking an argument without attacking the person, said her fellow Minneapolis Park District Commissioner Meg Forney.

“She can take you to task and then turn around and say, ‘Hey, let's go have a drink,’ “ said Forney, who also holds an at-large seat on the park board. “She gets right to the root of what is wrong and she does so, graciously. She is utterly fantastic at it.”

Time will tell

The hour glasses were a gift from her campaign manager, Betsy Brock, who was tasked with trying to keep her candidate on schedule during door-knocking and meet-and-greets. She makes the time and doesn’t use it as a reason to quickly exit.

Vetaw will talk anywhere, from her campaign office in Camden to her front yard, where she can often be found working in her garden. “I don’t care if people come and sit down in the garden with me and talk about stuff,” she said.

But a fluid sense of time becomes a greater challenge now that she is a member of the city council.

The full-time job is a busy schedule of hearings, meetings and gatherings with constituents. Vetaw will also have to balance a list of duties with campaigns to keep her council seat. During what would normally be a four-year term, Vetaw must run for re-election in two years because of redistricting and two years later if she wins (in four years, the council members will again be on a four-year cycle).

Vetaw will leave her job as director of health policy and advocacy for NorthPoint Health & Wellness Center, a post she has held for 15 years.

Like Forney, NorthPoint Chief Operating Officer Kimberly Spates remarked about Vetaws strength at bringing people together to work on common ground.

“She has the spirit of service; it’s a part of who she is,” Spates said. “She listens intently and quickly and (with regards to time), I think she’ll figure it out.”

What do you need from City Hall? New councilwoman LaTrisha Vetaw is listening