MINNEAPOLIMEDIA EDITORIAL | Minneapolis Is Hurting. City Hall Is Not Listening.

There are moments when government actions, though legal and carefully justified, arrive with such moral dissonance that they fracture public trust. Minneapolis is living through such a moment now.

In the weeks following a contentious election, the Minneapolis City Council approved an eight percent increase in the city’s property tax levy. Around the same time, council members voted to significantly increase the mayor’s salary, while approving future salary increases for themselves. These decisions did not occur in a vacuum. They came amid visible homelessness across the city, persistent violence, untreated mental health crises, and growing despair among children and families, particularly Africans, African Americans, and other people of color.

To many residents, these actions feel not merely disappointing, but profoundly insulting.

A City in Crisis, Not in Theory

Minneapolis is not struggling in abstract charts or policy memos. It is struggling on sidewalks and in encampments. It is struggling in emergency rooms where mental health beds are scarce. It is struggling in schools where children carry grief, anxiety, and trauma that rarely make headlines.

Homelessness has become an everyday reality. People sleep outside through harsh winters. Encampments are cleared only to reappear weeks later. Outreach workers are overwhelmed. Shelters are full. Permanent housing remains slow, fragmented, and inaccessible to many who need it most.

At the same time, mental health crises among children are escalating. Families quietly endure anxiety disorders, depression, self harm, and suicidal ideation among young people. Many of these struggles go unreported. In African and African American communities especially, stigma, limited access to culturally competent care, and systemic neglect compound the crisis. Parents wait months for services that never fully arrive.

These realities are not marginal. They define daily life for thousands of Minneapolis residents.

And Then Came the Votes

Against this backdrop, City Hall voted.

An eight percent levy increase. A salary increase of nearly forty six thousand dollars for the mayor. Deferred but approved future raises for council members.

City leaders insist these actions are responsible governance. They argue the mayor’s role expanded under the strong mayor system approved by voters in 2021. They cite compensation studies comparing Minneapolis to peer cities. They point to inflation, labor costs, public safety obligations, and the need to maintain services.

These arguments may be procedurally sound. They are not morally persuasive.

To residents watching from outside City Hall, the message is clear. Government moved swiftly to protect itself, while asking struggling families to absorb higher costs and continued uncertainty.

Timing Is Not Neutral

Leadership is not only about what decisions are made, but when they are made.

If Minneapolis were experiencing visible improvements, fewer people living outdoors, better access to mental health care, consistent public safety across neighborhoods, these votes might still spark debate, but they would not feel offensive.

Instead, they arrive when residents feel they are paying more and receiving less.

People are not asking for perfection. They are asking for priorities.

Why does urgency exist to align executive compensation with peer cities, but not to guarantee shelter beds? Why can government act decisively on salaries, but hesitates on emergency mental health response for children? Why does accountability seem strongest when elected officials benefit directly?

These are not emotional reactions. They are rational questions rooted in lived experience.

Process Is Not Leadership

City officials are correct that legality does not require popularity. But leadership demands legitimacy, and legitimacy depends on trust.

Trust is built when people see that their suffering is understood and treated as urgent. It is lost when government explanations rely solely on technical rationale while ignoring human impact.

Residents do not experience governance as budgets and charts. They experience it as safety, dignity, and care.

When explanations focus on structure rather than suffering, they deepen the distance between City Hall and the people it serves.

Children Are Watching

Perhaps the most painful silence surrounding these decisions concerns children.

Across Minneapolis, children are struggling with anxiety, depression, trauma, and despair. In communities of Africans, African Americans, and other people of color, these struggles are intensified by historic disinvestment and ongoing inequities. Some children are self harming. Some contemplate suicide. Many never receive adequate treatment.

These stories rarely make the news. Families suffer quietly. Schools do what they can, but they are not equipped to serve as mental health systems.

When these families hear that city leadership prioritized pay increases for elected officials, the message they receive is devastating. It tells them that their children’s pain is acknowledged, but not urgent.

What This Moment Reveals

This moment does not reveal a city without resources or compassion. It reveals a leadership structure that is managing systems while failing to lead through crisis.

Leadership in moments like this requires inversion of instinct. It requires centering people before prestige. It requires delaying self benefit until trust is restored. It requires humility, not self justification.

Instead, Minneapolis residents witnessed the opposite.

The Cost of Losing Moral Authority

When moral authority erodes, consequences follow.

People disengage from civic life. Voter participation declines. Cynicism replaces trust. Communities retreat inward. Those most vulnerable are further isolated.

Once moral authority is lost, it cannot be reclaimed through policy language alone. It must be earned through action, transparency, and restraint.

What Residents Are Right to Expect

Minneapolis residents are justified in demanding more.

They are justified in asking for clear outcomes tied to tax increases. They are justified in demanding transparent reporting on homelessness that measures permanent exits, not just encampment removals. They are justified in expecting emergency level mental health intervention for children and families. They are justified in demanding equity data that shows whether Africans, African Americans, and other people of color are actually benefiting.

They are also justified in demanding independent processes for setting elected officials’ compensation, rather than self approved raises.

These expectations are not radical. They are fundamental.

A Word to City Leadership

This is a plea for better governance.

Minneapolis has endured extraordinary trauma in recent years. Its residents have shown resilience, generosity, and patience. That patience is wearing thin.

The city does not need better explanations. It needs better priorities.

Until city leaders demonstrate, clearly and publicly, that human dignity comes before political comfort, decisions like these will continue to feel tone deaf and deeply insulting.

Minneapolis is hurting.

City Hall must start listening.

MinneapoliMedia