betsy hodges profile

7/30/2019 Betsy Hodges profile

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jServing Downtown & ortheast Minneapolisjune 316, 2013

B y D y T M S

Inspired by the citys most

successful charter schools

and her own experiences as

a principal, Superintendent

Bernadeia Johnson says she

wants to give teachers and

principals more power in

exchange for results.

The proposal to create

a new partnership zone of

semi-autonomous schools

was at the core of a speech

Johnson delivered May 13 at

Minneapolis Central Library

in front of an audience

that included many of her

cabinet members, most of

Grningunm,xpcing

rsuls//Minneapolis superintendent

unveils new vision for district//

B y c k T

Its often said that Minne-

apolis government is set

up in a way in which the

City Council holds more

power than the mayor

does.

While the power on the

City Council is divided

among 13 members, a

select few are often the

ones who pull most of the

strings. As the chair of the

citys budget committee

and tight ally of Mayor

R.T. Rybak, Betsy Hodges

is not running away from

her record over the past

eight years as she looks

to succeed Rybak in the

mayors office.

I own every decision I

have ever made, Hodges

said during a recent

interview. I own each and

every one of them.

The decisions Hodges,

a two-term veteran on the

City Council, has made

come with much praise,

but also some criticism.

Hodges, a 43-year-old

Linden Hills resident, can

point to several indicators

of how the city is on a

strong rebound following

the 2008 recession.

For the first time since

2007, the citys tax base

is increasing, according

See DSTcT PaGe 11

Betsy odgesproud of her

record at City all

// Mayoral candidate profle //c i t y e l e c t i o n

2 0 1 3

See DSPaGe 12

Mayoralcandidate BetsyHodges at acampaign event.

P h o t o b y

k S t e b b e

B y c k T

D S M c k z

Current city leadership all 13 City

Council members and Mayor R.T.

Rybak has never experienced a

state government under complete

DFL control.

So when the 2013 legislative

session ended on May 20, city

leaders were happy with how many

of the items on the citys wish list

were given.

Council Member ElizabethGlidden (Ward 8) is the Councils

point person on sta te matters and

praised lawmakers for tackling all

sorts of major issues, including

property tax relief , legalizing

same-sex marriage and allowing

the city to use its own funds for

streetcars.

I am really proud, both of our

legislators and of our intergovern-

mental relations team, that there was

a truly tremendous amount accom-

plished in the session, Glidden said.

See cPaGe 10

MS fD

k T SSS c:

An overview of major issues before the Legislature for the 2013 session

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12 // June 316, 2013 // journalmpls.com

Editors notE

The Journals have been

proling the self-declared

candidates for mayor.

This is the fourth prole

in our series. We have

proled Mar Andrew,

Jacie Cherryhomes and

Don Samuels, and will

be publishing stories in

coming wees on Gary

Schiff, Jim Thomas

and Cam Winton, an

Independent candidate

not seeing the DFL

endorsement. To read

previous proles, go tosouthwestjournal.com/

elections.

to a recent financial report.

Construction is booming in

several areas, with two largeapartment towers going up

downtown, several mixed-

use developments springing

up in Uptown and housing

developments underway

near Dinkytown.

The city budget forecast

is looking bright for the

first time in several years.

Minneapolis under spent

by $7 million in 2012 and

Hodges and her colleagues

have socked that money

away in an account she

created to help hold the line

on property taxes.

Rybak, Hodges and

several other council

members since 2001 have

made votes to pay down

debt left over from previous

administrations and restoredthe citys AAA bond rating.

Hodges took the lead as

the city fought police and

fire pension funds over

what the city called over-

payments to retirees and

inflated management costs.

Hodges says rolling those

retirees into a state fund a

year ago will save the city

taxpayers $20 million, but

it came with some political

consequences.

I am proud to be part of

the team that was cleaning

up the financial messes

that were left to us,Hodges said. I have made

a lot of tough choices as a

City Council member, and

people know what they

are, because I made them

out loud.

Peter Wagenius is Rybaks

policy director and said

Hodges was central and

essential to our efforts in

stabilizing the city budget.

(Rybak has not endorsed a

candidate in the race.)

Weve had a broken

pension system for decades,

and decades of Minneapolis

leaders took a pass on tryingto fix it because they didnt

have the toughness to stand

up to the special interests or

middle men who benefited

from the system, Wagenius

said.

While Hodges has won

high praise for many of

the moves she and Rybak

made in dealing with thecity budget, it hasnt come

without critics.

Mark Lakosky, president

of the local firefighter union,

has been an outspoken

critic of Hodges, calling her

budget decisions dangerous

to residents and firefighters.

Shes dangerously

irresponsible in regardsto the cuts theyve made

to the Fire Department,

Lakosky said.

Today there are 289

city firefighters in Minne-

apolis, down from 406

when Hodges took over

the budget committee in

early 2010.

Last year, city firefightersmade it to the scene of

an emergency within five

minutes 81 percent of the

time. Thats down from

86.1 percent in 2009. The

National Fire Protection

Associations standard is 90

percent.Hodges blames some

of the increased response

time on lagging 911 service,

and she budgeted for two

additional operators in 2013

to speed up that end of

emergency response.

She also points out

that over the past several

years response times have

suffered as a result of bridge

closures that have re-routed

fire trucks. Bridges closed

include Lyndale Avenue at

the Minnehaha Creek, the

Plymouth Avenue Bridge

and the Lowry AvenueBridge, among others.

The residents of Minne-

apolis are getting the same

high quality service from

their Fire Department that

they have always gotten,

Hodges said.

Hodges has been chair

of the budget committee

for the past three years, in

which property tax levies

have increased by 4.7

percent payable in 2011,

0 percent in 2012 and 1.7

percent in 2013.

City leadership often

blames Local GovernmentAid cuts under the Tim

Pawlenty administration

HodgesF M P AG 1

// Mayoral candidate profile //c i t y e l e c t i o n2 0 1 3

P T k I S T I L

Mayoral candidate Betsy Hodges at a campaign event.

C r o s s wo r d P u z z l e sPonsored by edina realty downtown minneaPolis offiCe

Downtown com

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structure

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status

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28 Prex with plasm

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31 Later, gator

32 Energy

35 17th-century year

when Henry Hudson

entered his bay

36 Baseballs Hershiser

37 Literary language of

India

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brain tissue

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switch

43 Went on a rampage45 Freeze, Fido!

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months

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region

59 Part of Q.E.D.

60 Reheat quickly

61 Pern of Argentina

aCross

1 Ran a towel over

6 Free stuff at a

party, in slang

10 Throws in

14 Have because of

15 Supergirls

Krypton name16 Munich Mrs.

17 Great taste

less lling beers

18 Srs. nest eggs

19 Keister

20 Siblings, sons,

daughters, etc.

23 35mm camera

type

24 Anxious med.

condition for TVs

Monk

25 Actor McKellen

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telecom giant

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lines ...

33 Cosmetician

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clean socks,

hopefully

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muscle, briey40 Greek sandwich

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53 AQI monitor

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memorized

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not?: Joining

us?

63 Kim actor

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64 Gung-ho

65 Old Italian coin

66 Half a

Washington city67 __ de foie gras

68 Negotiators

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69 Eyelid woes

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1 Gulps (down)

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2 Count on me

3 Great Russian

czar

4 Summers in Paris

5 Toss back jiggers

of liquor

6 Supercial, as

beauty

7 Fend (off)Crossword answers

on page 16

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. :


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journalmpls.com // June 316, 2013 // 13

// Mayoral candidate profile // c i t y e l e c t i o n2 0 1 3

At A GlAc: Bty HG

Age: 43

eighborhood: Linden Hills

Profession: Ward 13 City Council Member

communi invovemen: Former Linden Hills

Neighborhood Council board member and co-chair; Co-

founded the Legacy Project, Minnesota Justice Foundation,

President of the League of Minnesota Cities; Member

of Stadium Implementation Committee for new Vikings

stadium; Heading Home Hennepin

Fami: Husband is Met Council Member Gary

Cunningham, two stepchildren

duaion: Bachelors degree from Bryn Mawr; masters

degree in sociology from the University of Wisconsin-

Madison

Fun fa: Ran her rst marathon on her 40th birthday.

Websie: betsyhodges.org

twier: @betsyhodges

Faebook: facebook.com/betsyhodgesformayor

for rising city property

taxes, but the city has also

struggled with large pension

payouts for retired cops and

firefighters, which Hodges

can say she reformed.Hodges has never enjoyed

strong union support in her

council races, and thus far

two unions have endorsed

other candidates for mayor:

The fire union went for

Gary Schiff and the building

trades and construction

union went for Mark

Andrew.

Hodges notes that the

SEIU endorsed her council

campaign and she says there

are still plenty of union

endorsements to be had.

There have only been

two union endorsements so

far, so I would just say stay

tuned, Hodges said.

University of Minnesota

Political Science Professor

Larry Jacobs called Hodges

the frontrunner and estab-

lishment candidate in therace for mayor.

Jacobs said Rybak proved

in 2005, when he beat out

Peter McLaughlin, that

union support is not a requi-

site like it once was to win a

mayoral race.

Theyre not the king-

makers they used to be,

Jacobs said. But theyre still

the best friends to have.

Mee Bes

Before the age of 20, Hodges

was living hard.

I used to smoke a pack

of cigarettes a day, weighed

over 200 pounds and I used

to drink every day, she said.

Hodges said she was

lucky to have changed her

life at a young age. Shehasnt had a drink in 23

years and no longer smokes.

At the age of 40, while

campaigning for re-election,

she ran her first marathon.

She didnt think she would

have time to run a marathon

while on the campaign trail,

so she never registered for

one. By the time she realized

she could do both, there

were no spots open in any

races.

Then I realized, nothing

was going to stop me from

running 26.2 miles, she said.

I could just run 26.2 miles.

On her 40th birthday,

Labor Day 2009, she set out

on Minneapolis trails.

Actually, I ran 27.4 miles,

Hodges said. Various

friends ran legs with me. My

(then-) husband was on hisbike with my water. Other

friends came with their

bikes and rode along with

me. Other than that it was a

one-woman marathon.

She ran a second mara-

thon the following year.

Hodges, who grew up in

Minnetonka, graduated from

Bryn Mawr College near

Philadelphia and later added

a masters degree in soci-

ology from UW-Madison.

In 2011, she married Gary

Cunningham, then a newly

appointed member of the

Met Council. Because they

live in different political

boundaries, the couple splits

their time between their two

homes.

Hodges, prior to her first

election in 2005, had workedas an aide to Hennepin

County Commissioner Gail

Dorfman and as a develop-

ment director for the Minne-

sota Justice Foundation.

In 1999, Hodges was

appointed by then-City

Council member Jim Niland

to a commission charged

with finding a site for a

Twins ballpark that could be

privately funded.

Chaired by Hodges, the

commission recommended

the site where Target Field

now sits because of its

proximity to transit andnearby parking. But the

Twins werent interested in

a ballpark that didnt include

public funding.

Its proven to be a great

a site, Hodges said. I am

very proud of getting to

that recommendation, I just

disagreed with the funding

source when they eventually

built it.

Her first big city policy

undertaking came after

her 2005 election, when

Hodges tackled the so-called

McMansion housing issue

that was getting under theskin of Southwest residents.

Developers were building

huge houses on small lots,

angering neighbors who

wanted to keep the char-

acter of neighborhoods like

Linden Hills intact.

Hodges passed an ordi-

nance that limited the size

of a home developers could

build on a lot homes had

to be less than half the size

of their lot.

With the economy

recovering, some neighbors

and real estate types say

developers are finding their

way around the ordinanceand its becoming a problem

again.

Yes, I think it would be

worth revisiting, but overall

I think it did a lot to stem the

tide of oversized homes,

Hodges said. The ones we

see now are the exceptions

to the rule and what they

were before was the rule.

State Sen. Scott Dibble

(DFL-61) has been one of

Hodgess closest confidants

over the years. Dibble

encouraged Hodges to run

for City Council in 2005

and is now co-chair of hercampaign.

Dibble said both he and

Hodges were motivated to

take up progressive causes

following the death of Paul

Wellstone in 2002. When the

marriage amendment was

sent to the ballot in 2012,

Dibble said he and Hodges

sat in his living room for

hours calling potential

donors who would help

defeat the amendment.

I dont know of any

council member who

worked harder than she did

to defeat the amendment,

Dibble said.Hodges points to Dibble

and other high-level decision

makers who have endorsed

her campaign as proof

that she can bring people

together to get state and

federal resources for things

to improve Minneapolis, like

transit.

Cunningham, her

husband, is a member of the

Met Council, the manager

of transit in the metro.

Dibble chairs the Senates

transportation committee

and Hodges supporter Rep.

Frank Hornstein chairsthe House transportation

committee. Her old boss

Dorfman is also a supporter.

One of the skills you

need as mayor is the ability

to build relationships, which

is what I have been doing

for the last two terms on

the City Council, but even

before that, Hodges said.

Hodges doesnt mind

being tied to the poli-

cies of Rybak, but shes

also not afraid to point

out times when she has

broken from him.

If you like the way things

are going in Minneapolis,

she is your candidate,

Jacobs said.

Hodges did not support

Rybaks Vikings stadium

proposal, which tapped city

sales taxes for a $339 million

public subsidy.

She also voted against

the reappointment of

former Police Chief Tim

Dolan, who oversaw a large

decrease in crime after he

took over the reigns of the

department in 2006.

He was great at fighting

crime. Crime went down

under his watch and I think

that is important to note,

Hodges said.

But Hodges and a few of

her colleagues took issue

with the way Dolan handledracial profiling, hiring of

minorities and women, the

Civilian Review Authority

and overall community

relations.

If people dont feel like

they will be treated well

when the police come,

then they wont call the

police and thats a detri-

ment to everybodys public

safety, and that wasnt

Chief Dolans strong point,

Hodges said.

Jacobs described Hodges

as cautious and strategic,

which can be seen in theway she talks about how

Minneapolis should position

itself while the economy

rebounds.

I think that the next

term will require the same

amount of discipline, but

I think there will be more

opportunity and more

choices and more good

options than there have

been in the last 10 years.

I think that the next term will require

the same amount of discipline, but I think

there will be more opportunity and more

choices and more good options than there

have been in the last 10 years.

Betsy Hodges

2551 Central ave ne, Mpls

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