You can’t get much closer to public safety in Minneapolis than being a police reform attorney for the City of Minneapolis. Jamison Whiting is running for Ward 11’s open council seat after almost two years as the City’s assistant attorney, with a focus on police reform. Whiting grew up in Ward 11, moving away for college where he received a bachelor’s degree in Political Science at the University of Northern Iowa in 2017 and a law degree from University of California-Irvine School of Law in 2021.

Whiting attended Minneapolis Public Schools in the Field and Hale neighborhoods and graduated from Washburn High School. His mom Anna is a Minneapolis Public Schools teacher and his wife Kelly is a lobbyist for affordable housing organizations.  

Whiting is also a volunteer football coach at Washburn High School and recently started coaching a girl’s flag football team at the school, co-funded by the Minnesota Vikings.

Melody Hoffmann interviewed Jamison Whiting on May 7 at Stonegarden. This interview has been edited and condensed.

Southwest Voices: You are currently working within the City enterprise as a police reform attorney. How is that point of view informing why you want to run for City Council and how you're going to show up as a councilperson, if elected?

Jamison Whiting: It’s been the biggest piece for me that has informed my run. The issue that I believe most matters is public safety. It is one of the most transformational pieces that the City has a direct impact on right now.

If we are looking at where the city is going in the next four years, 10 years, 50 years? I think about public safety, and what that looks like, has the most direct effect on our city and where we go.

When I was brought into the City and asked, ‘Hey, Jamison, I think this would be a good job for you. Do you want to do it?’ I was like, ‘Absolutely not. I don't want to work for the City. You guys got a mess over there.’ It was put to me, ‘Hey, you can either talk about it or you can come do the work.’ So for me, it's been really helpful to do that work.

SWV: What do you think of the trajectory of public safety in Minneapolis right now?

JW: I am entirely optimistic about it. I have never been someone that was about defunding the police. Our policing is going to be here, and so we have to ensure that our police force is accountable, is well trained, and is trusted in our community, because that is what we have.

Growing up in Minneapolis as a mixed race Black person, I had either negative or neutral interactions with our officers. When I got my license in high school, I was pulled over 18 times in the first six months of having my license. I was always the designated driver, driving my friends home, dropping them off in Southwest and then would drive over past Bosson Park and then get pulled over. That was my first interaction with police, and so I never thought I'd be working alongside MPD.

I do quarterly ride-alongs with our officers to kind of see what's going on. The most surprising piece that I heard was the majority of our officers were also asking for policing alternatives–which is not necessarily the prevailing rhetoric and message. If our offices are also asking for alternatives, why is this a controversial message? So that's why I'm optimistic about it. If our officers are also on board in this, it's good.

SWV: What are the other priorities in Ward 11?

JW: The biggest thing we've been hearing is public safety. I would say 80, 90 percent of my calls are particular to public safety. Non-violent crimes like thefts or stealing of a car. And those are the crimes that MPD are having a harder time responding to because they have to go to the violent crimes. They are spread thin so those are the ones that they don't have the bandwidth to do as much. We’ve had a large decrease in violent crimes, but not non-violent crimes at the same rate.

My wife and I lived downtown for a while, then moved back here to Ward 11. Downtown, I lived in a building where there were young professionals and retired people. I was like, ‘Oh, this is the safest city in the world.’ But then other folks are like, ‘I'm nervous.’ And as much as I want to be like, ‘Well, just go outside if you feel that sense of insecurity,’ that’s not going to do it.

It’s probably good for some folks to see a larger police presence. For some folks, it isn't. There is a balance of what that looks like, and combating the perception of it.

We have the Duck Race here in Minneapolis. It's this beautifully utopic, kind of, this is what Minneapolis is and does. Thousands of people, not a single event or police call happened. We are getting safer. Combating both the reality, because there is crime, it's a large city, but also the perception that Minneapolis is getting safer as well.

SWV: Some residents have voiced concerns about their property taxes increasing. How would you approach property taxes as a councilmember?

JW: Property taxes have increased quite a bit. In Ward 11 we have a majority homeowner ward. It is a ward that has a decent amount of younger families and first-time home buyers. It also has a decent senior population with folks that are on a fixed income and fixed budgets.

I was having this conversation with a bunch of the former Ward 11 councilmembers and it was the same thing when I asked what the issues that were going on when they were in office–property taxes. It’s always been a thing.

Moving forward, I think it’s what is the revenue engine? For Minneapolis that's downtown, specifically, for property values. So when you have the Wells Fargo Center that sold for some exorbitant number pre-COVID and then sold recently for 70 percent less–that hurts the tax base. We need to reimagine and revitalize downtown as not just a place where people can go in and work, because that’s not going to happen.

And then your business corridors here in Ward 11. We all like walking through areas that are particularly community-centric and neighborhood specific. They are good for the city and boost our tax base.

The issue that is probably getting talked about the least right now is the budget crisis that we will be seeing in the next year or two. It’ll be the first time in a while that Minneapolis will have some level of a budget deficit. And that puts pressure on certain areas. Either you raise taxes or you cut programs. For me, I think it is figuring out how to do more with less, and that means cutting specific things.

SWV: While campaigning, have people been asking you about constituent services?

JW: It’s less so of asking specifically for it. I think it's one of those things that people know when they see it.  If you are being responsive, they'll see it. If you're not, it's very glaring.

People really care. I probably spent too much time. My campaign manager is like, ‘Stop spending an hour with every person you're talking to.’ I think it's important to engage in those relationships, not only helpful for an election, but figuring out how to best serve the Ward 11 constituents.  

Ward 11 has a lot of young families with kids, and everyone is uber proud with their schools and public education, and their opinions on that. It means they're engaged and they care.

SWV: What is your take on how the City and City Council should support small businesses?

JW: I think that the best way we can support small businesses is what we’re in (Stonegarden) with Andrew and Bailey. They're new small business owners. They moved to Minneapolis. They moved in just above here and they are seeing that there’s a lot of hoops to jump through. There's a lot of things in City government that are long and protracted and play out for valid reasons. But are there areas where we can be malleable?

I was talking with some folks in housing and developing and one city produced 15 blueprints or floor plans that already had City approval. And so if you choose from these blueprints, it gets approved right away. Is there a way that we could do that with our small businesses?

A lot of business owners are talking about construction and mitigation around it. What I heard, particularly around construction, is ‘Just communicate with us. I understand that construction needs to happen.’ They just want to be kept in the loop.

The City’s vibrant storefronts I think are fantastic. But then looking for ways to do that in other areas that aren't necessarily only focused on creative endeavors. If it’s a coffee shop or other things that give that first influx of cash.

Those startup costs are the barrier to entry, and so, is it a grant or is it an interest-free loan that you pay back after a certain time? And then, built into specific zoning measures as well, The Pearl Apartments are an example of it, where they can have retail on the first floor.

SWV: Homelessness is going to be an issue no matter where our encampment numbers are at. What would be your approach to addressing unsheltered homelessness?

JW: One of the pieces that I'm running on is we can hold multiple truths at once. One that should be undisputed is this is a public safety and a public health crisis for the people that are living in encampments.  This is not an ideal place for them, and it shouldn't be. We want to get them in permanent housing with wraparound services. This is also a public health and public safety crisis for the people that live around them as well. I think we can hold multiple things, that these things aren't in competition with each other.

I’m particularly investing in the solutions that work. The biggest thing is building more housing. And the right housing, your deeply affordable housing and emergency housing. Hennepin County has more or less ended veterans homelessness across. How did they do that? They're like, ‘We built housing for homeless veterans.’ So we have to continue to do that.

The other piece is individuals in our encampments who are eligible for housing, but don't want to go for particular reasons. A lot of it is actually built into the funding for the affordable housing providers.You’re required to have this be a woman and children shelter based on the grants. That means you can't allow males or single males in that spot.

Allowing for wet housing or where people that are experiencing the addiction cycle are allowed to go into. A lot of our affordable housing providers, if you're experiencing an addiction right now, they're not allowed. We know in the addiction cycle, you're not going to come to sobriety until you want to. So we need more housing, shelters, and beds that are open to this spectrum.

Trying to figure out what that looks like with our housing providers is something that I think would at least help alleviate some of it for those particular subset of folks that are experiencing homelessness.

SWV:  How do you feel about Ward 11 Councilmember Emily Koski dropping out of the mayoral race and not coming back to run for another term?

‍JW:  Emily is one of the kindest, most caring people that I've met in this work. She found it hard to be authentic in this work. From my perspective, I think she's tired of the divisiveness. I think Minneapolis is tired of it. That's why we've been trying to run an entirely positive campaign that is outside of the divisiveness that is going on. Some people are like, ‘Well, where does Jamison stand? What side is he on?’ The people that we've talked to don't want their city’s politics to look like what is happening nationally. You don't fight toxicity with more toxicity. And I think you're seeing that with candidates that are getting frustrated with that as well. We are all some form of Democrat. We shouldn’t be fighting each other.

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