Minneapolis City Council Member Ward 1
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As local legislators who sometimes have executive power, council members can propose ordinances, set administrative policy, and authorize the budget proposed by the mayor. They oversee all city activities, including city services, programs, licensing, and public safety. Mayoral appointments to city government typically require council approval. Learn more here: https://www.lwv.org/blog/voting-local-matters-why-vote-city-councilSee a complete list of Minneapolis City Council candidate forums at https://lwvmpls.org/2025-candidate-forumsIf your candidate didn’t fill in the guide below, visit the Secretary of State’s Candidate Filing site to find contact info. If you reach out, ask candidates to complete their Vote411 Voters Guide from the LWVMN!
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Ranked Candidates
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All Candidates
Edwin B. Fruit
(NP)
Elliott Payne
(NP)
Brian Strahan
(NP)
Biographical Information
Why are you seeking a City Council seat and what are your qualifications?
If you are elected, what will be your top two priorities as a City Council member?
How do you propose to increase the availability of and access to affordable housing for both renters and people seeking to buy their first home?
What steps would you take to improve climate resilience in your Ward, particularly in areas prone to flooding, heat islands or lacking green space?
What role, if any, does the City Council have in supporting and monitoring the effectiveness of community groups who are working to improve public safety, prevent disturbances and the need for emergency services? Please explain.
The Socialist Workers Party campaign is the only campaign with a program for the vast majority – the working class. Capitalism is the source of the economic, social and moral crises faced by working people worldwide, including in Minneapolis, which includes the drive toward another world war. The SWP campaign opposes Jew-hatred and supports Israel’s right to exist. Only a movement of workers to take power out of the hands of the capitalist class can begin to solve these crises in the interest of our class.
To fight for a union-led campaign for amnesty for immigrant workers to build the unity of the working class and to halt the arrests and deportations. The Socialist Workers Party candidates also call for a massive public works program to provide employment at union-scale wages building housing, schools, roads and other needed infrastructure, including building and staffing childcare centers to ease the burdens on working-class families, especially women.
As long as housing under capitalism is based on profit making and not human needs, this is not possible. It will take a revolution made by working people to ensure that housing is available at a cost that can be affordable.
Capitalism destroys the two sources of wealth – nature and the worker. The capitalist class’s only concern is profit, not safety for workers, the environment, or those living near their factories, mines and railroads. Unions fighting for control of safety on the job means controlling the effects that the drive for profit has on the community as a whole – from pollution by dangerous chemicals, fires and explosions, and poisoning of the atmosphere. Only workers power can solve questions of safety and the environment.
We will need a movement of working people which is led by the labor unions like the Civil Rights Movement to ensure that the community can do these things. There are no effective organizations now that play this role.
