Eight Years of Results

Access to stable housing is the foundation on which people build lives, health, education, and opportunity — and that belief has driven everything I have done in this space.

Under my leadership, Hennepin for the first time prioritized deeply affordable housing at a massive scale. My housing record begins in 2019 with the launch of a 10-year strategy via Hennepin County’s Housing and Redevelopment Authority (HRA) to invest $91 million in 1,000 affordable units prioritizing households at or below 30% area median income — approximately $30,000 annually for a four-person household. This means that we are creating housing for 1,000 families to have a stable and safe place to live — families who otherwise would have continued to live with the fear of losing their homes.

Over the next six years, my office built on that foundation with consistency and escalating investment. Pay-to-stay was eliminated in 2021, ending a policy that forced families experiencing homelessness to pay to remain in shelter and actively prevented them from building financial assets. In 2022, family shelter capacity expanded by $3.5M and homestead outreach reached 25,000 homeowners — by 2023, more than 5,800 were newly homesteaded, saving up to $1,500 per year per household through multilingual assistance. This means that low-income homeowners have a lower tax burden thanks to my work.

In 2023, Hennepin launched the first designated homeownership assistance fund for populations facing systemic barriers to ownership — specifically designed to serve Black and brown households who face the widest racial homeownership gap in the country. Six hotel properties acquired during the pandemic were converted into permanent Single Room Occupancy housing, a model that transitions temporary crisis infrastructure into lasting deeply affordable units in the neighborhoods where people already live. This means that hundreds of our community members have dignified, affordable, safe housing that otherwise would have never existed.

In 2024, we dedicated $19.5 million to creating or preserving affordable housing, and the Federal Government formally certified that Hennepin County had effectively ended veteran homelessness. In 2025, the family shelter census was cut in half — and we remain the only county in Minnesota to consistently fund shelter operations, at $37 million annually.

Also in 2025, the Anti-Displacement Community Prosperity Program (ACPP) moved from design to action. The ACPP is a community-led board established by state law — not a county committee, but an independent decision-making body whose members include residents with lived experience of displacement, business owners, nonprofit and philanthropic partners, and local government representatives. Its purpose is to ensure that investment in communities at risk of displacement benefits the people already there. In 2025, the ACPP administered $2 million toward housing stability, land acquisition, and economic development along the Blue Line Extension corridor. It is the first program of its kind in the nation.

Healthcare is a fundamental service that government must deliver — not a privilege reserved for people with the right insurance or the right zip code.

I have served on the Hennepin Healthcare System (HHS aka HCMC) board since taking office in January 2019. In 2020, I led the effort to formally add Health Equity as a value to the board's decision-making framework — a structural change that redirected governance priorities toward equitable healthcare delivery and toward the patients HCMC was built to serve.

For the next five years, I watched those patients’ needs grow faster than the systems designed to serve them. HCMC is the only safety-net hospital in the upper Midwest. It serves 100,000+ patients annually, trains half of Minnesota's doctors, and carries the largest share of low-income Medicaid patients among all state hospitals. Uncompensated care rose from $40 million in 2020 to $104 million in 2024 — a 160% increase. Federal cuts under HR1 threatened $1.7 billion in Medicaid revenue over the next decade. UCare's dissolution left up to $115 million in unpaid debt to HCMC. Property taxpayers were already providing $38 million per year to offset uncompensated care costs. Through this incredible pressure on systems and our community, I governed.

In 2025, when HCMC's financial position became critical and closure was a real possibility, the County Board voted to regain direct oversight of the hospital's governance — I led that effort. By May 2026, our lobbying efforts led to $205 million in immediate funding plus a $500 million hospital reserve being secured from the Minnesota Legislature, with no increase to Hennepin taxpayers. HCMC remains open today, able to serve our community.

The HCMC fight was not the whole of my healthcare record. While the hospital crisis demanded the Board's attention, the county was also doing the work of reaching people before they hit a crisis. In 2025, $3.9 million went to opioid response — contracting with 39 community providers, putting 75,000 naloxone doses into the hands of people across the county through programs, community contracts, and vending machines. Opioid overdose deaths fell by 31%. That is my health commitment in action — not just keeping the hospital open, but keeping people alive.

Transit is not just infrastructure — it is access to jobs, healthcare, education, and opportunity for the communities that depend on public services to get around.

The Blue Line Extension was in serious jeopardy when I took office. In 2020, it became clear the original proposed route could no longer proceed on the railway. Rather than abandon the project, I committed fully to advancing it by finding a new route. That commitment came with a condition: this project would be designed to benefit the people already living along the corridor, not displace them.

In 2021, I co-established the first Anti-Displacement Workgroup of its kind within a federally funded transit project — working with Commissioner Lunde, the Metropolitan Council, and the University of Minnesota’s CURA. Over 18 months, the Workgroup conducted nearly 18,000 community conversations and produced 17 recommended policies covering tenant protections, right to return, rent stabilization, commercial and residential land trusts, small business grants, inclusionary zoning, guaranteed basic income, and cultural placemaking. In 2022, a new route was announced — connecting Minneapolis to Brooklyn Park through Crystal and Robbinsdale. The community had shaped the project before the route was finalized.

Through my work and policy approach, we increased the investment over time. By 2023, $75 million had been approved. By 2024, $173 million was approved, $10 million in anti-displacement funding was secured through the legislature, and all four corridor cities plus Hennepin County achieved municipal consent — the critical legal threshold for federal funding. This was a huge step toward building this project and means we have real cooperation to build this project. By 2025, the project had reached the 60% design milestone and completed federal environmental review. Nearly $24 million was invested in affordable rental projects along the corridor across 32 projects. And the Anti-Displacement Community Prosperity Program — the first-in-the-nation community-led board described in the Housing and Homelessness section above — was administering $2 million in the corridor specifically, governed by the residents and business owners who have the most at stake. Because of my leadership, we have a first-in-the-nation anti-displacement plan for this major transit project.

Climate change does not land equally, and the communities most exposed to environmental harm deserve the most protection — not the least.

My environmental record has two parallel tracks: building green infrastructure across Hennepin County, and working toward closing the Hennepin Energy Recovery Center on the fastest responsible timeline. I have been vocal about both since before I took office.

On green infrastructure: the problem I set out to solve is the inequitable geography of climate change — the communities in Hennepin County most disinvested in are also the most exposed to urban heat, poor air quality, and flooding. In 2019, I helped secure a $500K annual tree canopy grants program targeting neighborhoods most vulnerable to those conditions. More tree cover means lower surface temperatures, cleaner air, and reduced flooding. That investment is compounding: in 2020, we set a goal to plant one million trees by 2030; as of 2025, with 576,000 trees planted, we are more than halfway there. But trees are one tool. In 2021, I championed Hennepin's first-ever Climate Action Plan — a governing framework built explicitly around racial and income equity, committing to greenhouse gas reduction, zero-waste goals, natural resource protection, and preparing communities for extreme weather. That plan gave structure to everything that followed: 1,000+ complete and green streets improvements, 7.5 million pounds of household hazardous waste collected, and 70,540 square feet converted to urban agriculture.

On HERC: as a North Minneapolis resident, I have lived with the health impacts of this facility for decades. Between 2019 and 2023, early Board Actions to advance closure did not receive enough votes to pass. In October 2023, I co-authored the closure resolution with Commissioners Conley and Lunde — the Board passed it unanimously. This was the first successful governance action toward ending waste incineration at this facility in its history. When advocates proposed 2040 as the closure year, I rejected it and pushed for 2030 instead.

I have also advocated for up to two additional Pre-Sort and Recycling facilities in suburban Hennepin County — because Minneapolis generates more waste than any other city in Minnesota, and the regional solution requires distributed infrastructure. In 2026, the County Board reaffirmed the closure plan, received progress updates, and invited the MPCA to present on the solid waste system and the HERC’s role in it.

Domestic violence is not a private matter that government can look away from — it is a public health crisis, and survivors deserve both better systems and public accountability.

My record on domestic violence (DV) combines long-term systemic investment with direct public accountability. From 2021 onward, my office lobbied for updating Minnesota's Criminal Sexual Conduct (CSC) laws — specifically the definition of rape and the ability to consent when mentally incapacitated. Adult Representation Services, which provides civil legal advice and counsel to residents experiencing extreme poverty, was explicitly expanded to include supporting domestic violence survivors.

I championed Hennepin's Adult Representation Services (ARS) as a governing priority throughout this record — and the results show it: 200% more residents served in 2024, prevention services grown by 66% in 2025, and legal advocacy for survivors of domestic and intimate partner violence centered as a core service. For the residents ARS serves — those facing eviction, parents fighting to remain with their children, survivors navigating a system that has failed them — access to legal representation is the difference between stability and crisis. Through the legislature, I also lobbied for and secured the Minnesota Victims of Crime Account in 2025, creating a dedicated fund that ensures survivors of crime, including domestic violence, have access to the services they need to be safe and move forward.

The murder of Mariah Samuels — a 34-year-old North Minneapolis mother who called 911 multiple times, obtained an Order for Protection, and did everything the system asked of her — made those failures impossible to ignore. In 2025, I co-authored with Commissioner Conley a resolution directing county staff to produce the county’s first comprehensive assessment of Hennepin’s domestic violence services. The report, delivered in February 2026, named what the system had not. Black victims account for nearly half of all domestic violence incidents in Hennepin County in 2024. In Minnesota, Black women are nearly three times more likely to be murdered than White women in domestic violence incidents — representing approximately 40% of the state’s DV victims while making up only 7% of the population. The report is explicit: structural and systemic shortcomings have failed victims who did everything the system asked of them.

The report produced a phased action plan: a Victim Survivor Advisory Committee centering Black and American Indian women, a system impact map to identify where failures are concentrated, investment in culturally specific safe housing, a community-driven DV data dashboard, and workforce development pathways for Black and American Indian DV advocates. The resolution created accountability. The report named what accountability requires. The work of delivering it is now underway.

Everyone who lives in this community deserves to feel safe here, and that principle does not change based on immigration status.

My record defending immigrants begins in 2019 with a vote to provide universal legal representation to immigration defendants regardless of the merits of their case — a commitment to due process that has been foundational ever since. In 2020, I advocated for the continuation of refugee resettlement in Hennepin County after federal orders required local governments to provide formal consent.

The legislative record built year by year. In 2023, I championed the Driver's Licenses for All bill, which was enacted — allowing undocumented residents to obtain a driver's license. The Northside Service Center became a full-service deputy registrar's office that same year — bringing driver's license applications, motor vehicle services, and vital records processing into the heart of a community that had just gained the right to access them. In 2024, MinnesotaCare was expanded to undocumented Minnesotans, after extensive advocacy by me and Hennepin County.

In 2025, as federal immigration enforcement escalated in our community via Operation Metro Surge, the county moved from policy to protection. When ICE began using Hennepin County property as a staging ground for civil immigration activities, we made operational changes grounded in one principle: county property may only be used for county purposes, and it will not be used to target our residents. In January 2026, following the shooting death of Renee Nicole Good and the shooting of a North Minneapolis resident who was not the intended target — both by ICE agents — the County Board passed a unanimous Board Action Request condemning the operations and calling for the removal of ICE personnel and assets from Minnesota.

Alongside these protective actions, the county launched Operation Reconnect — a direct, programmatic response to the economic and community harm caused by federal immigration enforcement. Through Operation Reconnect, we established a Small Business Recovery Fund, waived penalties for Environmental Health–licensed businesses, expanded eviction-prevention pathways in partnership with the City of Minneapolis, authorized property tax penalty abatements for residents experiencing economic distress, and built a centralized hub connecting affected residents to county and partner services. This is what governing through a federal crisis looks like: identify who is harmed, build the systems to reach people, and be the government that they can count on when others withdraw.

Local government exists to serve residents — not to absorb the costs of federal failures, and not to enforce federal policies that harm the people we were elected to protect.

Defending public services from federal erosion has been part of this work since day one. Too often over my terms, a pattern has emerged: federal support for Hennepin County public services declines, creating serious gaps in care and support that affect all of us. My work at the county level has been to resist federal decisions that harm our residents, to fill gaps when federal protections fail, and to build county-level systems that can withstand federal instability. This defines the governing challenge of this era — one that has intensified each year and therefore shapes my work at the county level.

In 2019, when the federal government required local governments to formally consent to refugee resettlement, I led Hennepin’s decision to give that consent — because turning away families seeking safety is not who we are. Through COVID, I worked to direct $220 million in federal CARES Act relief to the residents who needed it most: $28 million for housing and rental assistance, $27.9 million for small businesses, and $10 million for nonprofits providing food, economic support, and family services.

In 2025 and 2026, the scale of federal action against local programs reached a new threshold. I worked with the county’s legal team to obtain court orders protecting approximately $170 million in federal grants from unlawful freezes — money that funds services our most vulnerable residents depend on. I worked with county partners to defeat major cost shifts at the 2025 Legislature that would have landed directly on property taxpayers. Because of our governing and smart demands, we protected essential human service programs, community-based HIV/AIDS funding, veteran homelessness funding, and investments in Federally Qualified Health Centers that keep low-income residents insured.

The direct impacts on residents of my commitment to county government being the caregiver government have been stark. When the federal government disrupted SNAP benefits for 110,000 Hennepin residents in 2026, I directed $2 million to local food banks and food shelves to fill the gap — because when the federal floor drops, the county still has to make sure residents are served. When HR 1’s Medicaid cuts threatened $1.7 billion in HCMC revenue over the next decade — the kind of cut that closes clinics and leaves patients with nowhere to go — I got to work to save HCMC as detailed in the Healthcare & Public Health section above. These are not abstractions. These are the costs of federal disinvestment landing on the people least able to absorb them. My answer has been consistent: protect what can be protected, fill the gaps left by cuts, and be honest with residents about what we face.

The federal escalation took lives. ICE agents killed Renee Good, a 37-year-old U.S. citizen and legal observer, on January 7, 2026; a CBP agent killed Alex Pretti, an ICU nurse at the Minneapolis VA, on January 24, 2026 — and the federal government responded to both killings by smearing the victims, calling Renee’s presence “domestic terrorism” and calling Alex a “would-be assassin,” both without evidence. In between, on January 14, ICE shot Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis in the leg at his North Minneapolis home — and then two ICE agents lied under oath about the encounter, falsely claiming he attacked them with a shovel; federal charges against him were dropped when surveillance video proved otherwise. The Hennepin County Board responded: I co-authored a unanimous Board Action with Commissioners Conley and Edelson condemning the violence, demanding an independent investigation by the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, and calling for an end to the influx of 2,000+ federal agents into our community.

Our county is stronger, safer, and more vibrant when everyone has an opportunity to be heard. Almost immediately after taking office in 2019, I led a push to fund the 2020 Census at $1.2 million — $1 per resident — to ensure every person in Hennepin County would be counted. While only $320K was allocated, I led the census effort countywide throughout 2020. Getting there required Hennepin to innovate — community events, phone banks, digital campaigns, and language interpreters reaching residents in their home languages, with particular focus on the communities most at risk of being left out. The result was a 79.6% self-response rate — 3.2 percentage points above the previous census in 2010. That matters because the Census determines how $675 billion in federal funds is distributed annually. Every person not counted is a person whose community gets less.

In order to prioritize populations with the highest barriers to registration — renters, people experiencing homelessness, students, people of color, and veterans — in 2021, I secured $1.3 million for a countywide voter registration effort — including a high-speed absentee ballot scanner. Because if you can’t get registered, your vote doesn’t count no matter how much you want it to. In 2023, I worked with Elections staff to implement Restore the Vote — returning voting rights to people who had completed their sentences — and automatic voter registration. By 2024, 34,000 new voters had been registered. Minnesota’s 2024 voter turnout reached 76%, among the highest in the nation. An external review confirmed Hennepin’s election was conducted fairly, clearly, and above-board — because trust in elections depends on transparency, and we earned it. All of this work means more of our community members’ voices are being heard.

My democracy record also includes structural governance accountability. In 2022, I drafted and passed the first-ever Code of Conduct for Hennepin County Elected Officials — establishing a clear process for the Board to act when an elected official’s conduct falls short of their public responsibilities, because elected officials should be held to a higher standard. In 2026, when ICE agents conducted arrests at the Hennepin County Government Center during Operation Metro Surge, I authored a Board resolution reaffirming every elected official’s oath of office, the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights, and Minnesota statutes. The message was unambiguous: no federal operation changes our constitutional obligations.

Racial disparities in Hennepin County are not accidents — they are the result of deliberate decisions, and reversing them requires the same intentionality.

My racial equity record is both structural and philosophical. In my first year in office, I supported the creation of the Racial Equity Advisory Council — bringing community members directly impacted by inequity into county decision-making, so our policies are shaped by the people our systems have most failed. In 2020, I co-authored with Commissioner Conley the resolution declaring racism a public health crisis — a governing declaration that restructured how Hennepin approaches inequity: no longer addressing individual outcomes in isolation, but targeting the systemic conditions that produce them across housing, criminal justice, public safety, emergency response, education, and sexual violence. All of this is because of my commitment to ensuring county government addresses systemic issues and works for all.

In 2020, I advocated for the county-wide disavowal of racial covenants — discriminatory property restrictions written explicitly to exclude Black residents from neighborhoods — with the Recorder’s Office providing formal acknowledgment and waiving fees, so homeowners no longer must pay to remove a symbol of racial exclusion from their own deed. In 2021, I directed $3 million from the Community Asset Transition Fund to Pillsbury United Communities’ Justice Built Communities initiative — an investment designed to build equitable wealth for Black, brown, Indigenous, immigrant, poor, and working-class families in North Minneapolis. Increasing wealth for communities who have historically been actively prevented from building wealth improves outcomes for the entire state.

In 2023, I directed $300K to anti-racism work in communities surrounding George Floyd Square — funding workshops, community dinners, and door-to-door outreach reaching over 500 neighbors, because community healing requires sustained investment, not a one-time gesture. That same year, I launched a Guaranteed Basic Income pilot, enrolling 200 families in a 15-month direct payment program — trusting them to decide how to best meet their own needs, because people know their circumstances better than any government program does. By 2025, the county’s formal governing commitment evolved from disparity reduction to disparity elimination. Not a rebrand — a more honest accounting of what the work demands and what our community deserves.

Every person deserves to live freely as who they are and to access government services without fear, exclusion, or having to fight for recognition of their humanity.

I have built one of the fiercest records on gender justice and LGBTQIA+ protection at the county level in Minnesota — through legislation, sustained funding, and a commitment that all people deserve services that recognize and uplift their humanity. In 2019, I fought to incorporate all-gender and single-occupancy restrooms in all future Hennepin County facilities — a standard that has now become county policy, ensuring that anyone who walks into a Hennepin building can use a restroom without fear or exclusion. In 2020, I supported expanding the Non-Discrimination and Respectful Workplace Policy to explicitly prohibit discrimination based on gender identity or gender expression — because the county’s commitments to inclusion have to extend to the people who work for us.

In 2022, I authored and passed the Gender-Affirming Board Action, codifying Hennepin’s responsibility to affirm the gender identity and expression of residents, workers, and clients — making clear that anyone receiving county services deserves to be seen as who they are. The same year, I co-authored an amendment creating a $500K fund for reproductive health care and gender-affirming health care, and formally recognized Transgender Day of Remembrance at the Board — honoring the lives lost to anti-trans violence and making an unmistakable statement about whose safety this county defends.

In 2023, I advocated for the Protect Reproductive Options Act — codifying every Minnesotan’s fundamental right to make their own reproductive health decisions — and the Out-of-State Conversion Therapy Ban, making Minnesota a legal refuge for transgender people and their families. In 2024, I led the Board’s declaration of Hennepin as a Safe County for the LGBTQIA+ community. Since 2022, the County Board has directed $7 million toward abortion access, gender-affirming care, and birth justice — one of the strongest sustained public investments in reproductive and gender equity healthcare at the county level in Minnesota. In 2025, that investment produced real results: a 172% increase in patients from outside Minnesota seeking gender-affirming care here, and zero individuals on a waitlist for gender-affirming care in the state.

I have a deep commitment to the dignity of our community. In 2019, my first year in office, I initiated an Embedded Social Worker (ESW) pilot embedding a social worker into the 911 dispatch center in Plymouth, in partnership with Health and Human Services and the Sheriff’s office. It was effective from the start, and in just eight years, I expanded the program from one pilot city to full county coverage. This program is built on a simple premise: not every crisis call requires a law enforcement response.

In 2021, I expanded the program to twelve additional cities. In 2022, I established an opt-in model allowing every Hennepin city to join — and they did. By 2023, the program covered every city in the county. By 2025, it had reached MSP Airport and the Minneapolis Emergency Communications Center. That year, 9,000 referrals led to more than 7,600 connections to services — and 96% of residents remained in their communities, not transported to jail or a hospital. That means neighbors got help. It means fewer emergency escalations. It means the system showed up the way it should.

The ESW program anchors a broader public safety approach built on prevention, intervention, and accountability — not just enforcement. In 2020, I established the 911/Mental Health Task Force to build the research foundation for how the county approaches emergency response. In 2021, I secured $5 million for gun violence prevention — investing upstream to address root causes, not just consequences. I championed Adult Representation Services throughout this record, providing legal support to residents facing eviction, custody disputes, and civil legal crises — and the results showed: 200% more residents served in 2024, 66% growth in prevention services in 2025. In 2024, expungement clinics served 600+ people, opening doors to employment and housing that a conviction had closed. I also lobbied for and secured the Minnesota Victims of Crime Account in 2025, creating a dedicated fund so survivors have access to the services they need to be safe and move forward. Our community is safer, healthier, more vibrant as a result of this work. The through-line across all of it: public safety is most durable when it is built around people’s needs, not system capacity.

My economic record is built around three propositions: that small businesses are an engine of equitable economic growth, that workforce development is a public responsibility, and that income is an essential part of economic vitality. Elevate Hennepin — the county’s no-cost consulting program for entrepreneurs — is the clearest expression of the first. The Pathways Program and workforce services are the clearest expression of the second. The third is proven by Hennepin’s Guaranteed Basic Income pilot and its vast impact on the families it served.

Elevate Hennepin’s growth tells the story directly. In 2023, the program served 2,200 businesses and launched 100 new ones. By 2024, 3,100 businesses were being served and 203 new businesses had launched. By 2025, 4,080 entrepreneurs had been served — 68% of new business launches led by entrepreneurs of color — and in just the first half of 2026, that number reached 4,600. Elevate businesses have created more than 900 jobs, 82% in BIPOC-owned businesses. Across all county workforce programs, 14,314 people have been served and 913 placed in full-time unsubsidized employment — because access to economic opportunity is not self-executing. Someone has to build the on-ramp, so more people are achieving their dreams and contributing to the economic vibrancy of our community.

The Pathways Program has placed more than 430 graduates in permanent Hennepin County positions since 2013, with 89% one-year retention — creating public sector career pathways for people who faced barriers to getting hired. I also worked to award $33.5M in contracts to small and emerging businesses, keeping public dollars circulating in the local economy. In 2022, I launched a Guaranteed Basic Income pilot with a $4M investment, enrolling 200 families in a 15-month direct payment program — trusting them to decide how to meet their own needs, and building evidence that direct income support works.

I started my career as a youth worker. I am committed to young people because they are our future. My record on youth spans prevention, mental health, employment, and justice-involved young people. In 2019, I supported the launch of a Transition-Age Probation Unit for people aged 18–24 — designing a supervision model grounded in brain research that shows young adults benefit from different intervention practices than older adults, producing better outcomes, as well as real cost savings. In 2020, I directed $4 million in COVID relief funds to youth educational programs including tutoring and broadband access — because school disruption during the pandemic fell hardest on kids who already faced the most barriers.

In 2021, I created the Future Ready Hennepin workgroup to connect youth education to county employment pathways — ensuring young people who grow up here can see a clear route from school to a meaningful career. In 2022, I steered the investment of $400K in youth employment. In 2024, I championed $15 million in capital funds and $7 million in operational funds for a regional youth crisis stabilization center — because young people in acute mental health crisis had nowhere to go that was designed specifically for them. Just 13 months later, in December 2025, the Youth Stabilization Center opened, co-developed with community providers, informed by national best practices, and centered on youth decision-making. This is a major step forward in strengthening our continuum of care and ensuring young people get the support they deserve and need.

By 2025, the results of sustained investment were visible: 8,656 referrals to the Be at School program supporting 6,500 students; 7,000 K-12 students receiving mental healthcare from 230 licensed therapists in 220 schools — every school district in the county; 2,909 youth employment services provided. These numbers represent kids who stayed in school, got support before a crisis became permanent, and had a path forward they could see. And beyond the programs — more than 200 young people were introduced to local government through my office, because the work isn’t just about serving youth. It’s about making sure they can see themselves here.

My record on county workers reflects a belief that Hennepin County must model the employment practices it expects of others. The most visible impact is parental leave — I helped move it from 3 weeks to 6 weeks in 2021, and to 12 weeks in 2022. In two years, we doubled the amount of leave time twice. Nearly 10,000 county employees are affected by every benefit decision we make. When parental leave became 12 weeks, that meant thousands of families had more time to bond with a new child, recover from birth, or care for a newly adopted family member — without having to choose between their job and their family.

In 2021, I supported raising the minimum wage to $20/hour for Hennepin employees — setting a floor that demonstrates what public employers can and should pay; today that wage is $22.50/hour. I worked with Commissioner Conley to adopt Juneteenth as a floating holiday in 2020 and establish it as a permanent paid county holiday in 2021 — giving employees space to honor a day that matters in our history. In 2020, I supported providing 16 hours of leave for reflection on the death of George Floyd and community healing. In 2022, I worked to change Minnesota statute to allow all Hennepin Advisory Committee members to receive reimbursement or stipends — because asking community members to participate in governance for free is a barrier we created and can remove. In 2023, I championed student loan repayment assistance for county employees — because public servants carry student debt too, and supporting them is part of supporting the public.

These investments reflect a governing principle: a county that asks its workforce to deliver exceptional public service must be an exceptional employer. That standard has guided every benefit expansion, every policy adoption, and every budget decision for Hennepin’s nearly 10,000 employees over eight years.

I represent District 2, but I live here too — North Minneapolis has been my home since 2005, and that proximity shapes how I govern.

District 2 covers North Minneapolis, Northeast Minneapolis, the North Loop, Golden Valley, Medicine Lake, most of Plymouth, and St. Anthony. I live in North Minneapolis. The governing record for District 2 is not separate from the county-wide record — it is expressed through it. My advocacy for HERC closure, the NorthPoint expansion, the Shiloh Cares food shelf, the Blue Line Extension, the Lowry Ave NE reconstruction, and the Hennepin Ave NE improvements are all direct investments in the communities I represent.

In 2019, I initiated the Public Works Paint Pilot that achieved the 4-to-3 lane conversion on Broadway Ave NE — a community-driven process that made the street safer and more walkable for Northeast Minneapolis residents who had been asking for that change. In 2021, I secured $3 million from the Community Asset Transition Fund to Pillsbury United Communities’ Justice Built Communities initiative for equitable wealth-building in North Minneapolis. In 2022, I championed a $75K study of food availability on the Northside that documented the food desert and produced actionable recommendations for how to fix it. In 2023, I championed the Northside Service Center’s expansion into a full-service deputy registrar’s office — now motor vehicle transactions, driver's license applications, and vital records processing happen all in one accessible North Minneapolis location.

In 2024, I invested $600K in the Shiloh Cares Northside Food Access Renovation Project on Broadway Ave — expanding capacity so the food shelf could store and distribute more nutritious food to more North Minneapolis families. I also ensured that the $87M NorthPoint Health and Wellness Center expansion continued, bringing more integrated health services to the neighborhood I call home. In 2025, I attended 93+ community events and logged 160+ hours in my district — while serving as Board Chair, voting on 600+ resolutions, and spending approximately 100 hours in legislative meetings. Through my office, approximately 30 Government Center tours were led for youth, community members, and elected leaders — part of how more than 200 young people were introduced to local government and encouraged to see public service as a path for them.