PRST STD U.S.POSTAGE PAID TWIN CITIES MN PERMIT NO. 6391
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THE VOICE OF BLACK MINNESOTA SINCE 1934
April 13 -19, 2023
Vol. 89
Phone: 612-827-4021
No. 37
Governor Walz makes his case for ‘One Minnesota’
In MSR exclusive, the governor explains how budget will tackle racial disparities By Charles Hallman Contributing Writer
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innesota Governor Tim Walz and Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan first introduced their “One Minnesota” budget in January, which included $8 billion in tax cuts that used up much of the state’s estimated $17.6 billion surplus in both spending and rebate checks to taxpayers. At the time, State Senator Glenn Gruenhagen (R-Glencoe) called the plan ‘absurd.’ “This reckless budgeting is unacceptable,” added the senator. Last month, Walz and Flanagan introduced a revised budget that included new investments in public safety, education, and local ■ See WALZ on page 5
Governor Tim Walz in his office at the State Capitol.
Photo by Charles Hallman
www.spokesman-recorder.com
Walz-Flanagan budget includes: • A new child tax credit to give $1,000 per child to lower-income families making less than $50,000. • Spending $300 million in public safety aid to cities, counties, and tribal governments across the state to help offset local property taxes. • A new earned sick and safe leave for workers to accrue up to 48 hours a year, if they need to recover from illness, go to doctor’s appointments, or care for a child during school closures. • Expanding unemployment benefits to hourly school workers. • Making higher education more accessible with increased funding for state grants. • Proposed universal background checks for all firearms sales, raising the minimum age for purchasing military-style firearms to 21 years old, and banning high-capacity weapons. • Creating an Office of Missing and Murdered African American Women to promote the safety and success of Black women and girls. • Increasing access to affordable, quality childcare, and increase the capacity and quality of childcare across the state. • Issuing checks of $1,000 to $2,600 directly to more than 2.5 million Minnesota households. • Recommending $219 million to reduce taxes on Social Security benefits for over 350,000 Minnesota households.
Ride-along with Metro Transit’s new Police Chief Ernest Morales III New chief plans to bring ‘proactive’ policing to the Twin Cities public transit system
By H. Jiahong Pan Contributing Writer
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s recently as this past February, the Lake Street/ Midtown Station was hard to navigate. People congregated inside the station by the elevators, on the stairs and on the platform, often smoking or doing drugs or sometimes just trying to stay warm. They were all gone by late March when the MSR visited the station to interview and shadow Metro Transit’s new police chief Ernest Morales III. When asked what happened to those who loitered at the station, Morales responded, “Oh, I don’t know. I can just tell you that this is Metro Transit property. And I took a proactive position where I had my police officers come out here on a daily basis, just to make sure that commuters were utilizing the system as it was designed to be used.” Morales, who retired from law enforcement after serving in New York for more than 30 years and was once a professional boxer, was hired in January, but was not sworn in until March 22, after he received his license to be a law enforcement officer in
Metro Transit Police Chief Ernest Morales III speaks with Jean Lawrence Caron about transit safety. Photos by H. Jiahong Pan Minnesota. Accompanied by his wife and daughter during his swearing-in, he pledged to take a more proactive— but not necessarily law-and-order— approach to make the system safer. “Stagnation is simply not an option. I promise not only to be a champion for our police department, but for the
Met Councilmember Tyronne Carter of Minnetonka (l), Councilmember Deb Barber of Shakopee (c) with Metro Transit Chief Morales.
organization and the customers and sequently applying to be police chief communities we serve,” Morales said in Austin, Texas, Greeley, Colorado, to a crowd of agency staff and police and Hamden, Connecticut, Morales said, “This is where it began, right? officers across the metro area. When asked why he decided to This is ground zero after the George come to Minnesota, after applying to Floyd incident. We need to build trust be police chief in Tallahassee, Florida, between the communities and the serving as deputy police commis- members alike.” In point of fact, Morales has had sioner in Mount Vernon, NY, and sub-
his own history of difficulties dealing with the public, in particular communities of color. According to ProPublica, he failed to get medical help for a 28-year-old Hispanic man in 2013. ProPublica also uncovered nine other complaints with 25 allegations against him while he was a New York ■ See MORALES on page 5
Minneapolis’ new health commissioner brings experience battling pandemic and opioid crisis to new role By Abdi Mohamed Contributing Writer
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t’s been just over two weeks since Damōn Chaplin arrived in Minneapolis to take on his role as the city’s next health commissioner, and he’s hit the ground running. With over 25 years of experience in public health administration and human-services related work, Commissioner Chaplin is embarking on the latest chapter of his career in leading the city’s health department which is responsible for nearly 425,000 residents. Chaplin traces his interest in a public health career to his upbringing in Boston. He grew up in subsidized housing and saw how government policies directly impacted communi-
commissioner of Minneapolis’s ties of color. Department of Health, Chaplin served After high school, Chaplin would as the health director for the city of go on to study biology at Central New Bedford, Massachusetts, where State University in Ohio and return to he oversaw several different public Massachusetts for a graduate degree health initiatives. in business at Curry College. As an During his time in this role, Chapathlete at Central State, who played lin led Massachusetts’s Large Cities football and ran track; things were Coalition made up of the state’s 14 cut short for him after an injury forced largest cities. He credits the municihim off the field. pal collaboration to the history of the But it was more personal experiregion’s connectivity between state ences that led him to where he is agencies and the private sector. today. Chaplin lost his father in 2004, “I think that’s one of the strengths and his mother roughly a decade later of the New England area, particularly in 2015. He believes the loss of his in Massachusetts, that the healthcare parents has underscored the imporsystem and the public health system tance of a public health career for him. are pretty well integrated,” he said. “I “They both passed away way before New Minneapolis Health Commissioner Damōn Chaplin their time,” he said. “It helped me to Photo by Chris Juhn see some of those similar relationships here in Minneapolis.” begin to look at my life through lens of public health, social determinants of health, and racial health equity.” Prior to his appointment as the ■ See CHAPLIN on page 5