MINNEAPOLIS — Minneapolis community members have different opinions on whether the city’s new police contract is good. Founder and leader of 14 neighborhood safety block clubs, Alieen Johnson, said the new contract was desperately needed.
“I’m hearing very much on a daily basis that people want more officers,” she said.
Johnson said her neighborhood block clubs walk the streets at least once a week, talking to people and handing out safety information. She said she believes the new contract will make the city safer.
“I believe it will help with retention and recruitment of officers," Johnson said. "Many of us in the safety clubs would like to see MPD become the highest-paid agency in the state."
The contract is meant to improve officer hiring and retention. Johnson also believes it will help with culture.
“I think that it gives the chief the authority he needs to rebuild the department,” she said. “I think that first of all, it will improve working conditions and morale with MPD.”
The founder of Minneapolis for a Better Police Contract doesn’t believe an increase in wages will attract more officers. She said culture is the key to hiring,
“People do not want to come here because it’s a dumpster fire,” she said. “I think it’s very unlikely that they’ll get the hiring, they’ll get the retention, and two years from now when they’re negotiating the next contract the reforms that are there will vanish.”
Gurian-Sherman said the city offered no proof that the last contract increased hiring or retention. She also said the contract doesn’t go far enough when it comes to reforms.
“They drank the Kool-Aid that, you know, well ‘we can do reforms outside the collecting bargaining process,’" she said. “Some of them are so common sense, it’s absolutely head-scratching how they didn’t get in. How about yearly mental health exams for officers.”
She would also like the maximum number of hours an officer can work in a week to be around 50 hours, but said that number is flexible. She said the police chief upped the maximum work hours to 80.
“Would you want a surgeon doing an operation on you or a loved one who would have worked 75 hours in a week? I don’t think we would,” she said.
She said her group will continue to fight for better police contracts for the city.
In a statement, the Police Officers Federation of Minneapolis said “The men and women of the MPD have gone too long without a contract. They have gone far too long for competitive wages. We believe this contract will help MPD recruit and retain officers and help rebuild MPD."
The Upper Midwest Law Center also released a statement on the city’s police contract approval.
In a statement, they said, “This new contract will help address the ongoing shortage of police officers in the city, currently down around 300 officers from the required 731 as mandated by the City Charter.”