Minneapolis City Council
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- This article refers to Minneapolis, Minnesota. There is also a Minneapolis, Kansas and a Minneapolis, North Carolina.
The Minneapolis City Council is the governing body of the City of Minneapolis. The City Council is composed of 13 single member districts, called wards. Barbara Johnson (Democratic-Farmer-Labor [or DFL], Ward 4) is president of the council. The council is dominated by members of the DFL Party with 12 members. The Green Party has one member. The city has never had more than 13 wards, but at one time there were three representatives from each area, for a total of 39 city council members. The council assumed its current size in the 1950s. Because of a quirk in the election cycle, 2005 marks the first Council races since post-2000-Census redistricting. There were no Republican candidates for either Mayor or any City Council post in the 2005 election, however one Republican ran for the Library Board.
The council elected in 2005, and which took office in January 2006, is composed of:
| Ward | member | party |
|---|---|---|
| 1st | Paul Ostrow | DFL |
| 2nd | Cam Gordon | Green |
| 3rd | Diane Hofstede | DFL |
| 4th | Barbara Johnson (Council President) | DFL |
| 5th | Don Samuels | DFL |
| 6th | Robert Lilligren | DFL |
| 7th | Lisa Goodman | DFL |
| 8th | Elizabeth Glidden | DFL |
| 9th | Gary Schiff | DFL |
| 10th | Ralph Remington | DFL |
| 11th | Scott Benson (Council Majority Leader) | DFL |
| 12th | Sandy Colvin Roy | DFL |
| 13th | Betsy Hodges | DFL |
[edit] Zimmermann controversy
In September 2005 former Council Member Dean Zimmermann was served with a federal search warrant to his home by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The affidavit attached to the warrant revealed that the FBI has Zimmerman on video and audiotape accepting bribes for a zoning change. [1]
Zimmermann subsequently lost his re-election campaign, and was convicted in federal court on three counts of accepting cash from a developer and found not guilty of soliciting property from people with business with the city.
