The Minneapolis City Council has voted down a plan that would have put the issue of rent control on the November ballot. The move was blasted by some on the council, as three Muslim council members were absent from the vote due to a religious holiday.
The measure would have let voters decide the fate of a proposed 3% annual rent cap. Council member LaTrisha Vetaw opposed the measure and shared her thoughts at the meeting on Wednesday.
“This was not the right way to go with helping the residents we say we want to help here in Minneapolis,” Vetaw said during the meeting. “If we’re going to help, we need to build housing. Rent control is going to stop the building of housing.”
Councilmember Robin Wonsley encouraged supporters not to give up the fight.
“Democracy has failed here time and time again,” Wonsley said. “We often see in this body and the mayor’s office where things are struck down. Priorities that we know working-class people need in our city that do not align with corporate interest that has great influence in this place, we see those things shot down.”
Councilmembers Aisha Chughtai, Jeremiah Ellison, and Jamal Osman were observing the Eid al-Adha holiday and did not participate in today’s council meeting, something council member Jason Chavez says should never have happened in the first place.
“When council members that are Muslim brought up that this was going to happen during Eid celebration with their family, we could have figured it out. We could have come back to council today and met another day.
Council President Andrea Jenkins says she regrets those members weren’t at the meeting but says it’s time to move on.
“I’m not a Muslim, so I don’t know how that calendar works,” Jenkins said. “However, it turned out that Eid fell on this day. It’s deeply unfortunate, and we have to move forward with the work of the city council.”
The council voted 5-4 to return the measure to the author. This essentially means it has been killed. Any new attempt to put a rent control measure on the November ballot would require an entirely new policy.
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