Transcripts

TOM FUDGE: The themes which made up much of Sharon Sayles Belton's campaign sometimes made you wonder whether she was running for mayor or county commissioner or the school board. She spoke about education and social development programs as frequently as she talked about hiring police or plowing the streets. Sayles Belton says she isn't trying to redefine the office of Minneapolis mayor, but she says Minneapolis needs a mayor who's willing to address new issues and move beyond the confines of City Hall and the traditional city services.

SHARON SAYLES BELTON: And I think the mayor of the city of Minneapolis has got to be over there and talk with that board of education and the superintendent. It's got to be across the street with the chairman of the county board and the members of that body and talk about what we can do as a community to bring the resources together to benefit the citizens of Minneapolis.

TOM FUDGE: That process of collaboration with other government agencies has already begun in Minneapolis. City council, county board, and school board officials have recently held joint meetings to discuss issues such as school truancy and waste management. Former Deputy Mayor Rip Rapson says Sayles Belton's emphasis on education and social development can be seen as a desire to continue programs started by Mayor Don Fraser. Fraser is ending his mayoral tenure, focusing on the needs of children, partly by working to create early childhood learning centers.

Rapson, who ran an unsuccessful mayoral campaign this year, says Sayles Belton is almost certain to keep pursuing Fraer's early childhood agenda.

RIP RAPSON: She has some of her own ideas, and I think what we're likely to see in the next number of months is a continuation and expansion of some of those areas of emphasis. I do think you'll see Sharon branch out. I think you'll probably see her working more extensively with the county to try to develop some collaborations there in terms of dealing with the juvenile justice system.

I think you'll probably see some more extensive work with neighborhood-based community crime prevention programs.

TOM FUDGE: Rapson says Sayles Belton's inclination to look outside City Hall to establish new programs and new ways of collaborating is, on one hand, quite promising for Minneapolis.

RIP RAPSON: On the other hand, there is a risk that some of the internal business of the city may get lost in the shuffle. I think the challenge for Sharon is to make sure that a lot of her energy is directed to some of the internal reform of City Hall that I think a lot of the campaigns over the last year have talked about.

TOM FUDGE: The clearest example of an internal challenge in City Hall has to do with the budget. In other words, how will the city continue delivering services with less money? Rapson says there are also serious questions of whether certain departments need to be revamped or reorganized. John Woodley ran for Minneapolis mayor this year with the message that the city needed to clean house and concentrate on delivery of basic city services.

He says one of the reasons Sayles Belton is not campaigned on a platform of shaking up City Hall is because that kind of message would have backfired by reflecting poorly on her record as city council president. But he says that doesn't mean that Sayles Belton doesn't know what she has to do.

JOHN WOODLEY: She knows that she has to go in there. She has to do some reforming in terms of the way that we deliver services through the MCDA. She has to depoliticize that organization.

She has to be smarter about delivering services. She has to deal with the water billing problem, and she has to deal with civil service, basic systemic reforms, things that didn't get talked a lot about during the campaign.

TOM FUDGE: Next year, Minneapolis voters will get a chance to see for themselves whether Sayles Belton can take a hard look at the workings of City Hall while she also forms new partnerships with other local government bodies. Sayles Belton will take office in January. This is Tom Fudge, Minnesota Public Radio.