The Minneapolis City Council is set to take up two debates surrounding George Floyd Square at its Thursday meeting.
One is whether to waive a financial burden on current businesses and residents, and the other is whether to support a concept for the future of the square.
The financial burden is a special tax assessment placed on property owners at the square, at the corner of 38th and Chicago in south Minneapolis.
It’s to cover some of the cost of a street reconstruction project that started Monday — about $630,000 of the $15 million project.
Those assessments are applied to property owners adjacent to any city street project.
But the project at 38th and Chicago isn’t typical. It includes a redesign of memorials to Floyd, who was murdered by a Minneapolis police officer at the intersection.
Residents who testified at a public hearing last week said they shouldn’t have to pay for something they weren’t responsible for.
And business owners said the assessment hits harder following slow sales during the federal immigration surge, and with construction now disrupting traffic. That's on top of ongoing economic challenges and stress following Floyd's murder.
Lachelle Cunningham owns City Food Studio on Chicago Avenue.
“For years, this community has experienced extraction. People have extracted wealth, attention, stories, research, political capital and opportunity from this place,” Cunningham said at the public hearing. “The residents and businesses that stayed are now being asked to shoulder another financial burden. That feels less like investment and more like another form of extraction.”
Council members, including Aurin Chowdhury, said last week that they’d work with city staff to find a way to waive the charges — though Chowdhury said she generally supports the tax.
“It's a part of how we keep our public goods well-tended-to compared to other cities,” she said. “However, this case has what I believe to be very unique and exigent circumstances.”
If the assessment is voted down, it’s not clear where that funding would come from.
Also on the agenda Thursday is the future of the Peoples’ Way, a defunct gas station at the square.
The city owns the property, where residents and memorial caretakers still gather daily. The city wants a local organization to redevelop — and eventually buy — the site.
City staff recommended the Minnesota Agape Movement from among several organizations that applied — and approval of that deal is set for a vote Thursday.
But a majority of community members had said in a survey that they preferred a proposal from another applicant — a group called Rise and Remember. And the arrangement with Agape failed to pass a council committee last week.
If the full council votes down the deal with Agape on Thursday, it will be up to city staff to submit a new proposal for a developer.
