Minneapolis mayor: We saw Trump stiffing cities for his other rallies, so we told him to pay up

by Mayor Jacob Frey, originally published in The Washington Post


Thanks to an administration in Washington committed to cutting federal funding for local government and a Congress plagued by gridlock, city leaders often face difficult choices without reliable outside support. And lacking the ability to levy an income tax, cities are then forced to rely on regressive property taxes for essential work.

So late last month when President Donald Trump announced that he would hold a campaign rally in Minneapolis, where I'm the mayor, I had two questions about resources. First, how much extra work would city employees need to do? Second, how could the city secure reimbursement for those excess costs on behalf of the city's taxpayers?

The venue the campaign chose, Target Center, is publicly owned but privately operated. Under the terms of the city's contract with the operator, Minneapolis is entitled to reimbursement for certain costs. In our view, those include excess costs for public safety and traffic control, among other services. Had the venue been privately owned, we wouldn't have had as much leverage to recoup costs.

As mayor, I have a responsibility to protect free speech, even from a president whose rhetoric and policies I find reprehensible. However, it is not my responsibility to subsidize it.

Read more: https://www.mysanantonio.com/opinion/article/Minneapolis-mayor-We-saw-Trump-stiffing-cities-14518237.php