What will Minneapolis' energy future look like in the next four years?

Community Power continued a city-wide discussion on local energy issues during the 2021 & 2025 city council & mayoral elections and the 2023 city council elections. This built upon our 2013 Minneapolis Energy Options campaign, our 2017 candidate forums + questionnaires, and all the work in between.

Some background on our candidate education work !

1. Our new 2025 Minneapolis Candidate Questionnaire on local Energy Democracy and climate action, was different from previous versions of our questionnaire which we invite candidates for Mayor and City Council to fill out. 
2. As we have done in previous local election years dating back to 2013, Community Power staff also invited candidates looking to represent Minneapolis on the City Council or as Mayor to meet with us and learn about our history and mission. That way, all are given the same basic lay of the land and local Energy Democracy issues in Minneapolis.
3. Community Power extends an open invitation to organizational partners for hosting Q & A forums in future years, as we have done for Minneapolis Mayor and various City Council races, following on from our gatherings with a wide majority of candidates. Those have served as a way to further elevate and share knowledge on these key issues. Through a set of prepared and audience questions (submitted before or during), we ask candidates for City Council and Mayor at forum events to share their visions and perspectives on how to meet Minneapolis’ local clean energy and climate goals in ways that also benefit key priorities of the city such as housing affordability, renters' rights, economic, racial & environmental justice, and workforce development for clean energy jobs.

As candidates from previous elections have now turned into incumbent elected officials - we encourage you to read on to see their returned questionnaires, and to watch video footage from the Q & A forums in which current elected officials participated when running for office. These both provided an important opportunity for Minneapolis residents to hear their city council and mayoral candidates’ plans on energy choice, affordability, and access. You can also see our 2021 questionnaire archive and our 2021 candidate forum video archive from responses and forums from ALL candidates not just those who were elected. We have additional candidate responses to our 2023 questionnaire archived on our 2018-2021 elected officials page that also include 2 former council members who served after 2022 until 2026. 

Official portraits for the 4 new council members are pending. The portraits below from returning council members are from the previous terms. The new Ward 7 council member was already elected official before 2025 and already has a portrait listed. The next local elections for mayor and city council will take place in 2029. 

Incumbent Minneapolis City Council Members & Mayor

on Energy & Equity

OUR 2025 CANDIDATE FORUMS

In addition to cohosting 2025 League of Women Voters forums in Wards 1, 7, 9, 11 and 12 (see our 2025 candidates page) Community Power helped organize and schedule the Native Mayoral forums held on June 25th, 2025. See video of the forum.  

OUR 2023 CANDIDATE FORUMS

In addition to partnering with the League of Women Voters for their 2023 candidate forums from late August though October (more info here), Community Power and Partners (including MN 350, Unidos MN, Minneapolis Climate Action and the MN Environmental Justice Table) organized the following Q & A forums: 

• April 19th, Ward 12   (Recorded by Line Break Media in front of a live audience of about 40)
• May 9th, Ward 7    (Held in Front of a live audience of about 40. No recording found)
• May 11th, Ward 6    (Recorded in 3 Facebook Live Videos in front of a live audience of about 40)

The questions asked by our moderator, other than ones submitted by audience members, were shared with candidates ahead of time.  

 OUR 2021 CANDIDATE FORUMS   

In 2021 Community Power and Partners (Twin Cities Youth for Climate Justice collective, Minneapolis Climate Action, Friends of the Mississippi River, MN Interfaith Power and Light) hosted the following forums, listed chronological order:

• May 5th, Ward 10 
• May 19th,  Ward 9   
• May 20th,  Ward 11 
• June 16th,  Ward 2   
• June 21st,  Ward 4   
• July 21st,  Ward 1
• July 26th,  Ward 3
• September 14th, Minneapolis Mayor 
• September 18th, Ward 5 
• September 21st, Ward 7 

All of our 2021 forums took place on Zoom. 

Following the formal Q & A, we switched over to a different Zoom meeting for informal post-forum conversations with candidates and audience members in virtual breakout rooms. The beginning of each forum in all years had a guest appearance from FairVote Minnesota, which is a national leader in the movement for Ranked Choice Voting. Ranked choice voting is a simple but powerful change to the way we vote that gives voters more choice and more power.

For our 2021 Mayoral Candidate forum we had a wonderfully diverse array of additional co-hosting organizations: 

• MN BIPOC Environmental Justice Table,
• Health Professionals for a Healthy Climate
• Climate Generation: A Will Steger Legacy.

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Interested in reading the previous sitting council + mayor's answers from 2018-2021? Check them out here

Saint Paul

The city of Saint Paul has a mayoral election in 2025 as well as a special election for city council. 

We also have to lend appreciation and acknowledgement the work that Saint Paul 350 (which now goes by the name Saint Paul Unidos) accomplished with holding online candidate forums in all 4 of the open city council races in 2023 where no incumbent was running (all the odd numbered wards). SP 350 covered similar topics to that Community Power focuses on. In 2023, the League of Women Voter also held Q & A forums in all Saint Paul City Council races which you could also watch by clicking on the links below: 

• St. Paul Ward 1: Watch CM Anika Bowie in the   SP 350 forum video as well as the LWV forum for Ward 1
• St. Paul Ward 2: Watch CM Rebecca Noecker in the LWV forum for Ward 2.
• St. Paul Ward 3: Watch CM Saura Jost in the  SP 350 forum video as well as the LWV forum for Ward 3
• St. Paul Ward 4: Watch CM Mitra Jalali in the LWV forum for Ward 4. * 
• St. Paul Ward 5: Watch CM HwaJeong in the  SP 350 forum video  as well as the LWV forum for Ward 5
• St. Paul Ward 6: Watch CM Nelsie Yang in the LWV forum for Ward 6
• St. Paul Ward 7: Watch CM Cheniqua Johnson in the  SP 350 forum video as well as the LWV forum for Ward 7

* The council member resigned in 2025 and there will be a special city council election in St. Paul.