Readers Write: Minneapolis City Council's Mideast resolution, homelessness, transit, hockey

Opinion editor's note: Star Tribune Opinion publishes letters from readers online and in print each day. To contribute, click here . ••• As someone who grew up in Minneapolis and still loves the city, I felt saddened to read about the disruption at the City Council meeting on Monday due to the proposed resolution about the war in the Mideast ( "A council confronts war," Jan.

9). Defending the resolution, Council Member Aurin Chowdhury is quoted as saying, "This is a complicated issue, but that doesn't mean we should avoid it." That is an admirable perspective for many issues confronting the city. How does the city balance the need of unhoused people — many with addiction and mental health concerns — to have a place to sleep with the concerns of neighbors when encampments lead to problems in the neighborhoods where they are set up? How does the city balance the need for effective policing as one tool for public safety with the experience of too many people of color of unjust policing? Certainly, there are global issues where city policies make a difference.

How can the city support a move away from a car dependent transit system while also balancing the needs of small business owners and those citizens who have trouble walking or using transit due to health limitations? There are many "complicated issues" one can be glad the council does not avoid.

But peace in the Mideast? It is indeed a complicated issue, but for the life of me I can see no way that a resolution by the Minneapolis City Council one way or the other will make any difference in resolving it. I credit the human desire to take a stand when one sees suffering anywhere in the world, but I believe that the City Council's focus on that issue is misguided and only fuels division that makes it harder to work together to address those complicated issues that actually fall within the council's purview.

John McGuire, Rochester ••• The Minneapolis City Council and city residents will deal with consequences of the Gaza, West Bank and beyond war/wars from now and for years to come, affecting citizens and city budgets. It is appropriate for the body to be on record. David Luce, Minneapolis ••• Message to the 165,068 registered voters in Minneapolis who did not go to the polls on Nov.

7: The City Council you gave us, by your failure to vote, just proposed its first official action. It introduced a resolution favoring Gaza over Israel in the bitter tensions there, 6,214 miles away from the city boundaries. Our city isn't meeting its own requirements, and those of two consent decrees, to hire enough police officers, ensure better policing and promote a safer city.

It is not improving conditions for local businesses to succeed. It is not confronting the rapid shift of downtown real estate from commercial to residential and the shift this involves to residential property taxes. It is not solving homelessness and encampments. But our council members deem it their most urgent priority to "help" the U.S.

secretary of state do his job. Of those who could have voted in our city election, 68.3% of you did not do so. Had you voted, you could have given us a City Council composed of mature, experienced adults who would work on the city's problems, not on helping the secretary of state to do his job — and I'm pretty sure he didn't ask for their help.

Just curious: What did you do on Nov. 7 that was so compelling that you couldn't get away for a half hour and go vote? David J. Therkelsen, Minneapolis Regarding the article "Encampment residents are suing to block city's planned demolition" (Jan. 3) the city argued some things several times.

(I attended the hearing and I volunteer at the camps.) It said how unsafe it is for people to be sleeping outside on the ground. None of the folks in Camp Nenookaasi had been sleeping on the ground; residents and a large squad of volunteers built about 20 large yurts, each well insulated and with a steel barrel wood fire keeping them very warm.

The lawyer talked about a fatal shooting. Yes, sadly, there was one during the four months, among many other homicides in Minneapolis; neighbors in other places were not turned out of their homes. And very tragically, there was one overdose death; there were several overdoses reversed by quick and compassionate action by residents and volunteers who watch out for each other.

Many of the camp residents have moved three blocks away with their yurts and some belongings and will continue to help each other and be available to agencies and outreach workers ( "Homeless camp is shut, springs back," Jan. 5). Nothing new or good was accomplished by the huge expense of this eviction; those funds and all the money thrown away on the long series of evictions could have gone to develop a better way for our neighbors to have safe and secure places to live, including interim, transitional and permanent homes that are culturally suited to the people who call them home.

Paul S. McCluskey, Minneapolis As I was reading of the plan to ride the rails and get firsthand information on the issues we hear about, I read a reprise of the old management axiom of "MBWA" — management by walking around ( "Transit officials will ride and listen," Jan. 8). This was a very important management philosophy through my 40 years working in engineering/manufacturing companies.

As a manufacturing engineer, I viewed the employees as my customers. I served them in making sure they had the support and tools they needed to do their jobs. More importantly, I found that staying close to the employees and the operation was good for two things: You saw things, and you heard things.

That doesn't happen when you sit safely in your office. I applaud these senior executives for getting out there in the cold and taking the time for talking and listening to their customers and, I hope, the drivers and conductors. Harald Eriksen, Brooklyn Park Congratulations are in order for a great start for Team Minnesota in the Professional Women's Hockey League! But the team really needs a name.

I heard that Minnesota Superior is a leading candidate. How un Minnesotan. I suggest the Minnesota Not Too Bads. Mark W. Grimes, Minneapolis ••• Like many women and girls in Minnesota, I grew up playing hockey. And like 13,000 others, I attended PWHL Minnesota's first home game. The game was excellent — it was joyful and celebratory and, maybe best of all, a win! Without merch of their own yet, many fans wore their own team jerseys representing local teams from around the state.

The only thing that could make it better would be having a common mascot to root for and add to team merchandise. As the atmosphere was a celebration of womanhood, girlhood and power, I hope next season I can buy a jersey for the Minnesota Valkyries. Kit Katz, Woodbury As for the essay on whether most major scientific breakthroughs have already happened ( "Has the march of science slowed?" Opinion Exchange, Jan.

6), here's a quick list of large unsolved issues: faster than light travel, antigravity devices, traveling backward in time, climate change, chronic pain, world peace. And arguments that these are insoluble may be a major barrier to solving them! P.M.F. Johnson, Minneapolis.