City Council – Ward 2
Cam Gordon
Background
Cam Gordon has represented the Second Ward as a City Council Member since 2006. He is the Council's sole Green Party member. His key values include ecological sustainability, nonviolence, grassroots democracy and social and economic justice.
Cam chairs the Council's Health, Environment and Community Engagement committee and vice chairs the Council's Public Safety, Civil Rights and Emergency Management committee.
He serves on several other City Council committees including the Executive, Transportation and Public Works, and Claims committees.
In addition, he serves on the Minneapolis Food Council, Red Rock Corridor Commission, Cedar Riverside Partnership, Joint City County Lead Task Force, University Stadium Area Advisory Group (SAAG), University District Partnership Alliance, Youth Coordinating Board and Youth Violence Prevention Executive Committee. He has served on the Civilian Review Authority Task Force (2006), Free Speech Work Group (2008), and Homegrown Minneapolis Implementation Task Force (2010-2011).
Cam's legislative accomplishments include:
- Urban Agriculture Zoning Code Text Amendments (2012): allows commercial food growing in Minneapolis, and defines new allowable food growing structures
- Equity in Employment Resolution (2012): declares institutional racism a real problem in Minneapolis, establishes a staff team to implement recommendations, and approves the City joining a regional steering committee formed to end racial employment disparities.
- Compost ordinance (2012): substantially increases the amount of composting that people can do in Minneapolis
- Farmers Market ordinances (2011): adds flexibility for farmers markets, including new types of markets
- Commercial Recycling ordinance (2011): requires commercial properties to recycle
- Managed Natural Landscape ordinance (2011): allows Minneapolis residents to have purposeful planting over eight inches in height
- Social Host Ordinance (2010): makes it a misdemeanor to host a social gathering at which underage drinking occurs
- Bicycle Advisory Committee (2010): changed the membership to give bicyclists a greater voice
- Multifamily Building Recycling (2010): made the existing recycling mandate for apartment buildings more enforceable
- Noise Ordinance (2008): clarified and expanded city noise ordinance to include measurements for low, as well as high, frequencies.
- Low-Heat, No-Heat Ordinance (2008): stiffened penalties for landlords who provided inadequate heat to tenants
- Produce in Grocery Stores (2008): requires five types of fresh fruit and vegetables in Minneapolis grocery stores
- Youth Violence Prevention (2007): led the effort to redefine youth violence as a public health crisis and begin the Blueprint for Actions to prevent youth violence
- University District Alliance (2007): helped to create the Alliance, working with the University of MN and U-area neighborhoods
- Unpaid Judgments Ordinance (2007): gives the City the power to revoke a landlord's rental license for not paying legal judgments in favor of tenants
- Lead Safe Work Practices (2007): establishes legal guidelines for lead abatement in rental properties
- Mini Farmers Markets (2007): created a low-cost licensing framework for small farmers markets
- Ranked Choice Voting (2006): helped lead the process to put rannked choice voting (also known as Instant Runoff Voting) on the ballot in Minneapolis
- Arsenic Ordinance (2006): requires landlords to disclose known arsenic contamination in soil
During Cam's years in office, the Second Ward has faced a number of important public improvements, economic development projects and challenges:
- Construction of the Central Corridor LRT line
- Reconstruction of Riverside Avenue
- Collapse and rebuilding of the I-35W bridge
- TCF Bank Stadium on the U of M East Bank campus
- Realignment of 22nd Street E
- New Seward Coop
- Many new multi-unit buildings, especially near the U of M
- Completion of Phase III of the Midtown Greenway
- Many new bicycle lanes, including on Franklin, Riverside, 20th Ave S, Minnehaha, 26th Ave S, 26th Ave SE, Como Ave SE
- Continuing University-related impacts on University-area neighborhoods
Cam was born and raised in Minneapolis and has lived in or near the second ward since 1977 in the Cedar-Riverside, Longfellow and Seward neighborhoods. He currently lives in a duplex he owns in Seward with his family.
Cam graduated from West High School in Minneapolis in 1973 and from the University of Minnesota in 1977 with a Bachelor of Science degree in education. He subsequently completed graduate work in early childhood development and Montessori education and worked as a teacher throughout the 80s and 90s. Before joining the City Council in 2006, he operated a small child care program and children's music company and was Associate Editor of the newspaper, Public School Montessorian. He authored the book, Together with Montessori, an introductory guide Montessori education.
Cam helped found the Minnesota Green Party, and has served on the boards of FairVote Minnesota, Common Cause Minnesota, and Minneapolis Center for Neighborhoods. He served as board chair for the Seward Neighborhood for several years in the 1990s, helping to lead the neighborhood's NRP process.
Last updated Nov 16, 2016
