A Kenyan-American and Somali-American are among the 79 finalists selected to serve in the powerful Metropolitan Council, the regional policy-making body, planning agency, and provider of essential services for the Twin Cities metropolitan region. The 17-member Metropolitan Council is a policy-making board, which has guided the strategic growth of the metro area for nearly 50 years.
Nelima Sitati and Abdirahman Muse will serve in District 2 and District 8 respectively if successful. The nominating committee will forward forward three candidates for each Council district by February 18, 2019 to Governor Tim Walz who will make the final selection for each of the 16 Council seats. The governor has a statutory deadline of March 4, 2019 in which to make the final appointments. More than 200 applicants applied to serve.
Sitati is among a record number of eight black women that made the cut as finalists.
The finalists will have an opportunity to provide public testimony at four public meetings at which the nominating committee. Each public hearing will feature candidates from four districts. Sitati’s District 2 already had its public hearing last week and you can watch that video here [1]. Muse’s public hearing will be on February 13 at the Minneapolis Urban League where Districts 5, 6, 7 and 8 will have the finalists interviewed publicly.
Public testimony will not be allowed during the public interview process but you may submit letters of recommendation and support for candidates via email to: [email protected].
You can find out which district you fall under at this link [2].
Here is the full list of finalists;
2019 interview finalists
| District 1 Video [3] Doug Anderson Aarica Coleman Kenneth Ferguson Judy Johnson Karen Skepper |
District 2 Video [4] Reva Chamblis Nelima Sitati Joy Stephens Tim Willson Della Young |
District 3 Christopher Ferguson Denny Laufenburger Jennifer Munt Douglas Reeder Norrie Thomas |
District 4 Deb Barber Francis (Frank) Boyles Gerald Bruner Gail Cederberg Molly Koivumaki |
| District 5 Katherine Bass Molly Cummings Joe Ellickson Ron Erhardt Leticia Guadarrama |
District 6 Lynnea Atlas-Ingebretson Janne Flisrand Shauen Pearce Paula Pentel Thomas Streitz |
District 7 C Terrence Anderson Thomas Forsythe Robert Lilligren Kenya McKnight Juana Sandoval |
District 8 David Fisher Pakou Hang Cara Letofsky Abdiraman Muse Elizabeth Ryan |
| District 9 Video 1 [5] and Video 2 [6] Dan Erhart Christopher Geisler Kathryn Schwartz Eckhardt Paul Way Raymond Zeran |
District 10 Video [7] Karl Keel Janna King Angelica Klebsch Peter Lindstrom Marie McCarthy |
District 11 Mollie Miller Rolf Parsons Lori Pulkrabek Kaying Thao Susan Vento |
District 12 David Engstrom Francisco Gonzalez Julie Ohs Leonard Price Jason Willett |
| District 13 Keith Franke Richard Kramer Chai Lee Jill Smith Avinash Viswanathan |
District 14 C. Scott Cooper Angela Burns Finney Kris Fredson Nathaniel Hood Sean Kershaw |
District 15 Steven Chavez Paul Mandell Jeff Spartz Phillip Sterner Shannon Wohlman |
District 16 Danna Elling Bryce Lebrun Raj Rajan Wendy Wulff |
About Bethel Gessesse, Mshale Photojournalist [8]
Bethel is a general assignment reporter and photojournalist at Mshale. She is based in Atlanta.
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