Minneapolis City Council wants to subpoena Mayor Jacob Frey and his staff

Deena Winter, The Minnesota Star Tribune on Oct 15, 2026

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MINNEAPOLIS — Minneapolis City Council members are exploring whether they could subpoena Mayor Jacob Frey and other city employees to appear before them to answer questions after Frey recently began limiting how much time his staff spends in council meetings.

The council wants to have city attorneys explore legal options to force the Frey administration to appear before them — the latest power clash between the City Council and the mayor. Some Minnesota home rule cities appear to have subpoena power, but Minneapolis isn’t one of them.

On Sept. 4, Frey notified the council that department heads and staffers would no longer be at the council’s beck and call and spend “hours on end” in the council chambers, but would still answer questions with written answers or a simple phone call. Frey said city employees — some of them among the city’s highest paid — were spending too much time sitting in the council chambers to answer questions.

Council President Elliott Payne said he met with the mayor in an attempt to find a solution, but the mayor wasn’t willing to budge. Frey disputed that, saying Payne wanted to have staff at meetings just in case there was a question. Frey said they should work that out during agenda-setting meetings.

“Staff has routinely presented for roughly a dozen hours each cycle and never has a question gone unanswered,” Frey said. “Serving residents will continue to be our focus.”

It’s the latest chapter in a years-old battle for control at City Hall, where the council and mayor have regularly jousted since Minneapolis voted to go to a strong mayor form of government in 2021. Council Member Aisha Chughtai said Tuesday that, since the 2021 vote, the council has often disagreed with the Frey administration over how the new government structure should be implemented.

Council Member Robin Wonsley said Tuesday that the mayor has said it’s not efficient to have his staff spend so much time in council meetings, but “I think a functioning democracy is messy; it does involve disagreement, debate, scrutiny and sometimes uncomfortable conversations but that’s not a flaw in democracy; it’s an essential part of how democracy works.”

The often-divided council has found some common ground in opposing Frey’s edict, with a the City Council voting 9-3 Thursday to have city attorneys evaluate whether they can subpoena staff.

One dissenter was Council Member Elizabeth Shaffer, who said Tuesday the executive branch has never refused to provide information as far as she’s aware. The hang-up is over the form of delivery. She said the council and Frey should be able to work out the issue, and that the city is “hungry” to see the two branches work together.

Shaffer called it a “standoff” between the progressive majority and Frey over staff spending “interminable hours” at meetings, during which they’re often treated poorly by council members, she said in a recent email to constituents. She doubts the council has the authority to subpoena the mayor, but said if she’s wrong, “then we’ll all be treated to the spectacle of watching the city sue itself if the council is unhappy with the mayor’s response to any particular council directive.”

Council Member Linea Palmisano doubts the council can subpoena the executive branch, calling the measure “ridiculous.”

“This feels far beyond any goal of transparency,” she said Tuesday, but voted to seek the legal opinion because she figured it would take the city attorney’s office a “few minutes” to give the council an answer and put the issue to rest.

Deputy City Attorney Dan Abelson told council members last month that the city charter gives the council the authority to request information and the executive branch must provide it, but the charter doesn’t specify what form that information must take.

After Frey’s edict, some council members began pulling items from the consent agenda — which are voted on without discussion — in an attempt to require staffers to show up more often. If nobody shows up, the council has, at times, delayed action, saying it needs more information.

That can have real ramifications.

This month, the council nearly delayed action when staffers didn’t show up to answer questions about forgiving a $4.5 million loan to Aeon, one of the region’s largest housing providers, as it faced foreclosure on its Villa Nova Preservation Joint Venture LLC, which includes 15 buildings with rental units in Minneapolis.

Aeon President Rachel Robinson begged the council not to delay a vote, saying it could threaten Villa Nova and Aeon itself. The council relented, but Council Member Jason Chavez said it was “pretty embarrassing” that Robinson was the only person at the meeting to answer questions.

Chughtai called the situation unacceptable.

“This is getting really out of hand,” she said. “Unfortunately, the mayor has decided that his priority is not communicating with his coequal governing body.”

The council approved the loan forgiveness a week later, after a city staffer showed up to give more details.