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Minneapolis Council Member Alondra Cano is facing an ethics violation, but she's pushing back against council members she says do the same thing.

 
An ethics complaint is pending against Cano, but that's all Susan Trammell, assistant city attorney and ethics officer for the city, would say. But Cano said the violation is the use of public resources for political purposes. 
 

Cano denounced the complaint as vague and baseless and that her colleagues are also offenders. She threatened in a Sept. 10 email to Council President Barbara Johnson to out them, if the council approves the findings of the Ethical Practices Board. 

"I just wanted to put my foot down and say enough is enough," Cano said in an interview. "I've been pushed around enough on this issue, and I don't have time for it anymore."
 

 
In the email, Cano said she's been compiling screenshots since January of colleagues who use city property — government email accounts — to promote political causes on social media.  
 


Cano said she'll release them to the media if the council votes in favor of the probe's results. Cano specifically named Jacob Frey, Lisa Bender, Elizabeth Glidden and Abdi Warsame as violators. 
 
 

"It's inappropriate to try to essentially call me out for behavior that we all participate in," she said, "and the only reason people think it's OK is because of the context that it happened in was supporting Black Lives Matter."

As politicians, council members take up various causes that could be viewed as political, but Black Lives Matter is the "civil rights movement of our time," not a political organization, she added. 
 

 
Cano's said she's also being targeted for her stance on hot-button issues like raising the 

 to respond to emails from constituents who opposed her participation and support of Black Lives Matter's demonstrations at Mall of America, her tweets 

contained their phone numbers, email and home addresses.

 Cano later deleted the tweets, but said she broke no law. 
 

"That's why the ethics commission has zeroed in on this," she said. 
 

Council President Johnson didn't respond to a request for comment.

Politics and Government News

Emma Sapong

Author

Cano denounced the complaint as vague and baseless and that her colleagues are also offenders.

Facing ethics vote, Cano warns she'll release evidence about colleagues

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