Councilmember Michael Rainville is seeking a third term to continue serving Ward 3, where he was born, raised, and still lives.

Rainville has worked various jobs in downtown Minneapolis since he was a student at DeLaSalle High School in the late '60s. He worked for the City's convention and visitor's bureau, now known as Meet Minneapolis, for 35 years before he became a councilmember.

Rainville was elected in 2021 and re-elected in 2023. To hear him tell it, Rainville practically eats, sleeps, and breathes in service to his constituents.

Downtown Voices editor Brianna Kelly sat down with Rainville on Jan. 29 to discuss his first two terms in office and his plans for a third.

This is the third installment of Downtown Voices’ interviews with Ward 3 and 7 candidates. Questions for candidates are based on responses to an internal reader survey conducted earlier this year. 

The following conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Brianna Kelly: If you were re-elected, what would be your priority for the term?

Michael Rainville: Well, I live this job. I mean, it's just always top of mind. I think for the next term, should I get re-elected, I would continue on the path of constituent service. 

I have two really good aides. Between the three of us, we really pay attention to the emails and the voicemails, and we respond to them within 48 hours. We accept all invitations to community meetings. We’re definitely a presence at every one of these neighborhood groups. If I can’t make it, either Henry or Patrick–we split them up–they cover for me.

But along that line, we have to do basic things, like fix the street lights. We have to listen and pay attention. It’s plain and simple. 

The truth is, taxes are too high, and the high property tax and the continuous raising of property tax hurts our low-income, our fixed-income people. We have to do something with the rising taxes, and it starts with increasing the tax values of these downtown office buildings. This is a really good time to buy a building in downtown, and a really bad time to sell it, as we see from the taxes.

I really think a good council member is a councilmember that builds trust. They explain away the mysteries of government. I'm elected by people who trust me that I'm going to bring government to help them.

BK: What’s the biggest issue facing Ward 3 today, and how are you working to address it?

MR: There isn't necessarily one big issue. It's a combination.

Public safety is still a concern. We cannot have a thriving, dynamic downtown where people want to live, entertain themselves, come to work if it's not safe. And that's such a complex issue, there's so many layers of safety. It's not just police. One of the first things I did was work with Steve Cramer at the Downtown Improvement District to provide social workers on Nicollet Mall from 9 in the morning to 9 at night, because people need help, and you don't need police to get someone a place to sleep or something to eat or some clothes or help them with their addictions. Those layers of public safety are big. 

And then right behind that is economic development. We have all these partially empty buildings on First Avenue North, which is the spine of the Warehouse District. If you think of the Warehouse District as the next North Loop… What happened in the North Loop to bring that housing in there, and thus all the services? We have to discover that ‘why’ and put that into the First Avenue North area, the Warehouse District. If you walk down First Avenue North, you see gorgeous buildings, spectacular, and that's our opportunity for affordable housing.

If we want economic development, if we want public safety, we have to provide stability for housing. We recently cut the ribbon on the project in the Northstar building, Groove Lofts, which was basically empty office space, and now it's 207 units of affordable housing. That's a really good example of how we have to think to rebuild downtown, because there's a lot of buildings that can be converted easily, whether it's on First Avenue North, or it's the Grain Exchange, Lumber Exchange, Flour Exchange…

BK: Is there an emerging trend that you’re keeping an eye on?

MR: Well, it’s rehabbing. It’s getting downtown going again. The reactivation of the office buildings and how these buildings are being converted. Not every office tower is affordable to convert into housing. But if we create housing and revitalize the Warehouse District, where buildings are older and easier to convert, the downtown core–the central business district–will pick up.

BK: What’s your stance on rent control?

MR: In my decision-making, I learn existing programs. We're not the smartest people in the world, here in Minneapolis. We don't have to invent the wheel every time. 

And we had the perfect example of rent control right across the river in St. Paul, our neighbor, and that has hurt housing development very much in St. Paul. It's just stopped. The only housing production going on in St. Paul right now is the government. You know, if a nonprofit can cobble together six different sources of funding, they do something. But the Highland Bridge project at the old Ford site, there are 2,000 units of affordable housing that should be built there, but the banks won't build it. Ryan Cos. wants to build it, but the banks won't fund it.

Rent control is a risk to investors, and you only have to look at St. Paul to see the effects of it.

BK: How do you gut check contentious issues, like the labor standards board or rideshare rates?

MR: With the Uber and Lyft debate, I got a tremendous amount of emails and correspondence from people who do not own cars and they use that to go to high school, to go to college, to check-ups, to parole meetings. And if it's up to them to take the bus or to get someone to give them a ride, they just don't show up. If they get a voucher from Uber, they show up. I got correspondence from the deaf, blind community. To raise the benefit package on one small set of society compared to the impact on others, because Uber and left were going to leave. That's why the state stepped in. I felt they would have been forced out.

For the labor standards, that's the same issue...

BK: So, your gut check is what you're hearing from constituents?

MR: Right. It's very important, what I hear from all constituents, not just from the loudest voices. In this city, we have some really loud, loud, loud voices.

In both instances (the labor standards board and rideshare rates), I had a balance between the loudest voices volume-wise and the many voices who would be impacted.

Downtown Voices also interviewed the two other Ward 3 candidates: Marcus Mills and Emilio Rodríguez. Our election tracker is keeping tabs on everyone in the mayoral and City Council races.

‍The League of Women Voters Minneapolis is hosting a Ward 3 candidate forum on Sept. 18 from 6:30-7:30 p.m. in Graco Park's River Hub, located at 810 Sibley St. NE.