Minneapolis, MN – Climate Justice Committee and community members gathered for a family-friendly walk through Mayor Jacob Frey’s Northeast Minneapolis neighborhood on Saturday, October 4. The walk was called to raise awareness for the Roof Depot fight and urge Mayor Frey to give the East Philips neighborhood a fair deal for the site. Participants put up hundreds of posters, handed out flyers, and had conversations with community members.

The walk was called by the Climate Justice Committee (CJC), a local activist group focused on fighting urban pollution and environmental racism in the Twin Cities. They have been active in the East Phillips neighborhood’s campaign to turn the old Roof Depot into an urban farm and community center.

The East Philips Neighborhood Institute President of the Board Dean Dovolis made the stakes clear: “Right now, we sit at a choice of two futures. A building owned by the community, run by the community, developed by the community's committee, or a future in which the building is demolished and turned into a service yard for diesel trucks and other polluting uses. This is critical, because if we do not prevail, we condemn the neighborhood to these uses for our lifetimes and the lifetimes beyond.”

Dovolis added, “We already have an active agriculture program, so this dream is real. There’s only one thing that’s keeping us from making the dream real: Mayor Jacob Frey. We need your help to tell him that this is the right thing to do, this is the right action, this is the right future for the neighborhood. We, the East Phillips Neighborhood, are driven by this, because while we can’t control the issues in Washington, we can create our own vision of what we want to see in our society, right in East Phillips.”

Kent Mori of the Climate Justice Committee linked this action to the broader fight for indigenous rights: “Mayor Frey embodies environmental racism. The Roof Depot land itself, if it’s sold to EPNI, will be owned by Little Earth, the largest Section 8 native community in the United States. So if you want to talk about ‘land back,’ you gotta talk about Roof Depot being owned by the community! This is about native sovereignty and empowering native folks within their own community.”

Climate Justice Committee and community members will continue to elevate the cause of the Roof Depot in rallies and press conferences around the city.

#MinneapolisMN #MN #Environment #CJC #RoofDepot

Minneapolis, MN – Over 20 people came together on a stormy and humid day, August 19. to demand the mayor of Minneapolis, Jacob Frey, sign over the Roof Depot site to the East Phillips Neighborhood Institute (EPNI) to create a community center in a neighborhood overburdened by pollution.

Over two years ago Mayor Frey had caved to public pressure and had agreed to sell the site to EPNI, but made it dependent on getting $5 million from the state of Minnesota to help move city facilities. At the end of the 2025 legislative session, state lawmakers failed to make good on promises for the money for the Roof Depot site.

“Jacob Frey’s career should be destroyed for this situation. This all started because he disregarded a report that repairs on the Marcy Holmes location would be the economical answer to the needs of public works. Instead, he pushed for the city to buy the Roof Depot. Purchasing and then just leaving the site to sit has cost Minneapolis taxpayers money, including residents here. Then when we stood against the demolition that would poison this neighborhood, instead of cutting losses Frey and his allies had security and barbed wire put up. That also was money wasted on this site,” explained Mordecai Mika of the Climate Justice Committee (CJC).

The reality is that it isn't the responsibility of East Phillips to pay for the city’s utilities or facilities. EPNI has offered the City $10.2 million for the site, which is currently appraised at $3.7 million.

But the neighborhood and supporters aren't afraid to fight for the East Phillips community. The CJC has been organizing with the people of East Phillips for years, beginning with the demand that the city of Minneapolis not demolish the Roof Depot site, which would raise arsenic and other contaminants sealed under the complex. The CJC then joined with the neighbors to demand a century-old foundry that had been polluting the neighborhood be shut down. With very little pressure, an asphalt manufacturer across the street from the Roof Depot shut down, bowing to public pressure. And shortly after, the foundry also shut down permanently.

The CJC has vowed to stand up to Mayor Frey and demand he agrees to sell the Roof Depot site to EPNI. Every day delayed is another day stolen from the people of East Phillips in their quest to turn back the environmental racism and injustice piled on this working class community.

#MinneapolisMN #MN #Environment #RoofDepot #CJC #EPNI

Minneapolis, MN – On July 9, 40 activists, organizers and community members gathered to rally for environmental justice. The Climate Justice Committee (CJC) organized this rally as a kickoff event for their new campaign to force two heavy polluters, Bituminous Roadways and Smith Foundry, out of the East Phillips neighborhood of Minneapolis.

Over the past couple months, the people of Minneapolis have been celebrating their success of winning a major environmental justice fight against the demolition of the Roof Depot in the East Phillips neighborhood. While the people continue to celebrate this win, the CJC has been pushing to further the fight for environmental justice in East Phillips.

The CJC is organizing to get industrial polluters out of this majority oppressed nationality and immigrant working-class community. East Phillips has some of the highest rates of asthma and cardiovascular disease in the state of Minnesota, specifically due to the pollution concentrated in the neighborhood. The presence of Bituminous and Smith in the neighborhood is a continuation of this legacy of over polluting East Phillips.

According to the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, Smith Foundry alone is responsible for 75% of lead pollution in all of Hennepin County. Smith and Bituminous together are responsible for the following pollution and more in East Phillips: 56% of the carbon monoxide emissions, 11% of CO2 emissions, 99% of particulate matter emissions, and 66% of sulfur dioxide emissions.

Protesters marched across the highway and onto the Greenway bike trail, carrying a “Fight for the air we breathe” banner and chanting, “Land back” and “Bituminous and Smith out!” Bicyclists passed with fists raised and cars honked in solidarity. CJC members handed out informational flyers to pedestrians so they could learn more about the struggle.

In one speech, Joe Vital of the East Phillips Neighborhood Institute reminded everyone of the importance of the solidarity between movements that led to success in the Roof Depot struggle. He also called back to the critical role of mass movements in the Roof Depot struggle and reminded everyone to carry that forward in the Bituminous and Smith fight.

Vital declared, “Roof Depot is the prototype, Roof Depot is the blueprint. We’ve been given the roundabout. ‘Go to the city, go to the state,’ but you know what we did? We went to the people, and the people is what shut that shit down!”

As the march concluded, Jasper Becker of the CJC gave a final speech, showing international examples of the connections between climate disasters and capitalism. Jasper brought these connections back to the struggle to relocate Bituminous Roadways and Smith Foundry when they said, “The theft of native land and the commodification of native land are one and the same. We cannot stop climate change without ending capitalism!”

#MinneapolisMN #EnvironmentalJustice #RoofDepot

Minneapolis, MN – Minneapolis’ Mayor Frey and seven Minneapolis city council members are talking about how they feel personally threatened after the Roof Depot struggle has become national news – after years of ignoring the East Phillips Neighborhood Institute, the group that has been spearheading the push to buy the building with the goal of creating a neighborhood space. As the neighborhood is mobilized and righteously angry about the pollution, Frey and his cronies in the Minneapolis city council try to demonize the neighborhood, attempting to paint activists, particularly indigenous activists, as violent.

The Climate Justice Committee condemns the scapegoating of indigenous people by city officials who are trying to divert attention away from the ongoing poisoning of the East Phillips neighborhood.

East Phillips is a neighborhood that includes the largest native preference Section 8 housing, Little Earth. It's also home to very large Latino and Somali populations, and overall is one of the most diverse parts of Minneapolis with a strong working-class identity. Historically this neighborhood has been the site for many polluting companies, like the asphalt manufacturer Bituminous Roadways and Smith Foundry, both located across the street from the Roof Depot building currently under contention. East Phillips has been underdeveloped, underserved and over-polluted for decades. The Roof Depot company closed its doors and in 2015 leaving residents hoping for something better. This led to the formation of the East Phillips Neighborhood Institute (EPNI).

EPNI intended to buy the site and create something that was sorely missing – a community space with an indoor farm for fresh produce for the residents and the potential for housing, job training and more. But quickly it became clear the red tape of capitalism couldn't understand or account for community ownership structures, while at the same time Mayor Frey's development plans took shape. The city swooped in and purchased the site, under the thread of eminent domain, for the city's industrial fleet. The current city plan will add over 800 parking spots with the intention of filling some portion of that with Minneapolis industrial vehicles.

This all came as a surprise to East Phillips residents as it's also the location of the Midtown Greenway bike trail and was named a 'Green Zone' by the same mayor and city council, acknowledging the historic pollution in the area.

EPNI tried in vain to meet with the mayor's office for several years. The city council members’ votes went back and forth on the future of the site, but every time coming up short of giving control or voice to the residents most affected. EPNI invited Frey to talk to members of the community on multiple occasions all to no response.

The Climate Justice Committee, a newer group in the Twin Cities, joined with the struggle, wanting to help mobilize the community and to work with the residents of Little Earth and EPNI to resist this clear plan of environmental racism.

Over the summer of 2022 EPNI anonymously received a city document showing how Mayor Frey's plan to move the city's diesel fleet wasn't fiscally sound. The document showed that upgrades to the current waterworks location in the Marcy-Holmes neighborhood would make more sense. But this report was slid under the rug and not given the light of day until well after Frey's plans were in motion.

EPNI continued to call for meetings with Frey's office, finally attempting a legal strategy which did lead to a meeting with the mayor’s office. The empty promises made in the meeting by Frey's team never materialized, or were outright lies.

Parallel to the legal fight, the Climate Justice Committee, EPNI and Little Earth residents were confronting Frey about the poisoning of East Phillips and bringing the fight to city council meetings and taking rallies into the mayor’s office. But after Little Earth residents fill the council chambers, city council members claim to feel threatened – filing restraining orders against elders and attempting to make policy changes to criminalize protests of city officials and at city meetings.

The narrative of vague death threats and violence is disingenuous, false and intended to distract from the real perpetrators of violence: Mayor Frey and his cronies on the Minneapolis city council. The mayor wrings his hands about death threats while East Phillips gets poisoned. One council member (Vetaw) filed a police report, but the only evidence clearly shows her physically assaulting a protester and taking their phone. Another council member (Palmisano) claims activists are paid to disrupt meetings, but can only show gas cards provided to help get those affected to meetings. These narratives are right-wing talking points meant to make the mayor and his cronies on the city council seem like the innocent victims, while they punch down at the Little Earth community actually under attack.

#MinneapolisMN #EnvironmentalJustice #environmentalRacism #RoofDepot