LaTrisha Vetaw

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LaTrisha Vetaw
Image of LaTrisha Vetaw

Nonpartisan

Minneapolis City Council Ward 4
Tenure

2022 - Present

Term ends

2026

Years in position

3

Predecessor
Prior offices
Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board At-large
Elections and appointments
Last elected

November 4, 2025

Education

Bachelor's

Metropolitan State University, 2007

Personal
Birthplace
Chicago, Ill.
Profession
Policy director
Contact

Official website

Official Facebook

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Campaign website

Campaign Facebook

Campaign Instagram

Personal Facebook

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Personal Instagram

Personal LinkedIn

LaTrisha Vetaw is a member of the Minneapolis City Council in Minnesota, representing Ward 4. She assumed office on January 3, 2022.

Vetaw (Democratic Party) ran for re-election to the Minneapolis City Council to represent Ward 4 in Minnesota. She won in the general election on November 4, 2025.

Elections in Minneapolis are officially nonpartisan, but the Minneapolis City Charter allows mayoral and city council candidates to choose a party label to appear below their name on the official ballot. Ballotpedia includes candidates' party or principle to best reflect what voters will see on their ballot.[1]

Biography

Email editor@ballotpedia.org to notify us of updates to this biography.

LaTrisha Vetaw was born in Chicago, Illinois. She earned a bachelor's degree from Metropolitan State University in 2007. Vetaw's career experience includes working as a director of health policy and advocacy with NorthPoint Health & Wellness, and as a commissioner and vice president with the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board.[2][3]

At the time of her 2017 run for office, Vetaw was a program coordinator for NorthPoint Health and Wellness Center. Her experience also includes service as the board chair of Our Streets Minneapolis, the creator, and director of the Breathe Free North youth coalition, and the program director of the Neighborhood Orange Bike program.[3][4]

Elections

2025

See also: City elections in Minneapolis, Minnesota (2025)

General election

Note: The vote totals below are from the first round of ranked-choice voting. If voting goes beyond the first round, Ballotpedia will include additional rounds of voting after results from the final round become available.
General election for Minneapolis City Council Ward 4

The ranked-choice voting election was won by LaTrisha Vetaw in round 1 .

Incumbents are bolded and underlined. Source

Total votes: 6,633
Candidate Connection = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.

Endorsements

Ballotpedia did not identify endorsements for Vetaw in this election.

2023

See also: City elections in Minneapolis, Minnesota (2023)

General election

General election for Minneapolis City Council Ward 4

The ranked-choice voting election was won by LaTrisha Vetaw in round 1 .

Incumbents are bolded and underlined. The results have been certified. Source

Total votes: 3,417
Candidate Connection = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.

Endorsements

Vetaw received the following endorsements.

2021

See also: City elections in Minneapolis, Minnesota (2021)

General election

General election for Minneapolis City Council Ward 4

The ranked-choice voting election was won by LaTrisha Vetaw in round 1 .

Incumbents are bolded and underlined. The results have been certified. Source

Total votes: 7,242
Candidate Connection = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.

2017

See also: Municipal elections in Minneapolis, Minnesota (2017) and Mayoral election in Minneapolis, Minnesota (2017)

Minneapolis, Minnesota, held a general election for mayor, all 13 seats on the city council, both elected members of the board of estimate and taxation, and all nine members of the park and recreation board on November 7, 2017. The filing deadline for candidates who wished to run in this election was August 15, 2017.

Incumbents ran for re-election to all but two of the city council seats. Ward 3 Councilman Jacob Frey filed to run for mayor instead, and Ward 8 Councilwoman Elizabeth Glidden opted not to run for re-election.[5]

Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board At-Large, 2017, Round 4
Candidate Vote % Votes Transfer
Meg Forney (i) - Winner 29.1% 22,506 1,440
Russ Henry - Eliminated 0% 0 −11,014
Devin Hogan 0% 0 0
Londel French - Winner 23.2% 17,947 3,639
Mike Derus 18.1% 13,970 1,121
Jonathan Honerbrink 0% 0 0
Bob Sullentrop 0% 0 0
LaTrisha Vetaw - Winner 29.5% 22,827 2,298
Charlie Casserly 0% 0 0
Scott Vreeland (Write-in) 0% 0 0
Undeclared Write-ins 0% 0 0
Exhausted 7,097 2,516
Total Votes 84,347 0
Note: Negative numbers in the transfer total are due to exhaustion by overvotes.


Legend:     Eliminated in current round     Most votes     Lost






This is the first round of voting. To view subsequent rounds, click the [show] button next to that round.

Campaign themes

2025

Ballotpedia survey responses

See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection

LaTrisha Vetaw did not complete Ballotpedia's 2025 Candidate Connection survey.

2023

LaTrisha Vetaw did not complete Ballotpedia's 2023 Candidate Connection survey.

2021

Candidate Connection

LaTrisha Vetaw completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2021. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Vetaw's responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.

Expand all | Collapse all

My mom first moved me and my siblings to the Northside when I was 11 years old over thirty years ago. I feel called to serve the Northside, because of how enormously the community welcomed and supported my family when we were struggling. I am currently serving on the Minneapolis Park Board as an At-Large Member and Board Vice President, but have spent the majority of my career working as the Director of Healthy Policy & Advocacy at NorthPoint Health & Wellness. I am running for City Council this election, because the Northside is not better off four years ago when our current Council Member took office. We are leading the city in homicides, reckless driving is out of control, and economic opportunities are limited. Now more than ever, we need a leader who will prioritize public safety and economic prosperity for the Northside. In office, I will not stop working until livability is improved in our neighborhood.

  • Public safety is my #1 priority. I will partner with Chief Arradondo to put more good cops on the street and fundamentally reform the Minneapolis Police Department. Minneapolis currently has among the lowest number of police officers per capita of any city in the country. We must replenish our diminished force by hiring more officers, so that we can adequately respond to the violence our community is facing. Further, we need to increase traffic enforcement. Reckless driving and speeding are simply out of control. We undoubtedly need more enforcement of traffic laws, especially in our neighborhoods. Thirdly, we need to open a Fourth Precinct satellite office in Ward 4 so that response times in our community are not as slow as they are now.

  • Addressing public safety also means that we need to address deep police reform. We need to expand co-responder programs for mental health and social service crisis calls. Officers are not trained to handle every emergency, but we cannot expect unarmed social workers to respond to potentially dangerous situations without support. We also need to invest in and expand programs that increase diversity in the police force and make the career path more attractive to our youth and community members. We need to be policed by our neighbors, not strangers.

  • Now more than ever, we need to address the system racial disparities that have led to intergenerational harms to our community. The City needs to provide for and support economic development in the Northside. Everyone has a right to stable, safe, and affordable housing. I will preserve existing affordable housing, work to create more, and fight for good-paying jobs so people can stay in our community. In addition, I will make sure that any new developments of the Upper Harbor Terminal will benefit Northside residents first. I will also advocate for an increase in funding for community organizations already doing the great work of supporting our small businesses with resources, training, and other necessities..
I am personally most passionate about advocating for public health which is the field that I have worked in for the past 15 years as the Director of Health Policy & Advocacy at NorthPoint Health & Wellness. All of the above areas (Public Safety, Police Reform, and Economic Development) are affected by public health in some manner. We have learned the hard way how critical public health is to the functioning of our city through the COVID-19 pandemic. I also know how greatly public health crises affect people of color and other historically marginalized communities at disproportionate rates. I have abundant experience in the public health sector from passing major tobacco legislation to securing COVID vaccines for the Northside's senior community. I know that I bring valuable skills to City Council and I will fearlessly go to bat for the Northside's needs, no matter the political aftermath. My office will always be open; and if you reach out, you will always get a response from me.
My favorite book is I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou, because it is the first book I read that accurately spoke to the vulnerability of Black Women.
The last song that got stuck in my head was Stevie Wonder's song "Love's In Need of Love Today."

Note: Ballotpedia reserves the right to edit Candidate Connection survey responses. Any edits made by Ballotpedia will be clearly marked with [brackets] for the public. If the candidate disagrees with an edit, he or she may request the full removal of the survey response from Ballotpedia.org. Ballotpedia does not edit or correct typographical errors unless the candidate's campaign requests it.

Campaign website

  • Click here to view an archived version of Vetaw's campaign website.

2017

Vetaw's campaign website listed the following priorities:

“
  • Support healthy, welcoming, and safe parks for everyone. I've already worked to promote tobacco-free parks, and I will promote policies that reduce pesticides and keep our parks and air clean. Our parks are our city’s green spaces, and we need to keep them that way.
  • Work to expand the community engagement process. I believe that the best decisions are made when the community is able to make their voice heard. I'll promote new ways to engage the Minneapolis community, from social media to engaging, fun park events. This will help bridge the gap between communities of color and the park board and make sure everyone is able to have a say in the future of our parks.
  • Support youth recreation opportunities, like arts, music, and dance programs. Parks are places where kids come together to learn, grow, and form bonds with one another! I will invest in old and new programs that bring more Minneapolis children to the parks, improving their overall wellbeing.
  • Support Equitable access and programming for the aging population. Just as LaTrisha plans to work hard to support youth recreation, she also plans to work to support programming and park access for the older generation of park users.[6]
 ”
—LaTrisha Vetaw's campaign website, (2017)[4]

Endorsements

Ballotpedia did not identify endorsements for Vetaw in this election.

See also

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External links

Candidate

Minneapolis City Council Ward 4
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    Officeholder

    Minneapolis City Council Ward 4
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    Footnotes

    1. ↑ City of Minneapolis, "Common questions about filing for office," accessed September 10, 2025
    2. ↑ Information submitted to Ballotpedia through the Candidate Connection survey on October 1, 2021
    3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 LinkedIn, "LaTrisha Vetaw," accessed November 6, 2017
    4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named campaignwebsite
    5. ↑ Minneapolis Star Tribune, "Elizabeth Glidden Won't Seek Re-election to Minneapolis City Council," December 12, 2016
    6. ↑ Note: This text is quoted verbatim from the original source. Any inconsistencies are attributable to the original source.

    Political offices
    Preceded by
    Phillipe Cunningham     		Minneapolis City Council Ward 4
    2022-Present    		 Succeeded by
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    Preceded by
    -     		Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board At-large
    2018-2021    		 Succeeded by
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