Mike Norton (Minnesota)
Mike Norton (Democratic Party) ran for election to the Minneapolis City Council to represent Ward 13 in Minnesota. He lost in the general election on November 2, 2021.
Norton completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2021. Click here to read the survey answers.
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
Mike Norton was born in Salt Lake City, Utah. Norton's professional experience includes working as a managing partner at Railbox Consulting. He earned a bachelor's degree from Minnesota State University, Mankato in 2007.[2]
Elections
2021
See also: City elections in Minneapolis, Minnesota (2021)
General election
General election for Minneapolis City Council Ward 13
The ranked-choice voting election was won by Linea Palmisano in round 1 .
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Total votes: 16,442 |
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 = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
Campaign themes
2021
Ballotpedia survey responses
See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection
Mike Norton completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2021. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Norton's responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.
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Hi, I’m Mike Norton. My family and I have lived in the Lynnhurst neighborhood since 2014. Our rescue dog, Maleficent J. Woofingtons (aka “The Woofs”), joined the family in 2016.
I’m a small business owner and the founder of an award-winning company in the logistics industry (one of the 50 Fastest Growing Companies in 2019 and recipient of a MnTech Tekne Award in 2020). My wife is completing her Masters in Art Education at U of MN and last year was the PTA Vice President at Justice Page, where my stepdaughter is the co-founder of the “Green Team.”
On a personal note, growing up with eight siblings in a family with a wide variety of political views has also taught me a lot about compromise and having tough conversations. In 2019 I was diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome, a form of Autism Spectrum Disorder. Learning the reasons why that I process things and communicate in a different way than most people has helped me better understand myself. It also reminds me to always make an effort to try to understand where other people are coming from when talking with someone with a different perspective.
I’m running to represent Ward 13 because Southwest Minneapolis deserves a candidate to meet the moment on public safety reforms in Minneapolis. The past year has shown that we need to make serious changes. Our incumbent council member has stood in the way of much-needed progress for our city, using obstructive votes and procedural complaints to distract us from the real issues.
After two terms in City Hall, Council Member Palmisano has failed to deliver on public safety reform. We need immediate, significant action to prevent further violence and unrest, acknowledge the needs of vulnerable residents, and promote more efficient use of our budget. Existing leadership is what led to the uprising in Minneapolis, and we need to go in a new direction now. I support the charter amendment to create a Department of Public Safety that will be flexible to our needs and accountable to Minneapolis residents.
We are in a climate emergency. We can and must act now to protect our air quality and reduce our reliance on fossil fuels as a city, but we can’t do it without being realistic about people’s needs. One of the best ways to reduce carbon emissions is to make it safe and convenient to choose greener transit options. I support increasing protected bike lanes, expanding Bus Rapid Transit lines, and making all public spaces safe and accessible for all.
- Minneapolis has a serious shortage of affordable housing. The most effective way to get more affordable housing is to allow for more housing, period. I support the council’s recent decision to allow single-room occupancy residences (SROs). This is a long-overdue tool to combat homelessness and rising costs of living, but it doesn’t go far enough. I also support rent stabilization. One-fourth of our neighbors in Ward 13 are renters and we can’t build a safe, thriving community without protecting renters’ rights. Another way to make housing more affordable is to pay a livable wage. I support a citywide minimum wage of $20/hr in Minneapolis.
As the Ward 13 city council member, I will demand the same investments in the Green Zone neighborhoods that we enjoy here in Lynnhurst and Linden Hills. Our current elected officials would never allow a place like Northern Metals to continue poisoning the air in Southwest. Why do we allow it in Near North? We have repeatedly failed to hold them accountable for environmental violations; I would fight to shut Northern Metals down entirely.
The charter amendment will allow the people of Minneapolis, and their elected representatives on the City Council, to provide oversight of the MPD. Along with a police force, the new Department of Public Safety should include a variety of evidence-based violence prevention and harm reduction programs. It should also include unarmed staff to manage minor traffic violations and mental health professionals respond to non-violent mental health calls.
One of my priorities will be to make sure we’re getting a return on investment for our public safety dollars. We spend more than one third of our general fund on policing, not including the more than $50 million spent on police misconduct settlements in the past five years. A significant portion of this money pays for officers to make discriminatory stops and arrests that don’t reduce crime, but merely criminalize vulnerable populations. I support reallocating some of the MPD’s budget to evidence-based initiatives such as unarmed professionals to enforce minor traffic violations, mental health crisis teams, and violence prevention programs. I also support the public safety charter amendment to create a new Department of Public Safety.
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.
Note: Community Questions were submitted by the public and chosen for inclusion by a volunteer advisory board. The chosen questions were modified by staff to adhere to Ballotpedia’s neutrality standards. To learn more about Ballotpedia’s Candidate Connection Expansion Project, click here.
Campaign website
- Click here to view an archived version of Norton's campaign website.
See also
2021 Elections
External links
Footnotes
- ↑ City of Minneapolis, "Common questions about filing for office," accessed September 10, 2025
- ↑ Information submitted to Ballotpedia through the Candidate Connection survey on October 4, 2021
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