Yesterday, newly-elected Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey came to South for a meet and greet breakfast with a select few of the senior class. He then gave a speech at the all-senior-school meeting. After all the students, the Mayor, and principal Ray Aponte helped themselves to food, the Mayor asked each senior in attendance their name, what they wanted to be when they grew up, and what they like about South. Almost entirely composed of seniors, the students were meant to represent MSA (Muslim Student Association), NHS (National Honor Society), Student Council, Yearbook, Newspaper, and All Nations.

Aponte described the breakfast as an opportunity for the Mayor to, “get a flavor of the most amazing people who are going to change Minneapolis in the future.”

“I already met a few [South students] during the march just like a week ago,” said Frey, referencing the student led gun control protest at city hall last Thursday. He said at the senior class meeting that the students at the protest, “are the NRA’s worst nightmare.”

Frey spoke about some of his background, growing up with two professional modern ballet dancers as parents, going to school on a track scholarship, living on an olympic training center North of Detroit, enrolling in law school, and moving to Minnesota to practice law. He went on to talk about running for city council in the third ward, and his decision to run for Mayor.

Sophomore Tiger Worku kicked off the Q&A with Frey by asking, “what do you think the biggest problems facing Minneapolis area since you’ve entered as Mayor?” Frey said he had three prominent issues, which included: “affordable housing, police and community relations, and economic inclusion which he explained as ‘growth with equity.’”

Senior Derartu Ansha attended the breakfast as a student council representative. “He just said what the problems were, and didn’t really do into depth on how he planned on fixing housing developments and police and community relations,” said Ansha. “I was like, ‘okay you’re saying these are the problems but how as Mayor what do you plan to do to actually change?’”

“He did, I guess for the police issue, mention getting people we trust out there but I also think the main problem there is how they’re trained as cops in like the system overall and not who ends up becoming a cop,” she continued. “he didn’t go into depth about how he plans on fixing it.”

Senior class president Bola Ogunlana explained, “I feel like I shouldn’t say he’s cool cause I don’t know him really, but from that first impression that was a cool impression,” but that she wished she would’ve had more time to ask her own question.

“He talked about affordable housing and I was wondering if he would talk about gentrification, mainly on the North side. I’ve lived on both I’ve lived in North and I’ve lived over South, so I can see how everything is going.”

Senior Sharri Nurein felt the event was somewhat restrictive, and wished more seniors could have been in attendance. “I’m glad we had the opportunity even if it was just an hour, but a continued discussion would’ve been better, or just a little bit more time focused on us asking questions and not just us going around going on about our plans for next year,” said Nurein.

Frey, who described himself as a, “results guy,” told students attending the senior class meeting in the auditorium that, “everyone, you, me, everyone has the obligation to do whatever it is that they do best to benefit society the most…Find that thing you’re passionate about, find that thing so you can benefit society the most so that you do best and grab it by the reigns.”