MSR: An open letter to Hennepin County Commissioner Angela Conley
Minneapolis writer and environmental advocate Stephani Maari Booker calls on Commissioner Angela Conley to honor her environmental justice promises and work with the community to close the HERC trash burner.
by Stephani Maari Booker VIA MINNESOTA SPOKESMAN-RECORDER
April 21, 2026
Dear Commissioner Conley,
I am an African American woman who has lived about a mile away from the HERC trash burner since 1999. I breathe its pollution every day. I am writing because I believed you were going to change that.
You made history in 2019 when you were elected as Hennepin County’s first Black commissioner. You spearheaded a resolution declaring racism a “public health crisis.” You ran in 2018 on an environmental justice platform that included phasing out the trash burner. Your campaign website read: “community voices matter.”
For months, the Zero Burn Coalition worked with you and Commissioner Lunde on a resolution to close the trash burner. The county’s largest single polluter and a decades-long source of environmental racism, poisoning frontline communities in North Minneapolis and in your own district.