Minneapolis politics, slightly ground down

A Minneapolis politics podcast hosted by four-term Ward 2 city council veterans Cam Gordon and Robin Garwood, with longtime activist Jesse Mortenson

Calm Under Fire: Canopy Roots Tells the Story of BCR

November 10, 2026

Innuendo about fraud. Leaked emails. False claims from city staff leaders. After serving the city for five years, building a program - Behavioral Crisis Response - that everyone seems to value, Canopy Roots is suddenly under fire. This episode is an in-depth interview with two of its owners: Candace Hanson and Taylor Shultz. This conversation yielded a ton of insight into how the sausage is made, including disturbing corrections to statements made by city leaders in recent city proceedings. Listen to the first half for a deeper understanding of how the BCR program was built, and to the second half for a dissection of the institutional history, rumors, and politics suddenly clouding the future of that program.

Recorded 10/28/26.

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Canopy Roots statement

Prior to the episode, Canopy Roots issued a public statement on many of the accusations from city hall and press. We ask about many of these claims in the interview.

10/29 City Council Meeting

The decision-making over this program has gotten to a strange place. Previously, the city council rejected city staff's proposed contract with a new provider (Community Bridges), citing several concerns we covered previously. It also passed a procurement exception that the Mayor could use to extend the existing Canopy Roots contract (with an eye towards building a stronger transition plan). The mayor vetoed both.

At the latest City Council meeting, the contract rejection vote veto was sustained. Effectively: dismissal of a dismissal, so the contract remained before the council. The council majority returned its preferred solution - extend Canopy Roots to allow for a better transition - back to the Mayor, except this time with a 12 month time period. This was an 8-4 vote. The future of the program remains in uncertainty. Several council progressives expressed a desire to use the extra time to plan a transition to executing the program in-house, utilizing city staff.

This conversation also featured several disturbing accusations-via-innuendo against Canopy Roots by CMs Shaffer and Vetaw. We fatured clips from this conversation at the beginning of the episode. Skip to about 4:29:00 in the video to find the relevant conversation.

Note that CMs Chavez, Chowdhury, and Payne were adament in their rejection of the claims of fraud made by CMs Shaffer and Vetaw.

Critical Media Coverage

City Audit

This is an official report issued by the City Auditor's office, covering a period of Jan 1, 2025 to August 15, 2025.

Notably: this audit does not make claims of waste, fraud, nor abuse on the part of Canopy Roots. "Auditors did not conclude that any of the patterns above are anomalies."

Also worth noting the letter from the Minneapolis Fire Department attached to the end of the report, which ... passes the buck.

Notes from reading the audit:

  • SUMMARY
    • When oversight of the Behavioral Crisis Response (BCR) program moved from the Neighborhood Safety Department (NSD) to the Minneapolis Fire Department (MFD) on January 1, 2025, MFD inherited substantial oversight gaps.
    • MFD lacked the core tools needed to ensure accurate billing, evaluate service delivery, or consistently document oversight activities. Without defined performance standards, real‑time access to dispatch data, or itemized documentation from the contractor, the City could not determine whether it received the services it paid for
    • The City has not adopted response-time targets or workload metrics
    • Invoices used repeated billing periods and identical dollar amounts even when staffing levels varied. Documentation was summary-level and often lacked itemized support.
    • Review steps varied by staff and were not guided by formal procedures.
    • MFD does not have a dedicated contract manager or standardized record-keeping approach.
    • Practices did not align with City contract-management guidance or internal control expectations.
  • TIMELINE
    • July 2021: piloted its mobile crisis response program in July 2021
    • Sept 2023: Moved the contract from the former Office of Performance and Innovation to the Neighborhood Safety Department and extended the term to August 15, 2025
    • Sept 2024: Moved contract to MFD and extended to Aug 2026
    • Aug 2026: Extended to EOY 2026
  • INVOICING
    • The Office of City Auditor was not able to obtain timecards or daily time records for BCR operations during this audit engagement;
    • nor did auditors receive supporting documentation during this engagement for $317,289 in program expense lines across the nine sampled invoices, including: legal, insurance, office space, and consultant costs
    • Canopy Roots bills according to its own business model. It uses a fixed template, but carries lines forward from month to month. It reports estimated hours and calculates its own year-to-date totals. MFD oversees the contract according to City requirements instead, which call for itemized, supported invoices and for monitoring of total spending.
    • Auditors did not conclude that any of the patterns above are anomalies. However, auditors identified the absence of a structure that would detect one.
    • MFD was assigned the existing contract on January 1, 2025, without written procedures. Review practices that are not written down or applied the same way each time give uneven assurance. Practices also depend on the knowledge of the person who performs them.
    • MFD does not have a dedicated program manager for this contract
  • OPPORTUNITIES FOR SERVICE
    • Mobile response for victims that follows SAMHSA’s “Continuum of Care” model could help victims navigate complex systems of assistance and reduce the gaps in time between an incident occurring and services being made available. The cycle of domestic abuse is difficult to break and mobile response could address the mental crisis associated with trauma and grief for those most affected.
      • the City should consider safe co-response with MCR and/or the Minneapolis Police Department (MPD), or mobile response after a scene is declared to be safe by the Minneapolis Police Department, including for the victim and the responder
    • "Telephonic Crisis Response" The Office of Community Safety should consider expanding the capabilities of virtual response to mental health crises
    • [Homelessness Response Program] expansion of services in Minneapolis through Mobile Crisis Response could augment the City’s existing efforts by offering services on a 24/7 basis, including mental health and substance abuse crisis response to accommodate co-occurring disorders, transport to shelter, and other immediate needs such as food, water, warmth, and medication delivery or administration.
  • MFD CLAIMS in letter to Auditor
    • MFD inherited a strained vendor relationship and a program lacking foundational administrative controls.
    • The vendor had already begun altering service practices, including declining certain responses, and no prior department had established expectations for reporting, credential monitoring, or detailed invoicing
    • For the three years preceding transfer, no service data had been collected from the vendor, and no operational continuity materials or procedures were passed to MFD

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