Council President Elliott Payne is turning up the heat on Mayor Jacob Frey, urging him to pull the plug on Minneapolis' contract with Zencity Technologies US Inc. before a key March 1 deadline. Payne is casting the move as a response to months of organizing and criticism over the vendor's practices and the city's reliance on digital surveys to gauge how residents feel about public safety and the Minneapolis Police Department.
In a Feb. 24 letter, Payne presses Frey to give formal notice of termination by March 1 and points out that the next Zencity payment is set for April 1. That timing comes from a post on Facebook, where Minneapolis Ward 8 Council Member Soren Stevenson wrote that Payne had met with constituents who raised alarms about surveillance, ethics and whether the city could simply run its own survey work instead.
How the Zencity Deal Landed at City Hall
The three-year, $500,000 deal with Zencity was approved by the council in October 2023, according to the City Council contract file. The Minneapolis Police Department began using a Zencity digital survey tool in December 2023 to collect feedback about MPD and public safety, according to an MPD bulletin.
In December the full council signed off on a budget amendment that included a resolution urging the mayor to terminate the Zencity contract, and that step was later certified in city records, according to a public notice in Finance & Commerce. Local reporting has also noted that the amendment shifted the planned spending toward community safety programs instead of Zencity's survey work.
Why Critics Want It Cut
Community groups and several council members argue the contract poses privacy and ethical problems and say the city could handle the work in-house after months of rallies, petitions and public testimony, according to the Minnesota Daily. Organizers have also flagged concerns about the company's origins and its use of targeted digital outreach to collect survey responses.
Zencity and city officials, for their part, have defended the contract and the survey data as tools meant to improve accountability and policing. Local coverage has quoted Zencity leadership rejecting claims that the company is used for military surveillance and has noted that Mayor Frey has warned that canceling a competitively awarded contract could expose the city to legal risk, per reporting from TC Jewfolk.
What Happens Next
Payne's letter sets a tight clock. If the mayor issues notice quickly, the contract could be halted before the spring payment goes out, a timeline that activists have been watching since budget talks late last year. Reporting on the contract says the city reserved termination rights in its procurement documents and that 30-day notice language will shape whatever decision comes next, according to MR Online and city filings.
For now the fight is part legal briefing, part political brawl. Advocates want the money shifted to civilian investigators and neighborhood safety efforts, while the administration is warning about legal exposure and standing by the value of the data. In the next few days, Minneapolis will decide whether to keep Zencity on the payroll this spring or pull the plug before another quarterly payment hits.
