Hennepin County is staring down the barrel of a budget crisis. County leaders are bracing for massive cuts to essential services while sounding the alarm for what could be the largest tax levy increase in county history. Employees are being asked to take unpaid furlough days. Critical safety-net programs are teetering on the edge as federal relief dollars dry up.
Amidst this financial emergency, County Attorney Mary Moriarty, with full approval from the County Board of Commissioners, found $150,000 to hire a public relations firm.
Wren Collective isn’t some neutral PR firm brought in to help navigate a crisis. It’s a firm of former public defenders with a clear ideological bent. Their mission? To “dramatically decrease the legal system’s footprint.” Their job? To help Moriarty combat “misinformation” and explain her policies to the public. She defends this expenditure as a necessary response to “coordinated national attacks” from groups like the Heritage Foundation and police unions.
This isn’t Moriarty’s first questionable financial decision. Last year, she received Board approval to hire a D.C. law firm to support her politically motivated prosecution of State Trooper Ryan Londregan, a case so legally flawed the highly paid outside counsel urged her to drop it. She did. But not before nearly $600,000 of public money was spent.
Now, with a federal civil rights investigation underway into her race-based charging directive, she’s focused on burnishing her brand. And despite her already very large budget, the Hennepin County Board is providing her with additional financial support to do so.
The Commissioners who approved this contract should be held to account. They chose to support this expenditure during a budget crisis that has both essential services and potential jobs on the chopping block. The public has every right to ask: Whose priorities are you serving?
Moriarty’s defenders say the PR contract represents less than a quarter of 1% of her $84 million budget. But that’s a deflection. In the middle of a budget emergency, every dollar matters, and six figures is being spent to protect her policies, not protect the public. Moriarty’s choice to invest in a PR firm to polish and package her progressive agenda feels like a betrayal of the public’s expectation that she focus on prosecution and public safety.
The public did not elect Mary Moriarty to be an influencer-in-chief. And the County Board was not elected to be her enablers. If Moriarty wants to fight misinformation, she can start by stepping out from behind the spin doctors. And if the commissioners want to regain public trust, they can start by refusing to bankroll vanity projects.
Brandi Bennett is a long time Minnesota resident who works in criminal justice. The opinions are her own and do not reflect those of her employer.
