Minneapolis City Council Member Robert Lilligren has represented the 6th Ward of the City of Minneapolis since January, 2006. He was first elected to represent the 8th Ward in November 2001. With no political background or experience, he entered public life because of a strong desire to help his fellow Minneapolitans and to bring a strong voice to core-city concerns.

A member of the White Earth Band of Ojibwe, he is the first American Indian tribal member to serve on the Minneapolis City Council. Robert is one of three openly gay members currently serving on the Minneapolis City Council. The 6th Ward was the first to elect an openly gay city council representative in 1983, the late Brian Coyle.

Robert has a strong background in community activism, housing development, and on transportation issues.  He is a self-employed small-scale housing developer/property manager. When first elected to office, Robert was serving as a volunteer on eight different community boards and commissions including as a founder and vice-chair of Phillips West Neighborhood organization, the Midtown Greenway Coalition (a bike/walk advocacy group), the Hennepin County-appointed I-35W Project Advisory Committee and as an advisor and board member to non-profit housing groups throughout South Minneapolis.

A key focus of Robert’s first term in office was helping to jump start the stalled Sears project, now the up and running Midtown Exchange. His leadership helped to set and exceed historically high minority and women workforce and contractor goals for the project. He drafted language into the project’s Request for Proposals (RFP) that allowed for the creation of the Global Market. This international indoor open market brings opportunities for local entrepreneurs, many of them new arrivals and immigrants. This term he shifts his focus to the reopening of Nicollet Avenue at Lake St. as a priority.

Transportation policy, planning and funding have become special areas of work and interest for Council Member Lilligren. He represents the City at several regional and statewide transportation tables where he advocates for alternative transportation and a balanced, multi-modal system.

This term Robert has led the efforts to invest a $25 million federal grant to Minneapolis to shift people from motorized to non-motorized transportation. He was appointed to the advisory board to recommend regional transit investments with the counties quarter-cent sales tax for transit. And he was invited to Washington DC to participate as a panelist in two educational sessions of the 2009 National Transportation Research Board to share his expertise in the governance of non-motorized transportation.

Robert Lilligren was born in Duluth, MN in 1960. He is the son of Chuck Lilligren, of WCCO Radio fame and Marge (Nelson) Lilligren. He grew up in Ham Lake, MN about 30 miles north of Minneapolis and moved to the Phillips West Neighborhood, from Loring Heights (another 6th Ward neighborhood), in 1982.

He has helped revitalize his once crime ridden block. Committed to life in the City, Robert doesn’t own a car – he relies on his bike, his feet or mass transit to get around.  He brings a street level perspective to his work on the City Council. He is an avid reader, a year ‘round bike/walk commuter, a classically trained singer and an energetic advocate for Minneapolis.