Two quick observations on our November 3rd exercises

1. Mayor Coleman the Second was reelected. It is certainly newsworthy and important. And I am sure that there are mandates in there some place and maybe somebody will correctly discern what they are and act accordingly.

In 2005 he unseated an incumbent mayor with thirty years of service in elective office and whatever personal machinery had been developed. In 2009, as an incumbent, he beat a non-incumbent with no political experience.

While that makes me question whether service as our mayor has helped Chris Coleman’s political future, it does indicate that he still has a present and we all need to respect that.

2. We approved IRV. It was close but the results did surprise me. It will be interesting to see how it develops when we choose councilmembers in 2011. It also leads me to question how we plan to pay for the 2011 school board primary.

Just a suggestion

Mayor Coleman the Second has announced in his budget address that he intends to keep at least some of the libraries open every day. This will undoubtedly aggravate what is already a confusing schedule for the general public to adjust to since various libraries have schedules which vary from day to day, generally Wednesday and Thursday varying from Tuesday and Friday.

Every library has a sign that tells its hours but you have to be up close to see most or all of them. The signs are pretty useless to people approaching the library by motor vehicle. Why don’t we have signs visible from the street?

Need a cop? Call a pol?

We are having cuts in LGA and other challenges to keeping enough police and other public servants working for us.

But we seem to have found a new source of public safety employment: Elected officials.

Yesterday’s paper told how Councilmember Melvin Carter III helped make a bust on an alleged pimp. Mayor Coleman the Second did a stint as a traffic cop a three years ago and Dan Bostrom [who is a retired cop] helped with an apprehension of a gun-toter a couple of years ago. And the late Councilmember Jim Reiter rode around in a retired police car looking to help out.

And today we learn how Senator Ellen Anderson became a bicycle theft detective.

Mayors used to have badge #1 and councilmembers also carried badges. Charlie McCarty used his enough to break up fights in the downtown White Castle and interfere [help?] in a hostage situation in the Hamline-Midway area [the same incident for which retired officer James Mann was belatedly honored earlier this year].

I don’t think councilmember are allowed to carry badges anymore and I don’t know if our mayor does.

But maybe we should look into it.

State of the city this afternoon

The state of the city speech will be given this afternoon at St. Joseph’s Hospital.

We will probably hear Mayor Coleman the Second tell us that we have problems, but that while we all come from different backgrounds that we are hardy and creative people who will somehow find a way to get through our problems.

But maybe the choice of a hospital is a good metaphor.

The parks cleanup as seen from Phalen Park AND District Council gets award

This morning was the annual Saint Paul Parks cleanup. People gathered at various parks around the city, received bags and instructions and proceeded to remove a lot of things which should not have been where they were. They all merit commendation.

One such gathering point was the Phalen Park picnic pavilion where a few dozen gathered. I do not know how many places had miniature programs before the public disembarked, Phalen Park did.

For those of you from St. Anthony Park or Mac-Groveland who may not be familiar with Phalen Park, the pavilion sits directly south of the statue defaced last year.

Mayor Coleman the Second was there to present the Payne/’Phalen District Council with an award for its work in organizing the community after last year’s vandalism to the statue. The mayor mentioned that he had been in China and discussed the statue with the maker and commended the neighborhood for its good work. Director Kerry Stone accepted the award along with President Ryan Kapaun, Sheldon Schwartz, Al Oertwig, and other directors, staff, and volunteers from the organization. The ceremony was short, to the point, and dignified [considering that all present were dressed as if they were going to a cleanup].

When mayors come to events, they seldom are early and leave as quickly as they can, probably often because there were other places they have had to be immediately before and after the given appearance. However, this time the mayor was there at least half an hour early, talking with people who came by, even this writer. [We agreed that remaining ambulatory was a good thing.]

Anyhow, congratulations to the Payne Phalen Council [for the record, I am a director but was not involved in this project] and thanks to all the volunteers who showed up at all the locations to help keep our city’s parks clean.

[Cf. Scarred statue, 08/10/08]

Whither goest ye, GOP? (And will we all learn to pronounce Ng?)

Every politician, probably especially incumbents, find people who would vote for Judas Iscariot [at least he knew where the money was] than for him/her. I am sure that Mayor Coleman the Second is no exception.

But right now people who are looking for a Judas or anybody else to vote for instead of him are at sea. John Krenik who had been the apparent GOP hope has switched to run for school board, apparently thinking that Tom Conlon needs assistance there.

So the Republicans have endorsed Eva Ng who says she sought that party’s endorsement even though she says she isn’t part of it, just an independent who wants to unseat Coleman. It used to be that actual Republicans [think Meredith, Konopatzki, Schaber, McCutcheon, Sonnen, Gaertner] ran as independents because they wanted to avoid the stigma that the GOP label brings about in our city. [And Mayor Coleman the first even pretended that he was a DFLer for a while to avoid that stigma.] Sometimes their personal charisma or other appeal got them elected and if they stayed in office long enough sometimes the DFL would adopt them. But Eva Ng must figure that the GOP image is no longer so dimly accepted or the DFL’s image is no longer as bright as it once was, or both.

In the meantime, those who are looking forward to getting a new mayor may be a bit confused. November is still quite a bit away, but for the moment we have gone from having two other options to one.

Neumeister receives Finnegan Award

It has been 25 years since I first met Rich Neumeister.  We are not bosom buddies, barely acquaintances actually, but over the last quarter century I have read about him and watched him constantly reminding various public officials, elected and otherwise of data privacy regulations, where they apply and where they ought to apply.

 

I am sure that there are a lot of politicians and quite a few more bureaucrats who shudder whenever the see the profile of a tall skinny man [especially if they can glimpse part of a handlebar mustache] approaching in corridors of government for fear that the profile will be revealed to be that of Mr. Neumeister.

 

Thanks to the DPP’s City Hall Scoop,  we learn that all of his work has earned him the John R. Finnegan Freedom of Information  Award which will be awarded on March 16^th.

 

I don’t know much about the history of the award or who other winners may have been, but it seems to be a well deserved honor for Rich Neumeister.  The City Hall Scoop article notes that he had to beat out all of the reporters for Minnesota radio, television, and newspapers to receive the honor.

 

Capitol City Musings wishes to note its congratulations also.  They seem especially apt when one notes the story yesterday in which it is noted that Mayor Coleman the Second in his capacity as a vice-president of the Minnesota League of Cities has been supporting a bill introduced by Senator Mee Moua which would allow cities to keep preliminary budget proposals and drafts private until a mayor actually submits them to a city council.

 

And yesterday’s article notes ironically concerns raised by Rich Neumeister as well as comments from Don Gemberling who served for a long time as the state’s director of information policy.

HAPPY DARWIN DAY

To many people this is Lincoln’s Birthday, the bicentennial of the birth of the man that many think our greatest president.

 

By coincidence or whatever, today is also the bicentennial of the birth of Charles Darwin.

 

Lincoln became president in 1861.  Darwin published Origin of the Species in 1859.  Both men became larger than life figures of the last half of the nineteenth century and continue to be so [albeit for much different reasons] today.  Advocates for racial justice have co-opted Lincoln;  atheists Darwin.

 

Lincoln was an American.  Darwin a subject of the Crown we had to get out of our lives to become free people.

 

Our mayor has chosen to proclaim today Darwin Day.

They are gone

Well, the GOP people have left and the process[es] of assessment/reassessment has/have begun.

I think that Joe Soucheray has it right when he thinks that Mpls. pulled one over on our civic leaders. They got the money spenders and partiers and we got the barricades and protesters. And despite what our leaders say, they had to know that you cannot invite a convention without inviting protesters, both “legitimate” and other, when you invite a major party, especially the party in power to come to your city. I don’t know whether we will find out that our authorities overreacted to them or not. I suspect that the officials will have the official version, but history never has clear consensuses.

Mayor Coleman the Second tells us that the whole extravaganza was a success, but tell that to the people who tried to navigate through our city, to the businesspeople whose customers who could not find them, to the people whose medical procedures at United or St. Joseph’s had to be delayed, to the locally-licensed taxi drivers whose once-in-a-lifetime chance for a bonanza was taken away by authorities who decided to let anybody in the world with a top light on his/her car pretend to be driving a taxi. [Taxicab drivers in this city can tell you that this is nothing new, but the magnitude of the event made it seem worse. Check Grand Avenue late at night on any weekend or the Excel/NSP arena after any hockey game or big concert and take a look yourself, if you wish.]

Mayor Coleman the First was in his glory, bragging to delegates and whomever else was listening that he had made the building possible. Running for reelection to the Senate, he needed every chance he could want to bow.

Mayor Coleman the Second had assured us that business would not only be normal, but that there would be extra things for us to enjoy, including the display of an “original copy” [lovely oxymoron] of the Declaration of Independence at City Hall from Monday through Thursday.

That was a lie. I went there on Wednesday about noon and could not find it. CH/CH staff did not know where it had gone, but the man in building operations thought it might have gone to someplace on Summit Avenue. My own email inquiries have told me that it was there as late as Tuesday and have raised the suggestion that it was moved to a Summit Avenue residence for GOP fundraising purposes. I have not been informed of any more likely possibility, but am still willing to accept suggestions.

Eagle Street Grille hedged its bets by renting the whole place to CNN which brought in its own chef but allowed the local wait staff to work. But Soucheray notes that Mancini’s was almost empty. How can that be possible? And how can anybody think that any event designed to attract so many people with that much disposable money just a mile away who don’t make it to Mancini’s can be a good thing?

Of course, we did get to see “Saint Paul” or its truncated cousin “St. Paul” on a lot of printed and visual media, but does that make us feel that much better? And Minneapolis still got first billing on the convention logo.

They say that this was a “once in a lifetime’ event. Let’s hope that they are right.

Where are we?

I often wonder if people in Fort Worth or Superior or Moorhead or Oakland or St. Petersburg or Tacoma feel the same way we do sometimes. After all, we all have the same problem. We live in cities [clearly cities with our own urban identities, not suburbs, and in many cases good cities] which are located next to or near a larger city. And I wonder how often the media, even alleged news media for whom an obligation to factual accuracy would seem to be important, fail to properly identify them and what takes place in them.

We have already seen and heard more incorrect references to the site of this year’s Republican National Convention than most of us care to note.

These things are not new. I imagine that they have been going on since the nineteenth century. One of the earliest memories of seeing television screw this up was when Democratic Presidential nominee George McGovern stopped by during a campaign stop in the 1972 election. [Actually, I had never owned a television until that summer when I got a used black and white which only received VHF to watch the political conventions.] NBC showed the South Dakota senator speaking from behind a podium which clearly said “Saint Paul Hilton” and put a caption on the screen saying, “Minneapolis.” I don’t follow ice hockey, but have heard references to a hockey team going to Minneapolis to play the Wilds.

Well, Katie Couric recently made this same, common mistake and even our Governor got confused. [There was an incident involving Michele Bachmann, but I haven’t figured enough out about that one yet to figure out the whole context and, frankly, I doubt if she is worth the effort of finding out.]

Couric was confused, Pawlenty likely was just spiteful. Couric apologized. Pawlenty had his spokesperson waffle. We have no reason to suspect that Couric wishes us ill. Maybe she had just seen too many stories of Mayor Coleman the Second running around with Rybak acting as if their cities were sharing the hosting of this awful event. We know that Pawlenty wishes us ill. [In addition to living in Eagan which ought to be a clear enough indication of his spite toward us, he has compiled a legislative and gubernatorial record which make it manifest, his veto of Central Corridor notwithstanding.] He is the enemy of Minneapolis also, but it is easy to confuse ones enemies. After all Pawlenty’s friends Bush and McCain know that whomever is not ones friend is ones enemy, a blanket assumption which can lead to a lot of confusion.

I doubt that there is any easy solution. We can continue to call the errors to people’s attention, but that is likely no more productive than our efforts to catch traffic scofflaws on Edgerton or elsewhere.

I know that people still screw this all up for other places too. Local media, including the DPP have referred to the Twins or somebody else going to Tampa to play the Rays.

Well, let’s keep our eyes and ears open. As far as the pols are concerned we can do our best to influence or possibly remove them. And for the media we need to remember to factor all of this in when we evaluate the other things they tell us.

Who's watching the store? OR A Bridge between them?

I had never heard of 24-hour, no-frills, unstaffed health clubs before this morning. I suppose I can see possible problems. After all, seeing possible problems is something I seem to have a knack for. And, according to at least one Administrative Law Judge, present city code does require that staff be on premises at all times.

If I read this morning’s newspaper story correctly, David Thune, current and past councilmember from City Council District [often called “Ward”] Two is against them and wants the law to stay the way the ALJ is interpreting it. I am surmising that if the ALJ opinion is not upheld that he would want an ordinance adopted to require that they be staffed whenever they are open.

Another former councilmember from that same district, Mayor Coleman the Second, is quoted in the DPP as saying, "It can't be OK everywhere else and be somehow more risky in St. [sic] Paul." [Note to the Mayor’s fans, of whom there must be some: “Sic” is inserted because that is what is done here at CCM when we find the name of our city unnecessarily abbreviated. However, I suspect that His Honor made the statement orally and it is just the paper’s defective, penny-pinching style sheet which instituted the abbreviation. So save the letters, or at least send them on other things.]

This is quite a choice, having to choose between these two men, who usually seem to only be separated by the High Bridge.

It has been traditional in our culture to recognize that problems are possible in a lot of businesses and to adopt codes to protect the public from unscrupulous or incompetent operators. We license, charter, or regulate restaurants and bars, building contractors, motor vehicles and drivers, pawn shops, utilities, and scores of other things.

Sometimes [probably most of the time] we regulate well or at least “pretty good”. Other times we fail. And sometimes we forget why we license and legislate or enforce from outdated models.

Old timers may remember [probably 25 or 30 years ago] when Sister Rosalind wanted to open her first massage center in the city. She had to face a lot of legislative hostility because we had several places which had been known as “massage parlors” in town which had been serving as fronts for prostitution and for whom the city had adopted some drastic regulations. [Regulations don’t always work as they are intended. By the time Sister Rosalind was applying for her licenses, all or almost all of the former “massage parlors” had quit offering massages and were no longer affected by them. They were still open, just weren’t “massage parlors” anymore.]

I sometimes have wondered if her fight might have been too difficult to pursue had she not been a middle-aged Catholic nun, but she got changes made after telling our city leaders that she resented the proposition that she and her employees were in the prostitution business and were entitled for more dignified treatment. Ordinances were altered, but they still worked from the anti-prostitution perspective for several more years, including requiring that masseur/masseuse licenses be issued by the City Council and that the licensee’s name be on the City Council agenda and minutes.

And I would be remiss if I forget to mention that having regulations guarantees the public that they will be enforced. For one thing, government bureaucrats seem to find it easier to hassle those with licenses than those who operate without them. Any licensed taxicab driver or owner in our city knows that

Thune says that the new style health clubs present a neighborhood issue and threatens to enlist the support of neighborhood organizations, especially District Councils. Maybe he will indeed get such help, but I suspect that while they may give him some lip service that most neighborhood organizations are already so deeply committed to fighting more obvious crime and the decay in our housing situations and developing stable business and social environments to jump on that bandwagon really hard.

Phalen Village Cub groundbreaking

I just returned from the groundbreaking for the new Phalen Village Cub store at 1157 Clarence.

Chuck Repke [who somehow manages to continue serving as Executive Director of both NENDC and District 2 Community Council] did a wonderful job as master of ceremonies. The expected politicians and developers gave the usual speeches.

Mayor Coleman the Second spoke first and suggested that perhaps Dan Bostrom could find future employment at the new store. It was made to look like it was being said in humor. The audience is free to make their own individual conclusions.

Councilmember Bostrom then commented that if he worked there that he would not be able to be a greeter for [a large Arkansas-based discount chain whose name I prefer to withhold], leaving one to wonder how he knew that said chain even had greeters.

Representatives of Oppidan and Cub spoke. Appropriate City staff people [including Penny Simison, Sheri Pemberton, Larry Zangs, and Tom Beach] were complimented for their work in making the thing possible and Oppidan’s representative lauded Mr. Repke.

In other words, it went pretty much to form as groundbreakings go.

Previous post: Revealing the Sign [11/1/2007]

Observation on the McCall-Helgen matter

There has been a lot of discussion at the Saint Paul Issues Forum and elsewhere about Councilmember Helgen’s apparently being able to keep Mayor Coleman the Second from reappointing a Planning Commissioner [Sue McCall] who supported his opponent last year.

People who read this blog may have surmised [and surmised correctly] that I am not a fan of Mr. Helgen. But politics is politics and it seems that Ms. McCall picked the wrong candidate.

What surprised me is that nobody seems to have been spotting the other, more serious problem that has apparently been around for years, that Ms. McCall is a district council employee [District 10 – Como Park, a major portion of which is in Ward Five].

I had not been aware that this had been going on. I don't know how I missed it. But this would seem to threaten the integrity of the Citizen Participation in two ways:

1. There is always a threat when district council staff get on the wrong side in the choice of the people who fund a major part of their operation.

2. Even with the politics removed, the possible conflicts of interest of a district council staff person serving on the Planning Commission seem astounding. Whether your job requires you to be advocating your council’s position or not, it cannot always be easy to have to vote on something when your employer has one position something and your own best judgment or the law suggests a different one.

[For more information on this particular topic you might want to check the SPIF link on the right.]

Payne Maryland Partnership announces choice of visioning agency

At a media conference this afternoon, Payne/Maryland Partnership announced the choice of Hoisington Koegler Group, inc [HKGi] to be its visioning agency.

Speaking were Councilmember Bostrom, Mayor Coleman the Second, Greg Shipp of the Merrick Community Services Board, Barbara Schmidt of Arlington Hills Lutheran Church, and James Bradshaw of Bradshaw Mortuaries. [pictured]

Councilmember Bostrom spoke of the opportunities the partnership has and the challenges it faces, putting it into Payne Avenue historical perspective. The mayor spoke on the opportunities and possibilities. Mr. Shipp and Ms. Schmidt spoke on how their organizations are interested in cooperating and noted the 99^th and 100^th anniversaries of their organizations occurring this year.

After telling a stale undertaker joke, Mr. Bradshaw mentioned the changes in the death industry and suggested ways that his concern might fit into the project.

While I did not notice the presence of any other elected officials, the relevant city staff was there as well as representatives from neighborhood organizations. There were few questions, but a representative from HKGi was introduced in response to one of them and assured people that there would be a chance for public input into the matter. [Unfortunately, due to the acoustics of the room and my diminished hearing, I did not catch the man’s name.]

The visioning plan has an April 1, 2008 target for completion and will be holding a public open house at Arlington Hills Lutheran Church [1115 Greenbrier] on January 31 from 6:00 to 7:30 p.m.

Just a Followup

Our City Council has decided that yuppie and yuppie wannabees will not have to starve, that they will get a new place to find food in a new Trader Joe's store at Randolph and Lexington.

While I am still wondering whether they aren’t putting too much on too little, it is good that people in Highland, Macalester-Groveland, and Summit Hill will have a place to find their vittles. [People from West Seventh could too if any can afford it.]

There had been speculation that the votes for the required rezoning would not be there, but with the apparent encouragement of Mayor Coleman the Second. all of the Councilmembers except for Thune voted in favor,

I can understand why Thune might not have liked the proposal, but usually when a councilmember is the one in a six-to-one there is some deep matter of principal involved.

Of course, if anybody has any idea why Thune would be the holdout, comments are accepted here.

Earlier PostRandolph and Lexington OR Where can a Starving Yuppie Find Nutrition

Transit and taxes

The last time I saw Mayor Coleman the Second live and in person was at the sign unveiling for the Phalen Village Cub Store.

A few years ago when Ted Mondale was the Metro Council chairperson, he met with people from East Side organizations in an office at Payne and York, right on what was then the #14 bus line.

They both arrived at these events by car.

Outside of perhaps some kind of publicity shot, has anybody seen Governor Plenty [or his predecessor, Governor Janos] or R.T. Rybak on a bus or light rail?

Ugly Truth about Transit: THOSE WHO PUSH IT THE MOST NEVER PLAN ON USING TRANSIT THEMSELVES. Nor for that matter do most of those whose jobs will come from building new railways or busways.

Another Ugly Truth about Transit and Freeways both: WHATEVER THE INITIAL INTENTION INVOLVED IN THEIR CREATION, THEY FOSTER ECONOMIC SEGREGATION. We should note that there is one notable difference between the road projects and bus/train projects. The former are needed to get people to other of the country’s and the region’s cities. The second cannot do that. We need roads to connect Saint Paul to Minneapolis, Duluth, Chicago, or even Salt Lake City. No MTC bus will do that. Greyhound will, but they need roads. The problem with the way we built our freeways is that we put too many interchanges too close to the city. If 35E had been built with no interchanges between Larpenteur and Forest Lake or 94 with no way to get on or off between McKnight and Bayport, there would have been fewer people finding Vadnais Heights or Woodbury as fit places to live.

We say people drive too much and should use transit more. Americans aren’t about to give up their cars quickly. The car provides us with freedom [as in flexibility] and Americans have come to love that freedom. The answer is not to have us driving less often, just shorter distances. Driving three miles to work uses a lot less energy than driving forty.

Just ponder for a minute: We spend billions of dollars from a variety of taxing jurisdictions building, operating, and maintaining our transit systems. What could we do or could we have done had we spent similar money making all areas fit places for people of all strata to live, work, and recreate?

Big changes in attitude and focus on the part of federal, state, metropolitan, and municipal planners and doers will be required. Money spent on things like housing diversity, local job creation, good schools everywhere, and keeping places of shopping, recreation, and worship nearby will reduce that desire to go forty miles or more each way to work. Money will be needed for things like soil correction and local street improvements.

But continuing to throw money at transit, such as is being proposed in a new sales tax for transit does not seem like the way to a good future.