What Would/Will You Do With $600?

I have withheld my comment on the proposal[s] to cure our economic woes by giving Americans a few hundred dollars [the number which keeps reappearing is $600] so we can spend more.

One reason for withholding comment is that I try to focus more on local matters. Another is that I just don’t understand the tactic.

We’ve been hearing for years that collectively we Americans don’t save enough and are really broke, that bankruptcies and credit card arrears are rampant. So one would think that if we got a sudden bonus that we would think that we should all go to our bank and either deposit that bonus or apply it to our debts. But no, I guess we’re supposed to spend this new windfall.

There are problems I see right away.

We already have record national debt. The government is broke itself. Any money it gives us now will be a debt that our children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren [and the children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren of our friends, neighbors, and relatives] will end up being responsible for, likely increasingly owing it more and more to foreign creditors. Yet somehow we are being asked to have the government spend more.

It’s funny. Not that long ago, you could get evicted from a Republican gathering just for mentioning the name of John Maynard Keynes. It would have been akin to suggesting to the Vatican that the Buddha should be canonized. This new kind of “voodoo economics” seems a lot like a modern version of the Emperor’s New Clothes, a yet nobody seems willing to call to call attention to the rulers collective nakedness.

Even if giving everybody $600 [or whatever other agreed upon amount becomes enacted] were done, it might have very limited ability to help the general economy. $600 seems like an amount that would finance one heckuva trip to Mystic Lake for many people around here. That might help the economy of the Dakota, but wouldn’t do an awful lot for our neighbors on the East Side, Mac-Groveland, West Seventh, or elsewhere in our city. And there will those [perhaps inadvertently so] unpatriotic persons who insist on depositing their money or paying off debt.

It seems likely that finding a way to trickle the money out to the public [e.g., $10/week less withholding tax or $43 per month in Social Security] for a year instead of $600 in one shot which would actually be cheaper] would encourage more actual spending through more trips to restaurants, cinemas, clothiers, or even yuppie coffee shops. And people aren’t as likely to do something stupid like saving the smaller amounts.

What I guess I find most amazing is that it seems that nobody seems to raise any questions about this whole disingenuousness. Instead the whole issue seems to be whether we can give more money to more people. Admittedly, some of those people are folks who likely will be apt to put more of the bonus into the economy than a lot of those included in the House version, but I guess I just cannot understand why it seems that no responsible “leader” has questioned the whole scheme in the first place.

Maybe somebody here has an idea why.

Annoncement -- Treasure Hunt [sort of]

Even if you had not read any of the previous clues, today's would tell you that the Boreas medallion must be in Mounds Park. It will be found any time now.

After it has been over for a few days, we will start the first Capitol City Musings treasure hunt. The reward is up to $10000 less than the DPP and Carnival offer, but you don’t have to get out into the cold.

It is really a ripoff of the old Capitol City Cacophony treasure hunt, but I feel free to rip it off from there.

Rules and details will be published later. In the meantime look at this picture.

Religious Freedom Day

His Excellency, George Walker Bush, President of the United States, has declared today to be Religious Freedom Day.

Who knew?

While we are undoubtedly freer religiously than we were in 1786 when the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom [attributed to Thomas Jefferson and the date of its adoption was chosen to establish this day] came about, there are still unanswered questions.

Religious freedom is like a lot of other freedoms. We all think it is good as long as we only have to think theoretically about the subject and as long as the other religious practices are not TOO strange.

But what about imams in airplanes?

Or creationists in universities?

Or gays or lesbians whose clergy have proclaimed them duly married but whose government thinks otherwise?

Or boys and girls who are obviously not old enough to make their own religious choice being mutilated by circumcision?

Or polygamous people from pseudo-Mormon or other sects?

Obviously there are lines that need to be drawn. Figuring out where they are to be is the problem.

But while the rest of society struggles with these things, W does the easy thing and makes a proclamation.

Maybe what should have been proclaimed was a day of thought.

Central Corridor again

Governor Plenty says that we need compromise to reduce the scope of the Central Corridor Light Rail.

We need to eliminate the hookup to the Union Depot or the University campus tunnel or both. And we certainly cannot add stops at places where they might be useful.

I have a suggestion:
Eliminate the whole thing.

Earlier posts: Moving the Train [12/16/07], Transit and Taxes [12/7/07]

GOP Inconsistent? Louisiana followup

In a post here on October 21, I noted the election of a Republican governor in Louisiana and suggested that a GOP governor there would mean that Norm and other Republican leaders nationwide and here would be able to call for the removal of Vitters without losing the seat, thus showing consistency and lack of bias after having so quickly and loudly calling for the resignation of Senator Craig.

Governor Jindal took office yesterday. So far I haven’t seen that Norm or any other GOP senator has made any such request.

Make your own inferences.

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.

Coming in 2011 Redistricting

An apparently self-appointed, blue-ribbon group of Minnesota’s political elder statespeople (1) [Mondale, Moe, Carlson, Blatz, Growe, others] is recommending that the legislature no longer be the body to apportion legislative districts. They think that legislatively drawn districts protect incumbents and, by being more accommodating to the parties of the various incumbents, tend to become more polarized districts which then elect and reelect more polarized incumbents.

They are suggesting a panel of retired appeals court judges who have never been partisan political candidates.

Maybe a panel is not a bad idea, but the thinking is faulty. Three of the last four apportionment plans have not been given to us by legislative process but by federal judicial action instead. The legislature that passed the one legislatively established plan in 1991 wouldn’t have been able to it had somebody on Governor Carlson’s senior staff [or even Arne himself] read the state’s constitution and noted that there was a deadline for signing or vetoing legislation. If our legislature is too partisan it cannot be because of the way the legislature drew the districts.

Pure partisanship indeed can be a problem for redistricting by legislative process. Following the 1970 census and the elections of that year the GOP controlled both houses of the legislature and Wendell Anderson had become governor(2). Following the census and election of 1980, the DFL controlled both houses and Al Quie was governor. The 1991 reapportionment is noted above and after 2000 each party had a house of the legislature and Governor Janos [aka Ventura] did not like either one.

But pure partisanship is not the only problem. Every redistricting is a threat to every incumbent, regardless of party, until the actual lines are known. For example, the one plan that the [DFL] legislature did adopt removed two veteran East Side legislators [Sen. Gene Waldorf and Rep. Richard O’Connor] by creating the “Waldorf finger,” a wedge of District 66 [and 66A] which extended eastward in a narrow path tapering eastward so that it was about a quarter-mile wide when it reached Senator Waldorf’s home near Lake Phalen, from. It put O’Connor who lived north of the finger into a suburban district and Waldorf into a much more hostile district which then elected Ellen Anderson(3).

Problems will come about whatever system is used. Maybe a commission to draw legislative boundaries would be an improvement. However, we should not accept it as being the cure for the various problems that redistricting can bring about. And it will not address the problems that force the redistricting in the first place.

Footnotes

1. I think it was Harry Truman who as former president said that “elder statesman” was a nice way of saying “has been.”
2. Historical footnote: Judges did the redistricting in 1971-72 twice actually. The first judicial panel, apparently made up of activist judges, reduced the size of the legislature as well as redistricted it so that there would be 105 House member and 35 Senators. They also managed to put three of Saint Paul’s DFL senators into one district, partly by moving a line which ran up Edgerton to have a one-block swing to Payne Avenue to include Senator Chenoweth’s residence. The Senate appealed this to a higher court and a second redistricting was done, but it wasn’t until about March of that election year (1972) that anybody knew where the legislative boundaries were.
3. O’Connor had been somewhat an embarrassment as the legislative leader in receiving per diem payments. Waldorf was a thorn in the side for those who wanted to make the DFL unanimously “pro-choice." He had also refused any per diem and that may have made him a bit of embarrassment for different reasons.
This redistricting also fostered the careers of Betty McCollum who became the representative from the new, suburban district and, as notted, Ellen Anderson who collects a lot more per diem than Waldorf ever did.

Well, we always have to have somebody to feel better than.

It is human nature for us to divide into “us” and “them” and the powers that run a society always seem to find it helps to keep those who are not running the society making the distinction and making it incorrectly. As cynics have noted, the robber barons have worked this well for a long time, keeping groups of different white ethnicities on guard against each other, and when that didn’t work, pitting Chinese or blacks against whites. And now the Republican governor is out against illegal immigrants again. And he probably would not mind if his action scared away some legal ones too.

The target is being redirected again. In a Community Voice post on Minnpost.com, Barb Kucera notes

Remember the heavily hyped myth of the "welfare queen" in the Reagan era? She's disappeared — replaced by those "illegals" who are trying to take your job. As long as workers of different backgrounds view each other with suspicion and even hatred, we can't get together to solve our problems.

She concludes by noting

We live in a global economy where millions of people are forced to leave their homes and their countries to find work to feed their families, while millions more are witnessing steep declines in their wages, benefits and working conditions. Meanwhile, corporations pile on the profits, destroying communities, the environment and people's lives with impunity.

Is this the kind of world we want? As long as working people stay mired in name-calling, they'll never ask that question.

We need to resist the temptation to get so carried away with us v. them that we forget that we all are pretty much the same.

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

But Will They Respect Us in the Morning

Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing, a big multi-national corporation based in Maplewood, has announced plans to completely leave Saint Paul after almost one hundred years.

In some ways, this announcement seems overdue since it has seemed for at least a quarter of a century that Mining was planning on leaving.

Combine the fact that probably most Mining stockholders no longer have any contact with any of Minnesota any longer with the fact that manufacturing is leaving most of our country and with the fact that cities are viewed by suburbanites as places only for exploitation, the continuing presence of such a major manufacturing site was probably anachronistic.

This will create what will likely be several sites for redevelop-
ment along Phalen Corridor. How that is done will make a lot of difference for those of us who are still here for the next several generations. The company says there is no pollution on the site to limit development. [We’ll see.] Councilmember Bostrom has indicated that he is open to a lot of ideas, including big box retail. I suspect that most neighbors are, but I would certainly prefer something which provides as many good jobs as possible, which big box often does not do. But I don’t imagine that the whole site could ever go big box, partly because of a shortage of customer base and partly because there are likely infrastructure problems.

But we will see how that all develops. It will take a while.

But there is no reason for the city, Dayton’s Bluff D4 Community Council, and Payne/Phalen D5 Planning Council to begin to move on this.

And there is no reason why we cannot immediately take steps to no longer give any consumer preferences to products labeled “Scotch” or “3M”.

Ambition, the hidden trait

One of the things we as Americans pride ourselves on is that we have the ability to elect our leaders. We read up and study up on them and make our choices after due deliberation. We study who they are, what they think, and what they want to do. Largely what we study, especially for candidates seeking state or national office, comes indirectly and is influenced by what the politicians themselves want us to see and hear.

And one of the myths those who want to be our leaders have is that they are in politics for reasons other than their own personal ambition.

Michael Kinsey in Time [1/14/08] covers this in his back page essay.

Ambition can take many forms. Four decades ago, Norman Podhoretz, the editor of Commentary, created a sensation with a book called Making It that revealed how even intellectuals are ambitious. But the purest form of ambition is political ambition, because it represents a desire to rule over other people.

When you hear the presidential candidates carrying on about democracy and freedom, do you ever wonder what they would be saying if they had been born into societies with different values? What if Mitt Romney had come to adulthood in Nazi Germany? What if Hillary Clinton had gone to Moscow State University and married a promising young apparatchik? What if Barack Obama had been born in Kenya, like his father, where even now people are slaughtering one another over a crooked election? Which of them would be the courageous dissidents, risking their lives for the values they talk about freely—in every sense—on the campaign trail? And which would be playing the universal human power game under the local rules, whatever they happened to be?

Without naming names, I believe that most of them would be playing the game. What motivates most politicians, especially those running for President, is closer to your classic will-to-power than to a deep desire to reform the health-care system. Alpha males are alpha males (and alpha females, ditto): it's true among apes, and it's true among humans. This doesn't make them bad people. It makes them people. It also doesn't make democracy a farce; there will always be more than enough alpha types to go around, and our right to choose among them still gives us plenty of leverage about the kind of society we live in.

I am not sure that political ambition is a more pure form of ambition than business ambition and I don’t pretend to know what Hillary would have done had she matured in the Soviet Union or what Mitt would have done in Germany or what Norm would have done during the Spanish Inquisition or what Boschwitz would have done if his family had fled to Mexico instead of the United States. You could waste a lot of time musing on this, but you could also find yourself getting some ideas of what you might do yourself in different circumstances.

Courts are full of divorce proceedings and business disputes that arose from problems developing between people who thought they knew each other well. Since we know all of our politicians much less well, I am not certain that we would have any better perspective on those who would be our leaders.

But it is something to think about.

Thinking Outside the Box?

Is this what they call “thinking outside the box”? Or at least outside the city limits?

In an article in today’s DPP, Ken Harycki, the mayor of Stillwater says, among other things, that they are looking at using land they own in Wisconsin [yes, Wisconsin] known as Kolliner Park for a dog park because, as he noted "Everyone wants a dog park, but not in their neighborhood.

This acknowledgement of a likely need that nobody wants immediately near seems to put dog parks in a category similar to big box stores, landfills, or low-cost housing. But aside from making that perhaps pithy point, it does make me wonder:

Is there property that Saint Paul owns outside the city limits which might make a good dog park? I’m thinking Lilydale, but maybe Water Works Property to the north would work also.

Two Followups

Just brief followup on two things posted earlier.

ONE. The DPP has an article today about the 301 Club in South Saint Paul and how the mislabeled “Freedom to Breathe” Act is cramping it to the verge of extinction because the allow AA meetings at their facility.

Remember, the Tobacco Taliban has neither decency nor mercy.

Earlier post

TWO. Despite Gov. Plenty’s scheduling a quick election to fill a seat he made vacant, DFL candidate Kevin Dahle was elected to the District 25 seat. This gives the DFL a theoretical veto-proof majority in the upper house.

The best plans don’t always work.

Earlier post

RIP 2007

Saint Paul lost many people in 2007, people whose contributions enriched families, neighborhoods, or the city as a whole. Of course nobody knew them all and I probably knew very few.

But in this post I will mention some who left our city a better place and whom I had the opportunity to meet. Some of these people I did know fairly well, others only casually, but I know that they are people the city misses.

The listing is intended to be chronological and not a ranking of any kind. It is also not a geographically balanced view of the city’s losses since I have not been geographically balanced.

Clara H. B. Hackett. Worked with Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, taught religious education at Lutheran churches on the East Side, taught children art at Wilder Rec Center where she was also a booster and ran “Clara’s Kitchen” at fundraisers. She spent several years on the Payne/Phalen District Five Planning Council Board, including time as Parliamentarian and with the Case-Payne Community Council. She was the WCCO Good Neighbor and a member of the Neighborhood Honor Roll. I remember pushing her wheelchair down to the front at Arlington High School so she could receive the Honor Roll certificate from Mayor Norm Coleman and how excited she was to shake the man’s hand.

June E. Noyes. She was one of the first residents of the Phalen Shores apartment building and was an early resident leader while the residents dealt with an unresponsive landlord who was supposed to be developing the decaying Gillette Hospital West Wing which had become a pigeon preserve ten feet outside their new building. After the landlord was replaced as the developer she continued her vigilance until finally the Minnesota Humanities Center was successfully relocated into the building.

Frank J Rodriguez, sr. His election to the Minnesota House in a special election in 1979 gave the DFL the house majority. A long-time labor man, he faithfully served until somebody more ambitious pushed him out of the way.

Eileen Corry. A long time concerned citizen in the Payne Avenue area who was active in many things, an election judge for decades at Wheelock School, and one who could raise several other people, including some in the major media when something which really concerned her came up. She was an early believer/leader of the Independence Party. You never wanted to ask her about “Triple Creek Ridge.”

Carl E Norberg, jr. An attorney who was legislative aide to Councilmember Jack Christensen and could reliably be seen at political and civic events. I hadn’t seen him or his wife for quite a while, but I remember working with him on DFL things when I was living in Summit-University.

Nick P Mancini. Much eulogized restaurant owner. Many years ago [c. 1985] I went into his Char House with the late Joe Pangal after a Zoning Committee meeting. [Joe was the chairperson of the committee whom I had known since the days when we both lived on Ramsey Hill. I was a District Council president who had just made a case to the committee]. I had been in the place a few times, but I didn’t know Mr. Mancini. But Joe and he knew each other well. They probably talked for about half an hour after we had eaten and I learned a lot about our city’s Italian-American community’s heritage and just who was related to whom. I guess I had been only vaguely aware of the Upper Levee before then.

Lester C Johnson. A member of the Neighborhood Honor Roll, Les [usually accompanied by his late wife Faye] spent several years on the Payne/Phalen District Five Planning Council Board and could be found at almost anything going on which needed volunteers. He especially seemed to like cleanups. With his wife they also helped out at their niece’s CRP which helped troubled teenaged girls become responsible adults.

Florence Tedesco. When Victor Tedesco retired from the City Council, he said that Florence deserved sainthood for putting up with him through all she had. She ended up getting twenty more years of things to put up with.

Ernest Purfeerst. He was bicycling before bicycling was cool. He could be seen at any of a variety of East Side and DFL functions until his house on York was removed to make way for ESNDC’s York-Sims development.

Paul Gilliland. Paul was well lamented when he passed. He was involved in a variety of justice-oriented things, but his role in neighborhood organization is probably what most people remember.

I first saw Paul back in the 1970’s when meetings were beign held around the city to establish the district council system and set the boundaries. I saw him at various things but don’t think I actually met him until about ten years later when I found myself working on lawn signs with him in Marj Ebensteiner’s back yard.

Over the years I came to know Paul in a variety of ways. He was the District Two president when I was the District Five president and we put together the biggest joint cleanup the city had seen. Shortly after when District Two had hired me to be its community organizer, he was my superior. He was still on the D2 board later when shortly before I left work started on what was to become the Phalen Village plan. Later he served on the CIB Committee [including time as chairperson] and even later while I was a board member in D5, he served ably as our interim Executive Director.

Rita Kolodziej. Rita was involved with the Case Payne Community Council and held their seat on the Payne Phalen District Five Planning Council board before returning to work after her husband’s passing.

Congrats HGTV winners

Congratulations seem to be in order for the winning projects in the HGTV competition. It will be good to see the improvements at the three East Side sites.

But can somebody get the DPP to read a map?

Wilder Rec Center is in the Payne/Phalen area. The Nelson house and the Vento sanctuary are in the Dayton’s Bluff district, although the nature sanctuary is, of course, actually under the Bluff.

But congrats anyway.