Let George do it

George Johnson was to be honored Wednesday night at District 2 Community Council’s December Board meeting/ Holiday Party. I was unable to be there, but assume that it all went well. I do know that our city council voted that day to honor him and I am assuming that Councilmember Bostrom was on hand at D2’s festivities to relay that commendation.

I first met George Johnson during the summer of 1988. District cleanups were new then, having been city funded in 1987 for the first time and still being funded as one-time-only events. I was the president of Payne/Phalen District Five Planning Council then and the late Paul Gilliland, who held the similar position for District 2 suggested to me that perhaps we hold a joint cleanup at the now-gone Phalen Shopping Center. In the course of planning the joint cleanup he introduced me to a hydrologist named George Johnson who was the chairperson of his board’s committee which was planning the cleanup and who had the idea of working with Ramsey County and combing the joint cleanup with a hazardous waste cleanup. I immediately sensed by what seemed to be his true-believer approach to the matter.

That cleanup went well, too well really. The cleanup drew traffic lined up on Johnson Parkway back onto Seventh Street almost to White Bear Avenue. The Police Department had to do significant reassignments to handle the thing. Fortunately, both districts managed to get enough volunteers to work the event. For some of the volunteers finishing up did not come until dusk. I don’t remember the exact numbers of how many came or how much was collected, but I doubt if the numbers have ever been really topped. And I remember George Johnson, moving about confidently and unflustered as crisis after crisis [or what we thought were crises at the time] came about.

[There were others whose deep involvement in this effort merit commendation, including Mr. Gilliland and District Five’s counterpart to Mr. Johnson, Roger Hallman, but this is a post about George Johnson.]

That was twenty years ago. Cleanups have gone on since and District Councils have started to think of them as entitlements and city staff to think of them as a comparably inexpensive technique for removal of junk. George Johnson has been organizing his district’s cleanup every year and sometimes even advising and/or helping out at others. Several years ago when District Five was undergoing a staff change and temporary shorthandedness, he helped us do ours.

George’s cleanup work was specifically cited in the City Council action Wednesday. But a full accounting of his contributions should include mention of his other contributions. I don’t know them all, but I feel that I should mention some of what I know.

He has served on the Board of Directors for District 2 for [as far as I aware] the entire time since shortly before that 1988 cleanup, serving as its president for a few months in 1990. [Full disclosure statement: I was a D2 employee at that time so he was my supervisor then.] He also has served for many years on the Saint Paul Planning Commission, including a spell [2004-2006?] as its Chairperson. He succeeded his wife on that commission.

And somehow as he has done all this he has raised a couple of sons and maintained a house and kept employment and all the other things that other people do.

The City Council praises several people each year this way. There are many people who deserve such commendation and they get some of them. There is a certain “hit-or-miss” factor involved in this, but this commendation seems well in order and I wish to add my own praise also.