Rondo Days

This weekend is Rondo Days. This marks the 25^th anniversary of what has become one of the city’s principal festivals.

Rondo Day[s] always hits a special point on my cranium. I never lived there and never saw the street. It was taken out in the late 1950s and I did not get here until the mid 1960s. But I grew up on top of a hill in Cedar Rapids, Iowa where about ten years later the Iowa Highway Commission decided to build what became known as I-380. Like when Minnesota chose Rondo, Iowa chose our place because it provided for a nice, straight road without displacing any people of influence. It has been suggested that where freeways are straight, that they went through poor/working class neighborhoods. I think there is some truth to that.

As far as I know nobody has ever attempted to do any kind of festival for our neighborhood in Iowa. Maybe we didn’t have the organizers. Maybe too many have left the area. Maybe the lack of a central, defining ethnicity which felt displaced have never inspired anybody to try. [There were a lot of people of Czech and Slovak ancestry in the corridor, but there were a lot more elsewhere in the city.]

But I do wish the Rondo folks well every year and trust that everybody involved will have a good and happy festival. I envy their commitment.

SOS Ritchie expects "massive" voter turnout

MinnPost is reporting that Secretary of State Mark Ritchie is predicting a “massive” voter turnout on November 4^th.

I suspect that we will have sufficient trained election personnel to avoid the perils that some states seem to have no end of such as trying to open polls in locked up buildings, failing to print enough ballots or have enough machines to handle them [which seems to happen especially often in neighborhoods where the ruling party thinks itself weakest], dangling chads, or names mysteriously left off the ballot [as happened on the absentee ballots of a black community in Ohio last time when a “printing error” just happened to forget to include the name “John Kerry”]. Even though my unscientific exposure to election judges suggests that they may not be as non-partisan as our judges [who always have been supposed to be affiliated with the political parties] were in an earlier generation, our judges do indeed do good work.

There is a lot of hypocrisy about big election returns. So many people think that big turnouts are a good thing. But, as I noted in an election day post last year, a big turnout just for the sake of a big turnout is not necessarily anything anybody wants because if the turnout might be coming from the wrong people.

And if you can get the day off and are affiliated with one of Minnesota's major party, you might want to call your county auditor to see if they need help that day.

Ohio is looking at us and Ohio need glasses

I have recently had a Cleveland Plain Dealer article called to my attention. It compares the potential of Cleveland’s Opportunity Corridor with the development of our Phalen Corridor and Phalen Boulevard.

I do not know Cleveland. I suspect that it has the problems of many older, northern cities, maybe worse than ours because it is an older city.

The article speaks well of Phalen Corridor and Dan Bostrom. That should not be too surprising since both have plenty of good things to be said about them.

It is in error, however, when it asserts that Payne/Phalen District Five Planning Council had opposed the Boulevard’s construction. I surmise that the writer reached that conclusion from an incident in which the District Council opposed an off-road proposal, the one to remove all the housing between the Boulevard and Case, 35E and Edgerton to develop something more upscale.

I should know. I was chairing the Council’s Community Planning and Economic Development Committee at the time.

But I do find it refreshing that people from other cities are looking at our story and its successes and I do wish the people in Ohio well.

And the whole thing reminds us that obtaining and maintaining livable communities is an ongoing thing, like medicine, education, or barber work.

ECBD? What's that?

Does anybody remember something called the East Central Business District [ECBD] bypass?

No, you cannot remember the bypass itself. It never happened. But maybe somebody remembers people talking about constructing it.

Four bypasses around the city’s Central Business District were planned. These were never planned to be free-way type streets, but wider streets which would remove the need to actually drive through downtown for people whose destinations were on the other side. Three of the four have been [more or less] completed.

The North CBD bypass includes Pennsylvania Avenue. The West CBD bypass is Marion/Kellogg/Chestnut. I believe that this one did not develop the way originally planned, but it is close. The South CBD bypass is Shepard/Warner Roads.

The missing link is the bypass on the east. The East CBD bypass [which was later shortened even more to ECBD bypass] was to run from Warner Road from almost underneath the Lafayette Bridge to connect with I-35E at Pennsylvania.

Its forthcoming completion was supposed to be one of the reasons that the state accepted a truck ban for the Practice Freeway segment of I-35E. Trucks could use Shepard/Warner Road and the ECBD bypass as a routing instead. As it is now, they have to cross through downtown on Jackson/Sibley.

It has been over twenty years since I served on a city-established task force to advise on the preparation of the draft Environmental Impact Statement [EIS] for the realignment of Shepard east of Randolph, Warner Road west of Childs, and the ECBD bypass. I was serving as the representative of Payne/Phalen District Five Planning Council and my purpose was primarily to make sure that whatever alignment for the ECBD bypass connection with I-35E did not make the connection for the road we now call Phalen Boulevard more difficult to obtain. Most of the people participating [besides the engineers and public works people and planners] were high-ranking shirts representing businesses [such as West Publishing and Anchor Hocking -- remember them?] with Shepard Road concerns. I did feel a bit out of place among such exalted company, but stuck to why I was there and nobody else seemed to oppose me in what I was there for.

Well, the draft EIS was done and it showed no reason to not build the bypass. But it never got done. Somehow it has never been funded.

Even though I never thought I would live long enough to see it, Phalen Boulevard is done, so we don’t have to wonder whether that connection can be established. Ironically, when I was serving on a task force considering Phalen Boulevard road design, including the bypass became a concern for building it.

And there is still no bypass. I am a bit ambivalent now about the whole matter now. I have no direct interest in how many trucks drive on Jackson or Sibley. But if I had an interest in Lowertown property or development I think I would like to know what’s up.

And I wonder if my posting this may double the number of the people [to ten] who even are aware of this thing.

L! E! F! July 14

On this date in 1789, mobs of the disenfranchised stormed the Bastille. This commemoration of this event has become the great national holiday of the Republic of France.

Franco-American relations have generally been good, although there have been rough spots. But France has given us a lot and we have given them a lot too. We probably could not have gotten the Brits out of here if not for the French and they might still be living under swastikas if it weren’t for Yanks at Normandy.

But if we see anybody French today maybe we wish him/her a happy holiday. And if you have a copy of ‘La Marseilles” on tape, IPod, CD, or whatever, you might want to play it. It really is a good piece to serve as a national anthem.

Jimmy Lee

I think I met Jimmy Lee once. It would not have been a personal meeting but I think he was introduced at a community meeting in the Summit-University area in the early 1970s. I do know that I was aware that he was involved in athletics and the teaching and officiating of sports and that he was the first black man to officiate at the levels he did, at least here in Minnesota. When the city decided to rename Oxford Recreation Center after him, it was easy to understand their thinking.

The overruns and continuing ongoing problems connected with building the new recreation center do not do anybody’s memory well, but it looks like the project is almost finished, even if there are fewer houses in the neighborhood to provide clients. And the reviews have been good.

I would hope in time that people forget about the costs and snafus and just enjoy and use the facility and appreciate people like the man for whom it was named and others like him who have gone on to another arena.

An article about Mr. Lee inspired this post and can be found here.

Can a Candidate Conquer by Creating Class Confusion?

Norm Coleman has a lot going for him that Al Franken does not. He lives in a city [ours] while Franken has demonstrated his enmity toward city people by living in a suburb. [I know, Al was raised that way, but city people who vote for suburbanites generally do themselves disfavors.] Coleman has experience that Franken lacks and has demonstrated that he can get big things done. [Whether they ever needed to be done is another matter. Think of Lawson Commons.] He has spent his adult life here. He did not move here specifically to seek office.

Of course, Franken has things going for him also. He’s smart and likely would be in the majority caucus. He is not a lawyer. These really should all be thought of as big plusses.

CCM is not endorsing a candidate yet and may not ever. But it should be noted that despite the advantages that he has that Coleman’s use of the intentionally misnamed “Coalition for a Democratic Workplace'” to slur Franken really cannot be justified. It is very misleading, although Coleman will claim that they are not the direct lies a viewer might reasonably infer and that they are “independent” spots. Remember, “legal ethics” is an oxymoron.]

If enacted, the Employee Free Choice Act would not take anybody’s secret ballot away. Although some observers doubt that it will be coming for a vote in the next Congress, Coleman and his management cronies have decided to pounce on this non-issue.

And using this issue as a wedge does Norm no glory.

A Minnpost article on the matter can be found here.
A labor-friendly description of the Employee Free Choice Act can be found here.

Police powers, anachronism, inertia, or reason? Liquor regulation

Federal courts have ruled that states have rights in alcohol-related matters that they do not have in other things. As a result, in addition to having minimum drinking age rules, we have regulations on days, hours, and means of distribution and sales; controls on advertising; bans on conduct in places where alcoholic beverage is served which would not apply elsewhere; we have “dry” jurisdictions and government-owned liquor stores; and we have distinctions between “strong” and “3.2” beer. Locally, we have some liquor stores who have the additional license clause that prevents selling small liquor bottles.

Some of these things come from the whole national trauma from the temperance/Prohibition era. Other matters come from our heritage of blue laws.
These regulations seem anachronistic. But I do wonder whether some of them do not serve a purpose.

Colorado recently allowed Sunday openings for liquor stores. Minnesota does not. According to a resent US News & World Report article, fourteen other states besides ours still have this prohibition.

The big controversy we seem to have in our state is whether grocery stores should be allowed to sell wine or liquors. Nobody seems to have thought of the Sunday ban.

Do we keep these regulations because [with apologies to Mr. Soucheray] nothing is allowed here and we want to keep it that way? or do we keep these regulations because there are legitimate public health, safety, or welfare [the traditional "police powers"] reasons? or is it just inertia?

Bus moving backwards -- in fares at least

The wonderful folks who give us [at great public expense] those magnificent busses and trains known as Metro Transit are looking at raising fares.

We all know the increases in the price of hydrocarbons so it is hard to oppose increasing the fares of an already-subsidized transportation medium.

But it would seem that the price of diesel must not really motivation for this increase since the proposal is not based on distance. Instead of increasing the fare so that more would be charged for longer runs, all users would pay the same increase whether they were going from West Seventh to downtown or from Stillwater to Hopkins. The poor person wishing to go to/from work in his/her own city would be soaked as much as the economic colonialist who goes from Woodbury to Minneapolis.

A more fair fare system would set the basic minimum fee and then charge more for the distance covered. I suspect that we will hear that Transit is not set up to collect fares this way. It would be a disingenuous argument for Transit to make since they have set up the present apparatus, but that won’t stop them from making it.

Another option is to establish a flat rate for each municipality covered. I don’t know the amount, but a more fair number can be figured out without unduly increasing the burden on local people who travel locally.

Taxpayers are subsidizing the whole thing anyhow, but doesn't it seem that they are subsidizing the longer rider more?

But fairness and Transit have seldom been connected, so why would we expect differently now?

Franken as panderer

Al Franken want to forbid former congresspeople from ever becoming lobbyists and is spending a lot of money letting us know that. I question whether that is good policy, but really don’t need to write about my reservations, because it won’t happen. If you can believe that proposal has a chance of coming about, you probably could be led to believe that George Carlin was runner-up to Cardinal Ratzinger in the Sistine Chapel in 2005.

It won’t happen. It is so pathetically predictable that politicians will pander to us and Franken is just doing his part.

Politicians, especially non-incumbents, take on lobbyists and “special interests.” Other professions also have professionally-mandated positions to take which we also expect to hear.

Preachers rail against sin. Dentists advocate flossing. Librarians urge reading. Safety commissioners push seat belt usage. Aging sluggers who don’t have good legs anymore advocate the designated hitter rule. Teachers support learning, at least learning the right things.

We expect these things. But on these things, there is an outside chance that these some one’s actions might actually be changed. Some sins might not be committed when the exhortations of preachers are taken to mind. Some teeth may be flossed because of a dentist’s ongoing urgings. Some poor sap who otherwise is not scared by “buckle up” laws might actually click a seat belt together because his government suggests it so persistently. Sucker sports fans will continue to come and root for guys who really are no longer baseball players. Somebody may help their child or grandchild or neighbor with his/her lessons.

But there ain’t no way that Congresspeople and Senators are going to limit their future employment opportunities for the rest of their lives. It just ain’t a going to happen. Franken knows that. [And if he doesn’t he shouldn’t be in the position of being considered a serious candidate for any office, much less a major one.]

But people of any party can pander and Al Franken is demonstrating this well.

County Fair opens today

Well, the Ramsey County Fair starts today, out at the Maplewood fairgrounds. I sometimes wonder if anybody notices or cares. Every few years the subject of ending this event comes up.

If you have comments about the County Fair or this year’s visit there [or a previous year’s] or whether it should keep on, please be free to add a comment here.

More tenants for Sober Houses?

This item in MinnPost caught my attention. I do not know whether there is any direct connection with my earlier post on sober house zoning, but it does seem that if we fund places which offer treatment less that there may be more recovering [and possibly economically vulnerable] people who would become target tenants for sober house landlords.

Earlier posts:

What to do about Sober Houses? [7/6/08]

Sober Houses, Neighborhoods, and Planning [2/24/08]

Whither speakest thou, O John?

Until Franklin Roosevelt went to Chicago in 1932 to accept his party’s nomination for the same position no candidate had actually traveled to his party’s convention to accept the nomination. But after 1932 such a trip and speech became an unwritten requirement.

In 1960 Democrats from across the republic convened at the Los Angeles Sports Arena and held a convention, nominating John F. Kennedy as their presidential candidate.

The Democrats decided that it might be time to try something new, so they moved the last session of the convention where their nominee would deliver his acceptance speech to the Los Angeles Coliseum, home at the time to the Rams, Bruins, Trojans, and Dodgers. They calculated rather cleverly that more people can get into football stadia than in basketball arenas. That proved right.

However, nobody has seemed to think the same way since then. Acceptance speeches in both parties are still given to the smaller crowds of partisans that arenas allow. [Actually, in 1988 the entire Republican convention which nominated George H.W. Bush was held in the New Orleans Superdome and there was some embarrassment caused by vacant seats.]

That is, until this year. Now for the Democratic National Convention in Denver Barack Obama will move his acceptance speech to a corporate-named football stadium.

The next question that might come locally is whether the GOP and McCain might try a similar stratagem.

The only football stadium around here large enough to accomplish the purpose would be the Humphreydome in Mpls. It looks like the Republicans will pass on the opportunity to go there. I am sure that this would make all those who have been working on logistics and security happy. Moving the show to Mpls. might give us a little more peace a day sooner, but they would still be clogging things up quite a bit.

I also imagine that Republicans fear exactly who would be in the audience at the Humphreydome. They might not all be cheering masses.

And they probably prefer the more intimate atmosphere of a corporate-named arena to that of a stadium named after Hubert Humphrey.

But let's keep our eyes open.

What to do about Sober Houses?

The City Council is about to pass an ordinance defining “sober houses” and establishing spacing and other requirements for some of the larger ones. There are a lot of them in our City. Merriam Park and West Seventh seem to be the most desired neighborhoods for sober house landlords to set up shop in. After pressure from District Councils and other community groups the city did authorize the Planning Commission to study the matter and submit suggestions. Simply speaking, that is why the Council is looking at this ordinance now.

The issue gets tricky for several reasons. Application of the Federal Fair Housing Act has stated that recovering alcoholics are protected from housing discrimination as disabled people. Nobody seems to know just how many of these places there are or how well the “clients” are doing in their recovery. Neither does anybody seem to know how many automobiles the residents need to park in the neighborhood and nobody seems to know what other problems the residents may have.

Local and/or state land use regulations and/or funding requirements control treatment facilities, but nobody receives any treatment at a sober house. These facilities have various requirements that they need to meet, including spacing requirements. One reason for spacing requirements is to avoid creating disability-concentrated, ghetto-like areas.

The advocates for this housing speak of creating new “families” of recovering people and seem to think that those who oppose them are either near-sighted, bigoted, or both.

But when a family lives in a house, they just sign one lease and send one check to the property owner. In other cases where each individual sends his/her own check to the landlord, they are covered under Boarding or Rooming House licenses. These are licensed by the city for safety, spacing, and consumer protection reasons.

The owners also use the analogy to housemates who share living units. This analogy breaks down for some of the same reason that the family argument does, that there is only one lease and one check. And the law specifically limits housing units in this city to four unrelated adults. Following this train it seems that the sober house advocates seem to feel that being a recovered alcoholic [or actually just a teetotaler] gives one rights that others do not have.

So it seems like under present rules and regulations that if I were a landowner that I could rent a large house to any number of unrelated adults at monthly rates of a few hundred dollars each. If the renters are willing, it may be free market capitalism, but exactly how free the market is is debatable, since many recovering people have seriously compromised financial situations as a result of their problem[s]. If I can get five or six people to pay $400 each it might beat having a group pay $1200-$1500. And if it turned out that one or more of the folks got tipsy and disruptive, it could be passed off as some poor soul who misstepped. I am not a treatment provider so it would not be my direct worry.

The proposed ordinance is pretty mild. It only affects larger houses and imposes minimal spacing and distancing requirements. The distance is 330 feet. For reference note that the spacing requirement for Community Residential facilities is 1320 feet [one-quarter of a mile] and the average city block is 330 feet by 660 feet [street rights-of-way included.] It also allows for some fire and safety codes and inspection thereof for the larger houses.

It is interesting that as I watched the replay of Wednesday’s City Council public hearing that I did not detect any testimony from doctors or treatment professionals saying that their clients needed this kind of housing. Testimony seemed to be primarily from landlords and people representing them.

I understand that the city is limited in what it can do and do suggest the Council pass what they have in front of them if they are afraid to be more aggressive in protecting both recovering clients and their neighbors, but seriously wonder why they cannot move the spacing requirements up and the minimum number of residents defined as a sober house down.

You may send your comments telling me how much of a bigot I am.

Earlier postSober Houses, Neighborhoods, and Planning [2/24/08]

Keeping the Priorities straight

Interesting sequence. Our President, in his Excellent Wisdom, removed North Korea from the “axis of evil.”

A week later he removed Nelson Mandela from the Terrorist Watch List.

Somehow we get the message, don’t we? Or do we?

I guess Dr. Mandela must not have any nukes.

Cf. Daily Planet article

North End Community Fireworks Display

This happened all over the city, I assume, but I had the special opportunity of observing part of the North End’s unofficial fireworks display last night. This Fourth of July celebration was going on concurrent to the Taste of Minnesota demonstration. Neighbors on both sides of Rice Street were lighting the sky with an amazing collection glaring rockets and other works of pyrotechnical art. More seemed to come from west of Rice than east, but that is likely because the inhabitants of the condominiums between Jackson and Sylvan south of Magnolia don’t participate much. One of the disadvantages of this kind of varied-site display is that one does not know where the next blast is coming from and misses the upgoing parabola of the display.

And, as far as I can tell, this whole display neither received any public subsidy nor charged admission.

Treasure Hunt 3 is over

We have had a winner for Treasure Hunt 3 who prefers to remain anonymous. Congratulations to whomever, anyway. The site is, as he/she suggests, the tall tree at Sue's Park at Payne and Rose

This whole Treasure Hunt thing has had a mixed and slow reception. I am not sure if I will continue it. I am thinking of maybe doing something with a fixed time line [one month, maybe] or maybe running two hunts simultaneously, one thought to be simple and one thought to be so obvious that nobody would ever want to be identified as the winner.

I am willing to accept suggestions on the hunt itself as either a comment here or as an email to minnmusic at yahoo. Of course, if you wish to suggest a site, it might be better to use the latter method.

Regardless, it will probably be August at least before I start another hunt.

The clues for Treasure Hunt 3 and their explanations are below.

And congratulations again to our anonymous winner.

Clue Number 1: The Man in Black knew that life was not always easy for everybody.

Johnny Cash sang that “Life ain’t easy for a boy named Sue.”

Clue Number 2 [4/3/08]: Once there were 3 R’s amid a street of bars.

“3 R’s” refers to the Phalen Park elementary school formerly located at the site. “A street of bars” is an allusion to one of the more unfortunate historical perspectives people have had of Payne Avenue.

Clue Number 3 [4/11/08]:

Hammerstein met Rogers, Gamble met Proctor, Bigelow met Brown Bringing culture and soap and telling about it in places all around. Pastor meets social worker meets mortician meets town.

Can somebody please give us the real lowdown?

This first line refers to famous partnerships. The second mentions what they did. The third line refers to the Payne/Maryland Partnership of Arlington Hills Lutheran Church, Merrick Community Services and Bradshaw Mortuary, who along with the City of Saint Paul [Parks Department and Library Agency] are looking at a development which seems to threaten at least some of Sue’s Park. And all the "visioners" that are hired cannot or will not give the straight answer of how much of the Park they want to devour.

Clue Number 4 [4/19/08]: Think of a Catholic haven.
Think of a Lutheran church.
Think of children playin’.
Remember where it hurts.

Maryland was established as a haven for Catholics. Maryland Avenue is nearby. East Immanuel Lutheran Church is cater-corner. “Children playin” alludes to the Arlington Recreation Center across Rose Avenue. The allusion to hurts is a bad pun on Payne.

Clue Number 6 [5/6/08]

A Bluff has both up and down.
And don’t think about a department store.
Forget that street across town
Or a Senator from yore.

None of them matters here.
Put them out of your mind.
Don’t shed for them a tear
And maybe the prize you will find.

Sue’s Park is named for a woman named Dayton, but not one of the Lyman Dayton for whom Dayton’s Bluff and Dayton Avenue were named, nor the departed Dayton’s store or its heir, Senator Mark Dayton. Mourning any of them will not help you find the treasure.

Clue Number 7 [5/18/08]

This is the top of a tree [Surprised?], a threatened tree. Regular readers of this site [both of you] might have extra insights about why this tree was chosen to be placed here.

Sue’s Park is threatened and the tree with it. It has been written about here.

Clue Number 8 [5/29/08]

You don't really think that I could go more than two hunts without having an East Side site, do you?

This verifies that the site is on the East Side.

Clue Number 9 [6/29/08]
Think about Phalen Park.
It’s not in Phalen Park, but that first line is relevant, anyway.

This is an allusion to the Phalen Park School which used to be on the site.

The Right to Keep and Bear Arms

An opinion piece in US News and World Report by Michael Barone suggests that the Supreme Court decided that the Second Amendment means what it says and that the District of Columbia gun ban is not constitutional.

The same site has another piece, this one by John Mashek, suggesting that the ruling will spark both lawsuits and violence.

You know, they’re both right, I fear.

The Founding Fathers were pretty good fellows, all right, but they were not perfect. Some of their personal flaws have been noted for years, from the Beards to today’s desire to make sure that the story of Sally Hemmings is told.

This is what they wrote for us and which was quickly adopted.

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Some people use the introductory reference to a militia to mean that the amendment should only apply to people in the National Guard and some may refer to other conditioning phrases, but reading the amendment as written and adopted, it should be obvious that nothing in the text indicates that one actually has to serve in any militia or other body to have the right to keep and bear arms. In fact, no conditions can be inferred.

I support gun regulation. But I find myself knowing that I am in opposition to the Constitution as it presently reads.

This is not such an unusual position in which to be. People opposed slavery when it was specifically tolerated in the Constitution. People have advocated recent wars even though the power to declare war was specifically limited to Congress which has not declared a war since December 8, 1941.

But it isn’t pleasant. And we are not always consistent.

Remember: When this was argued earlier this year, the chief of the D.C. police had to surrender her gun to gain admission to the Court.

[See http://ccmusings.blogspot.com/2008/03/can-we-have-your-gun-chief.html]

We got a scoop -- sort of

This is not the place to look if you are seeking breaking news [or much other news for that matter]. I really don’t spend time looking for scoops. However, it seems that Capitol City Musings did beat MSM last night in mentioning the parade/protest from Smith [Mears] Park on September 2^nd. [Actually, I am not sure since the alleged online posting time of the StarJournal entry is so close to the actual posting time of my post. ]

This parade, organized by a group called the Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign will travel what seems like a strange route from the park in Lowertown to a place near the convention site, going up East Seventh to Lafayette to University by the Capitol and, after a short leg on Robert Street on Martin Luther King Boulevard. The route then uses Cedar Street to get to Seventh. If a taxi driver took you that route, he/she would be endangering his/her license.

When one remembers what Dr. King was doing when he was murdered, there does seem something strangely appropriate about the parade using the street named after him.

And it seems that this parade is only for fairly able-bodied poor people since it does require quite a lot of walking.

Poor planning strikes agian, this time on Cedar Street

I commented recently on the long-term planning effects of various things involved in planning. Over the years, some of our mistakes have become pretty obvious. Platting 60-foot right-of-ways on section line streets is one I had not mentioned, but Maryland Avenue is an example of that decision’s shortsightedness. Even if nobody had ever pictured the invention of the internal combustion motor vehicle, this street’s inevitable ability to draw traffic should have been more visible.

Now we have another example. Central Presbyterian and St. Louis Catholic churches are being threatened by the proposed Central Corridor light rail boondoggle. [So is Minnesota Public [sic] Radio which recently was helped to move closer to the site with government assistance.]

So who ever allowed the churches to locate there in the first place? What colossal blunderers they must seem now!

It is hard to weep for the MPR folks, especially since their people seem to be folks more sympathetic to rail transit than the general public and their decision on location is so recent. [And I suspect that somehow Bill Kling will find a way to get more money from taxpayers for the suffering he has partly brought upon himself.]

And it is hard to find very many tears for Commissioner Ortega who apparently just found out that his mother attends mass at St. Louis. He has been one of the boondoggle’s biggest advocates.

I do find myself feeling a bit sorry for the communicants/parishioners of the two churches, but I know that I need to fight that feeling.

After all, what made them decide to build there in the first place? Didn’t they have any idea that 21^st century pols would want to run their choo-choo past them?