Saint Paul is Better - Reason #32,422

Even Doug Grow gets it right once in a while:

What's wrong with St. Paul? Here it had a perfect chance to learn from its big twin. Instead, it's gone its own way in selecting a new police chief.

No muss, no fuss, no big fees to national head-hunting firms, no slamming the door on members of its own force.

How uncreative. How ... effective...it's both stunning and boring to watch St. Paul go about finding a chief to replace Bill Finney. Stunning because of the contrast with Minneapolis. Boring because of the efficiency.

Grow could have mentioned that that chief, once chosen, will lead a department that is not constantly mired in boneheaded scandals, like its neighbor force across the river.

Read it all.

Seriously - I've lived in both of the Twin Cities, several times. And while the public services in Saint Paul can be as arrogant and sclerotic as any municipal government services, they are head, shoulders and ankles better than those in Minneapolis, on a policy level and, frequently, in the street. (I have many friends on the Minneapolis Police Department - and I can say the problems over there come in at the leadership level...)

We have about half the violent crime per-capital that Minneapolis has, the best urban fire department in America, and we've never elected a Sharon Sayles-Belton or R.T. Rybak as mayor.

Posted by Mitch at May 4, 2004 07:55 AM