I’ve had a few people ask: the memorial service for Tom Conlon will be 2pm this coming Monday, December 20th, at Saint Louis King of France Catholic Church in Saint Paul.
The Saint Paul Republicans are throwing an Irish Wake on Sunday from 4-8pm at – where else? – O’Gara’s Bar & Grill, at Selby & Snelling in Saint Paul. The event promises “Irish music, laughter, reminiscing and sobbing provided”
An overnight destroys The Nook, a Saint Paul institution:
Mike Runyon, co-owner of the Nook, said the fire caused “total devastation” to his business.
The Nook, in happier days
“The whole place is burned down. You can’t do anything with it,” he said as a fire investigator worked through the remnants of the torched interior.
Runyon said it appears a refrigerator-freezer unit in the bar’s kitchen had an electrical malfunction that sparked the fire about 4 a.m.
Proof that God not only exists, but loves us.
The bar, near Cretin-Derham Hall Catholic school at Hamline and Randolph avenues, is noted for offerings like the Juicy Nookie and the Paul Molitor — both burgers stuffed with molten cheese.
Runyon and co-owner Ted Casper, both 30, have owned the space for 10 years and recently took over the Ran-Ham Bowling Center space next door.
The fire did not damage the bowling lanes, Runyon said, but they will be closed for a day or two while the owners figure out their next steps.
“We have 25 staff members. They’re all like family,” Runyon said. “So it’s a big blow. It’s right around Christmastime — that’s a big time for people to make their money.”
What is the Federal government going to do about this?
Why does Barack Obama hate burger-eating people?
It’s been a big week for awful news.
Tom Conlon – for many years, the only elected Republican official in any capacity in Ramsey County – died on Sunday:
Police were called to the 2100 block of Berkeley Avenue, where Conlon lived, about 5:55 a.m. Sunday.
A neighbor and a snow plow driver saw Conlon shoveling out his car in front of his home about 5 a.m., said St. Paul police spokesman Andy Skoogman.
“It appears that he got into his car and likely had some type of medical issue,” Skoogman said. Conlon’s car was found crashed into a snow bank on the block.
He’d been teaching at Metro State, and mounted a brief run for State Auditor earlier this year.
These memorial pieces I write are usually somewhat detached, third-person things. Not so with Tom. This time it’s personal.
Tom was a sharp-as-nails politician – can any other kind get elected as a Republican in Saint Paul? He was a genuine, nice guy in person. His low-key manner disarmed you, – he was a sharp, savvy guy who, above all, exuded love for his community.
A graduate of Harding High School, he served a hitch in the United States Marine Corps’ 11th Marine Regiment. Which led to the one big incongruity in Conlon, from what I saw.
No, it wasn’t incongruous that he served his country with pride, of course – that fit perfectly. But I don’t imagine that anyone could ever imagine Conlon, even the 18 year old version of him, making a “war face”. The guy always had a smile for everyone. Even during the most byzantine school board debates with his most whackdoodle colleagues, Tom kept not only his cool, but his smile. Or one of them. He had a bunch; the broad “glad to meet you” smile, even if you’d met him a hundred times; the wry “there you go again” smile that’d pop up when one of his colleagues was expounding, and more.
Tom was a very talented photographer – I had him penciled in to do my daughter’s senior pictures.
I last talked with Tom three weeks ago, at a CD4 fundraiser. He’d been eyeing running for School Board. The SPPS desperately needed him back on the board.
Rest in peace, Tom Conlon. This city is a worse place for your passing.
Today is the 69th anniversary of Pearl Harbor.
Sixty-nine years after Japanese planes bombed Pearl Harbor, survivors of the attack are due to gather at the base to remember those killed.
Some 100 survivors, the youngest of whom are in their late 80s, have traveled from around the country to attend Tuesday’s ceremony.
Minnesota is also holding a ceremony, at the Veterans building at the foot of the Capitol Mall. It’s a little-known fact even in Minnesota that the very first shots fired at Pearl Harbor – hours before the air raid – were fired by a Navy Reserve gun crew from Saint Paul, serving aboard the rehabbed World War I-era destroyer USS Ward, on anti-sub patrol outside the Harbor.
The Saint Paul gun crew that fired the first shots at a Japanese midget sub. The gun in the photo is on permanent display north of the Veterans Building in Saint Paul.
George Thill – one of the survivors of that gun crew – will speak at the ceremony today.
Wish I could be there.
Joe Doakes, from Saint Paul’s Como neighborhood, has been looking into Saint Paul’s new proposed budget.
And he emails:
In this time of economic trouble, when families are tightening their belts and doing with less, it’s refreshing to see that at least some of our loyal public servants know where their priorities lie . . . in their own pockets.
I’m depressingly un-surprised.
Proposed property tax statements are available on-line from the County’s website. [Joe looked at] samples from the Como-Northdale area; Newell Park; and University Ave area (Charles and Simpson).
Values dropped in all samples.
Taxes rose in all samples.
They’re happy to make you pay for A Better Minnesota, even if your little corner of Minnesota is just plain worse.
The County and City mostly held the line (not really, since the City intentionally adopted a Blackmail Budget which assumes fully funded LGA that won’t happen – the City’s tax increases will come later).
Bingo. It’s one of those DFL patterns of behavior that is very, very close to becoming another Berg’s Law; DFL city governments will always use the city budget in such a way as to exert pressure for DFL priorities.
“Vote DFL so that the state gives us more money, or we’ll pass the taxes directly on to you.”
The school district, though, saw fit to raise the levy. And not just a bit, like 5% across the board.
I didn’t get a 5% raise this year, did you?
Pffft.
Joe Doakes of Como Park writes about New York City’s recent decision to stop using city resources to look for lost pets:
It’s sad the City won’t look for lost pets. We lost a cat once and thinking someone may have turned him in, I searched everywhere, for days, visited shelters and even put up posters, without success. Heartbreaking.
So why is New York City being so cruel, so heartless, so cold – does the city government hate kittens and want them to DIE DIE DIE?
Or is this how it looks when actual leadership makes real world budget decisions in a day of declining revenues? Is this what the word “prioritize” means?
Yes, it’s sad lost pets stay lost; but unless you can convince everybody in town to pony up more money for pet searches instead of, say pothole repair, that’s reality. That’s a decision real leadership must make.
Wonder what city services would look like if St. Paul had any leadership?
I’m going to have to try that next time Saint Paul releases a budget; post it, and then throw it open to the audience to see what we cut.
Can’t be any worse than what we have in Saint Paul now.
As you read this, I’m heading over to my polling station to get in line to vote. I may not be the first in the door, but I’ll be close.
My slate?
Betty McCollum thinks Al Quaeda is no longer a threat (from Betty McCollum Needs Change):
“Al Qaeda no longer poses a threat to the United States.”
That’s a fascinating conclusion.
Watch McCollum with her opponent, Teresa Collett, at their Health Care debate.
Watch McCollum trying to defend her role in the Health Care debate (starting around 1:27). Remember when lefties (wrongly) said Sarah Palin was an intellectual flyweight for writing speaking notes on her hand? McCollum reads administration chanting points from a piece of paper.
Got concerns about your future, young Minnesotans? Betty will blow sunshine up your skirt!
The Fourth District deserves better.
The Strib endorses Matt Bostrom for Ramco Sheriff:
Sheriff Bob Fletcher is seeking a fifth term as the top county cop and police chief for seven Ramsey county municipalities. Challenging him is Matt Bostrom, an assistant chief with the St. Paul police.
Though Fletcher, 55, has performed some of the duties of the office effectively, the department needs a fresh start under a more collaborative leader. We recommend Bostrom for the job.
Bostrom, a 49-year-old St. Paul native, has 28 years of experience — much of it in management — as a St. Paul cop…Most important, he has the temperament and a record of working well with other government law enforcement jurisdictions. That’s a much-needed skill, since police, prosecutors and the courts will have to work together more closely in the future to make the best use of limited resources.
Temperament and leadership style are our primary concerns about Fletcher. The first time the former St. Paul officer and City Council member ran for sheriff, this editorial page expressed concern that he might stretch the office’s mandates and make it too political. Those concerns were justified.
It’s been noted that Fletcher’s office has by far the highest rate of rejections for carry permit applications – rejection that are by no means related to actual unfitness for permits under the law, a rate well over 10%, vastly higher than any other county in the state. The county also claims to lose money on carry permit applications – the $100 fee that applicants pay – even though every other county in the state ends up spending a little over a buck per permit, and the labor is performed by dispatchers during slack times.
More on that issue later this week.
But as a resident of Ramco, I have no comment.
None whatsoever.
Vote Bostrom.
Betty McCollum – Nancy Pelosi’s lapdog:
Hey, Nancy Pelosi’s a consensus-builder!
Joe Doakes from Como Park writes:
Sheriff Fletcher got in trouble for using the Concealed Carry Permit holder’s list to invite permit holders to shoot on the Sheriff’s indoor pistol range in exchange for a contribution to the Sheriff’s favorite charity. He got lots of people to come and raised money for charity which was good, but using the list was bad and he was properly chastened for it.
It was exactly the sort of thing Second Amendment activists and other Real Americans were concerned about when the Legislature used to propose gun registration.
Ramsey County is having a charity drive again and employees are permitted to bid on donated items, one of which is an hour of time on the Sheriff’s indoor pistol range actually shooting the guns the Sheriff’s Department uses. Notice that the bidding has been fierce. Link here:
http://www.32auctions.com/organizations/681/auctions/735/auction_items/12381
I don’t know the details of the RCSD’s range, but I think the State Patrol used to run a close combat pistol range in the north ‘burbs; I’d bid on time there, if it still exists…
It’s evident there is strong interest in shooting on the Sheriff’s range. People are willing to pay good money for it. Why not take the money?
Why not open the Sheriff’s range to the public a few hours per week? Take some of the pressure off Bill’s.
Here you go, voluntary additional revenue for public safety. Why isn’t this a no-brainer?
Because RamCo’s pea-brained County Commission gets all teary-eyed when they think about private citizens with guns, most likely.
But it is a great idea…
If you blinked last Monday, you missed Betty McCollum’s “town hall” meeting. Indeed, if you sneezed at the wrong time, you may have missed the part where she or any of her staff called it a “town hall”, themselves.
I had a prior engagement – but Doug Bass attended.
Not that it was easy:
I actually didn’t know it was advertised as a “DFL Town Hall Rally” until I got to the event. But doesn’t the phrase “DFL Town Hall Rally” sound contradictory, oxymoronic? If they said “DFL Rally,” it would be clearly understood as a partisan event. If they said “Town Hall Meeting,” I believe it would be generally understood as a non-partisan event. So the very phrase “DFL Town Hall Rally” sounded odd to me.
As I headed to Macalester, I was thinking to myself “Whose idea was it to have a town hall meeting at 5:30 pm? There are a lot of people who aren’t going to be able to make it.” I then realized that this wasn’t a bug, it was a feature, a mechanism of keeping inconvenient people away from the event.
Doug noticed something I did not; I’ll add emphasis:
When I got to Macalester College, one of Teresa Collett’s volunteers saw me, and we started chatting. He showed me the press release for the event, which was issued on Friday, the traditional day where news goes to be buried. And not just any Friday, mind you, the Friday three days before the event, and the Friday the day before September 11, where the nation’s attention is elsewhere. The only media outlet that covered the event was Minnesota Public Radio, which let the abovementioned “Town Hall Rally” oddity pass without comment.
And this may be the quote of the day:
I thought to myself “This isn’t a Town Hall Meeting, this is a flash mob! A secret, moonless midnight flash mob!”
And the conclusion?
This event was a Potemkin Town Hall meeting, an event created for the purpose of being able to claim that a Town Hall meeting took place. The scheduling, the publicity, the audience made it nothing of the sort. It was a treachery within further treacheries.
Read the whole thing.
So we had the “flash mob”, and we’ll have two more coming up with friendly audiences – a union hall and another.
That’s a lot of “appearances” for Betty McCollum.
Maybe being in a “D+13” district doesn’t feel as secure as it used to…
(And yes, now would be a perfect time to pitch in a few bucks for to Teresa Collett’s campaign. The CD2 leadership hates me when I write this, but you live in the Second, where John Kline is going to win by thirty on a bad day, it’d be cool if you could peel off a buck or two for Teresa, who actually seems to have a shot. And/or for Joel Demos, who’s running the funnest underdog campaign I’ve seen since Harley McClain. And for that matter for Randy Demmer and Chip Cravaack, both of whom have quietly moved into positions to have decent shots against Walz and Oberstar).
It’s not often that I praise the Twin Cities’ mainstream media. Especially the two dailies, whom I would not trust to cover Republican electoral campaigns fairly and honestly (as institutions, not necessarily in terms of each and every reporter) if offered them a billion dollars.
But when they’re right – when they actual do the gumshoe reporting on issues that their institutional biases allow them to be fair and honest about – sometimes they truly do God’s work.
As in the Koua Fong Lee case, as recapped by columnist Ruben Rosario (via Bob Johnson’s ADemocracy).
Rosario:
Justice prevails, no thanks to ineffective defense counsel and obstinate county prosecutors.
A defense attorney’s mission is to advocate as best he or she can for the client. A prosecutor’s ultimate mission is to seek justice. Both failed miserably in this sad case.
Lee was the driver of a Toyota involved in a horrendous crash in the summer of 2006, in Saint Paul. I remember driving by the crash scene, on Snelling at I94, as I ran errands that evening; it was one of the worst accident scenes I’ve ever seen.
In hindsight, the first big mistake was to prosecute this case as a felony…there was no evidence at all that this man, returning from church services with his pregnant wife and their 4-year-old daughter, intended to crash at high speed into another vehicle. He was not drunk or high or text-messaging or dozing off or otherwise distracted.
Yet, for argument’s sake, even if we grant that he wrongly stepped on the accelerator pedal instead of the brake, it is still not a felony. No matter. He was charged with multiple counts of criminal vehicular homicide, gross negligence. He was prosecuted and convicted as a criminal and sentenced to an eight-year state prison term.
The problem, as Rosario – recapping a story that was covered in Pulitzer-worthy depth (and by that I mean Pulitzers as they once were, rather than as they are today) by PiPress reporter Jackie Gurnon – was the lawyers; Lee’s “defense” attorney…:
That conviction was secured in no small part with the head-scratching support of a defense lawyer who contradicted his client’s testimony that he stepped and kept his foot on the brake right through the fatal impact.
In fact, this lawyer embraced a key prosecution witness’s gas-pedal theory during closing arguments and never aggressively pursued alternative theories that may have supported what his client was saying about what happened. Who needs prosecutors with a lawyer like that?
…and, most chillingly, the Ramsey County Attorney’s office; even as reports of unintended uncontrollable accellerations in Toyotas multiplied:
…Gaertner and her office not only opposed a new trial, but also brought in “experts” who pooh-poohed new findings that seemed quite obvious. One of the most glaring prosecutorial missteps in all of this was pushing the theory that Lee did not step on the brake because there was a lack of long skid marks at the accident scene.
Of course, the new evidence underlined that Lee’s car had anti-lock brakes, which don’t leave skid marks when applied.
That’s something that should have easily been checked, regardless of the subsequent Toyota recall. But neither the defense nor the prosecution bothered to check this most momentous fact during the trial.
Read the whole thing – and no, I haven’t excerpted anywhere near the whole fascinating story.
It’s good to know there are still reporters that can still do some good in this world.
It’s chilling to realize that Susan Gaertner – the Ramco attorney – has higher political aspirations.
Congrats to the Flash family; Nick has graduated from USAF Basic Training at Lackland AFB in Texas:
I’ve known Nick since he was four or five or so. He’s off to learn how to run drones.
Found on the Wabasha Street Bridge the other day.
That’s in Saint Paul – AKA “Chicago On The Mississippi”.
The force is strong out there.
Tom Conlin was, for many years, the sole voice of responsibility and sanity in Ramsey County, as the only elected Republican in office anywhere in the county. Outnumbered, he could only do so much – but at the very least there was someone on the board pointing out the madness of the majority.
Tom ran for State Auditor, but dropped out at the convention; he would have done a great job, but there’s no way to beat the Anderson machine (and she’ll do a great job too).
There’s some bad news…
We had no paid staff, but nonetheless incurred campaign expenses beyond what we raised during the campaign.
…and some good news!:
I am hoping to recover some of that debt with your help. I am also preparing for a 2011 St. Paul School Board race, a seat I held for 17 years and have won successfully in 5 elections as St. Paul’s lone Republican-endorsed elected official. I intend to seek Republican Party endorsement again for this seat in February.
Check out the website.
Imagine how much better criminal justice would be if prosecutors and judges worked with defense attorneys to speed up the judicial system?
Or if accountants and auditors were on the same team?
Or if the President, Congress and the Supreme Court spent less time checking and balancing each other, and more time working on ways to help each other increase their power?
Well, no. They are all terrible ideas. The whole point of having adversarial systems built into government is to ensure there’s accountability, or at the very least a speed bump in the way of unlimited power on the part of CEOs, Presidents, Governors, Congresses…
That’s why of all of Jesse Ventura’s mind-dissolvingly stupid ideas in his time-warpingly stupid administration, the dumbest of all was his constant lobotomized yapping for a unicameral legislature, so government could “get stuff done”. Of course, keeping government from getting “stuff done” with impunity is one of the great virtues of both the bicameral legislature and the two-party system.
Of course, the Minnesota DFL has never understood this. Their primary frame of historical reference is the period nationally between 1933 and 1980, and in Minnesota until about 2003;
This is a good thing; it means everyone’s working to hold everyone accountable.
Which may explain a lot why Doug Grow thinks this is a good idea:
The relationship between Mary Cathryn Ricker and Valeria Silva stands in sharp contrast to the common education confrontations that have dogged public education in Minnesota in recent years.
Ricker, head of the St. Paul teachers union, and Silva, the St. Paul school district’s superintendent, meet often and banter easily.
“Mary Cathryn asked me to attend a workshop (sponsored by the American Federation of Teachers),” recalled Silva.
“It was on a weekend,” Ricker said.
“I told her I’d go, but if I’m going on a weekend, it proves I must love you,” Silva said.
The two women laughed.
In other words, after years of saying that the Saint Paul Superintendent’s offices were subordinate to the Teachers’ Union, we see we were wrong. It’s more of a “Lapdog/Master” relationship.
And Doug Grow thinks it’s a good thing:
Listening to the two talk is a night-and-day contrast to the ego-laced bouts waged between Gov. Tim Pawlenty and Education Minnesota leader Tom Dooher. Those two excelled at name-calling, door-slamming and political points-scoring with their respective constituencies. Unfortunately, they weren’t so good at sitting down in the same room and trying to understand each other and, in the end, Minnesota was not a player in Race to the Top money or any sort of meaningful K-12 education improvements in the state.
Hey, Doug Grow – do you suppose Valeria Freaking Silva will share an unguarded, giggly moment with me, a mere Saint Paul taxpayer who is alarmed by the district’s ballooning costs and tailspinning achievement?
Do you suppose that if the district’s chief executive needs to hold the Teacher’s Union accountable for its endless demands, she can stop painting Mary Rickert’s toenails long enough to stand up for the taxpayers for whom she supposedly works?
Clearly that’s not the purpose here:
Silva said she believes she was the only superintendent at the workshop, but quickly added that it was worthwhile.“What I got out of it was the teachers’ perspective of pay for performance,” she said. “From the teachers’ standpoint, it’s really how do we measure a teacher’s performance. If we all have the right training, then, we could agree on a system.”
Ah. As long as we mere parents and taxpayers are cut out of the system!
An alliance between the union and the superintendent’s office is no easy thing to maintain. Silva admits that even some members of her high-ranking staff are leery of how quick the superintendent is to pick up the phone and call Ricker.
Well, I’m glad someone at 360 Colborn is doing their job…
And Ricker suspects that at least some teachers are uncomfortable with a union leader who spends considerable time at district headquarters.
Which may be the most depressing commentary on the mentality in public education today that I’ve ever heard.
Silva is distressed by the public attitudes toward teachers — and the teaching profession. It’s hard enough, she said, to attract people into the profession, given the relatively meager starting paying, compared with other professions. But after years of bashing, fewer and fewer people even believe the profession deserves respect.
“Any other culture,” Silva said, “a teacher is greatly valued. That’s been lost here.”
Ms. Silva: get back to me about this episode, which your district has been trying to ignore for five years. Until you have an answer that wouldn’t insult my dog’s intelligence, I won’t value your “profession”.
Maybe Mary Rickert will ask on my behalf?
As part of my ongoing series of reviews of the great bathrooms of the Twin Cities, I reviewed Flash’s newly-reopened master bathroom, the “Flash Mahal”.
A frequent stop on visits to Flash’s Garage – the social center of the Midway – Flash’s master bathroom was once a fairly undistinguished little cubbyhole – just a toilet, shower and sink.
But with his latest remodel job finished, the Flash Mahal may be perhaps the finest single space of any kind in Saint Paul.
It was a risky job – the all-white motif could have risked comparisons to 2001: A Space Odyssey – but Flash and Mrs. Flash carried it off, somehow. You feel like you could film a commercial, throw a swanky party, even host a rave, in a space like this.
Some might say that, compositionally, the architecture is derivative of 1950’s Spanish Bano Blanco, but let’s be honest, there are worse influences to pilfer!
I give it three and a half stars. Zagat says four, but I don’t like to spoil people…
So kudos to the Flashes – who will be sharing Flash Mahal with one fewer kid next week!
For a variety of reasons, I was not able to bike to work the other day. I took the bus.
Now, my bus route, which basically gives me door to door service, isn’t by any means the dodgiest route in town. But every once in a while, let’s just say I wish parking were cheaper.
I was sitting on the bus. One other person was on the bus, sitting probably six rows behind me. The bus has a capacity of about 40, if every seat is full. I was sitting across the seat – because at 6’5, sitting fore-and-aft leaves my knees jammed against the seat in front of me.
A woman – sixtysomething, gray hair, with that frantic manner and the thousand-yard glare of the emotionally-challenged, got on the bus and clumped down the aisle.
And sat down next to me, as I scrambled to pull my knees out of the way.
“Some people are so rude”, she said, loudly enough for the whole bus to hear, not that they cared, as I wedged my knees into place. She bustled herself into place, muttering, again, about how rude I was.
I turned toward the window, and coughed a long, dry, hacking cough that sounded like it threatened to bring up breakfast. And then another. And then another.
She stopped muttering.
I dialed a number on my cell phone (my home number), and started conversing with the voicemail; “Hey. Yeah, I’m on the bus. Oh, I think my fever might get down to 101, but I gotta work. Yeah, I’m short already this week.”
The lady was listening.
” Oh, I was up puking all night. Coulda swore I saw blood…”
She moved.
In downtown Saint Paul, someone with a bone to pick with Republicans went nuts with graffiti about a year ago. He or she vandalized a couple of lampposts with black magic marker, saying:
HANG
THE
GOP
They’ve sat, unmolested, since probably the winter of ’08-’09 (and somehow never got investigated by the FBI).
Today, I noticed that of them had been countervandalized:
HANG in
THEre,
GOP
I’m sure someone’s going to be contacing the ACLU for stifling their artistic expression.
The story isn’t all that unusual; Saint Paul has closed the outdoor rec fields at the Jimmy Lee Rec Center due to high lead levels in the soil.
Portions of the lower fields at the Jimmy Lee Recreation Center have unhealthy levels of lead, arsenic, mercury and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs, according to soil test results. Lead is the greatest concern at this point, although officials don’t know the full extent of the pollution. A fence was to be put up on the perimeter of the 6-acre space Friday.
“It’s clear we need to limit access,” said Parks and Recreation Director Mike Hahm. He wouldn’t speculate as to what might happen in the future, saying test results will determine the next steps.
Jimmy Lee is on the north end of Frogtown and on the south end of the district of warehouses and light industrial plants that abut the rail yards. It’s not unusual for soil to come up with high levels of all kinds of things in that area:
Officials estimate about 25,000 people use the fields for baseball, football and soccer each year. Baseball Hall of Famer Dave Winfield and Twins All-Star Joe Mauer played there as youngsters.
Also Bun and Zam.
But this piece isn’t so much about the lead levels. It’s about asking everyone to keep an eye out for the first leftyblogger or media figure to blame this on unallotment.
Let me know, will ya?
I attended my House District convention – 66B – last night at Falcon Heights City Hall.
We had a few fewer people than the Ron Paul-swollen 2008 turnout, but it was pretty solid, and uncommonly well-informed, I thought. Lots of tea partiers mixed it up with some of the stalwarts, making an interesting mix of people.
Of our seven delegates selected to go to the CD4 convention next month, an informal survey showed five were at least initially committed to Tom Emmer.
As to the resolutions – normally both the most time-consuming and least-productive part of the conventions? Things clipped along pretty fast – we voted for blocks of resolutions, paying individual attention only to the ones that people chose to debate indivually, maybe a quarter of the suggestions that came up from the caucuses.
The parts I thought were interesting:
Onward and upward!
The biggest scam in Minnesota politics? The intertwined three-card-monte game the DFL plays with state Local Government Aid (LGA), county and city taxes, and city budgets.
LGA, for those who weren’t paying attention, was instituted in the sixties and seventies to transfer wealth around Minnesota. Back then, it ensured outstate towns and school districts got enough money from the economically-thriving Twin Cities to support more spending. Today, it allows the metro governments – Minneapolis and Saint Paul – to launder their spending through the state, and get the parts of the state that are able to pay their own way to subsidize it.
It’s a very handy political tool. It allows city governments to spend like crack whores with stolen gold cards, of course, and hide the spending under a mountain of state money. And for the savvy mayor, paying for essential services with LGA while paying for things like Human Rights offices and $50,000 water fountains gives one incredible political leverage; using the money the city actually controls to pay off special-interest constituencies (neighborhood coalitions, toney arts organizations, unions) with the sure thing money, and using the state money – which is out of the mayors’ control to some extent – as a bludgeon to keep the peasants voters in line.
I noted this during the last budget cycle in Saint Paul, when Mayor Coleman’s annual trifecta of announcements – “taxes are rising”, “we’re laying off firemen” and “damn you, Tim Pawlenty” – have become a tradition as revered as the Winter Carnival.
Walter Scott Hudson – at True North and at his blog, Fightin’ Words – isn’t fooled, either:
Employees of the City of Minneapolis were advised Tuesday of the “extremely damaging” effect Governor Tim Pawlenty’s proposal to solve a $1.2-billion budget deficit could have on “core services.” Pawlenty’s plan would “take another $29 million out of Minneapolis’ 2010 budget,” an e-mail from Mayor R.T. Rybak and City Council President Barbara Johnson stated. On top of $21 million in previous aid cuts, the governor’s proposal would “represent a 56% cut in the Local Government Aid that Minneapolis was supposed to receive from the State in 2010.”
The text of the e-mail seems intent to incite the passions of city employees, and direct those passions toward St. Paul. This came as members of the public employee union AFSCME, a member organization of the AFL-CIO, gathered at the capitol to rally for a budget which “promotes job growth and preserves funds for local governments and state welfare programs.” Pressure is on state legislators to reject the governor’s proposal and keep cities and counties on the dole.
Read the whole thing.
It’s just as conservatives have always said; once our cities get dependent on welfare for more than a generation or two, it’s very hard to get off it.
But with the national economy continuing its Obama swan dive and the state and national moods swinging strongly againt NeoCarterism, I have a hunch the Twin Mayors are in for a rude awakening. If not this session, then soon.
Years ago, Wilebski’s “Blues Saloon” was the cornerstone of the local blues scene. The tumbledown second-story tavern at Thomas and Western in Saint Paul was a stop on the regional blues circuit, and hosted one of the better open-stage nights in town every Monday.
And then, like most good things in the world of bars, it came to an end. The club went through a number of identities; a couple of wan attempts at wan R’nB bars, with a shot at a gay bar in the middle somewhere.
But I was riding by on the 67 bus the other day, and saw the banners on the sides of the building: “Wilebski’s Blues Saloon”.
Yow.
I’ll be looking for details.
Saint Paul Schools officially have a superintendent:
The St. Paul school board on Tuesday unanimously approved a $180,000 salary and a three-year contract with its new district superintendent, Valeria Silva.
Silva, who most recently served as the district’s chief academic officer, was chosen over two other finalists after a five-month search for the job of overseeing the state’s second-largest school district.
“Chief Academic Officer?”
The Saint Paul Schools have among the worst achievement gaps of any major-city school in the country. The graduation rate is hovering around 50%. The minority graduation rate is much, much lower.
What exactly did Ms. Silva do?
The district has 38,000 students, 6,000 employees and an annual budget of more than $600 million.
Which means the actual budget is just south of $16,000. Which is 50% more than a charter school student gets.
But here’s the part I love (emphasis added):
“Now I can get down to the work of leading St. Paul Public Schools for at least the next three years while we all continue our work of providing a premier education for every student,” Silva said.
Read another way: “I am now on the Celebrity Superintendent train! Whooooooooo! Three years ’til Denver! Three more years I’ll be in Chicago! All abooooooooooard!”
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