Enrollment at Twin Cities schools continues to erode:

We’ll wait for the Walz/Flanagan administration to register their theatrical shock that “free” mystery meat and unrestricted gay porn in school libraries isn’t drawing students like Dave Matthews fans to the last bag of Cheetoz.

But I have a question.

This seems like the sort of story where someone could spend some time finding out whether the parents of senior DFL leadership in the Twin Cities and the state overall – the ones who have kids, at least – send their kids to the schools their union patrons run.

How many City Councilpeople, Mayors, policy staffers, senior bureaucrats and school leadership send their children to Minneapolis and Saint Paul, or indeed any, public schools?

This is the sort of thing that would call for, I dunno, some class of self-styed monastic seekers of information, perhaps working for institutions with printing presses or transmitterds, to do some reporting .

Pretty crazy, I know. .

Mike Casey is running for the GOP nomination in CD4.

Jim Schulz, former MN Attorney General candidate, is with the Minnesota Private Business Council.

And here’s today’s music list:

A friend of the blog emails:

I thought the whole stupid idea to make I94 a boulevard was a dead idea. No one really wants it. If the activists get it, it won’t be what they want. Neighborhoods were destroyed when I94 was built, but tearing it out now for some fluffy grade level street, probably close to what Snelling looks like now would really destroy what’s left of the neighborhood (after it rebuilt from I94 and was subsequently destroyed by the light rail).

But, it seems there are enough activists who do not care about the neighbors that they serve, who are only looking to move up by talking the points without even understanding the points that MNDOT appears to be actually considering the stupid idea.

I wonder if anyone who votes for these crappy ideas actually commutes to work, or if they work from home? Do they think their barista at the coffee shop they walk to should work from home? Maybe the barista could be at home collecting unemployment while the robot serves lattes. Do they think the health care staff that care for their aging parents should also work from home? Maybe all the service industry workers, doctors included, should just be shocked up in work force housing next to their employer. That way, they won’t have to see any of those workers driving to work. The streets will be clean for their errands. 

Is there no end to how little those with privilege want to interact with us?

Signaling one’s virtue is a social activity – but only with the right society…

I’ve asked one of the planners to discuss this on the radio with me – a resident of the neighborhood they keep trying to destroyo. I’ve heard nothing back. I’m not going to hold my breath.

This is from the Pioineer Press letters to the editor:

With the Ford plant long gone — and with Henry Ford’s reputation of being a major anti-Semite — I have been thinking about renaming Ford Parkway.

The replacement name I would like to recommend is “George Latimer Parkway.”

According to one current city councilor, “Latimer was hands down the best mayor we ever had.” So who could be more deserving of having a major St. Paul street named after him? What an honor!

With all due respect to the “one current councilor” standard, let’s be honest: all it takes is for two or more Highland Park DFL busybody biddies to start agitating for it, and it’ll likely happen – and that was evenb before the St Paul City Council devolved into the pack of hyenas it largely is today, saved from being the worst City Council in Minnesota only because Minneapolis is next door.

Still and all, I have a list of alternative, better ideas:

3) Rename it “Quit Using The CIty As Your Playground, Highland Park Busybodies Parkway” (we’ll need longer street signs, which will provide jobs).
2) Name it for the last *good* mayor we had, Norm Coleman.
1) Leave it alone and and fix the roads and hire some cops.

Thanks.

A friend of the blog emails:

Saw this on Facebook last night. My sense is that there is more to this story, but then again, it is Saint Paul Public Schools, so maybe there isn’t….

There may very well be more to the story. If I were a gambling man, I would say that that “more“ is a St., Paul Schools bureaucrat list ir misfiled the title.

As I’ve noted in this space, assuming the SPPS operates for anyone’s benefit but it’s own is always your first mistake.

Read:

I’m watching this one.

A friend of the blog emails, with an accompanying social media blurb from Saint Paul City councilwoman Mitra Jalali:

Our councilwoman- Yes, there is quite a bit of vacant parking, but that’s because the city and the owners of the property made the decision to not allow the business owners to repair, but rather evicted everyone so that the Major League Soccer team could have more parking. Remember?

Prior to that, the parking lots were rarely vacant because people came to the area to support those businesses. They came to the area by car, by bus, and by walking. Now, there really isn’t much for people outside of the neighborhood to drive into the Midway for- there are some good restaurants, but lots of places have good restaurants. Those who can drive will go to the suburbs for more choice, and thus cheaper, groceries and retail options. Complaining about parking lots that are owned by businesses are not exactly the words I would use to attract any type of business back to the area…

We know the riots expedited the decline of the Midway, but we also know that propaganda policies going back to Russ Stark and Chris Coleman also played a role in the decline of the Midway. If he were any more aware than Councilwoman Jalali, Eric Molho might realize that the anti-car, anti-parking, anti-business attitude of city leadership has led us to where we are now. https://www.minnpost.com/community-voices/2023/06/reflecting-on-one-minneapolis-two-realities-as-a-friend-plans-a-move-outside-the-city/ His editorial could have easily been written about Saint Paul as well.

And why are we concerned about the “intensity of heat” that these parking lots produce. If there were businesses there, and if there were people coming to the businesses, those lots would be wonderful to have. What is more concerning to the neighbors of the actual area is the constant congregation of people lying around getting sun strokes while passed out drunk there, or people doing drugs worse than drinking and of course the crime that comes with those activities. Amazing that Jalali was able to find an angle to photograph herself without those elements around her. Ignoring these elements of the current landscape is also not the way to attract investment into the area.

Molho ends his editorial with “We love celebrating our parks and bike lanes but appear clueless about public safety and thriving neighborhoods.” Perhaps that is some self reflection? Perhaps all at the city leadership area should recognize their cluelessness and actually talk to the businesses leaving and talk to the businesses who are staying/who want to stay and figure out what they need. I would guess the answers would be opposite everything people like Jalali and Molho want, and the only way we get back to a reasonable city with improved economics is if activists like Jalali and Molho are humble enough to listen and learn.

I suspect Jane Prince is the only person on the council who can spell, much less practice, humility and listening.

The SPPD has arrested a suspect in the arson of a mosque on Dale Street in Saint Paul:

Police said Thursday officers arrested 42-year-old Said Ntamugabumwe around 8 p.m. Wednesday. He was booked into the Ramsey County Jail on suspicion of first-degree arson. 

Read More: Arrest Made in Minnesota Mosque Arson Case | https://krocnews.com/arrest-made-in-minnesota-mosque-arson-case/?trackback=twitter_mobile&utm_source=tsmclip&utm_medium=referral

No word if Mr. Ntamugabumwe was carrying an umbrella.

“Juvenile Offender” alleged to have murdered a Saint Paul man while burgling the man’s wife’s car is already a frequent flyer:

FOX 9 has confirmed through multiple sources that the 17-year-old suspect in custody on suspicion of Michael Brasel’s murder is the same young man captured on a video that went viral last year inside a Saint Paul Harding High School bathroom…the teen, who we are not naming at this point, was charged and eventually pled guilty to aggravated robbery in that case. He was discharged from probation and supervision four months ago, in January.

…

Former St. Paul Police chief Todd Axtell makes an appearance in the story, showing us again why he was literally the only public figure in either of the Twin Cities not to disgrace himself completely during the 2020 riots.

Remember – if the murder victim had instead shot the teen (while meeting all the other criteria for self-defense naturally), the Ramsey County Attorney’s office would have take a much greater interest in punishment.

That’s intentional.

And just watch – John Choi will not ask for the sentence enhancement for using a gun in a violent crime. Mark my words.

With great fanfare, Minneapolis and Saint Paul raised their minimum wages to $15 an hour. 

And now, the Minneapolis Federal Reserve says the policy has done…well, exactly what every conservative said it would do:  

 Pay is up 1% among those with jobs – but 2% fewer are employed as a direct result of the policies, and that’s just scratching the surface (emphasis added):

Many economists have reached similar conclusions about minimum wage increases in the past. Still, the size of the impacts the researchers measured — by comparing Minneapolis and St. Paul to data culled from other Minnesota cities from 2017 through 2021 — were eye-popping, especially in low-wage industries.

Take Minneapolis’ retail sector, for example: The minimum wage increase led to 28% fewer retail jobs than researchers would’ve expected from a similar city during the same five-year period. By this comparison, Minneapolis also saw a 20% drop in hours worked and a 13% dip in aggregate worker earnings.

Across St. Paul’s restaurant industry, the city’s 2018 minimum wage hike was responsible for drying up nearly one-third of available jobs, the study found. In “limited-service” (fast food) restaurants, both hours and earnings fell by more than half after the increase took effect.

“Good, they’re mostly terrible jobs anyway” say the white progressives from the non-profit/government/industrial complex. They re literally spinning this as good news – or excuses for more programs.

It’s possible that Big Left isn’t pushing these minimum wages as a way to gut opportunity for entry level workers. But if it were, I’m at a loss for what they’d do differently.

Saint Anthony Park is Saint Paul’s neighborhood for “old money” without all the ostentation of Summit Avenue or Crocus Hill.

Its leafy streets and gently-cared-for Victorians full of university profs and senior administrative types and other moderately successful architecture geeks is the kind of place that makes city life look good.

It’s also a neighborhood full of people who haven’t been robbed, burgled and gone over enough to get hypervigilant just yet.

Fearless prediction: if they find a perp, he’ll be out of jail on his own recognizance for several felonies, and was moving up-market by going to SAP.

Condolences to Mr. Brasel’s family.

Up until 2020, DFLers could respond to conservative concerns about the state of the Twin Cities with “Hey, at least they’re growing”.

And yes, both Minneapolis and Saint Paul grew, after a fashion, between 2000 and 2020.

But all that has come to a screeching halt, and reversed:

Unstated: most of the people hitting the doors are the productive, taxpaying ripe suck class. Whatever growth is happening is among the class that consumes government revenue – in particular, the non-profit industrial complex and its clients.

Former Crystal city councilman and slap target emeritus Jeff Kolb responds, as usual, economically and precisely:

The Met Council has been running a demographic ponzi scheme, trying to plump up the numbers of the productive class to justify spending, taxing and playing infrastructure games like the cities are healthy and growing.

Like Detroit, I suspect Minneapolis and Saint Paul are about to find out what happens when the productive class hits the exits.

It took a week for the story to get out – but somehow, it did.

A group of Mayor Carter’s staffers showed us what “One Minnesota” looks like when the new gentry cross paths with the proles:

“They just came in, they were obviously intoxicated,” recalls restaurant owner Jason Dorweiler.

He says a group of seven people came in asking for a table, while three men went to the restroom.

“They were very loud, we heard noises from inside the bathroom, outside while service was going on,” Dorweiler explains. “We kind of checked in on them. It appeared that they had urinated all over our floor, which is a bad sign, in addition to them coming in and just being annoying. They proceeded to sit down and were just being belligerent the whole time.”

Too tl:DR,and need a summary? Here you go:

Naturally, they tried to play the victim card after the fact:

A second police report, filed days later, shows Cruz Williams called police, saying she wanted to report an assault.

In the report she says ‘she was trying to de-escalate the situation’ — and that she told the manager she and her friends were going to leave.

No wonder the DFL is so keen on gun control. They’re afraid real. people may start protecting themselves from the DFL.

A friend of the blog emails:

The tides seem to be changing. 

I remember when a similar editorial was written about downtown Minneapolis and the man who wrote it was basically canceled. And the Star Tribune took it down.
It’s interesting to note how the writer says, “I don’t raise these opinions in certain rooms, because I am deeply enmeshed in the progressive ecosystem of belief, and have adapted to those spaces for much of my life.”

Glad he finally feels brave enough to raise these concerns. Hope we can get some real enforcement nationwide on Fentanyl use, crime, etc. 

Hope springs eternal, I suppose. But that would involve admitting there’s a problem – and what the causes of those problems actually are.

Baby steps, maybe.

So what exactly does Mayor Carter do?

Fix roads? No.

Put criminals in jail? Please.

Play the social media game?

Well, now we’re onto something:

I bet he has a completely lit Instagram account…

SCENE: It’s1989, in the home of TONI and MELVIN Carter (JR.). Melvin is a police officer; Toni an aspiring politician. They sit on a couch in the living room, watching the news. Their 10 year old son Melvin the III walks into the room.

MELVIN III: Mom? Dad?

MELVIN JR: Yes, son?

MELVIN III: What’s for dinner?

TONI: We have no food.

MELVIN III: What now?

MELVIN JR. We bought an acquarium.

MELVIN III: Uh – cool?

TONI: Absolutely cool. You know how we love fish.

MELVIN JR: We also got the driveway cobblestoned.

MELVIN III: But our driveway was perfectly fine…

TONI: I’ve always wanted a cobblestoned driveway.

MELVIN III: But…why?

MELVIN III: It’ll set off the look of the1932 Cord Roadster I bought at the car show.

MELVIN III: The what what what?

TONI: It’s a classic car.

MELVIN III: I didn’t know we were “classic car” people.

MELVIN JR. We’re not. Just seemed like a good idea.

TONI: Provided we got a cobblestone driveway.

MELVIN III: But…dinner?

MELVIN JR: My boss is just going to have to pay me more.

MELVIN III: Huh

SCENE dissolves, flashing forward 34 years. Melvin III is now the mayor of Saint Paul, Minnesota.

MITCH BERG: So we’ve got money for student savings accounts, universal basic income, reparations, and trying to build a new Rondo neighborhood on a land bridge over I94….

…but we’re waiting on the Legislature – and apparently the minority party in the legislature, at that – to pay for something that is one of government’s unambiguously legitimate jobs?

A regular reader sent me this:

Social services get funding based on how much need exists – which means it’s in their interests to make sure people know to get their needs out, front and center.

No stone left unturned.

1950: The “Expert” class pushes “Urban Renewal” – the freeway system was part of it. Neighborhoods destroyed, downtowns gutted, replaced with inorganic bauhaus canyons – because Big Government and the Expert class said it was for our own good.

But it sure transferred money into the hands of the political class!

2023: Sure, let’s try it all again.

Big Government is the problem behind every other problem.

Back when I worked in downtown Saint Paul, I commuted down Summit Avenue.

There’s a bike lane down the entire length of the street. And while the condition of the lane is the same as the condition of the street itself (I’m looking at you, Summit and Oakland) it’s already one of the most beautiful urban corridors in the city.

Let’s review: for the price of the paint it took to create it, two-way bike lanes co-exist with two lanes of traffic each way, down a gorgeous parkway. It’s how biking should be.

“The City of Saint Paul” wants to spend $`12 million to build raised lanes on both side of Summit, reducing the street to one lane each way. And by “the City of Saint Paul”, I mean a thin, entitled, smug, innumerate veneer of smug upper-middle-class members of the laptop class – the peolple who run the city.

The city can’t hire cops. Its streets are a disaster. Every year, we hesitate to call the snow-plowing “the worst ever” because that merely temptes the next year.

And, make no mistake – the fact that this story is being publicized means the decision has been made. Oh, here will be “public hearings” and “listening sessions” – which are stamps on the procedural ticket to show they’ve done their due diligence before doing what they wanted to do anyway.

But speaking as a biker, I’d like to have a word with Zack Mensinger.

A friend of the blog emails:

Saint Paul mayor is pitching a 1% sales tax to increase revenue to repair roads. People say the awful shape of the roads is the reason there are no businesses in Saint Paul “negatively impacts the mobility, safety, and access to the businesses that do so much to grow our community.”

I have some thoughts on this-

A) Does repair roads mean automatic bike lane on any street that this money touches for repair? Because that has been the norm lately, despite what businesses were asking for.

Saint Pauli has one huge advantage in this area: it has Minneapolis next door. If it’s just a little less crazy than Minneapolis, it flies under the radar.

So. yes – I’m sure there will be bike lanes on any street this money touches. But fire hydrants won’t be replaced by EV charging stations [1].

See how that works?

B) Before we go with the 1% sales tax, can we tax and charge all of those multi-unit apartment buildings more if they aren’t adding adequate parking for their tenets? The street parking definitely has an affect on the condition of the streets all year, but especially during snow plowing season.

The city’s mission to make driving an untenable lifestyle choice is proceeding according to pan. . But I can totally see the city taxing multi-unit buildingis 1% more if they have inadequate parking. And 5% if they have adequate parking. Because that sends the right message…

C) As for the actual 1% sales tax, sadly, I’m trying to figure out how this will actually affect me since most of the business that I used to support in Saint Paul have already been chased away.

I’m trying to remember the last time I went to a Saint Paul business that isn’t a restaurant. It’s probably been a few years since I even bought non-Asian groceries here.

[1] Minneapolis hasn’t actually done this yet. Just wait.

While people focus on Minneapolis’s ongoing decay, Saint Paul just broke its homicide record:

And there’s plenty of time to run up the score before New Years.

Remember – in 2016, there were 81 homicides in the entire state – 30 in Minneapolis, and (IIRC) 18 in Saint Paul.

Hard to believe Saint Paul is the sane city…

Two people murdered at downtown Saint Paul’s Central Avenue transit station on Monday night:

Officers responded about 8:30 p.m. to the corner of Fifth and Cedar streets, where they found two people suffering from apparent gunshot wounds in the stairway/elevator structure that connects the skyway to the Green Line Central Station light rail stop, according to Metro Transit Police spokesman Drew Kerr.

Both of the wounded people were taken to a nearby hospital, but they both later died, Kerr said.

Another man was murdered on the same station’s platform last spring.

The “Transit Memorial Day” post next June is going to be a doozy.

The number of assaults on teachers in classrooms.

The superintendent’s salary.

The achievement gap.

Two of those numbers are getting worse. One of them is getting better.

Any guesses?

Here you go:

There is, of course, a highly competitive market for Big city schools superintendents. The market for “top” candidates is incredibly competitive, and the salaries show it.

I’ve been trying to figure out why for a couple decades now. All of them talk about metrics that improve, but year over year things always get worse.

I’m trying to figure out any other field were actual accomplishment plays no factor in skyrocketing salaries.

One of my personal traditions is, whenever I see someone in an unopposed race on the ballot, and I’d rather not vote for them or leave the spot blank, I will write in one of my pets.

I think today’s Ramsey county commission race leaves is just such a choice; Ren Moran, or my cat.And so…:

If not now, when? If not him, what other animal?

From 2006-2010, I worked at a job in downtown Saint Paul – on Wabasha, as luck would have it.

Wabasha had escaped the worst of the ravages of “Urban Renewal” of the 1950s-’60s, so it wasn’t a completely sterile, dessicated cement canyon, like Minnesota or Cedar.

But the 80s through the 2000s certainly had not treated it well, as whatever little non-government foot traffic there was on non-hockey/Ordway nights dried up. So while it’s not the depression-inducing brutalist hellscape that reigns from Minnesota over to Jackson, it was still pretty sad when I worked there, and the pandemic and Ecolab relocating to the Travelers building hasn’t helped.

A friend of the blog emails:

I travel quite a bit. Sometimes I travel by plane and when I get to my destination, I just walk or take taxis and transit everywhere. I have been to places far more dense than Saint Paul. Those places where I have traveled always have street level shops, restaurants, actual businesses that bring people out. Those places, in addition to having a larger number of people on sidewalks also have a large amount of automobile traffic. They have quite a few parking ramps as well. But, Saint Paul and Minneapolis is the only place that I have been that seems to have a plethora of vacant buildings and parking ramps, yet thinks the reason the downtown is “not people scale” is because it was lacking some sort of bike lane or “traffic calming.”

This section of Wabasha that our Resiliency Officer Stark thinks is so wonderfully suited for people is just one example of many. What is a bike lane going to prove on a deserted street? Stark will, of course, likely blame cars as the reason no one is riding their bikes past parking ramps. Then, the city will buy the ramps and close them. And still, people won’t ride their bikes past vacant buildings. Meanwhile, suburbs that I drive to, because there’s limited shopping in Saint Paul, seem to be thriving with businesses, housing developments, and yes, even sidewalks and bike lanes with people on them. Why are Democrats and far left urbanists determined to destroy our city?

I’m completely at a loss.

The sentence from the title isn’t officially in whatever passes for a “constitution“ for the city of Saint Paul.

But it might as well be.

The neighborhood – southwest of Allianz Stadium, south of the freeway and west of Snelling – is the home of an awful lot of ELCA-haired “progressive“ with boundless spare time for nattering on about politics.

Most everything corrosive and stupid about politics in Saint Paul gestates in Merriam Park. It was where the smoking ban – which crushed bars in Saint Paul, before the ban went state wide Dash was conceived. It’s where the decades of waffling about what to do with the old Snelling Avenue bus barn got the energy behind its lack of energy (before giving the property away to a billionaire to build a soccer stadium). Support for light rail down the middle of University Avenue, with stops every half mile (as opposed to a route that would’ve made more sense)? Ranked choice voting?

Rent control?

If it’s a stupid idea that benefited only upper middle class, college educated white progressives, it started in Merriam Park.

“Including Saint Paul’s “Tony Soprano“ trash collection system?

What do you think?

A friend of the blog emails:

Illegal dumping did not go down, it went up in Saint Paul’s mafia organized trash collection system. Some say the promise of city wide trash collection was not met, but I still remember the promise of city wide trash collection was so that the elite, privileged Merriam Park residents wouldn’t have their deck sitting, coffee sipping morning ruined by the awful sound of 2 trash trucks running down their alley. To that end, the promise has been met.

But, illegal dumping hasn’t gone down? Huh, did anyone seriously believe it would? I know that I didn’t. The dumping that I see tends to be by renters moving out who aren’t dumping, per say, but offering free on curbside, oexcept no one wants the free on curbside stuff. It is mostly college student renters, since they move the most. Maybe the city should start requiring landlords renting to college students to have fully furnished apartments. (Strike that, let’s not give the council more ideas on how to restrict landlords).

Then there is President Brendmoen who tells is that equity demands we all pay into the system so that the elites continue to have a peaceful coffee sipping morning, er I mean she says it is so that trash remains affordable to the rest of us. She also thinks city staff and city owned trucks will do it even better.

I mean, trash was affordable back when we had less illegal dumping, back when Merriam Park residents were free to organize their neighbors around one trash hauler while the rest of us either used our skills to get cheaper prices or shared with our neighbors. Tell me again how getting the city even more involved will make it even better? Oh, yeah, they’ll probably screw us even better than the trash consortium mafia is.

Many of us tried to warn the city of St. Paul – or, at least, the parts of the city that weren’t the Merriam Park NIMBYs – “Minneapolis has had municipal trash collection paid for (and paid, and paid and payed) out of property taxes, for decades. And if you drive through Minneapolis, there is all sorts of trash illegally dumped on the street, even though trash collection is “free“”.