Resilient!
By Mitch Berg
MInneapolis’ “Resilience Officer” has departed, after seven months, after submitting no work product of any kind:
[Former DFL legislatore Kate] Knuth, an environmental educator and former DFL legislator, spent her first months in the job interviewing people and conducting a survey, but had not delivered any finished work product before she resigned.
Mychal Vlatkovich, a spokesman for Mayor Jacob Frey, said they’ve begun looking for a replacement and hope to hire someone by the end of March who will focus on the mayor’s goals. He said the mayor’s office did not ask Knuth to step down, but declined to answer whether she was allowed to continue in the position and referred further questions to Knuth and former City Coordinator Spencer Cronk, who is now the city manager of Austin, Texas.
I’ve always wondered what a “Resiliehce Officer” does. Reading the job title, I assumed it covered things like network security, hardening city communications against hacking and terrorism, and coming up with plans for responding to things like natural disasters, terrorist attacks, and winning college hockey titles.
The position is designed to reflect the priorities of the administration, and in this case we’re going to be focused more narrowly on expanding access to affordable housing, and the impact that would have on our other goals, including building an inclusive economy and strengthening police-community relations,” Vlatkovich said.
In other words, a “Resilience Officer” is in charge of making the city look like it’s trying to dooooooooo something about progressive “dog whistle” issues.
Kniuth’s job was apparently funded by a grant. But Saint Paul, not to be left behind by an urban progressive fad, is jumping on the hybrid bandwagon:
While St. Paul is not one of the 100 “resilient cities,” the city has hired former Council President Russ Stark as chief resilience officer. Stark, who starts on Thursday, will be paid a salary of $105,000 through the city’s general fund. The city of St. Paul says he will “promote sustainability strategies aimed at protecting Saint Paul families from the effects of climate change.”
People on social media have commentned “That doesn’t seem all that resilient”.
They miss the point.
The resilience is in the concept – which is “to transfer taxpayer dollars to the DFL’s political class”, keeping the likes of Knuth and Stark paid and fed and involved in “progressive” politics. It’s a part of institutional life in Minnesota, and the reason most “community non-profits” exist, and the reason getting elected as a DFL pol means never having to look for work again as long as you live.
And that is resilience!
PS: Kate Knuth is the daughter of the Saint Paul school administrator at the end of this episode. Yep, “public service” runs in families, doesn’t it? )
February 15th, 2018 at 12:33 pm
Every resident of St. Paul must pay $.50 to fund just this one guy’s salary, which I point out is greater than my own. Surely we could have found someone to do this for 2/3rd’s the amount, or even someone to not do this for half the amount?
February 15th, 2018 at 12:53 pm
In terms of resiliency, I’m convinced that following a nuclear holocaust, the only lifeforms left will be cockroaches and DFL apparatchiks. And the roaches have a bettter chance of setting up a functional government while the DFLers write policy papers about the holocaust’s “disparate impact”.
February 15th, 2018 at 1:19 pm
She’s single, boys!
Really, if I were to define a “resilience” officer, I’d define it as a guy who helps department heads develop contingency plans for a SHTF situation. Seems that Knuth has interpreted it somewhat differently as the person who throws the S into the F.
February 15th, 2018 at 1:23 pm
For the Knuths, this is the family business. Mom is the nasty bureaucrat you know, Dad is a lobbyist who had to beat a hasty retreat from the lege when the waves of scandal started to lap up on his shore, and Kate served three terms of little distinction in the lege herself before she went on to acquire 14-15 advanced degrees. I might be exaggerating a little on her CV, but you get the idea.
February 15th, 2018 at 1:39 pm
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February 15th, 2018 at 1:53 pm
So in other words, Mr. D, we can just call them the Knenedeys?
February 15th, 2018 at 2:08 pm
So in other words, Mr. D, we can just call them the Knenedeys?
More like the Kndaleys or the Knborgias, NW, but I take your point.
February 15th, 2018 at 4:52 pm
The one bright sign I can see here is that she’s leaving. Now I can dream of people thinking of why they ever thought a biodiversity major could handle train wrecks–and resigning in apology.
Or are we going to hear great news for Knuth’s career now? Big promotion for half a year of doing nothing?
February 15th, 2018 at 8:49 pm
She left when.there was no more work not to do. Wonder who’s payroll she’ll pop up on next?
February 16th, 2018 at 8:52 am
Man it must be nice to get paid money to not do a damn thing all day except give the appearance of doing something. I’d get in trouble for that level of output over the course of 2 days, let alone 7 months.
February 16th, 2018 at 11:48 am
Bill; sounds to me like Knuth comes from the same school as Chelsea Clinton.
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