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“”.
Just take your trash and dump it in the ruins of one of the businesses on Uni Ave, burnt down by the Friends of Hakim. No one will even notice, and at least the land will be put to a good use.
^^ Tourist who doesn’t live here says Wut?
Ha! People don’t have to live here to know that both Minneapolis and St. Paul, are in the middle stages of third world crap hole status.
Sheeit, son. The only “Minnesota tourists” are 75 IQ, black ‘bangers from Chicago come to settle scores and rob a few leftist nitwits.
Rest of the country just sits back and enjoys the show.
Moved out of St Paul and Ramsey country three years ago August.
Best decision I ever made.
I was back in the hood at a church festival in Mac Grove Saturday and Sunday and was amazed at the number of people who have left. That was all the talk. The crime, the garbage, the streets, the lack of attention to city services, and the taxes.
Not even businesses want to hang around up there:
Minnesota’s Fading Fortunes
Concerns grow as the state loses more Fortune 500 headquarters.
“The calendar had just turned to a new year when another Minnesota Fortune 500 headquarters office disappeared from the radar. On January 4, the Illinois-based Abbott Laboratories closed on its $23.6 billion acquisition of Little Canada-based St. Jude Medical LLC.
Founded here in 1976, St. Jude grew to be second only to Medtronic among medical device companies based in the state. Its $5.5 billion in revenue for 2015 placed it 465th on last year’s Fortune 500 list, one of 17 Minnesota companies that made the cut.
Since the ink is barely dry on the deal, there are no clear signals about what it means for the company’s workforce and presence in Minnesota, where it has about 4,000 of the company’s 18,000 employees. What is known, however, is that St. Jude joins a growing list of Fortune 500 companies to no longer call Minnesota home.”
But muh DiverSItY!!
Lol…
All of the HennCo and RamCo elected officials — county attorneys, sheriffs, council members, and mayors — ar terrified of being challenged from the Left. They don’t give a moment’s thought to their GOP opponents.
It’s not going to get better. There is no path from where the cities are to better governance. Get out while you can.
“Comfortably Smug” probably doesn’t realize many that post here are former TC residents. Left what was in decline and watching the further circling down the drain of the cities from afar.
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Blade;
You forgot all of the state welfare fraudsters that come to collect them checks.
Funny about that acquisition. Abbott’s HQ is in Illinois, which overall, ain’t much better than here, however, they allegedly have a more favorable corporate tax structure. Very few jobs were lost and they are constantly recruiting. They only time DemoCommies worry about stuff like that, is when over 200 jobs are lost.
I’m actually surprised that 3M hasn’t moved theirs to Texas. They established a “beachhead” in Austin in 1994.
BH, 3M hasn’t spent a buck in new investments in the Land of 10000 Lunatics since 1990. In fact, they’ve largely shipped out.
I was honored, as a contract employee of Mother M from 1995-1998, to have facilitated the de-comissioning of every unionized plant in MN, OH, PA and MI.
I documented the electrical systems, backed up the PLC programs and managed the disassembly of equipment that was shipped to Free states in AL, TX and SC for reassembly and return to production. (I must say, I especially enjoyed waving bye-bye to the union thugs as they left the sandpaper plant on Arcade St., and the Super 33 tape plant in Allentown PA.)
It was a fateful period of employment for me, as I made lifetime friends in, and travelled the state that was eventually to see me return as a lost son.
Fun fact: the R&D campus in Austin, TX is a mirror image of the one in Maplewood…except it’s still fully staffed.
Boss, they would have to rename the company – too much invested in the 3M brand, so they are stuck
I was visiting my old employer in MSP a year ago and when I asked why there was a rent-a-cop on golf cart driving around the parking lot, I was told to deter catalytic converter theft. This was in the middle of the day… in the suburbs. That shiiiite did not happen when I still lived in what has become a thirdworld shithole.