The old saw says “90% of all politics is local”.  That’s especially true in Saint Paul, partly due to a city council system that inherited some of Chicago’s old-boy (and old-girl) clacqueishness, and partly due to its’ system of “community councils”.  These councils – one in each of the city’s official neighborhoods – are elected, more or less (everyone in the neighborhood may or may not be able to vote, depending on the rules) – but as a very general rule, they are the province of people who really really love tinkering with the nuts and bolts of low-level community politics. 

They are also one of the key sources of grassroots political power in Saint Paul.  Which is why the recent takeover (some DFLers say “coup d’etat“) of the Highland Park council by a group of Republicans was such good news. 

Bear in mind – these councils tend to be provinces of DFL orthodoxy, run by career non-profiteers who’ve eked out livelihoods scudding about running petty pseudo-governments below the radar.  They aren’t bashful about using that power to their ends; in my own Midway neighborhood in 1993, an electrician from Highland Park took his life’s savings and opened a gun shop on Snelling Avenue.  The Hamline-Midway Community Council pulled out all of the stops to shut Greg Perkins and Saint Paul Firearms down, carrying on a years-long smear campaign against the businessman in the media.  When neighborhood conservatives mounted a challenge to put some pro-Perkins people on the council board, the council hurriedly organized a campaign to repel the intruders (ethical) and changed its bylaws to gag all board members who disagreed with the board’s majority position or face expulsion (dubiously ethical, cowardly).

The DFLers who hold the power love it, and they hoard it jealously:  a witness to the Highland board voting wrote me to say “By the way, did you know that [Gayle Summers, until recently the council’s paid staffer] was greeting people at the election meeting, telling people NOT to vote for Bill [Poulos, the incoming Republican chair] or Georgia [Dietz, a St. Paul GOP stalwart and another new board member], because they’re “too divisive”?  Hmmmmm. Can an employee of the council DO THAT?”

The “bad” news – if you’re a DFLer who’s part of the city’s heretofore single-party power structure, rolling the log over might have exposed a lot of financial cockroaches:

Newly elected officers at the Highland District Council in St. Paul say the neighborhood group owes thousands of dollars in back taxes and penalties and that its finances are in serious disarray.

President Bill Poulos sent a letter to the group’s board members Thursday saying the Minnesota Department of Revenue recently seized $1,568 in unpaid payroll taxes and that a conversation with IRS officials this week revealed the group owes more than $33,000 in back taxes, interest and penalties dating back to 1998.

“We have serious financial difficulties,” Poulos said. “This is what we know we owe. We don’t know what we don’t know. We suspect it’s considerably more than this.”

I will be following this closely.

I love this next bit of probably-unintended bias:

Poulos was elected board president two weeks ago in a Republican takeover of the council that highlighted increasing partisanship in neighborhood groups.

 “Partisanship”.  When it’s DFLers exercising untrammelled power (even at the petty level of the neighborhood council), the word never appears (see also: everything Lori Sturdevant has ever written).  But let Republicans run a well-organized campaign to get a share of the power, and suddenly it’s a mean, nasty, brutish world (ibid).

Gayle Summers, the council’s lone full-time staffer and one of the city’s longest-serving community organizers, resigned last week.

As one of the city’s 19 district councils, the group is funded in part by taxpayer dollars.

In addition to the taxes and penalties, Poulos said IRS officials have no record of tax returns for the nonprofit organization from 2001 to 2005.

Summers could not be reached for comment. Her husband, Thomas Summers, said she was not home and could not be reached Thursday night.

“We are monitoring the situation and we hope that things work out for that organization and that they can continue to serve the community,” said City Council Member Pat Harris, whose 3rd Ward includes Highland Park.

By the way, parts of the power structure in Saint Paul are showing their true colors.  From an email on a Saint Paul discusssion forum:

>I’m sure that [Summers] could see
> that she is going to have a very inexperienced board
> that will be tripping over itself, saying stupid
> things, getting its nose into places it doesn’t
> belong

I had to ask – where don’t citizens in a democracy “belong”?

From the PiPress story: 

Poulos said newly elected officers began examining the group’s finances once they were able to gain access to the office’s computers. They found unopened mail stuffed in drawers and learned of the Department of Revenue seizure after asking the council’s bank for updated statements.

The group has $12,000 on hand, leaving it unable to cover its IRS obligations, Poulos said. He stressed that the group is not bankrupt or insolvent.

“It’s shocking. No one had any inkling of the kind of errors that were being made,” said Armstrong, who is still a member of the board. “We’re all eager to find a solution.”

Former treasurer John Goering, who is no longer with the group, confirmed he had little oversight over the books.

“I’m very willing to help with what I know, which in truth isn’t very much,” Goering said. “I think I saw two checks in the whole time I was there.”

I will be following this story as much as I possibly can.

Here’s where we can all help out: 

The group has scheduled a public meeting at 7 p.m. May 23 at Hillcrest Recreation Center to update community members and discuss how to proceed.

If you’re a Saint Paul Republican, or just someone who wants to see some accountability in Saint Paul politics, you oughtta show up.  I will be there, come hell or high water.  If you’re interested in showing up, let me know – write me at “feedbackinthedark” at yahoo dot com. 

(Fraters are also watching the story)