{"id":18878,"date":"2011-03-18T11:05:23","date_gmt":"2011-03-18T17:05:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=18878"},"modified":"2011-03-18T11:11:53","modified_gmt":"2011-03-18T17:11:53","slug":"abject-incompetence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=18878","title":{"rendered":"Abject Incompetence"},"content":{"rendered":"

Being part of the ruling party in a one-party system means never having to say “oops, I screwed up” – because what are your citizens <\/span>subjects going to do?\u00a0 Complain to government?<\/p>\n

Saint Paul is a one-party town.<\/p>\n

And people are certainly trying <\/em>to complain to government.<\/p>\n

There may be no more beleaguered person in America – short of a Detroit mortgage broker – than a Saint Paul business owner.\u00a0 As bad as property taxes are in Minnesota’s capitol city, business taxes (glopped onto the state’s already high rates) are even worse.\u00a0 And the city’s bureaucracy is legendarily hostile to small entrepreneurs.<\/p>\n

And it shows.\u00a0 Downtown’s occupancy rate (after you leave out all the buildings government is leasing) is up from its already-high rates; the warehouse district isn’t housing a lot of wares; Saint Paul’s Fortune 500s have been doing all their growing elsewhere, from Ecolab’s big R and D facility in Eagan to 3M’s shadow headquarters in Austin TX to USBank moving its Riverbank operations to Bloomington.<\/p>\n

Still, people take a whack at it.\u00a0 In the past 25 years, two generations of immigrant businesspeople, Viet and H’mong and Somali and Eritrean, have turned University from Lexington to the Capitol into a gritty, scrappy, but bustling little strip of restaurants, hair and nail salons, grocery stories and all the other little businesses that a self-contained community will spawn.\u00a0 It’s not Rodeo Drive, but it’s not the dismal, vacant blotch it was in the 1980s.<\/p>\n

Not yet, anyway.\u00a0 Give it time.<\/p>\n

Saint Paul businesses are outraged that the city, the Met Council and the State apparently figure that they can either ride out the building of the Central Corridor on their own<\/a>, or…<\/p>\n

…well, nobody knows:<\/p>\n

The owner of AxMan Surplus wondered Wednesday whether the troubled actor Charlie Sheen was somehow involved in the writing of a report on the construction impacts of the Central Corridor light rail line on small businesses along its 11-mile route.<\/p>\n

AxMan\u2019s owner, Jim Segal, was among owners of businesses along University Avenue in St. Paul who took sharp aim at the Metropolitan Council and the LRT project at a public hearing Wednesday.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I originally wrote “the report was a whitewash”, but the US Whitewash Council threatened to sue me for defamation.<\/p>\n

\u201cDid Charlie Sheen help with that report?\u201d said Segal, whose business is on University just west of Snelling Avenue. \u201cThat figure is absolutely unrealistic. It does nothing to address the potential loss of revenue faced by businesses on University Avenue.\u201d<\/p>\n

Segal, who estimated that AxMan would lose $100,000 in revenue over the first six months of construction, maintained that the $957 million project\u2019s effects would be felt by businesses long after trains start running in 2014. \u201cThe pedestrian environment is going to be terrible while construction is ongoing, and there will be a permanent change to people\u2019s driving and parking patterns. That wasn\u2019t discussed in this report.\u201d<\/p>\n

At one point, he said the report, the \u201cDraft Supplemental Environmental Assessment Construction-Related Potential Impacts to Business Revenue,\u201d would be more useful as toilet paper, and he held up a roll to make the point.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The street is going to be torn up for years<\/em> – and it doesn’t end there:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe big problem is the major loss of parking,\u201d said Mike Baca, the owner of Impressive Print, located just east of Fairview Avenue.<\/p>\n

Baca ridiculed a business mitigation fund support program outlined in the Met Council\u2019s assessment that would provide low- or no-interest loans of up to $10,000 for retail businesses expecting construction-related disruptions. \u201cWho wants a $10,000 loan when you\u2019re losing between 30 and 60 percent of your revenue?\u201d he asked. \u201cThis project is going to destroy businesses.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This blog will be documenting the casualties.<\/p>\n

As [Met Council bureaucrats] [“]listened[“], along with Federal Transit Administration representative Maya Ray and Shoua Lee of the Central Corridor Project Office, one business owner after another laid out the damage the project is causing them and condemned what they see as a lack of cooperation from the Met Council and city and state government entities.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If you read this blog, you know that “hamfisted and stupid” and “Government construction effort” are more or less synonyms.\u00a0 Still, this project just beggars the imagination so far:<\/p>\n

Holden estimated that since the beginning of March, when construction began in the area, his business has lost $7,300 in revenue. Baca said he had to hire a driver to deliver print projects because customers are unwilling to drive to his store. Steve Bernick, the owner of Milbern Clothing, said he was promised that Aldine Street, the cross street near his business, would remain a through street during construction. Instead, it was designated right-turn only, forcing drivers to make an illegal U-turn to reach his store.<\/p>\n

Diane Pietro, the owner of the Twin Cities Photography Group near Highway 280, said construction workers came into her business without identifying themselves and started tearing up a newly renovated hallway to install water pipes. She also said they were dismissive when she complained.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis project is ruining my service,\u201d she said. \u201cFamilies don\u2019t want to come in and sit for a portrait when there are workers walking in and out. I\u2019ve gotten two parking tickets for trying to park in front of my own business. Both of our entrances are blocked and the sidewalks are closed.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

You gotta break eggs to make an omelet.<\/p>\n

Jack McCann, the president of the University Avenue Betterment Association, sharply criticized what he saw as \u201ca level of incompetence\u201d in how the assessment was prepared. \u201cIt\u2019s unfortunate that we\u2019re even here today,\u201d he said. \u201cThe amenities of University Avenue have always been great for businesses, and it already has good mass transit – the 16A bus line.\u201d<\/p>\n

McCann, whose Update Co. owns several properties near University and Raymond avenues, said renters are already asking him for a reduction of $1 per square foot for 2011 and 2012 to make up for anticipated lost revenue.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat are (business owners) expected to do when they rely on on-street parking? That hasn\u2019t been addressed,\u201d he said. \u201cIf business owners knew there would be parking near their businesses (during construction), they wouldn\u2019t need mitigation. But people mistrust the Met Council.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Not without reason.<\/p>\n

The comment period for the impact assessment will end March 31, after which the Met Council and the FTA will respond to comments as part of a final supplemental assessment document.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Being part of the ruling party in a one-party system means never having to say “oops, I screwed up” – because what are your citizens subjects going to do?\u00a0 Complain to government? Saint Paul is a one-party town. And people are certainly trying to complain to government. There may be no more beleaguered person in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[104,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18878","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-trains-and-automobiles","category-st-paul"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18878","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18878"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18878\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18893,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18878\/revisions\/18893"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}