{"id":57268,"date":"2016-01-27T12:00:40","date_gmt":"2016-01-27T18:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=57268"},"modified":"2016-01-27T12:45:13","modified_gmt":"2016-01-27T18:45:13","slug":"one-evening-at-the-saint-paul-city-council","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=57268","title":{"rendered":"One Evening At The Saint Paul City Council"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>SCENE: \u00a0The Saint Paul City Council chambers. \u00a0Present are:<\/em><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><em>Mayor Chris\u00a0COLEMAN<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>Ward 1 councilor Bernadette SANDERS<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>Ward 2 councilor Benny TOMUSOLLINI<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>Ward 3 councilor Francine\u00a0BURNS<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>Ward 4 councilor Evita P. EVITA<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>Ward 5 councilor Hugh GOCHAVEZ<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>Ward 6 councilor L. A. PDOG<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>Ward 7 councilor Katherine ANTSY<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><em>COLEMAN gavels the meeting to order.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>COLEMAN: \u00a0May the meeting come to order.<\/p>\n<p>BURNS: (<em>loudly clears her throat<\/em>)<\/p>\n<p>COLEMAN: \u00a0Sorry. \u00a0May the meeting\u00a0<em>please\u00a0<\/em>come to order, by your indulgent leave?<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>(<em>BURNS, EVITA and ANTSY nod a satisfied nod<\/em>)<\/p>\n<p>COLEMAN: \u00a0Well, I&#8217;m sure we know why we&#8217;re all here in special session&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>SANDERS: \u00a0To honor the brave, dedicated men and women of this city&#8217;s public employee unions!<\/p>\n<p>COLEMAN: \u00a0Well, no&#8230;we&#8217;re here to&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>(<em>But it&#8217;s too late. \u00a0The councilors leap to their feet and sing a rousing verse of the Internationale, as COLEMAN slowly rises and sings halfheartedly along. \u00a0 At the end of the song, the councilors wave at the seats &#8211; which are unoccupied<\/em>)<\/p>\n<p>COLEMAN: \u00a0OK. \u00a0With that out of the way, we&#8217;ve up to the subject, and only agenda item, of tonight&#8217;s meeting; trying to do something to improve the city&#8217;s business climate.<\/p>\n<p>TOMUSOLLINI: \u00a0Perhaps we need to build a wall around the city, and charge businesses for trying to leave. \u00a0(<em>The proposal draws a sharp round of enthusastic applause from most of the council<\/em><em>). \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p>BURNS: \u00a0But that might give the opinion that we&#8217;re a gated community.<\/p>\n<p>PDOG: \u00a0Ewwwwww.<\/p>\n<p>EVITA: I think we need to raise the minimum wage to $16 dollars an hour!<\/p>\n<p>GOCHAVEZ: \u00a0Why more than Minneapolis&#8217;s $16 proposal?<\/p>\n<p>EVITA: \u00a0Because if we pay more, then more workers come to Saint Paul, which means more jobs here!<\/p>\n<p>SANDERS: \u00a0 I\u00a0<em>like\u00a0<\/em>it! \u00a0(Another sharp little round of applause)<\/p>\n<p>TOMUSOLLINI: \u00a0Excellent!<\/p>\n<p>COLEMAN: \u00a0Um, OK&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>ANTSY: \u00a0These ideas all have merit&#8230;\u00a0(<em>The lights dim as ANTSY speaks; she is backlit with an eerie red glow<\/em>). \u00a0 But I think we need to go one step further.<\/p>\n<p>COLEMAN: \u00a0Er&#8230;what do you have in mind?<\/p>\n<p>ANTSY: \u00a0We need to mandate (<em>there is a clash of dramatic chords in the background<\/em>) <a href=\"https:\/\/www.minnpost.com\/politics-policy\/2016\/01\/st-paul-explore-mandatory-paid-leave-private-employers\">mandatory paid leave for employees<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>(<em>Fireworks explode behind ANTSY, as the rest of the councilors applaud wildly<\/em>)<\/p>\n<p>(<em>The lights come back up<\/em>)<\/p>\n<p>COLEMAN: \u00a0Er, yeah &#8211; look, I hate the one percent as much as the next hard-line DFL mayor, and I do want to eat the rich. \u00a0(<em>the rest of the council briefly waves their hands in the air, as if in supplication of some sort<\/em>). \u00a0But how is this going to increase business and bring jobs to Saint Paul?<\/p>\n<p>ANTSY: \u00a0It&#8217;s really simple, Chrissy. \u00a0People can&#8217;t create\u00a0jobs if they&#8217;re sick, or stressed out.<\/p>\n<p>COLEMAN: \u00a0Employees don&#8217;t actually create the j&#8230; (<em>ANTSY and EVITA stare daggers at him<\/em>) &#8230;right. \u00a0But this is going to be a huge financial burden on small businesses in Saint Paul.<\/p>\n<p>EVITA: \u00a0Look &#8211; you go out and tell those cigar-chomping fatcats at&#8230; (<em>flips open Saint Paul business tax register<\/em>) Xiong Family Daycare that we allow them the privilege of doing business in our city, and in return they have to provide benefits for the workers that create the actual jobs.<\/p>\n<p>GOCHAVEZ: \u00a0And of course, we&#8217;ll have to hire lots of city employees to supervise compliance!<\/p>\n<p>TOMUSOLLINI: \u00a0Oh, yeah!<\/p>\n<p>BURNS: \u00a0And everyone of them will be SEIU members!<\/p>\n<p>EVITA: \u00a0Um, AFSCME&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>GOCHAVEZ: MAPE!<\/p>\n<p>ANTSY: \u00a0(<em>the lights dim, and the red backlight appears again<\/em>) \u00a0We&#8217;ll work that out.<\/p>\n<p>PDOG: \u00a0We&#8217;ll work that out! \u00a0(<em>The lights come back up<\/em>)<\/p>\n<p>ANTSY: \u00a0So we&#8217;re agreed. \u00a0More regulations for a Better Saint Paul!<\/p>\n<p>ALL: \u00a0More regulations for a Better Saint Paul!<\/p>\n<p><em>(All rise, and sing together<\/em>)<\/p>\n<p><object width=\"425\" height=\"344\"><param name=\"movie\" value=\"http:\/\/swf.tubechop.com\/tubechop.swf?vurl=7Lg4gGk53iY&amp;start=21&amp;end=59.91&amp;cid=7633446\" \/><embed src=\"http:\/\/swf.tubechop.com\/tubechop.swf?vurl=7Lg4gGk53iY&amp;start=21&amp;end=59.91&amp;cid=7633446\" type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" width=\"425\" height=\"344\" \/><\/object><\/p>\n<p>(<em>And SCENE<\/em>)<\/p>\n<p>(Note: \u00a0Some names were changed, largely because the names don&#8217;t really matter. \u00a0Seriously. \u00a0Name the members of the Congress of Supreme Soviets in 1970. \u00a0Don&#8217;t need to know, because it doesn&#8217;t matter? \u00a0There you go).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>SCENE: \u00a0The Saint Paul City Council chambers. \u00a0Present are: Mayor Chris\u00a0COLEMAN Ward 1 councilor Bernadette SANDERS Ward 2 councilor Benny TOMUSOLLINI Ward 3 councilor Francine\u00a0BURNS Ward 4 councilor Evita P. EVITA Ward 5 councilor Hugh GOCHAVEZ Ward 6 councilor L. A. PDOG Ward 7 councilor Katherine ANTSY COLEMAN gavels the meeting to order. COLEMAN: \u00a0May [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,255],"tags":[236],"class_list":["post-57268","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-st-paul","category-the-racket","tag-dramatization"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57268","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=57268"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57268\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57288,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57268\/revisions\/57288"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=57268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=57268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=57268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}