Part of last night's city council meeting made the evening news: the story of a 5th grade class from Maplewood's Weaver Elementary trying to help World War II veteran Russell Anderson get his Purple Heart was the topic of a segment on KARE11's newscast. You can read the story and view video on their website (the video is in the right hand column, somewhat hidden among the ads).
As expected, the bill to change the Minnesota state primary date from September to August was passed by both houses, and yesterday Gov. Pawlenty signed it into law, as reported by media such as the Star Tribune and Pioneer Press.
The new primary date is August 10th this year. For Maplewood, this means August 10th is also the date for the special election for Mayor Rossbach's former council seat. The Citizen Services department has informed the City Council that, based on the new date, the filing period for special election candidates begins on May 18th.
This is a somewhat belated update on the progress of the bonding bill, but Minnesota's House of Representatives passed the bonding bill on Monday, after the Senate did last week. In both chambers it had bipartisan support (though Republicans who supported it are apparently coming under attack from their own party). The bill now goes to conference committee to iron out differences between the two versions. Last I heard, the East Metro Regional Fire Training Facility was included in both versions, so it should make it out of conference. Whether it will survive the threatened vetoes from the governor, line item or otherwise, remains to be seen ...
North Saint Paul resident Bob Zick is a regular at our council meetings, always looking to create footage of himself to show on his cable access TV show. At this past Monday's meeting, he promised that he would be showing the video shot by his camera people (primarily the former mayor's husband) at last week's city council retreat and the citizens forum. Wondering what clips he would find to take wildly out of context, I TiVo'd his show out of curiosity and skimmed through it.
As it turns out, he never did play any video from either the retreat or the citizens forum. He played lot of video, but it all seemed to be him talking to the city council at our last two meetings. You'd think that fresh footage (not available online on demand) would be more interesting to his audience. Then again, the retreat was a nine-hour meeting that didn't include Bob Zick talking, so perhaps there wasn't any footage of interest to his regular viewer(s).
I did get a chance to see many examples of how spectacularly uninformed, misinformed and mathematically illiterate Mr. Zick is. For example, he went on about “pre-agenda meetings,” which have not been in place as long as I've been on the council. Those were meetings held the Thursday before a regular council meeting. The mayor and council would review the packet with staff, ask questions, and give staff a couple of days to research answers for the Monday meeting if they didn't have them already.
He also declared that this year's city council was working in secrecy out of the public eye, because we decide things in workshops, which are not broadcast. Umm...except that all our council workshops have been broadcast as long as I've been on the council. If you missed them, because they tend to start at some time between 4:30 and 5:30, all of the workshops since the start of 2010 are or will be archived for online viewing on demand.
Mr. Zick likes to pull amazing numbers out of the air, and declare them to be well-established facts. At one point he announced that the council/staff retreat cost $30,000-40,000; another time he said $80,000. I think I heard him say one point that city employees are paid $80 per hour (that would be $166,400 per year, though state law caps local government salaries at about $145,000), and he then multiplied that figure by the months of staff time he imagines went into setting up the retreat. At one point he claimed that meals at the retreat were “catered” and cost $10,000.
Sounds lavish, doesn't it! You might be imagining some high society party with sterling silver canape forks and servants in black ties.
Well, I never saw the caterers. It looked to me like city staff just set out snacks, drinks (coffee, hot water for tea, a cooler of soda pop), disposable cups and plates, and take-out food from some local restaurants. For breakfast there were a few things of yogurt, some muffins, coffee, two half gallon cartons of juice (pour your own into a paper cup), and some sliced fruit like you might pick up at Cub or Rainbow. At noon we had boxed lunches from Panera. For dinner, some big aluminum trays of salad and pasta, and some Italian bread (not heated like that fancy garlic bread you might have heard of, just cold sliced bread with packets of butter to spread on it yourself) from an Italian restaurant were set out for the five councilmembers and eleven staff members.
It says a lot about Mr. Zick's financial acuity that he imagines this spread would cost $10,000. Let's average $3,333 per meal – maybe less for breakfast (smaller, since department heads didn't join the retreat until lunchtime), more for dinner (what with bread on the side and some fancy packets of optional crushed red peppers for culinary thrill-seekers). I'm going to say there were no more than twenty boxed lunches from Panera (which, let's remember, is located in the same building that Mr. Zick claims as his Maplewood address). Do the math, $3,333 ÷ 20...
So the next time you see Mr. Zick claiming to speak with authority on any topic whatsoever, just remember — this is a guy who convinced himself that a six-inch sandwich, cookie and chips in a cardboard box from Panera Bread costs $167. I don't know about you, but I wouldn't trust him to buy lunch unsupervised, let alone advise my local government on policy and operations.
This month's Your Police Report, a cable TV program produced by the Maplewood Police Department, includes an interview with Maplewood's new mayor, Will Rossbach. This program is in the schedule of broadcasts on the city's cable channel 16 (for example, at 3:00 PM on Monday, Feb. 8th, if you want to program your DVR). You can also view the current episode of Your Police Report on the GTN website.
A Pioneer Press story over the weekend discussed our coming interim council appointment and the plan for the special election to coincide with the state primary.
The Sunday Pioneer Press includes an article about a petition seeking signatures to ask the State Auditor to examine Maplewood's books. Leading the petition drive is Elizabeth Sletten, one of former Mayor Diana Longrie's most devoted fans (you may also remember her as one of the candidates in last year's city council primary), and Longrie herself.
Long-time readers of my blog may recall that we've talked about this before. As my term began in 2008, I seriously considered whether we should ask the State Auditor to look at our books, after the mismanagement and incompetence of the Longrie-Copeland era. You can read my entry on the topic from April 7, 2008.
Then-Mayor Longrie wrote an April 8, 2008 opinion article in the Pioneer Press about her wish to see an audit; she ran the same text as her article in the May 2008 city newsletter. Longrie's laundry list of concerns focused not on Copeland's time at the city's helm — rather, she wanted an inquiry to focus on policy disagreements such as the amount of city debt, and bizarre personal obsessions like someone joking about naming a street after Will Rossbach. (Perhaps Longrie thinks "Comedy Police" is part of the state auditor's job description.)
In the new Pioneer Press article, Sletten claims to have obtained more than 400 signatures so far — roughly the same number as votes she received in last year's primary. To meet the required 20% of registered Maplewood voters, she'll need about 4,200. Even then, the scope of the audit is determined by the auditors, not the petitioners. To quote the State Auditor's website:
If a petition audit is certified by the county auditor, staff from the Office of the State Auditor would then meet with a committee of petitioners to review the petitioners' concerns. The audit staff then would review the concerns to determine the scope of the audit. The audit might not include all the concerns identified by the petitioners if the audit staff determined that the concerns were based on decisions within the discretion of the governing body.
I believe the State Auditor would duplicate the work already done by our independent auditors every year — which, let's be clear, has included a lot of clean-up of issues from the Longrie-Copeland era. But staff and auditors have repeatedly told us that there's no evidence of wrongdoing, just errors that we can reasonably believe came as a result of the loss of most of the accounting department, who were driven away by the toxic environment created in City Hall by Copeland and his masters. To emphasize the point once again, a state audit would not just duplicate our independent auditors' work, but the city's taxpayers would have to pay for the cost of the audit in a year when the budget is already stretched thin.
I don't believe that this money would be well spent, especially in these lean budgetary times. Still, if 20% of Maplewood voters want it, we'll indulge the personal obsessions of the former mayor and her cronies on the taxpayers' dime once again. I don't expect anything shocking will turn up, but I do still have my own list of questions, as I wrote in May 2008, that I will happily submit to the auditors if they're going to be examining the city's affairs anyhow.
The City of Maplewood website doesn't yet have all the links and directions in place, but streaming of live and archived Maplewood meetings is in fact available now.
Here are links to the archived Maplewood City Council meetings of the year to date:
Tonight's workshop, in which we will be interviewing a lot of candidates for the new Business & Economic Development Commission, begins at 5:00 and while it's going on it should be viewable online. Later it will also be available as an archive, with those handy agenda links embedded to make it easy to find whatever specific item on the agenda you may be interested in.
Rather quietly, online streaming of city council meetings began last night. It was hard to find the link in the city council page, and I didn't actually realize it was being streamed live (or nearly live, with a delay of a few seconds for the video feed to be processed into the format for streaming over the internet) until City Manager Antonen mentioned it in mid-meeting.
Presumably this evening's 5 PM workshop about the interim council appointment will be streaming as well at the same web address.
All of this year's meetings will be available in an archive online for on-demand viewing, starting in the near future.
The Pioneer Press editorial writers had some fun last week at the expense of Maplewood and the anticipated decline of our previously thriving headline manufacturing sector. "But where are tomorrow's quips, headlines, conflicts, gaffes and attacks going to come from, if not from our elected leaders?" they write. " This agreeableness has got to stop."
This week's online newsletter from the League of Minnesota Cities includes an article about Judge Gearin's decision to overturn the unallotment of funding to the Minnesota Supplemental Aid Special Diet Program. It provides a good explanation of the ruling and some of its impact, especially as relates to cities -- the main impact being "more uncertainty". It also says that the League board will discuss what if anything to do, in light of the decision, at its upcoming meeting on January 21st.
I've decided that I'm not eager to see the LMC and other entities join in a flurry of lawsuits to overturn the unallotments. I think it is vital to have a test case like the Special Diet Program to work through the constitutional issues, so I'm pleased with both Gearin's ruling and the Governor's decision to appeal it. This case ought to go to the Minnesota Supreme Court, either to clarify the statute's interpretation or to make the legislature rewrite it to pass constitutional muster.
But overturning Pawlenty's actions last year won't cause money to appear in the state coffers to restore those cuts. Any 2009 funding restored in court is only going to increase the cuts that will have to be made by the legislature and governor to balance the remainder of the biennial budget. It would be a zero-sum game, except for the legal fees that make it less-than-zero.
Partisan Angles Many commentators seem to have taken Gearin's decision as a major blow to Governor Pawlenty and the Republicans, and some conservative partisans have gone further to suggest that it represents liberal judicial bias (a claim that doesn't really hold up in light of the many rulings in Gearin's career on the bench).
Sarah Janacek at Politics in Minnesota takes a different view than many of her colleagues on the right, calling the ruling "Good for the state and spectacular for Pawlenty and the Republicans." Janacek seems to accept the basic separation-of-powers argument in Gearin's ruling, without jumping to conclude that it was biased and wrong just because it was not the ruling the Republican governor had sought. The way she sees it playing out, the court decision may bring us back to legislative-executive gridlock, but she sees that situation as benefitting Republicans because Pawlenty will have nothing to lose. If he lets the government shut down for lack of a budget deal, it will only increase the national attention and anti-tax reputation that he seeks for his presidential aspirations. For his presidential run, the national reputation matters more than his popularity in Minnesota, where he won election and reelection with less than 50% of the vote.
Janacek's analysis is intriguing, though I'm not sure it will work out that way. What I do think is important is to realize that what politicians and parties want in the short term doesn't always play out the way they imagine it will. Republicans should not revile this decision just because it is a tactical setback for Pawlenty, and Democrats should not be too satisfied or mistakenly think that this represents a seismic shift of the budget negotiating terrain to their advantage. As Janacek points out, the governor still has the veto (and line-item veto), and as a lame duck official with aspirations for a higher office, he probably has less to lose than do DFL legislators if he decides to take a hard line and refuse compromise.
Maplewood's Bottom Line No doubt there will be a lot of drama in the coming legislative session as state leaders wrestle with the budget. Unfortunately, I think the end result for Maplewood is pretty much the same in any scenario -- our Market Value Homestead Credit is gone, and I don't see it being restored. There's a lot of focus on the short-term forecasts and budgets, but the long term picture for state finances is even more challenging. I believe Maplewood has to plan for the future with the assumption that our MVHC, like Local Government Aid, is gone for good. If we do happen to get some in a future year, we should treat it as a windfall for one-time uses, such as capital expenses or debt reduction, rather than part of the operating budget.
One of those predictions: "A Return To Civility" for Maplewood, with the swearing in tonight of Rossbach as Mayor, and Juenemann and Llanas to the city council. "A smooth-running council could ultimately save the city money," writes John Brewer, and observers should "Look for increased transparency in administrative and financial matters as well as low-key council meetings."
The city's IT director, Mychal Fowlds, informed the city council in this past week's "FYI" from the City Manager's office that the new hardware we approved purchasing earlier this year is now up and running in the control room of city hall. Video outside of live broadcasts will now be played from a hard drive, rather than three DVD players. The result will be more content and more variety on Maplewood's Channel 16 -- more meetings can be included in the replay rotation, and additional public service announcements and special programming can easily be broadcast in the coming year.
The judicial branch has weighed in on the issue of unallotments as exercised this past year by Governor Pawlenty. In the first of what is likely to be numerous rulings, the court issued a temporary restraining order enjoining the state government from reducing its allotment of funding to the Minnesota Supplemental Aid Special Diet Program. The Governor has announced that he will appeal the ruling. Given the constitutional issues at stake — the executive branch usurping the powers of the legislative, the governor abusing the unallotment statute as a way to get his way without having to negotiate or compromise with legislators — I have to assume that this will go up to the supreme court.
The practical effect is less certain. The state's budget forecast is now worse than it was when Pawlenty signed those spending bills whose funding he planned to veto. Any reprieve for the MSA Special Diet Program or anyone else (like Maplewood) subjected to unallotment is likely to be temporary; even if a legislative-executive budget compromise in the coming session includes tax increases, it will no doubt include substantial cuts too, that may well be more than the Pawlenty's 2009-2010 unallotments.
Judge Gearin's memorandum recognizes the worsening budget situation, and asks the rhetorical question, "Why then should the courts bother to enjoin this unallotment? Is the separation of powers part of our constitution that important?" Her answer is an emphatic "yes." She writes:
The revenue bill that the governor vetoed would have balanced the budget based on the anticipated receives forecast in February 2009. The governor used unallotment rather than calling a special session of the legislature or vetoing the appropriations bill to balance the budget. He did this after signing numerous spending bills which taken together, he knew would not balance the budget unless revenues were raised. He used the unallotment statute to address a situation that was neither unknown nor unanticipated when the appropriations bills became law . . .
. . . [T]he Governor crossed the line between legitimate exercise of his authority to unallot and interference with the Legislative power to make laws, including statutes allocating resources and raising revenues. The authority of the Governor to unallot is an authority intended to save the state in times of a previously unforeseen budget crisis, it is not meant to be used as a weapon by the executive branch to break a stalemate in budget negotiations with the legislature or to rewrite the appropriations bill.
I think it is essential that the judicial branch rule on this constitutional issue. Were it to go unchallenged, this way of using unallotment would represent a major increase of the power of the executive — something that even Pawlenty's devoted fans might not appreciate so much in future years when the office is occupied by other parties.
Last week's Maplewood Review included an article about urban chickens and Maplewood. I saw a discussion of the topic an an Environmental & Natural Resources Commission meeting earlier this year, and a resident recently brought up the topic in visitior presentations at a council meeting.
Do you have thoughts about whether residents should be allowed to raise chickens in Maplewood, and under what conditions? Drop me a line at my city e-mail and let me know what you think.
Last month Senator Chuck Wiger interviewed me for his cable TV show, Your Capitol: What's Up? The interview airs for the first time tonight at 10:00 PM, and replays tomorrow at 6:00 AM and 11:00 AM, and then again on December 27th at 3:00 PM. All broadcasts are on Channel 15 in Maplewood and other cities served by the Ramsey-Washington Suburban Cable Commission.
A complete schedule of Sen. Wiger's December shows is available on his website.
This week's Maplewood Reviewincludes an article about our special meeting held on December 7th, which included a public hearing on the proposed 2010 budget and votes on the final levy and the budget itself.
At the November 23rd city council meeting, we approved the plan to put city meetings on the internet -- streaming live, and archived for viewing on demand. This service is being offered through the Ramsey-Washington Suburban Cable Commission to its members; the more cities that sign up, the bigger discount we will all see. This week's Maplewood Review includes an article about it, including the news that North Saint Paul has also taken action to sign up for the service.
I see video streaming as an important step in increasing the accessibility of local government and the accuracy of information available to residents. Not all of our residents have free time to attend a lot of city meetings, or even to watch them at the specific times they are broadcast or rebroadcast. This new service will allow anyone with access to the internet (if not at home, then at the public library) to go to the specific portion of a meeting that interests them, even if the meeting took place months in the past.
This week's Maplewood Review includes an article about the first reading (or I suppose I should say, the latest first reading, given how many times this item has come back before the city council for additional discussion and revision) of our updated wetland ordinance. The article also describes Erik Hjelle's outburst that occurred during the wetland discussion.
After this agenda item, the council took a break, during which Mr. Hjelle gathered up his things and left city hall and the remainder of the meeting.
I submitted an item for the Monday, November 23rd, meeting agenda, asking the city council to pass a resolution in support of the Community Access Preservation Act. This is a bill that is vital to preserving public, educational, and government programming on local cable channels -- for example, the broadcast of meetings from city hall. A similar resolution was approved last week by the Ramsey/Washington Counties Suburban Cable Commission.
I've uploaded my agenda report, which includes the bill itself and explanations of its content.
I see that a new article about the Maplewood elections, "Maplewood government headed in new direction — for now," is on the Minnesota Independent this morning. Reporter Paul Demko has been keeping an eye on Maplewood ever since writing the March 2007 City Pages cover story, "Welcome to Maplewood."
What might have happened if Will Rossbach and I had not won in 2007 and changed the balance of power on the Maplewood City Council?
Take a look at the City of Greenfield for an object lesson. This past summer the League of Minnesota Cities Insurance Trust imposed special conditions on their insurance renewal, in response to a high level of losses and a perception that their mayor and city council were continuing on a path that was likely to bring more lawsuits.
Those conditions were comparable to the ones imposed on Maplewood in 2008, after the wave of costly lawsuits under Greg Copeland's management in 2006-2007. When the LMCIT imposed its conditions on our renewal, Maplewood had already taken steps in the right direction -- with the 2007 election results, the dismissal of Mr. Copeland, the start of a process for hiring a permanent, professional city manager, and so forth. As one would expect, those changes have since corresponded to a sharp drop in lawsuits and losses.
Greenfield has proven to be less cooperative. Without getting into all of the soap opera details, the result is that the LMCIT has chosen to cancel Greenfield's insurance coverage altogether, as reported by the Star Tribune and the South Crow River News, in order to protect the other member cities. If I understand it correctly, the LMCIT gave notice of across-the-board cancellation effective in 30 days. The board is then willing to offer a new coverage package limited to personal injury and property damage claims. Other types of lawsuits (e.g., employment, defamation, land use) that may occur will be at the full expense of Greenfield's taxpapers, both for the legal defense fees and the ultimate costs of any settlements or judgements.
For a city with a population under 3,000 and a tax levy under $1.3 million, such expenses could have a large and costly impact on taxpayers. The city might look to private insurers for coverage, but it is likely to be very expensive and in some cases (such as land use defense) my understanding is that no private insurers even sell such coverage.
I will be interested to see if the LMCIT's harsh decision results in any changes in the way Greenfield's elected officials govern, or if it will be left to the voters in their next elections.
The publishing cycle of the local weekly newspaper, the Maplewood Review, means that this week's issue doesn't include the election results (though their web page does have the story). What it does have related to Maplewood politics is an article about even-year elections, a topic that I brought up at the October 26 council meeting.
The weekly Maplewood Review put a story on their website about the Maplewood elections earlier today.
Longrie is quoted as saying, "I might be throwing in my hat here in the next couple of months," which sounds like she might be a candidate in the special election that will be held to fill Rossbach's current council seat until the end of its term. So voters who expressed their disapproval of her in the 2007 defeat of her city council allies, the 2008 obliteration of her primary challenge to State Rep. Lillie, and now the 2009 repudiation of her reelection campaign, may be given yet another chance to vote against her in 2010.
For those tracking coverage of Maplewood in the metro media, there were a couple of new examples yesterday.
In the new media realm, the Minnesota Independent followed up on their story from last week with a new article featuring more comment from the candidates. Mr. Llanas, target of the hate literature, says that he "wants to keep the campaign positive" and believes "residents ... are fed up with this type of political nonsense." On the other hand, write-in opponent DelRay Rokke speculates that Llanas "figures if he can get the vast majority of members of those groups [gays and Hispanics] ... he has a good chance to win." As for the flyer itself, Rokke doesn't understand what's the big deal, calling it "quite a stretch to say that it is racist and homophobic."
Dave Hafner told the Minnesota Independent that his campaign committee did not distribute the flyers -- but added that he does not actually have a campaign committee. That seems to leave open the possibility that he answered the literal question asked while evading its substance. Compounding his earlier praise of anonymous pamphleteers ("Cowards? These people obviously are quite the opposite" he wrote in comments on the previous story), Hafner commented, "I wouldn’t identify myself either if I didn’t have to."
The story concludes by reviewing the altercation between Hafner and a neighbor that resulted in a 911 call. It may be worth mentioning that Hafner later called the police on his neighbor in turn, for allegedly "staring at me from his steps" and making "a comment which was inaudible, however I think it was directed at me."
Local radio station KSTP-AM also picked up on the Maplewood story. While praising Llanas for keeping positive and focused on the issues in spite of the deplorable personal attacks, hosts Prebil and Murphy lamented the vicious mudslinging that so often characterizes local elections and discourages potential candidates from serving their communities. You can find the audio on the KSTP website, in the archived podcast MP3 of hour 4 of their October 27th episode; the conversation was between 12:38 and 12:44 PM. (Hat tip to K.R.)
After denying that he is racist or homophobic, Hafner went on to say that he sees "no racist or homophobic intent" in the flyer, and "I do see a number of facts, many of which come from Llanas’ website and the website of the Victory Fund (which is the fourth link down on Google). There are a few opinions that appear to be reasonable conclusions to me." He also endorses the use of anonymous attack flyers, saying of the people who distribute them, "Cowards? These people obviously are quite the opposite."
I can see how he would worry that the Pioneer Press would "misquote" him.
Given his demonstrated propensity to leave comments on news articles while pretending to be multiple people agreeing with one another, one wonders how many of the anonymous commenters in the Pioneer Press article discussion are actually Dave Hafner's sock puppets as well.
Last weekend, I wrote about the anonymous flyers that appeared all over my neighborhood, along with brochures promoting Dave Hafner and the write-in candidacies of Ken Smart and Delray Rokke. Since then, the story has been covered by both the Minnesota Independent and the Pioneer Press.
Like any city, Maplewood includes bigots among its residents. I was reminded of this fact at the League of Women Voters forum on Thursday. The candidates were talking about inclusiveness and specifically about Hmong families that are enthusiastic users of our parks, and one woman in the audience (who is, as it happens, a vocal supporter of Hafner, Cave and Longrie) declared loudly, “They don't speak English!” Setting aside the obvious falsehood of this generalization, so what? I can only suppose this person lives in fear of change and loathing diversity, and is the kind of voter who would be persuaded by the flyer's not-so-subtle message and other similar scaremongering.
Even on the city council, we saw Councilmember Erik Hjelle declare earlier this year that basketball courts are magnets for “gang members” and should be removed.
But as I told the Pioneer Press, I don't believe these people represent our community. They are the bad apples that often spoil public discourse with their hate, whether open or veiled – but we find them so noxious in part because they are the exception, and they offend our idea of our community and the values of human rights and human decency that most of us share.
The Maplewood Review's sister publication, the Woodbury-South Maplewood Review, appears earlier in the week. Thus it already has posted this year's voters' guides, one for city council candidates and the other for mayoral candidates, with candidate answers to questions posed by the editors of the newspapers.
I have to admit, I find Dave Hafner's answers particularly entertaining, as he proposes to "rid the city of the acrimony," touts his "people-skills," proclaims himself "good, decent, honest" and proposes "charging zero taxes" (I guess that's one way to one-up Longrie's proposal to cut the tax levy on top of losing our MVHC), which he thinks would be "the kind of imaginative thinking that we need in Maplewood." "Imaginative" as in "fantasy," I guess, much like his pal Erik Hjelle's belief in a free lunch. Maybe, persuaded by Hafner's legendary people skills, volunteers would run all city services for free, donate blacktop for roads, etc.?
On September 14th, the city council debated the maximum property tax levy for 2010. One option was a zero levy increase. Each department laid out the implications of that budget scenario, given the loss of more than half a million dollars in Market Value Homestead Credit from the state. For the police department, which uses a very large percentage of our property taxes and spends most of their budget on payroll, the impact included not hiring two new officers to fill vacancies created by recent retirements.
Even knowing the impact that a zero levy increase would have, Erik Hjelle and Diana Longrie proposed going even further in the revenue cuts, by offering a motion to cut more than $1/2 million more from the property tax levy. Had their motion passed, the city would need to consider a lot more than just leaving two officer positions vacant in order to balance the budget.
Two weeks after voting with Mayor Longrie against the funding needed to maintain Maplewood police and fire(and other property-tax-funded city services -- if you like having your streets plowed in the winter, for example), Erik brought forward his motion "that the city council support not cutting any police officer or fire staffing levels in the 2010 budget."
This was my response to his original motion:
In the end, we agreed on language to say that it is a priority of the council not to make cuts to police and fire, something that all five of us agreed on. It remains to be seen whether the whole council will step forward and take responsibility for paying for it as well when the final levy decision comes before us. In the meantime, Councilmember Hjelle and Mayor Longrie seem determined to have their cake and eat it too, taking symbolic votes in support of public safety while voting against the taxes that pay for them.
This week's Maplewood Review contains a couple articles about recent city council discussions.
"Maplewood working with metro cities on H1N1 plan" reports on the presentation from Fire Chief Steve Lukin about city contingency plans for pandemic flu, and how the city and the metro would deal with things like a large percentage of city personnel being away from work due to illness.
"Maplewood proceeding with wetland ordinance update" reports on the discussion at our September 28th meeting about the latest drafts of the wetlands ordinance, and the effort to come up with a final draft that will address numerous resident concerns.
In the Star Tribune earlier this week, there's an article about trash hauling. It reports that, according to a recent study by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, residents of cities with consumers choosing their own hauler pay on average 50% more than those with organized collection.
Our city council hasn't talked much about trash hauling, but it's a subject that the Environmental and Natural Resources Commission has investigated and discussed recently. In addition, the City of St. Paul is currently evaluating their open trash collection system. Proponents of organized collection cite the noise of multiple trucks, the extra fuel consumption, and the increased wear on city streets (meaning they have to be repaired and replaced sooner, at taxpayer expense). Opponents have usually argued that competition means lower prices, an assumption that the MPCA now calls into question. The fall-back argument of organized hauling opponents, according to the Star Tribune article, is that "They say the most valuable service isn't always the least expensive, and that competition fosters innovation and more environmentally sound practices."
City Manager Antonen brought this article to the attention of the City Council today, in his weekly "FYI." One council member was offended even to have the subject brought up: Erik Hjelle dashed off an immediate reply to the FYI, and copied the rest of the council, by telling Mr. Antonen, "...you really are a collectivist/socialist..." I guess that tells us how he would vote if organized collection came before the Council.
What might be more useful to know -- given Hjelle's lame-duck status -- is where the candidates for council and mayor stand on the issue of trash hauling. Perhaps someone will ask the question at the upcoming LWV candidate forum?
If you haven't seen it already, this past week's Maplewood Review includes a lengthy article about the City Council discussion about the budget and setting the maximum tax levy at our September 14th meeting.
Here's a message worth watching, from the Coalition of Greater Minnesota Cities:
Outstate cities, which rely on Local Government Aid (LGA) for a significant part of their budgets, are especially hard hit by Governor Pawlenty's cuts.
Maplewood lost its LGA years ago, and so the Governor has gone after our Market Value Homestead Credit (MVHC), a program designed to give homeowners property tax relief. We are expecting that Maplewood will lose more than $1/2 million this year from the Governor's unallotment of MVHC, and a similar amount again in 2010 -- the entire amounts we were supposed to receive from MVHC. It's worth keeping this in mind as we consider increasing our tax levy in 2010 (or, alternatively, cutting back on city services). Even if we go with the 5% maximum increase we passed on September 14th, that won't be enough to balance the money taken away from us by the Governor.
City council candidate Dave Hafner -- who received 911 votes in the primary and will appear on the November general election ballot -- is the subject of an article entitled "Resident calls 911 on Maplewood candidate" in this week's Maplewood Review.
The article afforded Mr. Hafner a chance to respond to the complaint made by his neighbor at the September 14th city council meeting visitor presentations. His response is that his accuser is "a dishonest person and a thief," who (Hafner claims) committed a crime merely by telling his story about interacting with Hafner.
For those who do not have access to cable TV or have not had a chance to catch one of the rebroadcasts, I have (with permission from the Cable Commission) uploaded a recording of the entire mayoral candidates' forum from last Friday so that it can be viewed over the internet.
Here it is:
[Note: This was posted 9/14/2009 at 1:52 PM; I edited the date/time to keep it as the top entry on the website during election day, and then returned it to its original chronological order.]
This morning at 7:30 AM, a mayoral candidates' forum was hosted by the St Paul Area Chamber of Commerce in the St John's Hospital cafeteria. Six of seven candidates were in attendance, and their answers to diverse questions gave the audience some idea of the common ground among various candidates as well as their differences on policy questions.
Here's the replay schedule. If you have cable TV in your home, you will have numerous chances to see it between now and Tuesday's primary. It will be appearing on both Channel 19 (On Location TV) and also on the city's government access Channel 16.
Channel 19
September 12 @ 11:30 a.m. September 13 @ 10:30 a.m. and again at 3:00 p.m. September 14 @ 9:30 a.m. and again at 7:00 p.m. September 15 @ 3:00 p.m.
Channel 16
September 11 @ 8pm September 12 & 13 @ 12am, 4am, 8am, 12pm, 4pm and 8pm September 14 @ 11am September 15 @ 12am, 4am and 12pm
Thanks are due to the staff at Channel 19 for recording and broadcasting this event, and also to city staff for coordinating the appearances on Channel 16. Appreciation should also be extended to the Chamber, St John's, and moderator Ted Lillie.
Mayoral candidate John Wykoff recently brought concerns to the city council about a cable access TV show called "The Citizens Reporter" that, he says, falsely claims to be non-partisan, not affiliated with any candidates, etc. He also brought his concerns to the cable commission at its September 10th meeting; correspondence and attachments from him were included in the commission meeting packet. (With Mr. Wykoff's permission, I've uploaded them here.)
This week's Maplewood Review covers a number of city topics, including the candidates for the primary election that is now just two weeks away. Our printed copy hasn't arrived in the mail yet, but I can see quite a few new articles on the Lillie newspaper's website.
Under the headline "Seven vie for Maplewood mayor," the newspaper's managing editor, Holly Wenzel, offers profiles of six candidates, drawn from questionnaires filled out by the candidates. One candidate, Fran Grant, did not submit a questionnaire.
All eleven city council candidates did fill out their questionnaires, and the result is another article, "11 file for 2 Maplewood council seats." Candidates Julie Binko and DelRay Rokke also make an appearance on the letters to the editor page. Rokke observes that "Maplewood’s elected leadership has been sorely lacking in the eyes of the entire metropolitan community for a number of years," a chord similar to the "not been proud of our government" comment from running mate Dave Hafner in the Review two weeks ago. Binko, whose small claims suit and its failure have gotten her attention in recent newspapers, expresses her outrage that our legislators introduced bills to fund acquisition of land for conservation in Fish Creek, and that Peter Fischer and I testified in favor of one such bill earlier this year. Another letter that touches on the election appears from resident Christeen Stone.
"What intensified the issue was that some in Maplewood City Hall, like those named in the suit, think they know better as to what is good for Maplewood citizens and press ahead doggedly, with their own personal or political agendas, creating a wake of destructions and hard feelings," Binko wrote.
She ended the e-mail with, "The divisiveness, I see in city hall, has motivated me to run for city council and change the way business is done."
At this past Monday's city council meeting, mayoral candidate John Wykoff questioned the impartiality of "The Citizens Reporter," a cable access TV program that hosted a mayoral candidate forum but apparently has not been willing to give it airtime or provide a copy to Mr. Wykoff.
Mr. Wykoff is right to question this cable access program's bias. Besides the links to the incumbent mayor that Mr. Wykoff describes in this visitor presentation, there's also the fact that Ms. Musgrave, the program's producer, shares a home with city council candidate Julie Binko.
Over a two year period from mid-2006 to mid-2008, city council candidate Dave Hafner was a somewhat prolific writer of letters to the editor concerning Maplewood politics. A look at these letters may give us an unfiltered impression of his personality and political leanings.
For example, in a Pioneer Press letter published July 28, 2006, Hafner blamed "endless gridlock in Maplewood" government on councilmembers Juenemann and Rossbach. A couple months later, the September 27, 2006Maplewood Review included Hafner's complaint that "the Lillie News has published 0 articles supporting the new Council members" (Cave, Hjelle, Longrie), thus doing a disservice to the "good, decent, honest citizens of Maplewood."
In another Pioneer Press letter to the editor, published January 1, 2007, Hafner attacked previous letter writers (including yours truly) who had criticized the 2 AM hiring of Greg Copeland. Hafner said that if Will Rossbach had wanted to be present for that vote, he could have had the agenda item held for a later meeting. Of course, that would have required Rossbach to know in advance that Erik Hjelle planned, under the agenda item "Selection of Firm to Coordinate the City Manager Hiring Process," to throw that process away and simply hire Copeland permanently.
In the February 4, 2007, Pioneer Press, Hafner accused the newspaper of publishing "slanted, unfounded propaganda," and complained of the paper's treatment of Mayor Longrie: "After giving our mayor the only truthful interview she's had in 14 months and giving us hope, you ripped her apart the very next day."
An April 4, 2007 letter from Hafner in the Maplewood Review defended Erik Hjelle from the "angry, hostile" letters of Christine M. Stone (a Maplewood senior citizen who Mr. Hafner has often singled out).
Hafner's efforts to support Mayor Longrie's coalition came to naught in the 2007 election results. After I joined the city council I can only think of one Hafner letter I've seen: In the April 8, 2008Maplewood Review, Hafner suggested that the newspaper could increase its circulation by stopping its reporting on Maplewood politics, which he characterized as "inaccurate + irresponsible."
Besides his printed letters, you can also find Hafner's comments on various media stories around the internet. On one Maplewood Review story online in February 2008, for example, he defended former city manager Greg Copeland, and claimed that “Slick Willie” (as he called Councilmember Rossbach) "instigated" previous media coverage of the city and “incessantly contrived 'huge issues' over the last two years.”
Lavish praise for Diana Longrie, Erik Hjelle, Rebecca Cave, and Greg Copeland
Attacks on critics of the Copeland-Longrie regime, singling out individual residents by name
Complaints about what he sees as media bias
Given Hafner's record as an outspoken supporter of Mayor Longrie and former Councilmember Cave, it is striking that this year he is running as a slate with two different candidates, DelRay Rokke and Ken Smart. I have the impression he still seethes with hatred for Rossbach, Juenemann, and me, but I'm not really sure how his thinking evolved to apparently place Longrie and perhaps Cave on his enemies list as well.
In his candidate profile submitted to the Maplewood Review, Hafner states that "We have not been proud of our government for the last eighteen years," now suggesting his resentments go much further back in time. I leave it to the reader to decide if his profile reflects disingenuousness in his previous letters and public statements (if he was never really "proud" of Longrie and her regime, while he was vocally defending them), or simply an effort to rewrite history and hope voters don't associate him with the disastrous period of city governance that he so publicly supported.
Another article in last week's Maplewood Review deserves notice, particularly as it appeared on one of the inside pages of the print edition and I don't think I ever even saw it listed on the front page of their website: "Council approves handbook for city commissions." As the article notes, we voted 4-1 (Hjelle dissenting) to approve the handbook and revised policies for city boards and commissions.
According to the article, when asked for comment, Dr. Binko told the reporter by e-mail, "You sat in the courtroom -- you tell me what the case was about." I found this response comforting, since I think everyone present at the hearing was wondering what the case was about, as the referee struggled to nail down just what exactly Binko meant by her vague allegations.
In any case, the conciliation court ruling has been issued, entering judgment in favor of the City and Friends of Maplewood Nature.
The Maplewood Reviewgives candidates the opportunity to submit profiles of themselves, which are then published as the election approaches. This week's issue contains the profiles of mayoral candidate Bob Cardinal and city council candidate Robert Martin.
Maplewood provided plenty of material for this week's Maplewood Review. Headlining above the fold is an article entitled “Maplewood politics reaches new low,” describing the shameless efforts of Councilmember Erik Hjelle to connect the tragic, accidental death of a Maplewood resident to mayoral candidate Will Rossbach.
Given this willingness to dishonor his firefighter's uniform (he was one of the emergency responders to the scene of the accident, and knows full well the story he's pushing is false) in order to defame a political rival, I guess it's not surprising that even some of Hjelle's long-time political allies seem to be hinting at backing away from him.
Besides the incumbent, another of this year's candidates for mayor has held the seat before: Bob Cardinal.
I started paying attention to Maplewood politics after Mayor Cardinal had left office, so I don't honestly have a lot of familiarity with his time in office. I do know that he has been strongly critical of Mayor Diana Longrie, her allies, and their time in control of the city.
As described in a Maplewood Review article, Cardinal wrote a letter to Ramsey County Attorney Susan Gaertner in late November 2006, asking her to investigate alleged wrongdoings in City Hall such as open meeting law violations, conflicts of interest, and retaliatory actions against city employees. A scanned copy of his letter can still be found in the archives of Maplewood Voices.
The county attorney's office determined that the issues itemized by Mr. Cardinal did not fall under their jurisdiction, as discussed by a later Review article in January 2007. Even so, I think he deserves credit for using his stature as a former mayor to call attention to what was happening under the Longrie-Copeland regime and to speak out on behalf of many citizens who were distressed by the direction their city was taking.
This week's Maplewood Review features an interesting article about Margaret Sletten Behrens, who sits on the board of the Ramsey County Soil and Water Conservation District. Ms. Behrens was the only person who filed to run for the office last fall, and now has made waves by submitting unusually large requests for per diem and mileage reimbursements. Apparently she is billing the taxpayers for things like attending Mayor Longrie's monthly forum at the Maplewood City Hall. (A $25 to $75 per diem, plus mileage, for two hours of mostly listening to the mayor's admirers praise her and bash Will Rossbach?!)
The article casts a new light on the following exchange, which took place at our council meeting of June 8th, 2009. Behrens' father, Ralph, and her sister, city council candidate Elizabeth Sletten, lobbied to have Ms. Behrens appointed to the Fish Creek ad hoc commission:
At the time I didn't see the point in telling the conservation district who they must appoint to attend our ad hoc commission meetings, if they wished to send a representative. But now it sounds like Behrens was looking for more meetings to attend in some official capacity, if conservation district staff and other board members had started to question the validity of paying for her to sit in the audience at Maplewood City Council meetings.
The Maplewood Review has an online update to the story about the Council Corner, entitled "Maplewood Council Corner Columns a go." The article describes at some length the unusual, off-agenda presentation from city council candidate and outspoken Longrie supporter Julie Binko on July 20. For those who have not seen Dr. Binko in action, I thought I would share a video clip of the exchange.
Beside the Pioneer Press story I referenced this morning, a few other Maplewood-related news articles are in circulation today.
The "new media" takes a look at the Maplewood elections, though the byline is a familiar name for those who have followed Maplewood over the past few years: Paul Demko now writes for the Minnesota Independent, with a preliminary survey of the candidates. Demko's "Welcome to Maplewood" article from City Pages, March 2007, remains an indispensible introduction to the Longrie-Copeland era.
Yesterday the filing period closed for this year's city elections. This morning's Pioneer Press includes an article surveying the field of candidates.
It will be interesting to watch the campaign unfold, as voters get the chance to learn more about all these people who have chosen to put themselves in the public spotlight (or under the public microscope, as the case may be) as candidates.
The Sunday Pioneer Press features an article about CoPar's property by Fish Creek in south Maplewood and the city's hopes to acquire some of the land for conservation. This follows another article in Wednesday's paper about the city's effort to extend the option to buy the land.
I wrote an opinion piece that appeared in the local weekly, the Maplewood Review, a couple weeks back. I'm rather late in providing this link to it, but thankfully, the Lillie papers keep their archives available online for a very long time.
Today's Pioneer Press features an article about a report on the consolidated Ramsey County dispatch system. It's interesting to read in light of some of the issues and challenges we've heard about in Maplewood with respect to the centralized dispatching system.
Today's Pioneer Press includes an article on the topic of protecting Maplewood's open spaces. I have a related item on the agenda for next week's council meeting.
The article states, "While still owning the land, the city would grant an easement to a conservation organization that would monitor the land and enforce any land restrictions. The restrictions also would be binding on future owners of the land."
Note the term "future owners." Conservation easements do not in any way prevent the city from selling land. On the contrary, they are the kind of thing you put on land when you expect it to have different owners in the future.
Hearty congratulations are due to Maplewood resident Mary Flister, one of two recipients of the Peter S. Popovich Award this year from the Society of Professional Journalists. The award is given to "the person or organization that exemplifies the fight for First Amendment Rights." According to the SPJ:
After attending a “Mayor’s Forum” in Maplewood, where people openly complained about their neighbors and elected officials, Flister began to tape record the public meetings and make them available to the city clerk, and thus any citizen. Flister, concerned the personal attacks would influence public policy, has dutifully recorded the meetings since then, despite numerous public admonishments that city officials make no attempt to diminish. Elected leaders are now considering officially recording meetings “since they’re being recorded anyway.”
Mary's quiet, patient commitment to her belief that the content of these forums should be available to those unable to attend in person, even in the face of withering personal attacks from some angry individuals, is an inspiration to me. It's great to see the Society of Professional Journalists recognize it as well.
Today's Pioneer Press has an article well worth reading, headlined "The War Over Affordable Housing." It's part one in a series of three about the issue of affordable housing in the Twin Cities, and I think it's well worth reading -- both to understand the nature of the problem and the community need (working families, often young and thus at the lower end of the wage scale, who can't afford to pay the market rate for housing in the suburbs), and also the opposition that "affordable housing" often engenders.
There's also a map that shows per capita affordable housing in various metro communities, including Maplewood.
On Thursday evening, Jim Llanas interviewed Will Rossbach and me about current issues on the city council, and the interview is now posted online as part of the Maplewood Voices "Speaking for You" series.
For a welcome change of pace from the usual news about Maplewood politics, check out yesterday's Star Tribune coverage of the Benedictine retreat at St. Paul's Monastery here in Maplewood. Accompanying that story is a short piece about changes coming to the monastery, such as the new building for the sisters, the Common Bond housing project, and the conversion of the original monastery building into headquarters for the Tubman Family Alliance. I find it inspiring to see how the sisters have adapted their spiritual and social missions to changing needs and changing times, while remaining true to the core values of their monastic tradition going back 1,500 years.
Each month the Maplewood Police Department produces a show for the government cable access TV channel, called "Your Police Report." I don't know if it has been available in this format before, but at least with this month's episode you can download it from GTN's website as a QuickTime movie and watch it on your computer.
P.S. Yes, that story I linked to yesterday was an April Fools spoof.
Today's Pioneer Press features a story about Maplewood. It's a long story (especially long for a metro daily's coverage), and in the print copy I picked up on the way to work it's featured as the front page story with the headline above the fold (it takes up more than half the front page and then is continued inside, where it occupies more than half of another page).
The Star Tribune has an interesting article today about a proposed ballot referendum in Eagan. That city has been embroiled in a lawsuit with a developer who wants to turn a former golf course into a housing development. The city had rejected their plans, which resulted in a lawsuit, that still grinds on in its fourth year. The referendum seems to be offering residents a third possible outcome, in addition to the previous options of giving in to the developer's wishes or rolling the dice in court.
This week's Maplewood Review features an article by Alex Davy about the verdict in Sherrie Le's lawsuit against Maplewood. It provides a good recap, if you're not up for reading the entire decision itself.
In the article, Councilmember Hjelle, who had previously characterized Judge Gearin as misinformed and "stupid," suggested that the judge was biased against the city because of the recent arrest of her sister. Her sister was illegally operating a business in Maplewood, Wipers Recycling, without a certificate of occupancy. Maplewood observers may recall that Mayor Longrie, former Councilmember Cave, and Councilmember Hjelle himself touted the relocation of this business to Maplewood last year (Cave described her role as "instrumental"). If Mr. Hjelle had any concerns prior to the trial about possible judicial bias in favor of Maplewood, because of the defendants' relationship to this business, I am not aware that he ever brought them forward.
Reached Friday evening, Hjelle said that the judge was misinformed and that he had recused himself from the votes.
"This judge was simply lied to ... I'm sorry that a judge was stupid enough to believe (Le). But I guarantee you no one will hold (Le) accountable (for alleged perjury), because that's how things work around here," he said.
The motion and vote he's talking about, at the 4/24/06 city council meeting:
Edit: The 3/6/08 Pioneer Press followed up with an article entitled, "Council member wrong on vote facts," correcting the record on Mr. Hjelle's assertion.
Yesterday the district court's decision was issued in the case of Sheryl Le v. City of Maplewood et al.
An article in this morning's Pioneer Press describes the verdict. Demonstrating the tact and restraint we've all come to expect from him, Erik Hjelle is quoted in the article as calling the judge who ruled on the case "stupid."
I took time last night to read Judge Gearin's ruling in its entirety. Her findings of fact spell out a damning narrative of last year's council majority and their right hand man. The judgement against the city ($185,000 plus attorney's fees, costs, and more) is only the latest bill we taxpayers have been handed to pay for the previous council majority's malice and incompetence.
First, in a very brief special meeting last night the Maplewood City Council approved a "Settlement Agreement and Release of All Claims" with Greg Copeland. The agreement is on the city website for the public to see.
Articles in this morning's Star Tribune and Pioneer Press preview this evening's upcoming council meeting. Not surprisingly, much attention is paid to Will Rossbach's agenda item, regarding a process for transition in the city manager's office.
Erik Hjelle is quoted by the Pioneer Press as saying, "I find it absolutely stunning that this is on the agenda." Given that Mr. Hjelle explicitly framed the 2007 election as being in part a vote of confidence in Mr. Copeland's leadership, it's hard to believe he's stunned that the topic would be on the agenda of the first meeting of the new year after the voters spoke.
When Mr. Hjelle offered the motion to make Mr. Copeland permanent in November 2006, he put it in the context of the upcoming 2007 elections. Speaking about Mr. Copeland's probationary period, he said, "Basically, that's before the next election. Everybody's going to have the right to go to the ballot box and make the ultimate decision as to what they want to support, what they don't want to support. It's called democracy. It works real well."
I was present at the meeting where Erik said this, and it's fair to say this is one of the reasons I decided to run for office -- to give voters a clear choice to ratify the agenda of last year's council majority and the person they installed to implement it, or to choose another path.
The voters knew what they were voting on. Their decision was unambiguous, with a dramatic increase in turnout and a landslide victory for the two candidates representing change, over the two candidates for whom Mr. Hjelle actively campaigned. While Mr. Hjelle may personally disagree with the will of the voters, I hope that he can respect their decision.
The Channel 19 cable website has a schedule that includes rebroadcasts of this week's League of Women Voters forum (I'm watching one on TV right now, in fact). Look for "Maplewood C.C. Forum" on the listings; it looks like there are multiple daily broadcasts to choose from between now and the election on Tuesday.
The Maplewood Review's voters' guide for the general election is now online. Besides giving candidates an opportunity to update or correct their biographical information, the Review also asked us three new questions.
Today's Pioneer Press (or at least the North Metro edition) includes an article about next Tuesday's primary in Maplewood and the candidates.
Meanwhile, Maplewood Voices reports that the Maplewood Voters' Coalition has filed a fair campaign practices complaint against candidate Rebecca Cave and the Maplewood Firefighters' Association, Inc. You can read the details on the MVC website.
Good news -- if the audio clip a couple days ago wasn't enough for you, the Chamber of Commerce candidates' forum is now on the broadcast schedule. (Thanks to BM for the tip!)
On the Channel 19 web schedule, the forum is listed as "Mplwd Forum." Broadcast dates and times are:
Saturday, September 8th: 3:00 PM Sunday, September 9th: 9:30 PM Monday, September 10th: 8:00 PM Tuesday, September 11th: 5:30 PM
That appears to be all the showings before Tuesday's primary. There is also one I see scheduled for after, at 9:00 PM on Friday, September 14.
It's not up on the Lillie Papers website yet, but today's headline in the Maplewood Review reads, "John Banick case settled for $500,000."
To read my thoughts on this case and the current council majority's efforts to undermine the Police Civil Service Commission, check out my previous blog entries on the topic.
Our city manager stated that the settlement money came from the League of Minnesota Cities Insurance Trust, so "the cost has already been reimbursed back to us." (I assume that's the cost beyond our $50,000 deductible, of course; unless other lawsuits had already gone past our $200,000 aggregate deductible before this case.) Of course, the Trust is paid into by all the member cities, so the taxpayers are still footing the bill in the end ... just a larger pool of taxpayers.
