I also like Dean Zimmerman personally, he was always a good guy. I hated to
see him get tied up with the Sabri criminal organization. But even good
guys sometime get pulled in over their head.
I know the sad situation with Dean Zimmerman will probably color the "List"
for a couple of days, and most certainly the election. So as to take a
different tack I decided to look at other issues on campaign "Donors" the
"MPLS List" has been discussing the last couple of days.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Questions about the Donor List
After viewing some of the posts on “List” about campaign finance for the two
candidates I went to the filing reports of campaign donors and found some
interesting questions raised by the Rybak list. To begin I have a question
for our Mayor. RT, are you really so detached from the city's work that you
don't know who Paul Zerby works for? Or for that matter are you so detached
from your own campaign that an old guard member of your finance committee,
Sylvia Kaplan, also has an unknown employer? The list continues from Mayor
Rybak’s finance report; hand-picked Betsy Hodges, DFL endorsed Alan Hooker,
etc. There are 398 names in RT's filing report of large donors who he
claims he doesn't know who they work for.
For the moment, I am going to assume he does know who Paul Zerby works for
and he just decided to leave the legally required information off his
finance report. That being said, how many of the other 397 people does he
actually know who they work for, and he just isn't telling us. Mr. Rybak
has a troubling trend with his past promises, and promises about fundraising
in particular. First, he said he would NOT raise money in non-election
years. We all remember, and know he did that, right? He also promises to
not take money from people with business in front of the city. Of course I
guess there is no way to confirm how accurate that is since about two-thirds
of his donors' employers were kept hidden by the Mayor. I do see that Rybak
took money from at least one liquor store, Hennepin Lake Liquors; took
money from at least one bar owner, The Local; and RT Rybak took money from
the head of a strip club, Déjà Vu! Last I checked those are all businesses
regulated by the City, so how many more are there Mr. Rybak? Well maybe
there is more than one question we need to ask this Mayor.
Other points:
The Mayor’s donor list reads like a whose who of The Breck School – where
his children attend. Not that I question anyone for sending their children
to great private schools. The poor parents of this City would send their
children to such schools also if they were part of the “Power Elite”. All
Minneapolis children should receive such good educations. This is probably
why the quality of Minneapolis Public Schools and neighborhood schools are
just not as much of a priority for the Mayor that it is for some others.
The Mayor says no developer money, but there seems to be plenty of
professionals such as architects, lawyers, etc who do there business with
the City through a developer.
Jim Graham,
Ventura Village, and a sad night in the Sixth Ward
"The attempt to close the gap between what is known and what IS, is the
temptation behind the apple in Genesis."
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