Barbara Nelson asked yesterday for more context on Wednesday's
Minneapolis Park Board meeting. I directed her to Saturday's story.
I hadn't finished reading the Thursday paper at the time and didn't
realize that what I wrote Wednesday night at the end of an 11-1/2-hour
shift had been cut in half by the time it got int he papers. There's
nothing sinister there; they just didn;t have the space I budgeted for
the story. Since the editors always encourage us to be
reader-friendly, here's a longer version:
Five members of a bitterly divided Minneapolis Park and
Recreation Board voted Wednesday to name a 2001 president: Ed Solomon,
who had the job last year.
But four others contended that Rochelle Berry Graves already was
elected Jan. 2. And two were discussing whether to sue.
Feelings ran so high Wednesday that normally mild-mannered Park
Superintendent Mary Merrill Anderson told board members to fire her
any time five of them think she's not doing her job. Her statement
came after a 5-3-1 vote to increase her pay 5 percent to $99,816, a
bigger-than-normal raise intended to compensate for its lateness.
But they seemed unanimous in saying that she wasn't the issue.
Instead, several said, it was whether they were ducking a formal
performance review, a practice they were supposed to develop under
last year's work plan.
It was a rhetoric-drenched meeting, but the only change was
Solomon's return after two months of ailments. His vote gave five to
the side that wanted him reelected as president. The board first
rejected a motion pending from last week to make Berry Graves
president. That meeting ended when three Graves supporters walked out,
leaving the board without a quorum. But she and her supporters say she
was legally elected by a majority of the seven members who voted at a
Jan. 2 organizational meeting, and they produced a lawyer's opinion to
back that view.
Bob Fine was elected vice president for 2001 over Berry Graves,
also on a 5-4 vote.
Berry Graves and Commissioner Vivian Mason huddled after
adjournment to discuss whether to take the matter to court. But they
may have been in a better position to do so before Wednesday, because
with Solomon's return the leadership vote was this year in which all
nine commissioners participated.
Solomon was supported by Fine, Scott Neiman, Ernie Belton and
Walt Dziedzic. Berry Graves was supported by Mason, Annie Young and
Dean Zimmermann.
``We have a boiling pot of stew here,'' Young said after the
vote. Berry Graves noted that the split largely followed gender lines.
``Obviously the girls are going to feel beat up by the boys, and the
boys are going to be mean and unruly the rest of the year,'' she said.
Steve Brandt
Staff Writer
Star Tribune (Mpls-St. Paul)
425 Portland Ave.
Minneapolis, MN 55488
612-673-4438 (voice)
612-673-4359 (fax)
e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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