List members:
You are raising some good questions. Let me try to respond. I've
been the person who has covered the Park Board the most here in the
last five years.
First, a Star Tribune reporter did write an article at least
about the 10th ward Green endorsement. It apparently never got in the
paper. Usually that happens because there's more local news than
space to put it in the Metro section. We could talk about sports news
hole vs. metro news hole, but that's a whole other issue.
Second, Lou Gelfand may not recall this, but we did run articles
about Park Board politics before filings opened in July 1997. I did a
scene-setter article in February, and another on convention
endorsements. Here's a synopsis of the first article:
02/11/97
Fall elections may change course of Minneapolis parks //
With at least 3 newcomers, board will be at crossroads
NEWS
02B
27.2
Steve
Brandt; Staff Writer
Next fall's elections could represent a political watershed
for
the nine-person board that governs the Minneapolis parks.
I remain the person most responsible for the Park Board here.
However, I have consciously cut back my coverage. The reason is that
I found that covering parks was eating up so much time that I found it
difficult to do stories on city affordable housing issues that needed
to be done. So I agreed with my boss to change emphasis. This has
resulted in extensive coverage of the property-flipping scam that
victimized low-income people and of issues surrounding the Hollman
consent decree, which has generated such stories as the Metro
Council's lack of results until recently on implementing its promise
to create new public housing. More recently, I have spent
considerable time poring through census numbers for Minneapolis
because I believe they tell us important things about how our city is
changing.
Unfortunately or fortunately, depending on your point of view,
there's only one of me. So the time I devote to one topic has been
subtracted from other topics. I will forward recent posts to the
editors, and suggest that there is a greater appetite for local news
than we are fulfilling.
Steve Brandt
Star Tribune reporter & ineptness personified
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