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Rosalind, as David Finke has already mentioned, the seating was
assigned by lottery. The conventions where there is a mayoral endorsement
alternate between low-number wards in front and high-number wards in front;
the high-number wards were in front at the 1997 Convention, so the
low-number wards were up front this year, and the high-number wards will be
back in front in 2005.
The actual lottery occurred at my office on Friday the
twenty-seventh, scheduled at the same time as the lottery for advertising
space in the Convention program, after a notice sent to the City Campaign
Committee's distribution list, which included all the then-known mayoral
campaigns seeking the endorsement. The Arrangements chair, Julie Mattson
Ostrow, had prepared four possible seating arrangements starting with Ward
1: starting front left with succeeding wards going down then across,
starting front left going across then down, starting front right going down
then across, and starting front left going across then down. I flipped a
coin twice in order to choose among the four options. One mayoral
campaign's manager actually observed the lottery.
The seating was complicated by Augsburg not telling us until the
last minute that they could not fit everyone on the floor. They originally
estimated that we could fit everyone on the floor without resorting to the
bleachers but, after meeting with the fire marshal, cut their estimated
seating by a third, resulting in some delegates getting seated in the
bleachers.
BRM
Brian Melendez, Chair
Minneapolis DFL Party
St. Anthony West (Ward 3)
-----Original Message-----
From: Rosalind Nelson [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Wednesday, May 09, 2001 8:15 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: [Mpls] Convention Observations
Being at a higher elevation made for more efficient people watching,
however. It also seemed to me that, if a person knew what to watch for,
there would be a strategic advantage to being in the bleachers and having a
good view of the floor below. Does anyone know how seating is decided?
Rosalind Nelson
Bancroft
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