Re: Tim Connolly's comments:
>As though the current Mayor was not tough enough on
>crime unleashing the MPD to stop anyone in certain
>neighborhoods who was of a certain color or seemed as
>though they may commit a crime, now we have Sheriff
>Stenglein and Deputy Summer sweeping the streets of
>the litterers.
>This is Rudy Giuliani's theory of municipal
>government.
>Just as smoking pot leads to bacchanialias of heroin
>induction so to does littering lead to murder and
>arson and burglary.
While I've certainly heard the broken-windows theory of stopping big crimes
by stopping small crimes, I do think Tim is unfairly mixing two initiatives
here. There's nothing on Stenglein's website, or that I have read, to
indicate that he wants to clean the streets because he thinks it will stop
crime. I think Stenglein wants clean streets because clean streets look nice
and make people (yes, the hopeless bourgeois, but lots of other folks
including visitors) feel better about their city. Sometimes, as someone once
said, a cigar is just a cigar.
I don't want to soft-pedal the price of that spit-shine. I think the posts
here demonstrate a major early gaffe for Commissioner Stenglein - it's hard
to be a fiscal conservative when right out of the box you make a $5
million-plus policy pledge (street sweeping) without a revenue source. How
you gonna pay for it, Mark?
I think Stenglein makes a valid distinction between littering
(beautification) and nuisance crimes such as graffiti (crime prevention). I
spend an hour a week cleaning graffiti off various public amenities in my
neighborhood. It's not grand theft larceny but it is defacement of public
space and public investment, and sorry, it does send the signal that an area
doesn't look after itself. As for the perps, it's mostly about the thrill
and a political statement only occasionally and mostly in passing. I want a
mayor who knows how to fight graffiti, but also knows how to fight racial
profiling. Which brings me to Tim's next point:
>I guess we can expect Mayor Stenglein to wholly
>endorse the past practices of Police Chief Olson and
>MPD?
I think Tim is on much more solid ground here. My worry isn't that Stenglein
is going to endorse the past practices of Chief Olson - it's that he's going
to be in thrall to the Police Federation, which can be more hidebound about
community relations and community policing than the chief.
I read repeatedly on Commissioner Stenglein's website about the
irresponsibility of men, especially men of color: "I know from initiating
the African-American Male Project that the irresponsibility of men - black,
white, brown and yellow - is part of the problem in Minneapolis." Tough
talk for various hues of citizen, unless they wear blue: "Mark Stenglein
will not ask the police to do their job one day, and question the way they
do it the next." With power comes responsibility - why not ask it of all?
There are a lot of fine police officers who do a tough job well, but if
Stenglein can't unleash the responsibility rhetoric on those with true
police power, he worries me too. But I know that "my police force right or
wrong approach" is powerful rhetoric and contribution-inducing when you're
trying to motivate a base in a crowed primary.
David Brauer
King Field - Ward 10
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