Cheers to Carol Kratz for her well written and insightful post. CM Sandy Colvin Roy has taken the advantages of incumbency to a new level in her recent campaign literature in which she takes credit for everything that the citizens did in her ward, regardless of her level of involvement, if any. I guess in her view as long as she was our council representative, she deserves the credit. Tragically, this type of politics results in the unfortunate distrust so many have in our elected officials and make it difficult for citizen groups and city hall to form beneficial alliances to truly make our cities better places to live.
For example, she takes credit for the Earth Day Clean-ups along the Mississippi River. As the former chair of the community committee which sponsored the clean-ups, CM Colvin Roy was not involved in any of the organizing activities for the events. She takes credit for stopping the dewatering of Lake Nokomis. The reality is she waited three days to test the political waters on this issue before taking a stance after other council members already took action. In fact, the ground water rules which enabled the Minnehaha Creek Watershed District to act on this issue were put in place by citizens who petitioned the District for a conditional use permit for Highway 55. Sandy lobbied against the very citizens who laid the foundation for the successful halt to the dewatering. Jumping aboard after others laid the ground work hardly warrants credit for the outcome. Her literature further takes credit for Minneapolis Park Board accomplishments such as playgrounds and improvements to Minnehaha Park. The cited restoration of the Minnehaha Band Shell and Refectory were planned well before Sandy's tenure by the Park Board, not the City Council. She cites the Longfellow House restoration which was completed before her term! Sandy's proclaimed park accomplishments should be contrasted with her comments when she voted against the Mayor's budget citing too much funding for parks. A reasonable argument could be made that Ward 12 park improvements were accomplished despite CM Colvin Roy. I did notice a few of Colvin-Roy's pet projects missing from her literature. Apparently Sandy thought the Downtown Target Store was an important enough project to exempt it from the city's living wage law provisions. Sandy also neglected to talk about the expansion of the Minnehaha Academy, a project important enough to the city that she voted to allow the project to go forward without an Environmental Assessment despite its close proximity to the Mississippi River. She doesn't even mention the project which she worked hardest on the first few years of her term, the assurance that MNDoT could route a highway through Minnehaha Park. An effort in which she wrote editorials and worked against citizen activists. Don't the projects on which CM Colvin-Roy spent much of her energy deserve any mention at all, or is someone running from their record? Craig Larson Longfellow Resident, Ward 12 _______________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest option, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
