T H E M I N N E A P O L I S O B S E R V E R
A Weekly Digest of All Things Minneapolitan
Vol. 1, No. 19
December 24, 2001
Merry Christmas!
This is a preview edition of The Observer. To subscribe to the full-text edition ($12/48 issues), e-mail us at [EMAIL PROTECTED]
**********************************************************
THIS WEEK IN THE OBSERVER:
* Dennis Shapiro on Johnson, Jennings, and the Public School Crisis
* The Pohlads to the Rescue
* How the Cops Will Solve Racial Profiling
* Land Trusts
* Saving the Aquatennial
Plus: Cesar's bill, the importance of college football, R.T.'s affordable housing plan, and a holiday food fantasy.
**********************************************************
JOHNSON, JENNINGS, AND THE PUBLIC SCHOOL CRISIS
On Tuesday the school board approved a $30,000 hike in Superintendent Carol Johnson's salary, just days after Johnson announced the hiring of Dave Jennings to handle the position of district chief operating officer. The move, at a time when the district is shuttering schools and cutting budgets in an effort to reconcile a reported $30 million deficit, elicited howls of criticism in certain quarters (including this one). We asked incoming school board member Dennis Shapiro, the only candidate to win a seat in November's school board election without DFL backing, to comment on recent events.
Among his comments:
"Hold Carol and the staff accountable? Absolutely. But they didn't create what they try to mitigate. Something is terribly wrong with the way we support children in this culture. You know that as well as anyone. You don't relieve a superintendent or teacher of responsibility to improve things or to keep looking for workable strategies. But you don't get very far if you do no more than blame those who are doing the hard, honorable and helpful, if sometimes seemingly futile, work to make things better."
"It would be a better world if people in high places honored their contracts the way they expect others to honor theirs. It's a legal, ethical, and cultural issue worth public discussion and perhaps legislation. But you've got to admit contract skipping is a cultural norm and going to court to hold high-profile folks to contracts has lots of down sides."
". . . responsible folks in the district and outside have been counseling (urging, begging, cajoling, threatening) her in an attempt to have a strong No. 2/COO type for a long time. I know I began urging it from the time she was selected as superintendent."
"Is there a "public" in the sense that Walter Lippmann and John Dewey described it 70 years ago? I don't think that many folks see public schools as truly "common" schools any more."
RACIAL PROFILING REMEDIES? NO PROBLEM, SAY THE COPS
Nearly a year after Police Chief Robert Olson released a survey on racial profiling in traffic stops and vowed to attend to the issue immediately, the city finally has a policy on profiling. Trouble is, there's little to guarantee that Olson will actually implement it.
COMMUNITY GROUPS FORM LAND TRUST
Four southside community groups have joined together to form the Minneapolis Community Land Trust Initiative, an organization they hope will help address the city's growing affordable housing crisis.
The groups-Lyndale Community Development Corporation, Seward Redesign, Powderhorn Residents Group, and the Powderhorn Park Neighborhood Association-launched the land trust October 1, according to Scott Russell in the Southwest Journal (www.swjournal.com), with the financial assistance of the McKnight Foundation, Hennepin County, and the Local Initiatives Support Corporation.
The nonprofit land trust will acquire property throughout the city, explains coordinator Carla Letofsky, and lease it to buyers with a cap on the amount of appreciation they can keep when they sell the property. This will keep the property affordable, Letofsky says. "[It's] the first step on the ladder from renting to home ownership."
The group will work out the kinks in the idea over the next six months, looking at whether the land trust should be autonomous or part of an existing organization, how large a geographic area it should serve, and how the board of directors should be structured.
BACK IN THE DAY
10 Years Ago This Week
"Hasselmo is going to get heat from some of the faculty, but others will applaud the move because a winning football program is important to a university."
--Sid Hartman on University of Minnesota president Nils Hasselmo's decision to make new Gophers football coach Jim Wacker the highest paid football coach in the Big Ten. Wacker left five years later, after compiling a record of 15-38.
Star Tribune
December 29, 1991
_________________________________________________________
RAVES, RANTS, AND OTHER CONSIDERED OPINIONS
_________________________________________________________
IT'S JUST MY OPINION, BUT . . .
Mayor-elect R.T. Rybak released his "90-Day Housing Strategy" last week, and although I have to give him credit for putting this on the front of his many burners, there's not much in his approach that inspires confidence.
The strategy focuses on three main areas-regulatory reform, organizational reform, development finance, and civic engagement and advocacy-and Rybak hopes to bring recommendations to the City Council by March 31.
But the plan sends mixed messages. On the one hand it has the aroma of electioneering: the sweeping gesture, the punchy bulleted solutions, the requisite citizen summit. Simple, clean, creative. On the other hand, Rybak says he's looking for "clear, citywide development priorities" before allocating any NRP funding to affordable housing, a nod to the messy process of governing.
Certainly the new mayor will have to listen to his constituents (including property owners and developers) as he navigates the shadowy halls of political compromise in the weeks and months ahead, but his election mandate should be perfectly clear: Affordable housing in all shapes and sizes needs to be a top priority. He knows it; our new City Council knows it.
Rybak also knows how tough it will be to unravel a problem tied up in race, class, and market economics, but now is not the time to begin hedging his bets.
**********************************************************
The Minneapolis Observer is published 48 times/year by Independent Media, L.L.C. �2001 Independent Media, 4152 Snelling Ave., Minneapolis, MN 55406; www.mplsobserver.com. No part of this publication may be reprinted without the permission of Independent Media. Subscriptions: $12/yr. To unsubscribe, send us an e-mail ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) and we'll get you off the list and refund the unused portion of your subscription.
Editor: Craig Cox
Associate Editor: Sharon Parker
Contributing writers: Mark Engebretson, Leo Mezzrow.
Occasional research assistance: Martin and Nora Cox
Thanks to: Catherine Christian, Tad Schindler, and Lois Stuedeman.
