I appreciate Marie Hauser's post explaining her position on the usefulness of the parks in helping integrate our newest generation of new Americans into our American community. (I just realized today that my family is not a "century American family" yet, though it will become so in the coming decade.) The integration effort is a valid and valuable mission.
Whether it is the Park Board's mission, and whether it deserves the priority and amount of money that Marie would assign it, I might dispute. I know that I am put off by what I understand was a bargain between the Park Board and the outgoing Mayor and Council to bypass a Park Board referendum in favor of getting the money through side deal appropriations, towards the end of not spooking the electorate with three referenda on the ballot instead of an easier-to-swallow two. Wally Swan's perceptive analysis about the City's credit rating and the library referendum might have received more attention if there had not been this questionable arrangement to "hide" the Park Board's impeding expenditures. (I believe the term the political opposition used in the 1800's over Henry Clay's behind-the-scenes Secretary of State appointment was "corrupt deal.") Anyway, the Park Board made a deal with people who went on to lose the election. So the Park Board has no right to expect their budget to be held harmless. Let's discuss it on its merits--not on divine right of past understandings with out-of-office politicians. Problem is, many people want to keep their special deal or program off the table even in a time of challenge and change. I say let the new Council do some zero baseline budgeting. LBJ's Secretary of HEW John Gardner once compared Washington to a checkers game with Uncle Sam playing and several kibitzers "helping" him. Each time Uncle Sam wanted to move a piece one of the (special interest) kibitzers would put his thumb on that piece and say, "Move anything else, but not this one." Soon every piece on the board was covered by a kibitzer's thumb. And nothing happened. That's why we don't get reform. Well, Barret Lane was interested in putting it all on the table for consideration so various interest groups worked to keep him from getting to the table in the first place. Anyway, I did not hear Marie in her post deny warning against the "next generation of terrorists." I chalk her statement to a rhetorical flight which certainly all of us indulge in now and then. I think we all should a) cut people slack for occasional flights (both right and left, and up and down) because it is a useful form of communication and exploration of ideas and perspectives, but b) call people on it when it is excessive. In a groupthink environment (your party, my party, or a one party town) I think we tend to start mistaking our own spin for reality. I try to read George Orwell's Politics and the English Language every couple of years as an antidote. Finally, on another DFL Central Committee meeting topic, I reviewed my notes and had a phone conversation with my still friend I guess Brian Biele, (we are sure on different political wavelengths), about his comments. Contrary to my report, during the meeting he did not say specifically that the woman who was business representative with a city hall union would be fired. Rather he said she would be "dealt with" for sending the email regretting union "strong-arming" over the selection of Council leadership. I was confused in my report--done without my notes in hand--because inside the door after the meeting I thought (and think) I heard Brian say she "would be fired." He tells me that he has no way of knowing what her union actually will do, that it's their decision, so at most he would have said was "might be fired." I apologize to Brian for mixing up a public statement in a meeting with a private statement by the coatroom, the latter which I should not have reported here (though I don't think it is a hanging offence). Alan Shilepsky Downtown _______________________________________ 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
