In reply to the Brian Rice story, I will start by saying that no city agency has ever gotten a better return on investment. (Disclaimer 1, Brian always contributes to my campaigns.) Just on the issues I've worked on with him, we have probably returned over $100 million in state funding for city park programs. One of the ones I'm proudest of was the about $50 million that changed the loan for the Combined Sewer Overflow program to a grant and funded the West River Road parkway. This was such an intricate piece of legislative crafting that I'm sure no one except me (and Brian) could explain its path and history. Incidently, this sent an even greater chunk of $$ to St. Paul for River park purposes, a fact largely unrecognized by the honchos there. I was somewhat bemused by the comment that Patty Hillmeyer hired him to deal with me, as at the time Patty was a really good friend (Disclaimer 2: I contributed to her campaigns and she to mine) and I hardly knew Brian. Another major accomplishment was the appropriation of Operations and Maintenance money for the city parks. More recently even under Republican control of the House, we saved $5million from a loan MCDA was trying to collect and passed enabling legislation for the Fuji Ya to become an income producing site for Mpls. parks. Despite all the innuendo, one chooses ones friends in the legislative process on the basis of competence and intelligence rather than cash flow to campaigns. I would welcome a competive bidding process as the Park Board chooses a lobbyist, as they did last time. Brian and his company (as they should, based on record alone) easily won. Another chapter in this story is the helpful relationship with MPRA when dealing on a statewide level, but I'll leave that for another day.
Phyllis Kahn State Rep 59B _______________________________________ 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
