I agree with Jason wholeheartedly. CM Johnson behaved terribly throughout the meeting, in my opinion - at one point taking an inappropriately accusatory tone with a Hispanic man whose son was recently beaten by the police. She took him to task for not using the current CRA system which she'd just heard had upheld six of seven hundred complaints over the last few years, resulting in five full days suspension.
But to walk out when she did was absolutely unacceptable. I was disgusted. It would be impossible to convince me that Barb left that room for any reason other than to derail the mediation for which the standing-room only crowd spent more than two hours of our time clamoring. One question: why couldn't the Strib get this part of the story right? From their story this morning: "Council Member Gary Schiff moved for the city to begin the mediation process, but he did so after 7 p.m. and only six council members remained, not enough to take formal action." Why couldn't they add that after CM Lilligren pointed out the lack of quorum, CM Schiff said: (I'm paraphrasing) "does it matter that we had a quorum when I began speaking?" I couldn't help feeling for Gary. He had been so polite and deferential throughout the entire process, twice standing aside with his motion to allow other business to proceed. And his proposal was so simple and so sensible - if we're going to have mediation, we may as well have the groundwork laid by the next council meeting so that a) immediate action can be taken and b) the council can discuss the matter intelligently, with a good idea of how the mediation will be structured. I felt worse for the rest of us, though. In a city desperately in need of some help and some healing, we have Barb Johnson on the city council. I wish I was a ward 4 resident so that next time around I could vote for someone else. Robin Garwood Seward _______________________________________ 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
