List Manager asks if I have anything other than cynicism to support my contention that Biernat and Herron are only the tip of an iceberg. And that nearly makes me laugh. I think you have your debating hat on. Voters turned out the prior leadership because the stench coming from downtown. It wasn't Brian Herron, it was the culture of political favors and the resulting heavy debt. Watch out, or I'll sic Vicky Heller on you. And that hoary claim that the burden of proof is on the accuser is not convincing. I'm sure it wouldn't slow you down if you decided to go on the attack. When a person lives in the country led by a president who sold stock on inside information, cynicism is a birthright.
Comments after further discussions: I think it would be a super idea for there to be transcripts of these public meetings that could be downloaded to establish once and for all what was REALLY said by both the public and the officeholder. Better yet, videos that would be in the public domain to establish whether someone was winking when they made some comment. Camcorders are so common today, I wonder if there's some obscure regulation that says it is not LEGAL for the public to set one up and record these "public" sessions for posterity. I know the press can usually get away with it, but how about the poor, benighted taxpayer? By the way, the public-meeting law didn't get overturned or repealed, did it? At one time, there used to be quite a buzz over privately-held meetings with parties taking shots at each other over whether public business occurred at lunch and other times. In this person's perception, that seems to happen less often which makes me wonder if a truce was called or something. ------------------------------------- I had quite an enlightening evening with my brother-in-law who worked in MNDOT for about 30 years. He recently decided enough was enough and got out. It didnt help him financially, but enough madness is enough. He described the history of several major projects. They all had some aspect of stupidity, such as the INSISTENCE that Duluth Street be made 8 lanes where it goes under Highway 100, even though the analysis of traffic volume didnt justify it. He was given an order to publish a lie to justify it and he refused. His name was mud after that. Then there was the project they had drawn out to make the entrance to Highway 100 at Highway 7 safe and modern that now isn't planned to take place till 2010. Part of the scheme was to raise the railroad bridge (which was in use back when the plan was drawn, is not now, belongs to the county) five feed to drain the highway properly and surface it. They would have built a new railroad bridge to make more space for the highway. That was vetoed, I believe he said, by the county. Because this track was considered more important that the highway traffic. And so it goes. I said to him that I don't think in ANY of the cases he mentioned, the politics going on among the cities, the county and the Metropolitan council were given any news coverage. So, the population in the areas affected couldnt even defend their interests. Nor did they know what the elected officials were doing to harm them. I hope anyone in the big newspapers is NOT particularly proud of these exploits. People who are boiling over in gridlock in the highway should really consider what a lousy job the local commercial media do on this type of topic. I know from working in city government that none of you know anything about how the area I was in was managed. If anything went wrong in that area, you were not capable of drawing intelligent conclusions because the TV statios and newspapers you depended on did not consider it "newsworthy." One of my conclusions is that this is what we GET for relying on a feed of news we get at a discount price. It is cheap and worth every penny. Considering the COST of these bad decisions, we'd be better off paying the FULL cost of news that is complete and accurate. But I don't notice those services starting up. And all I can take that to mean is that too many of you are content with shoddy information. And what I'm wondering now is if I were working in a government agency, and came on with a report of things going haywire, and a persuasive politician came on claiming I was making it up because I was disgruntled over being disciplined, which would you believe? See, I think the definition of political skill is realizing people want to be led like sheep and are merely looking for the person who understands that and knows how to do it. Is that who R.T. Rybak is? Someone in the process of learning your weaknesses and how to exploit them? I've got to ponder. ===== Jim Mork -- Cooper Neighborhood ________________________________ "In 1984, George Orwell predicted the Ashcrofts and Patakis to come: 'There of course was no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment.'" Nat Hentoff:http://villagevoice.com/issues/0247/hentoff.php __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus � Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com _______________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
