Re: [Mpls] Smith Parker Bullying Tactics

Sat, 12 Jul 2003 12:43:46 -0700

This has been the tone of anti-Access "organizers" from the beginning. What's the role of the attorney who has no case? Attack the person. It's an ad hominem logical fallacy. If it had not been Smith Parker, there would have been another transit experienced law firm chosen. Instead of Tom Johnson another guy would get abused on this list. That's the STRIDE strategy. Right now, there exists on the STRIDE web site a libelous screed against SMART (South Minneapolis Access for Residents and Transit). The tale STRIDE tells is that the beautiful new brochure SMART is handing out was paid for by Smith-Parker. It was not. The members of SMART, of which I am one, got together and decided to have a brochure. Mind you, none of us has a paying job doing this stuff. We copied the Lake St. Repaving Project design, caused we liked it and because the two projects are related. One of us wrote it on a home computer, then asked a friend to let us finish it on his computer, which was much fancier entirely. We asked Smith-Parker if they would allow us use of project drawings and photos they hold of the project process. The woman who designed it and I took it to the printers, slapped down the money, and brought it home five days later. The money for signs came out of another member's pocket. One or two of our members have a little more than bupkis for money, so it wasn't an even split, but we got the bucks together and consider it an investment in our community.
Though we don't feel right about it, we asked that Smith-Parker not join SMART. However, we have their permission, and that of the engineers and architects, to call on them to come with us to meetings (they have big audio-visual aids that everyone can see). We brought the brochure to the King Field Neighborhood board meeting on 7/9 and handed it out.
We handed a brochure to STRIDE's Ken Avidor among all the others. Each of us who came from SMART got up and said our piece(s), Tom Johnson, our invited guest, stood up with the visual aids and explained the project. We also pointed out that the HOV vs. BRT discussion will not be resolved quickly, since the resulting decision is not due to be implemented until 2015. I personally pointed out that that gives us all 10 years to organize for something sensible.

The quality of the other material on the STRIDE site matches in ad hominem fallacies the one described in the paragraphs above.

WizardMarks, Central
Charter member of SMART
and former logic tutor for Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville

Dave Piehl wrote:

I recently announced to the list that STRIDE is
collecting e-mail documentation of Smith Parker
bullying tactics and behavior that is inappropriate
for "consultants" paid by public tax dollars to
"represent" the public.

I'm pleased to announce that several emails have been
forwarded.  If you have an email that you feel STRIDE
should know about, please forward it to
[EMAIL PROTECTED]  STRIDE will post
the best of these emails on their website
(www.stride-mn.org) on July 15.  If you do not wish to
have your email posted, please indicate that; we'd
still like the email, as it is still valuable to
STRIDE in helping to educate our elected officials
regarding Smith Parker bullying tactics.

Several people have suggested that STRIDE create a
list of folks who've had difficulty working with Smith
Parker, complete with the individual experiences; this
may be the next phase, but it's very complicated - but
keep the suggestions coming!

Enjoy the weekend!

David Piehl
Central

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TEMPORARY REMINDER:
1. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait.
2. If you don't like what's being discussed here, don't complain - change the subject 
(Mpls-specific, of course.)

________________________________

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

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