On 12/14/03 8:38 AM, "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> In Sunday's Strib 12/14/03: from story Kelly and Rybak: The Rivals > "Rybak had campaigned against spending public money on a new > ballpark... > Rybak flip-flopped on his position: Within two weeks of his > election, apparently overcoming his anti-stadium stance, he was looking for > ways to build a stadium in Minneapolis." > > The Mayor's rigorous advocacy on behalf of the wealthy and > connected seems unstoppable. > By the way, does anyone have a red carpet I can put on the > sidewalk in front of the Kaplan's as I try to get sound bites from those > wealthy and powerful as they enter the New Year's Eve fundraiser? > Margaret Hastings-Mpls-Kingfield I read the same article Margaret quotes from and all I have to say is that it's awfully poor writing by Rochelle Olson. Wanting a Twins ballpark in Minneapolis is NOT the same thing as supporting public money being used for such a project. Nowhere have I seen Rybak endorse public funding for a Twins ballpark. Instead, he seems to go out of his way to point out that Minneapolis has no money available to contribute towards a ballpark. That doesn't, however, mean that Rybak shouldn't lobby for a ballpark to be located in Minneapolis and I'm glad he is. Whether you like major league baseball or not, anybody with a brain in their head can see that the Rapid Park site beats anything that St. Paul or the suburbs have proposed. It already has in place much of the infrastructure that other sites would have to figure out how to pay for on top of the actual ballpark construction. On a different note, by virtue of having supported Rybak's campaign, I was also a recipient of the New Year's Eve fundraiser invitation. I'm probably not going to go because it's not really my kind of event, but I'm certainly not going to hold it against Rybak or the Kaplans for having such an event. It's a smart move to try and bring in some early dollars that can be counted now rather than as part of 2004 fundraising efforts and I suspect that's really all there is to it. What I do question is what Margaret Hastings hopes to accomplish with her plans to crash this event? Is she actually trying to advocate on behalf of the homeless she spends so many hours working for or is she just trying to embarrass someone who hasn't embraced her style of advocacy? I never really could figure out what the point was of trying to shame public officials into supporting your cause. If I were a public official, my personal reaction to such a stunt would be to tell the person to *bleep* off, even if they made points I could agree with and support. Substance is the most important part of advocacy work, but style counts for a bit, too. Mark Snyder Windom Park REMINDERS: 1. Think a member has violated the rules? Email the list manager at [EMAIL PROTECTED] before continuing it on the list. 2. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. For state and national discussions see: http://e-democracy.org/discuss.html For external forums, see: http://e-democracy.org/mninteract ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
