It is with heavy heart that I write you and the citizens of Minneapolis tonight. You maybe don't know me but I can tell you I love you both very much for the great contributions you made to the City of Minneapolis through our Park System. I am very proud to be chosen by the citizens of Minneapolis to a be a steward of the system you created and the Park System Minneapolitans love so dearly and I work hard to set policy in order to take care of it in the best way I know how.
Well, tonight Mr. Wirth and Mr. Cleveland I can only say, I am sorry. I am so very, very sorry. I am sad, angry, and have internal heartache as I saw a process to choose a new Superintendent torn to shreds, thrown out the window and a majority of the Board choose a person we never saw, interviewed, saw references, or education documents for.
You wouldn't have believed the political maneuvering in a staged coup we witnessed tonight (my fellow members and about 40 staff and interested citizens were witnesses). It is a good thing we are not on Public TV - we'd be spending all of our time going and getting awards for the best melodrama and evening soap opera. We put West Wing to shame. It is quite a show.
I have dedicated my years to organizing and working in neighborhoods and the State of Minnesota on many issues. I have been to hundreds of meetings and been on several boards and worked for several organizations in this fine State. I used to facilitate Board of Directors Training for Cooperatives, and have helped groups write by-laws, polices, procedures, etc. and served as a facilitator and process wonk time after time after time.
Any and all I have learned through those processes have been thrown out the window with the antics I have just seen played out the past 3 months in the search for a Park Superintendent. Any attempt to build consensus, a team, unity for the good of the whole, peace and solidarity in order to do the best for the Parks has gone up in flames in recent history.
There are still some psych, mgmt and background checks to be conducted and reported to the Board but they voted 5-4 to sign a year contract with Mr. Jon Gurban. It's pretty much a done deal. Now Mr. Gurban may be a Park Professional and has many years as a park administrator and will do the job just fine but the fact that he didn't have to play by any rules, showed us two sheets of paper well into the meeting with no other documentation, no interview, and at least one board member who has never even met the man - and he is being offered the premier park job in America is unconscionable to me.
Most people are asked their life stories and all the ghosts in the closet before they get a job these days - and that is to be a janitor. We did nothing for this - the 10th Superintendent of the Park System. On my Mother Goddess!
This is a fine how do you do Theodore, and Horace.
May you rest in peace and please send some of that peace down upon our fair and beautiful city.
We are going to need it,
Annie Young
citywide Park Commissioner
I am available for e-mails, phone calls and your input on survival of the fittest - and
support for the Park system. There is so much more I could write but better not tonight until I calm down a little.
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