Keith Reitman wrote, "Please try to remember; this goes beyond the Fab 5 who
did the dirty. A machine runs this town; the DFL Matrix. They will do what they want
to do; and it may not actually be decided at an open meeting; nor even by those
voting. Like it or loppett."
Then Loki Anderson wrote, "As much as I'm normally amused by Mr. Reitman's
anti-DFL rants, I did want to add some facts that he
failed to mention. Of the four dissenting votes on the appointment of an interim Parks
Superintendant, three of them, John Ervin, Rochelle Berry-Graves and Vivian Mason were
DFL endorsed. And of the five votes in favor of the appointment, one of them, Bob
Fine, was elected by defeating a DFL endorsee and another, Carol Kummer, was appointed
to her seat by the Park Board following the death of Ed Solomon, although she is a DFL
party member. I would be sincerely suprised if anyone on the Minneapolis DFL Central
Committee would be supportive of these closed door shenanigans."
[BRM] I join Loki's comments. Let me add three more points:
First, just as many DFL-endorsed commissioners voted against the appointment
(Berry Graves, Erwin, Mason), as voted for it (Dziedzic, Hauser, Olson).
Three-quarters of the opposition were DFL-endorsed commissioners.
Second, if the DFL-endorsed candidate (Tracy Nordstrom) had been elected as
the commissioner representing Park District 6, the seat that Board President Bob Fine
now holds, then the appointment would not have gone through. I don't speak for Tracy,
and I haven't asked her how she would have voted on this issue; but I worked on her
campaign, I have known her for years, and I would bet the ranch that not only would
she have refused to be a party to the backroom maneuvering that evidently went on
here, she would have spoken out against it. The DFL endorsing convention rejected Bob
Fine for a reason.
Third, I have been hearing about this issue from quite a few DFL Party
activists in the past couple days, and not a one supports the process by which the
Park Board made this appointment. Not a one.
Ann Berget wrote, "IF - big 'if' -- it can be proved that a majority of the
Park Board met outside of a properly noticed meeting for the purpose of making this
decision, it may be an actionable violation of the open meeting law on the part of
each of them. Where personnel matters are concerned it's often murky, but this seems
suspicious."
[BRM] I wondered the same thing as this story unfolded. It appears that the
five commissioners who supported the appointment knew in advance what was going to
happen, shared information among themselves that was not shared with their colleagues,
and surprised the other four. Those tactics stink. But they don't violate the open
meeting law unless the majority was meeting together secretly before the open meeting.
If the majority commissioners were just talking to each other two or three or even
four at a time, then they weren't breaking the law, as far as I know.
Marie Hauser wrote, "For months the Park Board has been following a process we
had established. In November we received a list of 7 top candidates from our search
firm. Two weeks ago we spent several days interviewing these 7 and were especially
pleased with the quality of 2 of the applicants. I was really disappointed when the
two most qualified candidates withdrew last week. Unfortunately, the process left only
less qualified candidates in the race. The withdrawal of the candidates may have been
caused by several of the Park Commissioners themselves
(http://www.startribune.com/stories/462/4269752.html). The process unfortunately
became flawed. Action was needed to produce the best candidate for the position."
[BRM] Fair enough. And I appreciate Marie Hauser stepping forward and
explaining the majority's thinking. But I am left with several questions. If "action
was needed to produce the best candidate for the position," why was that "action"
necessarily an immediate appointment? Why not reopen the search, even if only for a
brief period? If Bob Fine's high-school classmate is truly the best candidate that can
be found, then that fact would still be true after a more open process.
Any why the secrecy? Why were some -- most -- commissioners evidently privy to
material information that was not shared with their colleagues? If it is true that
"the process unfortunately became flawed," why not start over with a process that
fixes the flaw? How is no process at all better than a flawed process?
BRM
Brian Melendez, Chair,
Minneapolis DFL Party
Lowry Hill (Ward 7)
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