annie wrote these comments: OUr own John Kolstad gets a New Year's Blessing and thanks for being an active citizen. And hats off to the many of you who are also involved in making Minneapolis and Minnesota a better palce to live, work and play.
BYLINE: Lori Sturdevant CREDITLINE: HEADLINE: Hail those citizens who toil for the common good
Reflecting on this "no-new-taxes" year of pinched public services, capped by a code-orange terror alert, I thought of John Stopka.
When Stopka was elected mayor of Columbia Heights in 1951, he attracted attention as the youngest mayor in the nation. He was 22.
Now, at 75, Stopka is not interested in attention. He just wants to keep doing his part to make Minnesota a better, safer place. That's why one day this fall, he walked into the Star Tribune lobby and asked if there was a journalist he could talk to about how tightfistedness was interfering with best practices in public safety. I was privileged to oblige him.
Stopka produced yellowing newspaper clippings to demonstrate that, for 50 years, he has been promoting the idea that every in-service police squad car in his and other metro-area cities should carry two officers. He reached that conclusion after an Anoka County sheriff's deputy, driving solo, was shot and killed in December 1953.
He had a hard time selling the idea to the frugal Columbia Heights City Council in early 1954. He hasn't had much success pressing the issue as a private citizen since leaving office in 1959. Two-officer squad cars remain the exception rather than the rule in most Twin Cities suburbs -- more so, mostly likely, after this year's cut in state aid to cities.
"Two people in a squad car are much more effective," Stopka said, pleading his case. "Driving is a full-time job. Plus there's the radio and the computer stuff to contend with. It's too much for the driver to do, and still be an observer, looking for trouble.
"This has nothing to do with Republicans and Democrats. It has to do with the safety of the officers and the safety of the public. A dead officer doesn't serve the public. We're talking about lives and property here. How can we not find the money to budget for this?"
After 50 years, Stopka has every right to pose his question with a discouraged tone. He did not. He spoke with as much conviction and care as if he were making his argument for the first time, and followed up our visit with a couple of calls to press the point. Surely, he said as the terror alert was upgraded last week, the heightened awareness of homeland security will open public eyes and the public purse to the need for larger police forces, and two officers in every car.
He made me a renewed believer -- not so much in two-officer squad cars (though that's probably a good idea) as in the quality of citizenship practiced in these parts by people who seldom make headlines. Minnesota may have undergone a political metamorphosis last year, but it remains well populated with people who choose to make the common good their business. Those looking for assurance that Minnesota's future is still bright do well to look to them.
Can Minnesota can solve big, ugly, complex problems, like the rising cost of health care? I'm optimistic, because good people are on the case. There are the big names tapped by Gov. Tim Pawlenty to tackle the problem -- David Durenberger, Roger Moe, Tom Swain, Pam Wheelock et al.
But there's also Mildred Thymian, farmer/writer from Odessa, Minn. She ran for office just once 24 years ago, but that unfruitful experience did not take away her zeal for public policy. She's a self-described "avid crusader" for reforms that would give people financial incentives to stay healthy, and rein in the pharmaceutical industry.
There's G.E. Carpenter of Edina, who called last week to bring public attention to the fact that the Veterans Administration was forcing high-cholesterol patients to use the more costly of two drug options.
And there's John Kolstad, a Minneapolis musician and music business owner who concluded 11 years ago that America needed a single-payer health care system to simultaneously solve the twin problems of high cost and lack of coverage for all. He's been saying as much to anyone who would listen ever since, going so far as to organize a group called the Minnesota Universal Health Care Coalition.
Kolstad is a DFLer; Thymian and Carpenter are Republicans. Fortunately, the impulse to contribute to public problem-solving is not confined to one party -- nor to elected officials. The same can be said for good ideas.
Minnesota's level and quality of citizen engagement have set it apart among the states before. It's a good bet, and a worthy New Year's hope, that it can again.
Lori Sturdevant is a Star
Tribune editorial writer and
columnist. She is at
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Annie Young Stand Up ~ Keep Fighting
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