I recall when the agreement was signed allowing Mr. Stanek to return to The Minneapolis Police Department (MPD) within a time certain, should things not work out at the state level. I thought at the time a bit odd, but a person should always have a back-up plan. It is clear Mr. Stanek is within his rights to return to the MPD at his former rank, although his billet is not clear and thus an issue for Mr. McManus to wrestle with. I was somewhat concerned with Mr. Ellison jumping to the forefront of the issue concerning an indiscretion on the part of Mr. Stanek over a decade ago.
The city clearly made a deal with Stanek - and needs to honor that deal. It bothered me that Chief Olson told me he was unaware of any of the lawsuits against Stanek - when I asked him about the subject about a year ago. Stanek's performance as police officer in Minneapolis will now be under a microscope.
I would assume Mr. Ellison would be focusing his efforts on job creation, crime control and other issues that would improve the lives of his constituents in HD 58b. To draw a comparison, Mr. Ellison has proposed a bill in the current legislative session allowing convicted felons to regain voting rights upon completion of sentence and parole. Mr. Ellison's pose seems odd considering that Mr. Stanek who has been a dedicated civil servant for decades and who made a verbal mistake over a decade ago is being pillared by Mr. Ellison and other well meaning, yet misguided members of the activist set. It is clear that Mr. Stanek will return to the MPD, any objection on the part of the MPD or The City of Minneapolis will result in our tradition of bungled agreements, subsequent lawsuits and the ultimate bill to the taxpayers.
The concerns about Stanek were about more than a "verbal mistake" - his admission to using racial slurs to refer to African Americans in his deposition. One of the lawsuits was about beating up an African American motorist - and using those same racial slurs while doing so. These issues were brought up - unsuccessfully - by Republican opponents of Stanek's when he ran for legislator.
Stanek also did himself in on all this when he told his boss - Pawlenty - a different story about the lawsuits than he told Rachel E. Stassen-Berger of the St Paul Pioneer Press. Stanek's statements to Stassen-Berger about all these incidents said the the people who sued him in these incidents were intoxicated.
As Governor Pawlenty said when announcing Stanek's resignation:
"The people of Minnesota need to know that justice is colorblind. There can be no basis to question that commitment in our commissioner of public safety."
Governor Pawlenty is correct on this point. He needs to stick to his guns on this point - rather than changing his story.
According to a story yesterday by Stassen-Burger:
But on KSTP-AM radio Wednesday morning, the governor gave a new explanation.
"I came to the conclusion that the Minnesota Senate wasn't going to confirm him," Pawlenty said. The Democratic-Farmer-Labor-controlled Senate is in the process of confirming Pawlenty's commissioners this legislative session.
"We could have a month or two of him and me just getting beat up over race issues and, in the meantime, we have very big public safety issues facing the state of Minnesota," Pawlenty said.
"While my relationship with Rich is important and Rich's personal career situation is important, those other things are more important."
Pawlenty later called back to clarify that Stanek's potential to get confirmed was only one reason he stepped down.
http://www.twincities.com/mld/twincities/news/local/8488209.htm
Eva Young
Near North
Minneapolis
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Blog is up:
http://lloydletta.blogspot.com
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