A year before any endorsement decision and two weeks before this year's city DFL convention, it's not too soon to think seriously about re-electing R.T. I've stayed out of City Hall's intramural food fights for the most part. The city's leadership has had to deal with cruel financial realities, some imposed by cavalier leadership at the state and federal levels, some by the contraction of value in pension funds, and some by structural due bills created by magic reality municipal accounting during the Sayles Belton era.
The weak mayor system means that the city's chief executive officer easily gets into trouble - mischief by the city council is ever possible. I give R.T. high marks for giving CM Barret Lane a major role in budget planning early on. I also regret that R.T. and CM Lilligren aren't on better terms - I like them both and think that their divergent visions reflect an inevitable tension between neighborhood interests and the needs of the city as a whole. R.T. has been respectful of other leading members of the council - CMs Ostrow, Benson, and Johnson come to mind and these, together with CMs Lane and Colvin Roy, are spokespeople for the city's "fertile crescent". This leaves CM Goodman in the "silk stocking" ward (Kenwood and downtown), and the CMs who represent the rest of the inner-city doughnut - CMs Johnson Lee, Samuels, Zerby, Schiff, Zimmerman and Niziolek. Setting aside the DFL/Green divergence because there are more similarities than differences in the functional realities of governing the city - there's a mouthful - think about who could realistically expect to replace R.T. Deputy Mayor David Fey has deep understandings from his prior involvement in Seward Neighborhood. The jury is still out on the new police chief and we will have had a four full seasons of inner-city challenge to help us evaluate the wisdom of that mayoral preference before we come to endorsement time next spring. I personally like the mayor's visibility. He's indefatigable like the energizer bunny. He also shows promise in intergovernmental venues and I question the value of setting aside R.T.'s pragmatism in dealing with so many hostile politicians. But the proof of this particular pudding is in that ever difficult inner-city doughnut and I hope that the mayor and the city council can be judicious in their handling of former CMs Minn and Cherryhomes who are such busy bees in the development world. We can't expect the capital market to maintain the social safety net - that's government's job. We'll see, won't we, how things go this fall in the Minnesota House races and the all-important Presidential contest. At the municipal level, "semester grades" will come due next spring. Stay tuned! Fred Markus, West Phillips 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
