The MAC vote has been spun by many as irrational, or
"political" in many senses of that word. The politics
here clearly lead, once again, to the doorstep of our
clever "boy governor."
* Vicki Tigwell (Grunseth) - who lived on the same
street in South St. Paul as a certain growing boy
governor, ex-wife of former Gov. candidate Jon
Grunseth was appointed by Pawlenty to "balance the
interests of Northwest with those of communities
surrounding the airport (Star Tribune, July 17.)"
* Of course, the IDEA that Pawlenty or Northwest
Airlines had ANYTHING to do with this vote is
laughable. As she put it: "Tigwell said in an
interview that neither Gov. Tim Pawlenty, who
appointed her, nor Northwest Airlines pressured her to
craft the proposal that she successfully marshaled
through a MAC committee last week. "I own this one.
There's no doubt about it," Tigwell said."
* Its fascinating, too, that the last person appointed
to the MAC cast a deciding vote on the committee
recommendation that led to yesterday's full MAC vote
was Gregory Warner (appointed 1/20/04), and that two
of the others were recently reappointed by Pawlenty
(McKasy, Williams - reappointed 9/29/03), and that
another was Tigwell herself. That makes four out the
five votes. The fifth was Dick Long (what a moniker!)
-he was appointed by Randy Kelly to be the St. Paul
representative on the MAC. The refiguring of MAC
districts and the concomitant legal requirement to
reappoint, as well as other resignations led to the
opportunity to stack the MAC deck. The full MAC vote
yesterday was 12-3, with the same 3 dissents that
appeared on the committee (Houle, McCauley, Boivin)
* Fun with connections - Tigwell is not just a board
member or consultant for the same company that got
Pawlenty in less trouble than he should have been in
2002 (New Access Communications, owned by their buddy
Elam Baer - also of Eagan), she's the CIO. (MAC
website - "Chairwoman Tigwell is currently CIO for New
Access Communications, a Minneapolis based Competitive
Local Exchange Carrier (CLEC). She is a co-founder and
Director for TelEurope, a Tasmania, Australia based
telecom investment company."
It's just another story of cronyism, backroom
dealings, an Eagan-centered way of looking at the
world (did I mention that NWA headquarters are in
Eagan?). Next up, another 12 million plus in
"unintentional" LGA cuts on top of the tens of
millions of intentional ones. Sweet.
Aaron Klemz
Cooper (I think - no one can give me a clear answer!)
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