Chris Johnson wrote:
wmmarks wrote:
> Yes, the budget changes RT made did negatively impact police service
> (and library services, and park services, and etc.). Each of which
> contributed to the current and endlessly on-going crime problem.
Yes, clearly you are a McLaughlin partisan -- one would have to be to see the Minneapolis budget in those terms.
McLaughlin is not the issue. The issue is two guys who put a gun to my kid's head on our front porch and took his wallet. Followed him from the bank., they did.
The issue is also jumping to the Karl Rove remark, rather than digging into the question of police department strength. Some possible, credible replies RT might have made: "Peter, did you think I had a nose full of nickels? I was elected to switch from credit card management to a different system." Or: "I put the city on a better financial footing." (I don't know this to be true, but RT could claim it, and has.) It's a pot shot, rather than a debate. Police Department is a big chore the city has got to keep up with regardless.
From where I sit, Rybak has presided over a budget where city departments actually spent less than budgeted for the first time in history -- or at least, in our lifetimes.
How is this a plus? If the budget is $X.00 and you spend $X.00 - $2,000,000 but have no polices, what have you gained? To me, this is not a claim to fame.
He's also presided over the unpleasant task of belt tightening required to fix our financial mess, bequeathed to us by the Sharon Sayles Belton / Jackie Cherryhomes crowd -- which interestingly enough, happens to include Peter McLaughlin.
Not exactly accurate. SSB came in behind 30 years of red lining of the inner city by banks, insurance companies, and city services. She had a mess to clean up left by her predecessors. The NRP was one successful effort that SSB presided over after Fraser introduced it. Higher numbers of police officers were also items she spent money on. She supported Success by Six, she supported Tubman Shelter and other efforts to help children and women survive in the 21st. century. She had more than a little to do with bringing down Ferris Alexander, the porn king, and putting the MN Workforce Office on the corner of Lake and Chicago in place of Alexander's scuzzy theater. She pushed the city council into taking some leadership, something they had been rather more lax about than could continue to be tolerated. She gathered partners in the legislature and the county and among some of the high rollers to help her push her agenda.
All that change cost money, but the city is reaping the rewards in the ability to charge higher taxes. She brought land out of moth balls for redevelopment. All these neighborhoods on the South side which had suffered mightily through those years are in full flood recovery--even Phillips, the biggest and arguably the worst off of all the neighborhoods.
They're the Old Guard who were spendthrift with our tax dollars, especially when it came to developers, labor unions, cronies and pension funds. They left us a huge mess.
Did they leave a mess or did they begin the long process of cleaning up the mess the city had gotten into? I think SSB, et.al. practiced a brinkmanship that I could not have done were I in their positions, but I think Mpls. and the entire state benefited from it. Thirty years of neglect, benign and otherwise, had left the core of the city a mess. I know that the area of the city where I live certainly benefited from SSB. If you were to compare the amount of tax dollars being collected here against what had been being collected before SSB, you might be pleasantly surprised. Those added taxes are keeping your taxes lower, so part of what RT is claiming kudos for was put in place by his predecessor, one SSB.
Developers: Who builds cities? Once it was kings or emperors who ordered cities built by slave labor. With the end of the middle ages and the rise of the merchant classes, that began to change. It evolved into developers doing that work somewhere along the line. Of course they make out like fat rats into the bargain, that's why they do it, but that's also how capitalism works. Until you can go downtown yourself and build an IDS building, you will have to tolerate developers. It is a convenient myth that development can happen in a vacuum.
Unions: I've often wondered if people who sneer at labor unions have ever held industrial or civil service jobs without union protection. Those unions did not rise out of the earth because everything was just hunky dory. Laborers and civil service employees need those unions to keep from being ground up and spit out. A person who works an industrial job in a big company or agency or a clerical type who works for a municipality, county, township, state, or federal agency without a union is daft. The industrial jobs are tough and dangerous and chew up bodies. The civil service jobs would be nepotism and cronyism end to end without them. (One of the unions I belonged to was not forward looking nor progressive, sometimes is was plodding and dumb as a bucket of hair; but I got decent wages, better working conditions, and some health benefits I did not have in years of non-union work.)
And then you blame Rybak for having to reduce the spending? Only a complete partisan could make such a statement.
I didn't blame RT for anything but a stupid, accusatory rejoinder on the radio that ducked the issue of crime.
There's two things I've gotten really tired of in this mayoral campaign, and unfortunately they both come from the McLaughlin camp. One, is the completely one-sided obscuring of the real truth of the big picture, like Wizard Marks' comments above.
I could make the same accusation of the position you're taking here. Obscuring the real truth of the issues has been part of RTs oeuvre. Gliding over the crime situation is one such obscuring that has real consequences for us real Minneapolitans.
The other is Peter McLaughlin's constant juvenile "aren't I clever" nasty little potshots at Rybak. "He doesn't wear the same color socks." How about trying to address the issue, instead of always searching for the attack sound bite, Peter?
Well, from what was on MPR and what I quoted, I'd say RT was doing precisely what you accuse Peter of.
I'm not particularly pleased with either of their positions on a lot of issues. But given McLaughlin's repulsive style and his connections with the folks we just threw out of office -- for good reason -- I think I'll stick with the guy who has done some good in a bad situation: R. T. Rybak.
Lastly, need I mention Peter's support for the 35W Excess Project?
Speaking of snotty, juvenile pot shots, here's one: 'Excess Project,' meant to seem clever , but is no more than a distortion of the efforts of me and my neighbors.
Yes. Funny how he is able to talk out of both sides of his mouth -- support for mass transit while on the campaign stump yet willing to pave over dozens of acres of south Minneapolis for the convenience of suburban commuters.
Wrong again. The Access Project was dreamed up by my neighbors and I in an excruciatingly long, drawn out process. We, who live in the heart of the city, want access to the jobs in the burbs. If you sat down and looked at all the endless yards of paper, and thought about what the Access Project really will accomplish, you might have a different opinion. The Access Project, if it gets built, will support mass transit. Think about it.
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