On Jul 1, 2005, at 8:42 AM, gemgram wrote:
David Braur's request, on the Minneapolis Issues, for a Peter
McLaughlin finance plan to hire police officers fails to
acknowledge that for months Peter McLaughlin has offered a proposal
for badly needed new revenue; State aid worth $24 million for the
City's closed police pension fund. That's REAL money that would be
available over time to provide REAL relief to the City's General
Fund. The primary source of funds for the Police Department.
Two things on this:
1. It's $24 million in debt reduction over 30 YEARS. At $800,000 per
year and $50,000 a cop, that works out to about 16 new cops today.
Not a big boost.
2. Th city's current leadership - and I include RT and Peter in this
- has agreed to a pension reform deal that's being held up at the
legislature. So soon, this "source" of revenue will be a non-issue:
it will be available to whoever wins.
I think Jim's analysis of RT's caving on this is right; we've written
about that, too. However, he's accepted the pension plan, which again
is not the silver bullet for funding more cops some claim it is.
And going forward, the bulk of the original question for Peter
remains: how you gonna pay for more than a few new cops, all those
new promised firefighters, and the implied city worker raises above
the mayor's and council's 2 percent cap?
I think David Brauer needs to ask the Mayor what he's going to do
about the spiraling murder rate, since the Mayor's last plan (not
engaging in "dangerous behavior") has proven to be such a failure.
As I typed I heard there were two more shooting victims on Lake
Street last night. Perhaps Mayor Rybak believes that we ALL should
move out of Minneapolis because he believes we are engaging in
"dangerous behavior" by staying in our own homes. Perhaps it is the
Mayor who is engaging us all in his "dangerous behavior"!
It's a fair question, and one I referenced in this week's editorial.
Again, though, beyond the still-unfinanced promise, Peter's campaign
also needs to say what it will do differently in this regard.
David Brauer
Kingfield
REMINDERS:
1. Be civil! Please read the NEW RULES at http://www.e-democracy.org/rules. If
you think a member is in violation, contact 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 Civil City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn
E-Democracy
Post messages to: mailto:[email protected]
Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
