Index of SPPS Budget Discussion http://www.e-democracy.org/stpaul/spps-posts.html _________________________________________ Our wandering troubadour from ward four explained his penchant for travel in a StarTrib editorial today:
As one of those elected officials, I welcome scrutiny of my fiscal decisions by the public and the media. Unfortunately, the article didn't fully discuss the facts surrounding this travel, or the benefits it brought to St. Paul. Each year, the City Council budgets $7,000 for each ward office to use in staff training, travel and for the hiring of temporary interns -- often students -- to assist with ward business. Since I joined the City Council, my office has been budgeted $49,000 for these purposes but has spent less than half of it for training and travel. <snip> Here are just a few of the benefits my office has brought to St. Paul, thanks to the training and networking made available through national conferences and meetings: � In 1999, after the mayor made a unilateral proposal to privatize city services, I wrote a major piece of legislation that I picked up at a National League of Cities conference; the City Council adopted it. [TS] Translation: I learned not only how to stifle competition, but to squash even the notion of looking into it in any way, shape or form. � Through attendance at national conferences known as Rail-volution, I have become a leading light-rail advocate on the City Council; that expanded knowledge has helped me inform residents and businesses of the costs, benefits and the impacts of light-rail construction. [TS] Which has yielded..nothing. We have a very expensive toy LRT sitting in MPLS, and after it's operators and mechanics are guaranteed their free lifetime medical coverage it will undoubtedly actually move; at which time I think we will learn everything we need to know about LRT right from the comfort of our living rooms. � At one of these conferences, my legislative aide met an East Coast consultant who ended up working with our office (for travel costs only) on a proposal to link Grand Avenue and downtown with an electric streetcar. I led a delegation of city leaders, including the deputy mayor, to view a successful streetcar line in 2001. After that, my aide organized community forums with business leaders and neighbors to assess the project and how it would work for St. Paul. [TS] Which has yielded..nothing. Anyone want to bet who the "East Coast consultant" was or who he worked for? � At the National League of Cities Conference in 2002, my office joined the campus/ community caucus -- a network that examines the challenges faced by college communities like St. Paul. [TS] NLC conferences are commonly attended by city council-persons and their entourages. I suppose they are as worthwhile as any other trade show. � Over the past six years, some of my colleagues have accepted all-expense-paid trips to view the inner workings of other cities, courtesy of the St. Paul Chamber of Commerce. [TS] The article did not address trips made at the expense of private companies. I can only say that I hope that Jay didn't view any sporting events on these trips. Personally, I have not detected any benefits to my family or my neighborhood because of Jay's travels, and in my opinion if these examples are the best that Jay can come up with I think he has pretty much summed up the worth of them. But as long as he has not exceeded his travel stipend and has *some* legitimate excuse for his travels, I don't see where he's doing anything that everybody else isn't doing. TSwift Cherokee Park __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Small Business $15K Web Design Giveaway http://promotions.yahoo.com/design_giveaway/ _____________________________________________ SPPS Budget Reduction Forum - Feb. 23-27 Co-Sponsored By NEAT: http://www.stpaulneat.org/ _____________________________________________ NEW ADDRESS FOR LIST: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To subscribe, modify subscription, or get your password - visit: http://www.mnforum.org/mailman/listinfo/stpaul Archive Address: http://www.mnforum.org/mailman/private/stpaul/
