I think the most important thing to remember in this entire discussion is PROCESS.
There was a PROCESS a few years ago where most folks came to a resolution on a two lane road with a bike trail for Ayd Mill. The City Council, including CM Benanav and CM Harris, agreed on the outcome. It wasn't Benanav's first choice, but he settled on it to move the community forward. Sadly, the same can't be said of the Mayor; the PROCESS is being ignored by the Kelly Administration. I would venture to guess this is one reason why CM Harris, a fair-minded centrist, has quietly chosen to endorse Chris Coleman over Kelly. Business interests have made ignoring the outcome of that process a priority, and Kelly has followed suit. And to respond to Kevin's inquiry, there is a PROCESS by which the City identifies its Captial Investment priorities. That is the CIB Process, an open and fair competiton, ranked by citizens. (http://www.ci.stpaul.mn.us/depts/ofs/cib) This year, there's something like $35 million in requests for $10 million in funds. Thanks to the Ayd Mill proposal - which will tie up many millions, this is is funding that won't be available for other proposals, either through CIB or elsewhere. Ayd Mill takes away money for playgrounds, rec centers, housing affordability programs, street and sidewalk repair. All because the Kelly administration wanted to ignore process and put forward its divisive Ayd Mill proposal, which is exposing old wounds. This is not a recipe for moving the City forward together, and I think the divisveness makes us miss shared opportunities. We got to this civic dysfunction by ignoring community PROCESS because certain business interests were sure that they held some unique grasp on the truth, and particularly because the administration has followed suit. I think it is fair to say this is the single most important complaint I hear about the Kelly administration, and so I'm surprised they'd highlight it just a few months before the primary. Notably, the Mayor's attempt to ameliorate this perception - the Streetbeat meetings - are still ultimately controlled by the Mayor. But those same business interests helped give Kelly his dramatic fundraising lead, over TWENTY TIMES what either Ortega or Coleman had raised as of January 31st - over a quarter million and rising. So maybe Kelly thinks he can do whatever he wants, without penalty. We'll see, but the money likely gives Kelly a plainly unfair advantage. (http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:Whvzcr9WttgJ:www.startribune.com/stories/587/5215022.html+%2B%22Chris+Coleman%22+%2B%22Rafael+Ortega%22+%2B%22Randy+Kelly%22+%2B%22Jay+Benanav%22+%2Bfundraising&hl=en&ie=UTF-8) Respectfully, just my opinion...with little personal stake in Ayd Mill, Bob Spaulding Downtown ------------------------------------------------- JOIN the St. Paul Issues Forum TODAY: http://www.e-democracy.org/stpaul/ ------------------------------------------------- POST MESSAGES HERE: [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/
