I was at tonight's Streetbeat meeting also.
I found him mostly critical of presidential and federal policy. There were two different issues with that, one being a proposed decrease in section eight vouchers and another being a drastic cut in CDBG grants. He opposes both, and noted that he doesn't think the CDBG grant cuts will go thru. His support of Bush during the election wasn't mentioned but then I think he based his support of Bush mainly on his international policies and safety issues, not economic ones.
Dan did ask some good questions: Did he threaten Rep. Hausman, did he threaten to withhold support for other projects beneficial to St. Paul, did he shill for NWA. My impression is that he did admit to behind closed door conversation with Rep. Hausman, between peers or former peers, and I took from that he had a conversation where blunt language was used and points made while advocating an issue. My impression was that he was trying to admit being tough, but wasn't going to characterize to us it as 'threatening'. Obviously Rep. Hausman could characterize it as such and did publicly. Again, I don't really believe that tieing the Holman Field floodwall into all other projects beneficial to St. Paul was real. As for shilling for an already large company, NWA, he put it off as saying he thought Holman Field was an integral important part of our transportation system and that it had significant economic impact on St. Paul. He also noted Gander Field and 3M as companies benefited by the airport. I don't know enough to argue about that position or about a lot of other subsidies that have already been decided on.
I thought a number of people led off their comments or questions with positive references to the Mayor's positions including various positions on immigrants, and community centers and housing. One person pressed an issue about the Mayor's awareness of specific needs, ie , numbers, for section eight housing and affordable housing and support housing, and the Mayor indicated a lack of knowledge of these specifics, and had just general comments that these three issues had to improve. There was also an issue of whether or not the need for senior housing was decreasing or increasing. I think the claim was that statistic showed it decreasing but that the Mayor's position was that it had to increase. I may be confused on that one.
He did talk about the need to get more resources to current owners of rental properties so that upgrades could be made and an increase in section eight eligible housing created among the current 4,000 vacant units.
I got a bit confused on another issue about housing and that was his acknowledgement that there needed to be more low income housing, but that some standards being used by the City limited the amount in large new developments to 1%, and that it was going to be hard to achieve significant increase with that standard in place. I didn't know for sure whether it was a City initiated standard, or if they had any control over it. They did indicate that its intent was to distribute the housing in question over the whole city. But if I got this right, why was it set at such a low percentage and why couldn't they change it?
At least one asked him to be more forceful in advocating education, both private and public, to assist keeping St. Paul strong. And a number asked him what impact he could have on reversing decisions to reduce bus routes and transit services. He thought that any reduction was very stupid, and that support and resources had to be increased. And there was a request for his assistance in getting either more funds for improvements in park areas in the nationally designated river corridor, or to help secure the funds that were currently being discussed (even if they were less than originally desired). The requests didn't appear critical of the Mayor, just statements of needs and asking for help.
There were additional comments about safe sidewalks during the winter, speed enforcement in the Highland area, particularly River Blvd, and maintenance of bus stops. It was also brought to his attention that some people were falling thru some bureaucratic cracks because of changes in eligibility definitions for section eight vouchers by HUD and because of this they couldn't move to newer apartments meeting their needs in the new Gateway development.
I may have forgotten some items or missed them but overall I thought most of the people in attendance were fairly easy on the Mayor.
Pat Byrne St. Clair and Lexington Parkway Neighborhood.
"Its easier to build a road than to think of what the country really needs" - Aldo Leopold
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