A tremendous thank you to Diane for a truly informative review of the facts. I learned a lot.
As a former constituent of Chris Coleman's, I have been similarly disturbed by the "Chris Coleman is just another Randy Kelly" argument. It is flat out untrue. Let me complement Diane's many insights with a little additional information from downtown.
Chris Coleman enters this race as a moderate, as a consensus builder. He's the kind of person who is capable of setting a common vision for the City. This is a quality that is in profoundly short supply right now. Randy Kelly inherited a City that had a newfound sense of optimism and direction. Yet, from my vantage point, Randy Kelly has managed to so divide this City's organizational infrastructure that it's hard to imagine setting a common direction.
One area that separates Randy Kelly from Chris Coleman is his basic commitment to city planning and process. Chris is able to put together a vision for our City, and get the buy-in to make it happen. Chris chose for his aide Nancy Homans, a former St. Paul planner herself. In a ward that contains most of the city's most complex planning challenges - downtown, the West Side Flats, West Seventh Street, Grand Avenue - it was an important and symbolic choice. As we think about major initiatives like the proposed Great River Park between downtown and Highland Park, and the Central Corridor along University Avenue, planning, process and foresight becomes an important issue. The record is clear.
There are many examples of Mayor Kelly flaunting community process that get mentioned here, but many don't. I can think of several that haven't been mentioned, but I'll write about one abstractly. I am Co-Chair of a community planning task force downtown, for the 18-block part of downtown in which I live, which is in need of some attention and certainly community cooperation to be improved. Nine months ago, Task Force reached a preliminary outcome in the planning process that drew upon ten years of planning the City has done.
But as we came to broad consensus, the Mayor and his PED Director inserted themselves in a completely unprecedented way into the task force's work, after most of the decisions had been made. The Kelly administration worked to undermine all the primary outcomes of the community planning process, by working to stall the process and heavy-handedly convince the community members on the task force of its perspective.
Far worse, the Kelly administration has managed to evenly split the task force members on the major issues in the plan, and create a clearly dysfunctional dynamic for a neighborhood that desperately needed cooperation to move forward. Planning downtown requires striking a delicate balance between the interests of residents, institutions and businesses. The Kelly administration's heavy-handed intervention could not have done more to damage this delicate balance, undermining a year's worth of work.
Chris Coleman would never have manipulated a neighborhood process in the way Randy Kelly has. After having given many, many hours to what could have been a uniting process, I am deeply saddened to be left with such a shameful result for my own neighborhood. As Co-Chair has been a gut-wrenching process to preside over, and nobody should have to put up with his bullying, destructive leadership.
A few weeks ago, discussions began about a plan to create a continuous Great River Park along the Mississippi, from downtown to Highland Park. To accomplish this will require planning and determination. As we talk about this, we should remember that Chris Coleman has been one of the City's primary champions of reorienting the city toward the riverfront. I suspect that Kelly would do a little to help out the Great River Park concept. But Chris Coleman would do far more, and do it with far more foresight.
Let's also consider the plans that are in the works to transform University Avenue, and fill in the many empty lots along the corridor. There has been years of planning done by district councils and University United to transform the corridor into something new and meaningful. The Kelly administration has taken a completely lazziez-faire approach to one of the city's largest planning opportunities. Where would could be transforming University into a model transit-oriented development corridor, the Kelly administration, PED, and the Planning Commission have failed to use the very obvious tools at their disposal to ensure a long-term vision for the Avenue. Chris' record suggests we could expect a more proactive approach.
There are other significant differences as well. I remember in Chris' final year on the City Council, he was one of the people who said what any rational person would: we can't run a city on fumes, and we need to look seriously at a property tax increase. After several cutbacks, and regressive user fees, our Mayor sees the same several years later, but only as a mechanism to expand police and security.
Chris Coleman is no Randy Kelly. And if Chris gets the DFL nomination, count me as one very progressive-minded individual who will be very happy to not only vote for him, but to very actively campaign for him!
Bob Spaulding Downtown
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