I'm officially neutral until after the dfl endorses for the mayor's
race, but I really have to jump in here and defend Chris Coleman's
record on GSE.
1. The GSE debacle started before Chris took office. In my last few days
on the Council we heard thru the grapevine that Minnesota Brewing was
talking to state officials about adding ethanol production to increase
the brewery's capacity and ensure the future of beer production in W
7th. I set up a mtg with Chris and Minnesota Brewing's Jack Lee to get
Chris up to speed.
Both of us were assured that ethanol production would not ruin beer
sales, the plant would not explode and it might have a small odor of
baking bread while in production. Jack invited neighbors to a rural
plant to see and smell for themselves.
2. Many neighbors including myself as a civilian/ex elected official at
first believed and placed our trust in local and state pollution control
officials to protect us. I believe Chris was in this category. Others
were skeptics and were proven right! The state had no interest in
protecting us from the "smell of jobs". A whole bunch of us were wrong,
however I doubt very much that even a united front at the early stages
could have prevented GSE from opening and starting production.
3. I saw Chris taking action when it became obvious that we had been
duped - and this was pretty early on. Unfortunately, laws protecting
big business and flacid support from the state's PCA prevented the city
from shutting down ethanol production. I also saw Chris's frustration
with being blamed for the whole thing when I knew that his action was
limited by lack of city technology and legal and city attorney's
positions which don't allow for a city councilman just to walk over and
pull the plug on a business.
4. Once we did set a course though for using the public nuisance laws to
declare odor a nuisance and prove that there was more pollution coming
out of the plant than the state would admit, Chris was consistantly on
the neighborhood's side, working to stop the production of ethanol at
GSE.
Hindsight is deceptive. It may be convenient now, to blame Chris Coleman
for GSE but it isn't fair. The heroes were the folks who were early
skeptics and sued as CASE (thankyou Diane, Terese, Andy and all the
others...), but Chris acted as aggressively as an elected official could
possibly act once it was apparent we had all been deceived. One might
wish that our state elected officials had been as aggressive in
supporting our cause.
In hindsight I'd love to take credit for closing the plant because it
happened during my term of office but I can't. It was because of CASE,
dedicated neighbors and determined legal action by the city AND Chris
Coleman, that meeting court ordered emission standards forced GSE out of
business.
dave thune
predecessor and sucessor of chris coleman
city council, St. Paul
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