Hi Tim,
I'm not sure what you're looking for as far as details. The convention was fairly normal, straight forward, and interesting as a Mayoral one can get. There were about 530 voters to start. There were four nominations for Mayor: Coleman, Ortega, Swanson, and Kelly. There was no one there to accept for Kelly and his nomination was dropped. On the first vote Coleman got 53%, Ortega got 45% and the remaining part was split between Swanson and no endorsement. We never found out the vote total on the second vote, as Rafael, who obviously did find out, came up and gave a fairly good speech supporting both the DFL and Coleman. And then Coleman gave a fairly good speech. A vote for Coleman by acclamation succeeded. It was not unanimous. As far as I could tell there was only one vote against it. There may have been more but I didn't hear them.
The school board endorsement had six candidates nominated: Broderick, Street-Stewart, Goldstein, Swanson, Lovejoy, and Gillespie (I could be misspelling Rachel's name). Broderick was endorsed on first vote by 62%, Street-Street-Stewart on first vote by 61%. We were trying to fill three slots on the first vote. All subsequent votes were for one remaining spot. Goldstein had 40 some %, and Lovejoy and Gillespie had 30 some % in that first vote. It stay fairly equal in the second vote (where are voting for just one person) with Goldstein being the leader. Swanson was dropped. The next vote. Lovejoy was dropped, and on the next vote Rachel thanked everyone and gave her support to Goldstein. I have a funny feeling I missed a vote in there somewhere, but maybe not.
We heard from a number of elected officials including all of the St. Paul delegation to the State House and Betty McCullum. We also heard from Amy Klobuchar, a candidate for U.S. Senator. And there were other candidates who I'm afraid I'm going to appear to be slighting because I don't remember or didn't catch their names.
There was one episode where all veterans were asked to come to the stage and the memory of 30 years ago today in Vietnam was talked about and our gratitude to the men and women in the armed forces was expressed. There was also mention of honoring all people of conscience, in the armed forces or not.
And it adjourned sometime after 5:00, when the School Board endorsements were finished, and there was still a good crowd there.
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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