I don’t know if there is a way to embed KAAL (ABC 6) stories, but here is a link to their coverage here. They once again went to the bottom of the barrel and interviewed me.
“Every year, the City of Rochester and Olmsted County send almost $90 million more to the State Treasury in taxes than they receive back in LGA, school aid, and other assistance,” said Governor Dayton.
“The reality is we send so much in income tax and sales tax up to Saint Paul and we get a pittance of that back,” says Rochester city council member, Michael Wojcik, who met with Governor Dayton on Thursday. While he’s happy with the Governor’s praise, he points out Rochester’s state contributions are a double-edged sword; especially, when programs like Local Government Aid are being slashed.
“We don’t have necessarily the means to keep funding the programs that we have and that’s why you see this constant budget struggle at the city and county level,” says Wojcik.
Here is one of many county roads in Rochester which fails to account for pedestrians, cyclists, businesses, transit users, the young, the old, or the disabled.
Since it is an election year and I haven’t decided to not run for office, I am going to be posting some of the feedback that I get that makes me smile. I will not share names unless I have permission, and I certainly won’t when the writer is critical of other council members. Even though in this case the criticism is fair and well deserved. The decision does beg the question that if Bruce Snyder is not willing to pay for maintaining existing infrastructure is he still going to ask for more new infrastructure? It is frustrating when I have the best excuse to cower but do not, yet others lose their backbone.
Hi Michael:
Excellent job at the meeting and thank you for your leadership and work you did with the 2nd St. owners. They clearly have challenges to face with these large assessments but it was also clear that you made them understand this was a situation that the city had to face for the good of the community. Some may be driven from their properties. Sad, but that often comes with development. Too bad so few understand who the losers are or speak for them when our open land gets developed. It would have been quite a sharp contrast last night had the Kwik Trip tree variance hearing been held.
I decided not to speak since I really didn’t have any skin in the game and it became clear this was a hearing about the assessment, not the design. I could not have added anything of substance to move the debate. I applaud you Mark, Randy and Sandra for taking a courageous stand – quite striking in contrast to the two who voted no yet offered no other ideas. Particularly telling was Ed’s commentary, praising you and your work, yet voting no. A real coward, recognizes what is right but chooses not to take a stand. Shameful. At least Bruce just sat there like the toad that he is – true to form and honestly an idiot.
Aside from your courageous championship of this issue, my favorite part of the night was the Rabbi from Chabad-Lubavitch. (Do you know his name? I missed it.) I have decided to make a contribution out of respect for his good natured and sincere “objection”. I feel somewhat responsible for his plight being one of those with the “good idea”. In my own small way I would like to support his faith that God will provide.
Well if she does we hope she sends the money to the right state.
The funniest part of this is that when she is reading off the list of events, she actually reads off a New York state event, but still doesn’t put two and two together. When I was searching for the above video I also found this nugget, below.
In fairness, I don’t know what the public said, or if there were just being clueless. We occasionally have some clueless folks at our city council meeting that get corrected or asked to sit down. But the fact that there was someone on the committee actually defending the witnesses tells me that Rep. Anderson was probably out of line.
I see that I have been contacted by many members of PETA regarding our crow issue so I thought I would take the time to put my thoughts into a blog post instead of answering everyone individually.
For those of you that are unaware we have a serious infestation issue with an over population of crows in many parts of Rochester including downtown. This has created an unpleasant nuisance for many businesses and a public health threat at the Mayo Clinic and local restaurants. We worked with a company called US Bird Abatement and saw very limited success. We do not have unlimited funds and we can’t rebuild our downtown to address this. I have no interest in causing unnecessary harm to any living thing.
One thing to remember is that the crows are not coming downtown to eat, rather to roost. Thus we don’t have garbage issues to deal with. They are downtown for heat and light, neither of which is easy to remove.
Here are my priorities:
Address the very serious public health and commerce threat. As County Commissioner Stephanie Podulke told me, “If these were rats, they would be dead.” The fact is that crows are prodigious carriers of west Nile Virus and introduce feces to our environment this must be addressed.
Do this in a humane manner if possible. We have tried many methods with limited success. There are a number of “great” suggestions out there that haven’t worked at all.
At the end of the day, the crows will be dealt with.
Mark Bilderback and I were fortunate enough to join some great kids from Rochester on their day at the capital. This group was very engaged despite some coming from challenging circumstances. There were some great exchanges with Senator David Senjem and Mark Dayton. Both Governor and the Majority were as non-partisan as human beings could ever have been. This was all about the kids. I also loved that we had a diverse group of kids who actually represent what Rochester looks like. Not the “white and wealthy that elected officials from other parts of the state sometimes envision.
Senator Senjem took time out of his schedule to visit with the kids. My favorite questions was, “Are you the governor?” Sen. Senjem also told the kids that you are successful when you help others to be successful. The kids met with most local elected officials. I even went back and forth with Sen. Nelson who offered to meet with the kids. Unfortunately schedules did not permit.
I am processing the video, but I will eventually add the video of kids asking Mark Dayton questions. The best part of the whole day was Mark Dayton blowing off his staffers and later our own Mayor so that he could keep answering questions from the kids. Even after his staff finally wrestled him out of the room, he came back again for a picture.
Most the questions were quite good, there were a few that were overly scripted. One person from the press corps commented that the kids asked better questions than the press corps.
Also today a judge threw out Holter’s request for a temporary restraining order. He must have been as unimpressed with Holter fantasy ownership as everyone else.
I have no idea what Dan is talking about. We own the buses, shelters, and infrastructure. I can only assume that Dan thinks the transit system means the gum under the seat.
I met with two of Dan’s senior staffers a few weeks back (shortly after Dan held the public hostage for a $110,000 shakedown). In talking with them even they realized that RCL didn’t own the system and they couldn’t defend the lack of competition. A constituent joked to me that Dan’s fighting to maintain his government sanctioned competition free contract would make him a great leader of the old Soviet Communist Party. Read the rest of this entry »
This is still 20 minutes, but I cut 75% of the hearing out.
In short, myself and Randy Staver didn’t feel the variance met the legal standard. Ed Hruska, Bruce Snyder, and Dennis Hanson, have never supported this. Mark Bilderback and Sandra Means were willing to go along with the variance. Compromise passed 7-0 so we all suck equally.
Northwest Investments (Kwik Trip) will plant fewer trees, leave West Circle Drive treeless, donate trees to RNeighborwoods. The variance request also removed power from the city forester, but we were able to restore that.
Edit, I see some video is missing so I will try to fix that.
