“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.

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.

XXXXX

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.

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:

1. 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.
2. 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.

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.

Dan Holter the owner of Rochester City Lines previously gave us the brilliant quote:

A business is ENTITLED to make a profit.

So you know what kind of an entitled person we are dealing with.  Dan is now suing the city because he feels he owns the transit system.  I had this to say when interviewed:

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.

Dan also claimed they RCL hadn’t made any money on city bus service for 44 years.  Which begs the question, is Dan lying?  Why would he want to continue to not make money?  I believe that Dan is in fact lying.  I believe he finds profit in the generous salary he pays himself, the generous rent he gets form the city for his ancient garages, and the shared overhead he applies to the city programming.

I would also point out that Dan has claimed he hasn’t made money for 44 years.  So if he wants us to pay him for taking his daddy’s business wouldn’t that amount also be $0.00?

For those that think the city doesn’t have the courage to stand up to Dan.  I think you are wrong.  Even our members that could perhaps be well served by a spinal implant are not likely to take this insanity.

Some have stated that we are only doing this because the city is being forced to by the Federal government.  I believe we should be doing this regardless of the Federal decision.  Why should we have a single source when there are many businesses that would like to have a chance to compete?  I few weeks ago I put the council on the spot.  Many of them were hiding behind the Federal decision, so I asked, “Who here doesn’t think we should open up our transit contract to competition regardless of the Federal decision?”  Not a single council person spoke up.  Which means they want the monopoly but are too cowardly to say anything or they agree that we need competition.  Even Bruce Snyder, Ed Hruska, and Dennis Hanson support the competitive process.

Which brings us back to Dan Holter’s incredible sense of entitlement.  As the city of Rochester was pursuing federal funds to complete our transit garage to better protect our assets, allow for competition, and save us huge rental fees and energy over time, Dan was secretly lobbying against us in DC.  Fortunately in my talks with Federal representatives, I found out what was happening and explained the situation and why Dan didn’t want the garage.  Perhaps coincidence, perhaps not, after a few years of delays we were awarded funds.

This brings me to the victims in this, Dan Holder’s drivers.  I was told off the record that the drivers organized into a labor union over fear for safety and the incompetence of operations under Dan Holter.  Based on my interactions with Dan, I find this very realistic.  The drivers are the reason that RCL has been successful.

In reading how public works staff wrote up the guidelines for bidding to run OUR transit system, they went out of the way to encourage the use of competent trained drivers.  This reaffirmed what the council has said, namely that the drivers and customer service are excellent.

Because there is wide spread appreciation for our current drivers I would suggest that the drivers union also put in a bid to be the service operator.  You will probably need to hire GM / HR talent and secure a line of credit for operating, but this is a way for you to hedge your bets.  I am sure if you contact public works, you can get feedback on what exactly you will need.  There is also a possibility that you could transfer your organization to a new operator.  Maybe it will turn out that Rochester City Lines will be the best of our bidders.  But I would strongly recommend that you not strictly tie your future to the performance, business expertise, or charm of Dan Holter.

Just to be clear, my job is not to pander to Dan Holter, I thought that RCL did a pretty good job.  But my job is to represent what is best for the future of Rochester.  Dan Holter’s actions have raised serious concerns about his ability to be relied upon.

#edit: OK, JH go nuts…

http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/kbenfield/a_gallery_of_walkability_part.html

Also based on the metrics used Rochester MN would rate highly on this list of the best cities for singles.

http://www.planetizen.com/node/54444

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.

Edit 2, Should be fixed.