Chumpocracy in Action

It's rerun season, so why not watch the Maplewood City Council for entertainment?

This week's meeting featured a lot of audience participation -- from our state legislators to ordinary citizens to the National Park Service -- and not as much verbiage out of our city council (except, of course, for Mayor Longrie, as she kept the meeting lurching forward until well past midnight).

Being a Hjelle-watcher requires patience, like wildlife enthusiasts who are willing to wait for hours (or fast-forward through hours of recordings), watching some creature sit and do pretty much nothing, hoping for the moment when it will spring into action and do something noteworthy. Hjelle leafs through papers, drinks his water, looks like he wants to belch but holds it in (it's not like being home at his personal fire station, where that sort of thing would be okay). At times, oddly, it looks like he wants to cry. What mysterious inner life may be occurring behind those enigmatic expressions? Is he literally bored to tears?

The noise ordinance comes up.

Although she's a lawyer (as she has mentioned repeatedly at past meetings), Mayor Longrie is surprised that city ordinances such as this are punishable as misdemeanors or petty misdemeanors. Is that such a surprise? Doesn't "petty misdemeanor" include things like, well, parking tickets? What should ordinances have as consequences -- a statutory "stern talking-to" perhaps? In the meantime, Longrie thinks the city newsletter should mention that violations of city code may be misdemeanors or petty misdemeanors, just to warn the possibly unwitting public. Watch out, if you're one of those people who like to mow by flashlight.

Erik leaps into action. The notion of a "reasonable person" seems to trouble him, in a way he can't quite articulate. He suggests that people who violate city ordinances, like the noise ordinance at issue, should get warnings. One imagines him silently adding, Like I should have just gotten warnings, for those pesky election campaign violations!

As the hours pass, the meeting turns to a proposed development around Fish Creek (the Carver Crossing Improvements -- item L4 on the agenda), which has various citizens and area environmentalists concerned.

Here the patience of the Hjelle-watcher is at last rewarded. What sorts of questions will Erik Hjelle ask? Well, they're all pretty similar. To paraphrase:

1. You don't live in Maplewood, do you? (As we've learned in the past, the triumvirate is big on dismissing input from non-residents. Except of course when it's their own Greek chorus brought in from neighboring cities.
   
2. You're just an individual who happens to be a park ranger butting into our business, right? (No, the park ranger was present in his official capacity on behalf of the National Park Service. Too bad for Erik; it's easier to dismiss some tree-hugging outsider than, say, a federal agency.)
3. Doesn't Fish Creek just run into a culvert? (I.e., why should we care about some glorified ditch?)
   

At one point, Erik telegraphed his boredom with Yet Another Environmentalist Kook by interrupting him to suggest that the police and fire chief should feel free to leave, since it was so late and they shouldn't care about any of this tedious stuff. Clearly, Erik himself would have liked to tune it all out and go home already.

To her credit, Mayor Longrie asked thoughtful questions of the presenters, as did Council Member Juenemann (no surprise there, though; Juenemann is probably the environment's best friend on the council). The mayor observed that the environmental report did not mention the impact on birds, for instance, which she thought was a significant oversight, given that various speakers did raise the issue of the impact of development on migratory species crossing over the land, and the EAW did mention other kinds of wildlife specifically.

Ultimately the council decided to delay a decision, giving staff a chance to address various issues. Maplewood Public Works Director Chuck Ahl, who always seems on top of things in these meetings (and incredibly patient in explaining the details -- man, he should run for something!), had rightly mentioned that a more complete Environmental Assessment Worksheet would be a good thing -- not just because the council should have answers to its questions, but because a stronger EAW is more likely to stand up in court, regardless of which side might challenge the council's decision (the environmental interests or the developer). Plus, having to rewrite part of the city's comprehensive plan to accomodate this project would require future approval from the DNR -- approval that will go more smoothly, the better the EAW is at this stage.

Given that it was past midnight, it was hard to tell if the unanimous vote reflected an underlying agreement on the council, or a universal desire to get to bed sometime before sunrise. Clearly Juenemann and Longrie wanted more information. Rossbach seemed to want to give the developer a green light with as little extra fuss as possible. Hjelle seems to mostly want those tree-hugging hippies out of his city. I don't know about Cave -- with those always-arched eyebrows, she's hard to read, as she just seems perpetually surprised. (I did see her blink, so I know they're not actually super-glued open.)

Be sure to tune in Thursday for the exciting continuation of this meeting, at a special time and place. The place will be city hall; the time will be 4 PM -- earlier than usual for a continued meeting, because Hjelle said he has some commitment in the evening. (It's clever of him to lay groundwork ahead of time for an early departure, assuming the Thursday meeting runs long too.)