La La Land Longrie

How out of touch with reality is Mayor Diana Longrie? Her public statements repeatedly describe a world not in synch with what the rest of us see.

Exhibit A: "Longrie...said she was among those surprised when the Kelly and Fawcett law firm severed its ties with Maplewood. 'I don't know about the strained relationships,' she said."

Comment: Does Mayor Longrie suffer from some kind of receptive aphasia?

Exhibit B: "Le said ... that [former city attorney] Kelly said he was told by Mayor Diana Longrie [the Copeland background check] was to be an internal investigation . . . Longrie on Tuesday called that a 'bald-faced lie' because she would have recommended an outside investigation. She said she did not know who determined the background check would be internal."

Comment: Asked about this at Monday's meeting, Chief Thomalla identified the specific date on which Diana gave the order for the check to be internal. (It was a funny moment -- Diana asked Can you tell me exactly what day this meeting occurred? and Thomalla gave her the specific day. Diana then said, oh, she herself didn't remember exactly when she met with whom or what was said.)

Exhibit C: "Why would I want to offer up somebody's name who had a criminal record or things I didn't know about? I did the check; I have it in my computer. It's not any different than what they already have."

Comment: She also said she was very surprised to learn from the city's background check that Copeland was in business with her husband. It doesn't bode well for her background checking skills that she was not able to uncover that one. Or, she lied to the council (and the rest of us) when she feigned surprise about the relationship.

Exhibit D: "I don't think the [Schultz] report was talking about me. I always treat everyone with respect."

Comment: It's remarkable to assume that any time she is not named specifically, the report wasn't talking about her. (By that standard pretty much everyone can say the negatives in the report weren't about them, since it never actually says something like "Hjelle is a chump.") Even if you buy that, just run a search for mention of "Mayor" in the Schultz report, and find passages like these:

1. "...the Mayor was repeatedly not recognizing those who were in the minority..."
2. "...these questions were also directly sent to the Mayor to forward to Council and as far as can be ascertained, they were not forwarded on..."
3. "The roots of the trust and communication problems are deep-seated and proof of the proposition that 'you reap what you sow.' Specifically, much of the conflict here stems from a cable access television show hosted by the Mayor's husband."

Exhibit E: "Maplewood Mayor Diana Longrie said Coleman’s announcement she was leaving took her by surprise."

Comment: It says something about how in touch the mayor is if she missed the widespread rumors that a lot of people in city hall were updating their resumes and watching for new job prospects. Ultimately, employee concerns have led them to begin the process of forming a bargaining unit, to protect them from the capriciousness of the new controllers of the city. As the Pioneer Press quoted her, "This was kind of a surprise to me,'' was Longrie's response.

Exhibit F: "[Longrie] said Guilfoile gave Copeland permission by telephone to enter the clerk's office and retrieve the records."

Comment: Ask Guilfoile's attorney about this one.

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This is just casual sampling of course -- there's a lot more out there, in the written record and even more if you watch the meetings (feel free to contribute them in the comments!). I don't really think that Diana suffers a neurological disorder. However, she just loves to play the ingenue.

Whether you accept her role as genuine (in which case she is naive, emotionally tone-deaf, unobservent, forgetful, and self-deluded) or a calculated, deceptive pose, it's not what we should expect from a city leader.