What's Left of Maplewood (MN)

We can't draw, so we are left with verbal cartoons about Maplewood city politics.

Wednesday, December 13, 2006

Monday Night Reader Commentary

First, a general note. Our assumption is that if you send us e-mail you don't mind it being used in the blog (without attributing you by name, unless you explicitly say so) -- if that's not the case, be sure to tell us.

One of our readers on Monday night sent a bit of running commentary as the council meeting was in session, so I thought I'd share it with our whole audience (which seems to be growing, to judge from the number of unique viewers and page views in recent weeks).

* * *
Subject: Dodgeball!!

A new name for our brilliant city manager...

Roger Dodger!!

He has not answered a question all night even though he has been asked many and spewed much hot air. Could it be that he cannot answer questions without trading private e-mail with his 3 cronies? Oh. Pardon me. That would amount to a violation of the Open Meeting Law...

I keep thinking of the Guiness commercial when thinking of his greatness ... BRILLIANT!!

* * *

Subject: The Chief

Kathy keeps hammering on the loss of the Deputy Chief. Why not simply ask the real Chief himself? Then mr. brilliant will be exposed for who he is.


* * *

Subject: Teams

I should have gotten to this a few minutes ago. However, I just got off the floor after falling out of my chair from laughing so hard I was crying. Or was I simply crying for the sadness of it all...?

George...er Rebecca, wants everyone on the council to work as a team? Funny this teamwork since they were so afraid to work with the team that was already in place in the form of the department managers, especially when those managers formed the more exclusive team called a bargaining unit.

Now that the threesome has gotten their way and squashed the bargaining unit and any other non-cooperators in their path, teamwork is back in vogue.

The double standard makes me want to throw up...

posted by Frostbrand @ 11:29 AM  

12 Comments:

  • At 12:29 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    About time we have a city manager who isn't shooting off his mouth and acting like an elected official. We already have five elected officials. We don't need a sixth one.

    And teamwork? The council isn't a team. It is 5 independently elected people who make decisions. Enough with this group think crap.

    The last time I took a look at the 134 member MN House, I don't see people whining about them needing teamwork. Why the double standard between Maplewood and the Legislature?

    We don't critize Lillie for failing to be a team member with the Republicans so why would we criticize Maplewood council members for not being buddy buddy team members with their fellow elected officials.

     

  • At 1:35 AM, Blogger Frostbrand said…

    Heh. I think our reader's point was that Copeland shoots his mouth off plenty, he just fails to answer questions that he doesn't want to answer.

    I'm not sure how one might distinguish that from elected officials.

    As for teamwork, I suspect that Rebecca Cave is sincere and wishes there were less acrimony on the council. I don't see that changing, though, unless one of the triumvirate has some kind of road-to-Damascus moment of self-examination. Or, on the other hand, if Rossbach and Juenemann decide that their votes don't count so they may as well just phone it in until the next election.

    As for the MN House -- come on, you see people whining about the need for teamwork all the time! Haven't you ever heard calls for "bipartisanship," from both sides of the aisle?

    I don't know how much of it actually happens, but Lord knows people have never stopped calling for it.

     

  • At 2:00 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    People need to recognize that the system of government we have in this country essentially means that the minority simply shows up to keep the chairs warm in many cases.

    The minority simply has the role to complain and hopefully one day they become the majority. On minor issues, sometimes the minority can contribute, but often times that depends upon the minority members.

    I find that the most successful minority members are those who step up to the plate to take on issues which are not partisan in nature.

    Let me give an example that I am waiting to see happen in our city. Council member Rossbach said during the election that he wanted to see a plan put in place to make that community center break even. He posted these comments on a two or three page statement on the city website. Well this sounds like something that everyone should agree with. I am waiting for Rossbach to step forward. Whether he is a majority or minority member, he can get his own group of people together and do some hard work and put together a good report with a road map towards solving the problem. If he includes a variety of people in his discussion group, he will instantly gain legitimacy. It is his group so he would lead it. With that group buyin, he could get recommendations adopted. As a minority member, he has to take the initiative to see this happen. Good ideas are not owned exclusively by majority or minority members.

    You do hear all of these claims about bipartisanship and working together at the capitol. Bunch of hogwash. It is a word that is popular with the public but it doesn't happen a lot. Legislators say it because it looks good.

    Of course, there are always exceptions and occasionally you see bipartisanship. Most often it is in areas of crisis, and on issues that are important, but most people don't know about or care about.

    If Rossbach wants to be an active player for the next year, I think he should follow through on his community center ideas. Take a leadership role.

    As a side note, you will see our neighbor in Roseville decided to take a hard look at their community center, which is their Oval skating center. While it doesn't seem like they made any major changes after their study, I am sure their efforts did produce some good things. I never read of anyone saying their review was a waste of time.

     

  • At 2:30 PM, Blogger Frostbrand said…

    Honestly, before this year, I didn't perceive there being clearly delineated "teams" or "parties" in city hall. Maybe it was there and I was just blissfully unaware of it. This party-of-three quite consciously and explicitly has introduced an us-versus-them mentality. As I've said before, looking across the issues, the lines seem drawn not on any consistent ideological basis, but rather on the basis of personal interests and loyalties.

    I guess that's the way it is now. In which case, I suppose the "minority" should indeed complain, obstruct, and call attention to the misbehavior of the majority, as should the citizens. Then we should take over the council majority next year, and make reprisal into our own agenda.

    For a start, I'm sure we could find a way to reorganize city hall not only to fire Copeland and his new toadies, but to fire Erik Hjelle and Rebecca Cave's husband from their firefighting jobs, and maybe Jon Melander, the fire chief who helped Hjelle violate city law during the campaign, and anyone else who was in on that. Why not? As has been pointed out to me in another threads, this should only be expected in politics, and it's the future city council's right to reorganize the city as they see fit. We can just "reorganize" their fire halls to need a little less staff (maybe we need to close one south Maplewood fire station, and open another one nearby with all new employees).

    If partisan politics is the order of the day, I guess we should start digging up and publicizing personal dirt on the council members, too. I'm not talking about my petty "chumpelopithecus" mud-slinging, I mean let's hear about people's previous marriages and messy divorces, rumors of their extramarital affairs, details of their personal finances and credit history. How are their children doing in school? Any family substance abuse issues? If the council majority and their supporters want to see city politics played like the big leagues, shouldn't we pull out the Swift Boat operating manual and get to work?

    Is this the kind of future we want for Maplewood politics? Maybe this is what the voters had in mind when they voted for Longrie, Hjelle and Cave.

     

  • At 9:10 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Parties or teams exist in every city hall. Most of the time the public is unaware of it because you have to be an insider to really figure all of this stuff out. Most of us are dual income families with kids and don't have the time for all this stuff.

    Sometimes these parties or teams are made up of 3 out of 5 members, sometimes they are 5 out of 5 members.

    Take a look at Falcon Heights for example. There is a "party" that is made up of 5 of 5 members. When one of the "party" retired and choose not to seek reelection, two others filed for his seat. Well the "party" didn't like either of the two choices so they went out and recruited a "write-in" candidate and promoted her throughout the city and got her elected over the two legitimate candidates on the ballot.

    I'm sure during our city's history, we have had "parties" which have varied in membership. When we as citizens typically hear about these "party" factions is when it is 3-2. This is because citizens AND council members are shooting off their mouths. When it is 5-0 like in Falcon Heights, you only hear from citizens. The council there works very hard to discredit any opposition.

    Personally I prefer the 3-2 scenario over the 5-0 scenario any day. At least under 3-2, some issues recieve the light of day versus the 5-0 councils constantly are making backroom decisions on a daily basis.

    Where I think the minority in Maplewood can get off track is that while it is their right to bring about the other side of an issue, they need to keep their prospective and respect the process. Point out solid concrete differences in opinion. Simply calling names and making alligations disrespects the system, and often times backfires. The minority loses credibility when they act like sore losers which is a viewpoint that many have of the Maplewood council members who are sitting in the minority.

    Who knows what will happen in the next election, maybe the minority will take the majority. Maybe the majority will maintain their status. Maybe the majority will add to their membership. Maybe the majority will lose along with the minority by the election of a 5th member who wants to go off in his/her own direction. Remember the state has seen tri-partisan politics for most of the past 25 years. Perpich, Carlson, and Ventura were not exactly loved by either of the political parties. Then you had Olson back in the 30's.

    You may be able to find a way to do a reorganization to fire Hjelle and Cave's husband, but my guess is that no one will have the backbone to do a reorganization that will go that deep. Keep in mind that these two are lowerer level employees. One idea is to dissolve the Maplewood Fire Department in its entirety and instead hire out Saint Paul to cover the entire city. This would be the most effective way to eliminate these two. So does anyone think that Rossbach and Jueneman have the guts to do this? Doubtful.

    I suppose you could close one fire station and open a new one nearby. Yeah I guess a couple of million dollars to demolish one station and build another one a few blocks away a year later wouldn't bother the voters one bit.

    With Copeland, he is a political appointee by law. These manager types get replaced all the time. If a new majority comes in, they should replace him and put in their own person. If they don't they are idiots.

    As a side note, let's get real with all these claims of using the fire station for campaign purposes. If any blame goes to anyone, it is to Fursman. I sat in person at that coucnil meeting where Fursman tried to explain what the use policy was for city buildings. I was shocked to hear that any city employee had a right to use city property for personal use for free. This stuff of employees getting to use that space for birthday parties, etc. is outrageous! The taxpayers own that space. Any use of it by anyone should be on a rental basis. Now I'm not advocating that we charge outrageous fees, I'm just saying that fees should be set and however people want to use those rooms is their own business. If Fursman would have had his act together, then Hjelle and whoever else would have paid their fee, and I could have cared less if they put stamps on campaign envelopes or x-mas cards. Fursman is a professional city employee and Hjelle is not. This Fursman walks on water mentality makes me sea sick.

    On the comments about digging up personal things about council members, isn't this already the course of the day? This is already happening. I see one post commenting about someone watching Diana at CLE seminars. Then the stuff about her husband. Then we have the personal attacks against Cave's husband. This has been the way politics has been over the past 25+ years and it isn't going to change anytime soon. This is nothing new. Maybe some people are just becoming more aware.

    Neither Longrie, Hjelle or Cave brought this kind of political environment to Maplewood. Neither did Rossbach or Jueneman. It was already there. It was just a question of whether anyone was paying close enough attention. It was a question of whether it was a wispering campaign done throughout the community or an open season attack done in the newspaper.

    The voters of Maplewood have no say on this. It is a larger society type issue that this nation has to deal with or ignore. So far they have chosen to ignore it.

    If anyone thinks that this kind of behavior hasn't happened in Maplewood, people sure have short memories. [*edit: Allegations about personal life of former elected official removed. - Frostbrand.]

    Funny how selective memories are so short.

     

  • At 2:12 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    The part about Scott W. having a few too many drinks at the capitol is not an allegation. I saw it on Channel 9 news like the rest of us.

    He later apologized for it so that pretty much means it wasn't an allegation or why would he have apologized in the first place.

    I find it interesting that we now censure facts about certain DFL officials that embarassed Maplewood, but on the other hand, it is ok to make outrageous allegations against Longrie, Cave, and Hjelle..

    You can't have it both ways Frostbrand.

     

  • At 9:28 AM, Blogger Frostbrand said…

    > The part about Scott W. having a few
    > too many drinks at the capitol is
    > not an allegation.

    True. However, you were slinging other rumors, which I never saw reported in the public media, and don't see fit to publicize here, especially given that the individual in question is no longer an elected official.

    > You can't have it both ways
    > Frostbrand.

    Sure I can! drawnLeftward and I created this blog as our personal playground. We can make up whatever rules or decisions we like for any reason or none. What do you think this is, a city council meeting?

    Oh, wait, that *is* how Diana runs the city council meetings...

    :)

     

  • At 9:51 AM, Blogger Frostbrand said…

    As for all the tedious chest-beating about the right or obligation to be partisan -- I am happy to have it posted here in our comments, so that citizens of Maplewood will be able to see it on the record, displaying the mentality of Longrie & Crew and their supporters.

    Fundamentally, they have a view of politics in which the winners have not only the right but the obligation to serve the personal wishes of the people who got them elected, regardless of the common good of the community, or indeed larger moral or ethical imperatives.

    As for cooperating across party lines, they actively want to CREATE party lines where none existed before, so that they can have an "us" and "them" which will be used to justify their actions.

    Rabid partisans want everyone else to be rabid partisans too. More rabid partisans on their side give them a bigger gang to enforce their group will; rabid partisans on the other side (real or imagined) are enemies to rally against, and targets for purging, retribution, punishment, etc.

    To this way of thinking, patronage and cronyism are not an unfortunate side effect of the political process, but its core purpose -- assemble a victory, and take home the spoils.

     

  • At 4:06 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    You are right that as the blog owners, you call the shots. But the more restrictions you put on the comments being made, the lower your credibility progresses.

    I find it interesting that apparently the wishes of the people that voted for Diana, Rebecca, and Erik are at odds with the good of the community.

    What study did any of you conduct to come to this grand conclusion.

    If I were to make a guess, I think that most people in Maplewood could care less what Diana, Rebecca, and Erik care as long as the fires get put out and the shoplifters get arrested.

    If any of you have some indepth studies of what the 35,000 people of this community are thinking, please let the rest of us in on it.

    Did this new group create party lines? Well remember it takes a majority and a minority to create a line. Just as easily as you can complain about Longrie not doing what Rossbach suggests, I can flip it and complain exactly the opposite.

    As I said in my previous posts, you can't make the grand claim that party lines didn't exist. As I demonstrated in Falcon Heights, the party line is the 5 incumbents, vs. anyone else who wishes to run to defeat one of them.

    Partisanship was decried by George Washington. He said something about it being the downfall of the country. Well starting with president #2 and ever since then, we have had parties. That's over 200+ years of party history. Remember the Andrew Jackson days where the parties essentially merged in values into one group? Well shortly thereafter they broke up again into separate groups. American society is party based and has been since long before our time. This us vs. them mentality starts in elementary school if not earlier.

    Let's not confuse partisanship with patronage and cronyism. These are separate items. Patronage and cronyism can occur in government or business and has nothing directly to do with parties. You can easily have one without the other.

     

  • At 4:41 PM, Blogger Frostbrand said…

    > You are right that as the blog
    > owners, you call the shots. But the
    > more restrictions you put on the
    > comments being made, the lower your
    > credibility progresses.

    My own view is that our credibility will not hinge on whether or not we allow YOU to sling mud on the personal life of private citizen who, as far as I know, is not even involved in any of the matters we discuss on this blog.

    Besides, I'm pretty sure you've already made your mind up about our "credibility". :)

    For the record, we have also edited or rejected comments that said things about, for example, family members of the Gang of Three which we felt were irrelevant and/or inappropriate.

    If you think this blog would enhance it's credibility by encouraging comments about Rebecca's dog's sexual preferences(COMPLETELY MADE THIS UP AS A HYPOTHETICAL -- I don't even know if she has a dog), then, uh, that's nice, and isn't it great how everyone gets to have opinions.

     

  • At 11:31 AM, Blogger Frostbrand said…

    [Our late night commenter submitted this at 3:46 AM - Frostbrand]

    Better check some court rulings. I would bet that [...] is still considered a public figure under state law.

    Heck, why not sling some mud at family members of the council members you hate. You attack Diana's husband, and Rebecca's husband. The only reason you probably don't go after Erik's wife is that you don't know her name. Maybe I'll call Erik and get it for you.

     

  • At 11:51 AM, Blogger Frostbrand said…

    If you'd like to sling mud at former elected officials, go ahead and make your own blog. Have fun, we won't stop you.

    The husbands of Diana and Rebecca come up because of their public activities and because their activities and histories have direct bearing upon the motives, activities, and conflicts of interest of their wives. For example, George Cave resigned from the fire department in order to give Rebecca cover to fire Fursman (who had apparently disciplined him in the past), and then he got rehired shortly thereafter; similarly, the past reprimands he got from the HR director gave Rebecca reason to target her. Kevin Berglund's business dealings with Copeland and his run-ins with members of the Maplewood police force are all germane to Diana's interests in rewarding and punishing various people.

    To understand what is going on with these two elected officials, you need the context of their spouses.

    I don't know of any entanglements like this involving Erik Hjelle's wife.

    Speaking only for myself, I don't hate the Gang of Three. I think they are people of narrow vision and limited intellect who are doing harm to our city and ultimately to my interests as a citizen. My opposition to them is political, not personal.

     

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