City Pages Story
In case you haven't seen it already, be sure to check out this week's City Pages cover story about Maplewood. Note too that City Pages offers a comment thread for the article, if you have thoughts to share.
posted by Frostbrand @ 11:16 AM
9 Comments:
At 12:05 PM,
Anonymous said…
Wonder how long it will take for a letter bashing Mr. Demko to appear on the city website?
At 2:09 PM,
drawnLeftward said…
For those of you who miss our dear troll, it has made an appearance over at the City Pages comments
At 10:38 AM,
Anonymous said…
"Mr. Hjelle does not need the position of Maplewood Council, or that of the Fire Service but we need his keen incite, intelligence and action oriented leadership."
This is from a letter in the 3/14/07 Review. Do you think using "incite" instead of "insight" is a freudian slip?
At 10:40 AM,
Anonymous said…
The Troll better hope the Hjelle doesn't stop too quickly, we may need to call in a proctologist to do an extraction.....
At 4:21 PM,
Anonymous said…
I just moved to the area and was happy to live in a place that respected Green Space and even had signs for duck-walking. However, after reading the City Pages I wonder how much longer that will last.
At 10:00 AM,
Anonymous said…
As someone who knows a good bit about the City of Maplewood, I have a few observations:
It is interesting to see how Mayor Longrie continually makes claims of how she and the new council examined each city department to determine changes that should be made. In fact, neither the council, nor city manager who they hired, did that. Many significant decisions, such as who to “reorganize” out of jobs, have been made without any input from people who actually know something about the respective departments, and that includes the department heads who were hired to run them.
Mr. Demko does a good job of pointing out that Mr. Copeland and the mayor’s husband, Mr. Berglund, had a relationship. He also provides a brief history of the turmoil that Berglund had with some city staff. It is true that Berglund was arrested by Maplewood Police after he refused to leave (his normal practice nearly everywhere he went, was to stand, with camera in hand, uncomfortably close to people and film their every movement. That was in addition to the manner in which he treated employees, particularly those he could bully) the event. He did sue the police department, which was later thrown out in federal court. As I recall, however, the article did not note that he accused Mr. Banick, then a lieutenant, of breaking his arm or wrist during the arrest. Mayor Longrie insists that she didn’t have anything to do with Berglund at that time, so it played no part in the city’s subsequent decision to eliminate him, but it defies logic.
Regarding the background investigation on Mr. Copeland, Mayor Longrie has denied that she ordered it be handled internally, however, that has been disputed by at least a couple of first-hand witnesses. Mr. Banick was tasked with the job, something he did not ask for nor want to do. Even though the full details have not been made public, enough information has been released to figure out Mayor Longrie nominated someone who clearly should not be in the position. As is the new council majority’s way, they blamed the messenger, Banick, rather than look at their own practices.
The police civil service commission voted, rightly, to reinstate Mr. Banick, at his former rank of lieutenant. They recognized that, even though it was done with no logic or input from people who know anything about the police department, the city did have the right to reorganize. However, they have the say so over the actual person in any of the sworn officer positions. As Mr. Demko wrote, the city has just ignored the commission, and now seem to be trying to punish one of the commission members by not reappointing her, despite the fact that no one else applied to be on the board. As Council Member Rossbach observed at one of the council meetings, the civil service exists to protect people like Banick from people like them. That is true; the reason behind civil service protection is to reduce political interference whether through hiring, firing, or discipline.
Even though Mr. Demko’s work was apparently praised recently by the mayor, much like Professor Schultz, who the city manager himself hired, Mr. Demko is likely to now come under fire from the mayor and probably Council Member Hjelle; it is their standard operating procedure. You see, in Maplewood, accuracy and honesty is not what is important; it is all about hearing and seeing what you want to see and hear.
Council Member Hjelle claims that most of those who have left, on their own or otherwise, weren’t serving the city. With no insult intended to him at all, how would he know? The reality is that he knows, and I wouldn’t expect him to, very little about what most employees do, or how the departments should be run. Nearly every comment he makes is filled with vile and contempt, which begs the question of what sort of inadequacy it is that he’s trying to compensate for.
At 8:22 PM,
Anonymous said…
Anybody else notice Chuck Bethel's name in the insert to the 3/14/07 review. Seems his taxes are delinquent. Wonder if the city is not paying its bills? You'd think he'd be making a boatload of money off Maplewood.
At 12:04 PM,
Anonymous said…
http://www.auditor.state.mn.us/other/PublishedArticles/LocalgovernmentNewsletters_article.pdf
This link is posted on the comments section of the City Pages article. It was posted March 20 at 10:13. Does anybody have copies of the city newsletter to send to the State Auditor? Looks like from the letter Longrie and Hjelle should be paying the taxpayers back for their self promotion in the city newletter.
At 8:50 PM,
Frostbrand said…
A follow-up comment at the City Pages thread reports that the law in question was repealed in 2005, however.
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