| Free Speech - On Your Dime |
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| Written by Mitch |
| Thursday, 23 August 2007 12:22 |
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I live in Saint Paul. I live here for a lot of great reasons; the neighborhoods, the relatively decent cost of living, the bargain I got on my house many years ago. For the politics? No. Not really. Saint Paul is saved from being the most loony left-of-center city in Minnesota by three things: Minneapolis, Duluth, and the legacies of Norm Coleman and Randy Kelly who, though both elected as DFLers (Coleman converted in mid-stream), governed as moderate, "Truman" Democrats. The current mayor, Chris Coleman (brother of Strib columnist and local blogger fisking-kicktoy Nick) is a bit to the left of that model, but is regarded as a "moderate" by the ruling junta in Saint Paul's City Council, led by a group of far-left DFLers christened "the Gang of Four" by conservative locals. They are led, in turn, by council president Dave Thune. Now, nobody's mistaken Thune for a political moderate (although I've found him able to listen, and even change his mind, on at least a few surprising topics). He's a fellow North Dakota native, so I've been inclined to give him a few breaks (maybe deserved, maybe not). But at the end of the day, when the far left yells "Jump", Thune is likely going to respond "How High?" Thune is nothing if not forthcoming, though. He's a semi-regular participant in a Saint Paul Politics email discussion group in which I also occasionally sound off. The subject of the upcoming Republican National Convention draws a lot of conversation on the forum. Dominated as the forum is by DFLers even to the left of the City Council, much of the "conversation" is comically paranoid; people openly fret about the FBI "invading" Saint Paul, of the GOP bringing Blackwater Security contractors with AK47's and Suburbans with tinted windows to haul innocent demonstrators off to camps in South Dakota... ...you get the drift. Now, as I've documented on my blog, some of the people coming to Saint Paul to "demonstrate" at the convention are planning - or at least talking about - taking things to a pretty aggressive, ugly level. Chalk it up to the overweening imaginations of a bunch of fabulist arrested-adolescents? Sure, could be. But it's interesting that when the Republican Party comes to Saint Paul - an event which will bring tens of millions of dollars to the city, and do its little bit to bring the city out of Minneapolis' shadow in the eyes of a world that's looking for places to do business, spend money and live - our city government is working overtime to... ...make protesters feel welcome. Councilman Thune wrote a while ago on the email discussion forum: Our other committee is working on a "demonstrators guide to the galaxy" not the real title but is sounds cool). They will be figuring out how to get info out to non-delegates as to housing, communication, emergency services, etc. Saint Paul's city government is complaining about at $60 million dollar budget shortfall (blaming it, naturally, on the state not ponying up "Local Government Aid" - essentially a program whereby the parts of the state that are run by conservatives send money to the parts of the state run by liberals). They're desperate to the point of actually a lot of sleazy political tricks to try to get more money... ...but they have the money to spend welcoming protesters? Some of whom are audibly planning mischief that will cause vastly more spending for law-enforcement? And not just "welcoming" them, but... We have to look at a bunch of logistical things like - where buises or cars can pick people up after marching, porta-potties, water, first aide, etc. I'm trying to imagine this conversation happening if the protesters were picketing the NARAL, Gun Control Inc. or Democratic National Conventions. So exactly who at the city is working on this? How much city money is being spent to make protesters comfortable? This, in a city that spent the entire legislative session bitching about how broke it was due to Aid to Local Government "cuts"? Is it normally the city's job to provide transportation, sanitation, water and healthcare to protesters? Our position - supported by police is that demonstrators must be within sight and sound of delegates. Shuffling folks away to a remote site is not an option. That's fine - but it would seem the city, or at least the city council, is giving exceedingly preferential treatment to these "protesters". Back to Thune: We hopefully have a large labor organization asking for the use of harriet island for the entire week. this would then become the "peace island" - rest area, lost and found, communications, medics, connections for housing, evening entertainment and such. This may provoke a fight over a free speech group having the island instead of dignitaries or parties for media but it'll be a good one. I expect the council will have to override our permit process. if this is challenged by anyone we could have a charter crisis over whether the council can unilaterally do it.So the city - or actually, the far-left-of-center, labor-and-radical-beholden City Council which Councilman Thune leads - is willing to risk a constitutional crisis, and the attendant legal bills, to ensure that cronies of the City Council have full access to Harriet Island, one of the city's premier park properties?
Yeah, esteemed councilpeople, I have some suggestions. How much money and effort is the city expending on "welcoming protesters"? Who in the city's government is leading this effort (whatever the effort is)? Is this the Minnesota we're supposed to be "happy to pay..." for? This is life in a one-party city. |
