While neither the news columns of the StarTribune nor the idiot box's news shows ever mention the phrase, a small group of us are demanding accountability for torture. Virtually every weekday since Nov. 12, 2009, we have conducted a daily one-hour vigil in front of the U.S. Courthouse, otherwise known as the Federal Building, in Minneapolis. B. Todd Jones, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Minnesota, has his offices in that building. Regrettably, Mr. Jones has forgotten we are a nation of laws. Usually the vigil is only a single person, dressed in an orange jumpsuit and a black hood, with a sign and sometimes with leaflets.
Our efforts have had to confront the "what-First-Amendment?" response of court security personnel. I was the guinea pig on the first day of the vigil. After about ten minutes sitting there with my sign that said "I Am Waiting" on one side and "For Justice" on the other, three guards approached me from different angles and asked me to remove my hood. They frisked me, asked for an i.d., refused to let me go retrieve a cap that I had a half block away (it was cold and windy that day), checked me for federal warrants, and told me I couldn't wear the hood. I told them about the First Amendment and that people had been wearing such hoods in demonstrations all across the country, even in front of the White House. The fellow in charge told me there was a Minnesota law prohibiting it, and that even if a lawyer argued the Minnesota law didn't apply, I couldn't wear the hood because it was alarming to people. I asked if my sign and orange jumpsuit alarmed people, would I have to stop using them as well? He said he would talk to those people instead. I suggested that if there were any place that the First Amendment should apply, surely it would apply in front of the Federal Building.
FairVote MN contracted St. Cloud State University to conduct a poll about how Minneapolis residents liked Ranked Choice Voting (RCV). As you all probably recall, Minneapolis used RCV for the first time in the 2009 election. The results are good (and you can see them for yourselves here). Voters understood it, liked it and there weren't any problems.
"The findings of the impartial survey show what FairVote Minnesota has seen in other cities that have successfully made a switch to Ranked Choice Voting - with good voter education, a well-designed ballot and well-trained election judges, voters of all ages and income and ethnic groups understand the system and want to continue to use it," stated Massey pointing out the following facts from the survey:
95% of voters polled in Minneapolis said RCV was easy to use and 90% said that they understand RCV perfectly or fairly well
65% said they believe RCV should be used in the future
Only 3% of the people voting said they didn't understand RCV
(FairVoteMN email press release)
An even better finding is that opponents of RCV can no longer claim that people won't understand it ... cuz let's face it, only one ballot filled out incorrectly in an election is really rare.
There was only one defective ballot in the whole Minneapolis election.
I had an interesting day. Ok, maybe not as interesting as that of Ferris Bueller, but I met lots of unique people. And all because of Mark Dayton. One of his campaign staffers gave me a button/pin, so I've been wearing it on my coat. Turns out it's a great conversation starter.
My first stop this morning was the community room of my apartment complex. Residents get free coffee, donuts and interaction with each other every Saturday morning. This morning we also had birthday cake. It was Joan's 90 something birthday. There were probably about 15 of us...the same ones every Saturday. They all asked me when the Meet and Greet was going to be. They're really looking forward to it. I said I didn't know, because I hadn't been given a date yet. Hopefully it'll be a Sunday afternoon. That way everyone can come. Including my son and daughter-in-law.
Next stop was downtown St. Paul. I parked in front of the Golden Rule Building and wandered over to the bus stop. I wanted to go to Minneapolis and take the light rail to the mall. I didn't want to drive to Mpls for parking reasons and because my front tires have bad tread. Not to the legal limit yet, but close. Plus my hood flops around (my youngest son had rearended a city bus).
There were the usual people at the downtown St. Paul bus stop. Three young men were loud, but it was excusable, as they were practicing their rap techniques. I had to get after one guy, though. He looked to be about thirty years old. Far too old to be frightening the pigeons, I thought. I told him he was naughty. He grinned then looked at the button pinned to my jacket. "Who's Mark Dayton?" he asked. I replied that he's running for governor. He asked if he was related to the department store. I agreed that there might be a genetic connection. I told him if he didn't vote for Dayton I was going to turn him into the ASPCA for his mistreatment of the pigeons. He shamefully agreed.
The bus finally came and off I went down I94 to Minneapolis. I got off on Nicollet and went immediately to the light rail station. Luckily you never have to wait long for it to come along. Thanks, R.T.
I love trains. I grew up on trains. I come from a railroad family. My grandfather was an engineer for the Minnesota Transfer Railway. My uncle Everett was a fireman (for the engine). I had cousins who worked for the Burlington Northern. I spent a lot of time on the Burlington Northern Black Hawk between St. Paul and Chicago. Sometimes we'd go on to York, Nebraska, where my aunt and uncle lived. Once we even took the train to Florida. My cousin Diana and I loved nothing better than to ride the rails. To this day I could ride them for weeks and never get bored. You meet so many interesting people on the train and there's plenty of time to talk to them.
The LRT was crowded today. Everyone was headed either to the airport or the mall. I struck up a conversation with a young Asian man who was new to Minnesota but had already found a job and a car. He asked about my button. I explained about that particular candidate. He was duly impressed and agree to cast his vote appropriately. I took out my little notebook and made another scratch mark. Soon I'll have to get another one.
We finallly reached the MOA VIA LRT. It was crowded today. I covered three floors in just a couple of hours. First I walked into C J Banks. Two saleswomen noticed my button and came over to talk about it. "Oh, is he campaigning already?" they asked. I agreed that he was. I didn't have to say anything after that. They told me all the reasons they were voting for him. I smiled, agreed, made my purchase of a Christmas pullover and went on my way.
The same thing happened in three more stores. For a total of nineteen people. I'm grinning by now. Getting hungry, too. Oh cool, there was Crepes to Go, right in front of me. I love crepes but haven't had any for the longest time. I eyed the dessert crepes. Fresh strawberries with whipped cream. Carmel with ice cream. Bananas with apricot preserves. Yummy. I was a good girl, though, and ordered the chicken/broccoli divan. And a Diet Coke, of course.
My last stop was at Brookstone. They really have some neat stuff. I bought my middle son, Charles, something really cool. I can't tell you what it is because he might read this. The guy who rang up the sale noticed my button (of course). He said, "Dayton. Isn't he running for something in the 5th Congressional District?"
"Governor," I explained patiently.
"Oh yeah," he agreed. "Didn't he used to be our Representative to Washington?"
"Senator."
"I knew he did something. I'll vote for him."
Why argue with success? So I invited him to a Toastmasters meeting.
Usually when I go to MOA I get a headache from all the loud noise reverberating through the amusement park. It wasn't too bad today. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of going into Crabtree & Evelyn and testing the rosewater glycerine lotion. I forgot I always get a headache from the scent of roses. Unfortunately, they discontinued the gardenia scent. I love gardenias and lilacs. So off I went with a headache coming on. Another Diet Coke and two extra strength Bayer took care of it. I was good to go.
Back onto the train and more people asking me who was running for what. I just gave them the link to my blog.
I almost fell asleep on the LRT. Such a lovely ride. I felt content and peaceful. Then we stopped at the airport and some more people got on. There weren't many seats left. A little boy was going to sit next to me. His mom told him to go ahead. He must have been about eight or nine. Then he saw my button and started screaming, "Dad! She's wearing a Mark Dayton button! I'm not sitting with her!" Blankety blank little snot-nosed Republican kid. That's ok, another kid, thoroughly DFL, sauntered over and very coolly said, "My dad can beat up your dad, so take that back." The GOP kid did.
On we rolled to downtown Minneapolis. Just in time for the Holidazzle Parade. The guy standing next to me looked at my button and said, "Are you voting for Mark Dayton?"
"No," I said. "I'm voting for Norm Coleman. That's why I'm wearing a Mark Dayton button." Moron.
Time to get on the 94 MTC and go back to St. Paul. I was hoping my car didn't get towed while I was gone. I left it at a meter all day. Now where does the 94 stop? I thought it might be 8th Street. I hadn't taken a bus from Minneapolis for awhile. I asked a bus driver and he told me 4th Street. So I walk back the way I came. When I got there the people (who duly noticed and commented on my button) said the 94 goes down 6th Street, not 4th. Crap. Some 20 something kid said he would show me. I didn't need to be shown but I let him tag along anyway. He decided he'd take the 94 back to St. Paul too and also decided to sit with me on the bus. Rats. I had to listen to a tirade about World of Warcraft all the way back to St. Paul. If I wanted to hear about WOW, I'd call my youngest son, Marcus. I quickly and efficiently turned the conversation to my beautiful, overworked royal blue (not purple) and red button. By the time we reached St. Paul, he was glassy eyed but eager to vote appropriately.
My car was still where I had left it sans ticket. I got in, cranked up the heat and the stereo, and listened to Johnny Cash croon about getting his car one piece at a time. Kind of like one voter at a time.
Each day is what we make of it. Enthusiasm means everything.
Every peacemaker is struggling with the idea of escalation of US soldiers in Afghanistan. The inherent problem is that essentially soldiering and policing are different roles, with different sets of skills. Afghanistan needs a good police force not foreign group of soldiers trying to act like police. So there is a painful discussion going on within peacemakers, as well as protests for peace now back on the streets.
Last year, the right to assemble and the right to protest was taken away by requiring permits to assemble in both St Paul and Minneapolis. Last night was one the largest challenges by having a unpermitted march down Hennepin Av in St Paul. I applaud the Minneapolis city government and the Minneapolis local police for allowing the unpermitted march, while simply lining up a row of officers on horses on one side and a row of officers on bicycles on the other side. Eventually, those people who wanted to be arrested had to sit down and block the intersection. Those who simply wanted to march then dispersed on police orders. Kudos to the Minneapolis police for acting with restraint.
Craig Stellmacher from the Uptake has an onsite report:
Community-partnered policing or community policing is both a philosophy and a strategy where police and citizens cooperate as partners. The people of a neighborhood and their local police use relationships, trust, empathy and a common purpose to jointly use the resources of the community to solve the roots of crime. Ordinary citizens take on the responsibility of solving community problems relating to crime, not just leaving it to the police. In this philosophy the police are part of "we, the community," instead of viewing the community as an "us vs them" mentality.
In the community-partnered policing, the first role of the police officer is to know the community well and to support the community. Knowing the community requires that police stations are located more within communities instead of being centralized. Officers are less in their patrol cars and more on the street, in town meetings, talking with people and generally being involved in the neighborhood. Police officers are encouraged to live in the community and to become socially involved in the communities.
The neighborhoods under community policing begin to look different. People form block parties, block clubs, neighborhood watches and action groups. People know and care who their neighbors are. Activities move from closed-off back-yard parties to more open front-yard parties. In walking through the neighborhoods, more people walk and talk on the streets, and kids are actively bicycling. Boulevard gardens display the new front-yard focus.
The militaristic or crime-fighting model of policing is characterized by the use of fear and the use of force. This philosophy assumes that there is a continuing war against crime, where only superior firepower will win this war.
The public is taught to be afraid, to be very afraid! The target of fear seems to be interchangeable between meth-users, gang members, terrorists or even anarchists. A classic example is when Sheriff Fletcher warned that anarchists were going to "destroy" St Paul when the worst that happened was broken windows and a sandbag dropped over a bridge.
Fear is also taught to every police officer. Officers are taught to believe that any contact with a citizen could prove lethal. Policing is not even in the top ten most dangerous jobs, which include fishing, farming, trucking, roofing, metal working, piloting, and electrical work. In fact, a pizza delivery person is more at risk for dying on the job than a police officer.
This fear results in poor decision-making in policing. Minneapolis Police Lt. Mike Sauro is most noted for his high cost police misconduct lawsuits. Mike Sauro says, "My understanding is that if my use of force is not sufficient I will die, there are no second place winners in use of force applications." This fear is now so hyped that Mike Sauro recommends force if a person does not move fast enough: "If the suspect does not produce his drivers license when requested he than dictates that force be used, not the officer." The entire note is reproduced below, so you can see that the quotes are representative.
Basically the militaristic model assumes an "us vs them" mindset that leads to excessive force and loss of civil rights. This is what characterizes the excessive beating of Rodney King in Los Angeles. Eventually the Los Angeles police department's reputation began to hurt the Los Angeles police's ability to testify in court and still be believed. A recent Minneapolis case shows the casual use of force even when suspect is totally submissive.
I was confident that voting would go smoothly in yesterday's election in Minneapolis. I'd seen Scotland implement ranked choice voting and every other city in the US that implemented it reported that it went smoothly. Unlike Scotland, Minneapolis voting machines provided voters with an error message when they try to feed their ballot into the machine if they filled out their ballot incorrectly. Confused voters would get instant feedback and the spoiled ballot count should be very low.
"Implementation went so smoothly overall," said Jeanne Massey, Executive Director of FairVote MN. "Election judges could have handled triple the turnout. All credit to Pat O'Connor [Interim Elections Director] and [Council Member and Chair of the Elections Committee] Elizabeth Glidden."
"By the end of the week we'll know how long it will be before we know who won the closely contested elections," she continued. Massey went on to explain that the city set a conservative date that they could easily meet (12/21/09), but that we will now long before that date.
Since there is no nationally certified software for ranked choice voting, all the counting will be done by hand. Normally, low turnout is a bad thing, but in this case it will make counting easier. For example, it appears that only 40,000 people voted judging by the mayoral race.
The next factor in figuring out how long it will take in each race where there wasn't a first ballot victor is how many people ranked in multiple columns.
(Thanks to Joe for building the tables. All updates by me, The Big E.
BTW, I'll be analyzing how IRV/Ranked Choice voting worked tomorrow. - promoted by The Big E)
Final edit at midnight. All precincts reported in.
First results are in and Elizabeth Glidden wins the reelection to the 8th Ward City Council Seat with 73% on first ballot.
Robert Lilligren wins reelection in the 6th Ward 53% on first ballot.
Barb Johnson got 47% on the first ballot in Ward 4. Her nearest opponent, Troy Parker, had 28%. It looks like a 2nd ballot win will be forthcoming for the Council Prez.
Lisa Goodman won in Ward 7 with 68%. Easy peasy.
Gary Schiff is confident that he won on the first ballot in Ward 9. His numbers are between 55-65% on first ballot. It turned out to be right in the middle with 60%.
Kevin Reich appears to have 50.3% on the first ballot in Ward 1. MN Progressive Project is calling this for Kevin on the 1st ballot. Congrats, Kevin.
Meg Tuthill win the Ward 10 open seat with 72% on the first ballot. Congrats, Meg.
Don Samuels will most likely win the 5th Ward. He had 47% on the first ballot.
Cam Gordon strolled to victory with 83% in Ward 2.
Betsy Hodges trounced her opposition with 69% in Ward 13.
Sandy Colvin Roy had an easy time in Ward 12, far outdistancing her opponents with 64%.
Diane Hofstede coasted to victory in Ward 3 with 66%.
And last, but only last because it was always a stroll, congrats go out to John Quincy who won with 63%.
Park Board Liz Wielinski will win the District 1 race with 74%.
Jon Olson wins reelection in District 2 with 56%.
Scott Vreeland easily won reelection for District 3 with 72%.
Anita Tabb was unopposed for District 4.
Carol Kummer leads Jason Stone by 169 votes in the District 5 race, but Steve Barland's supporters will crown the winner on the 4th ballot as he garnered 15% (Looney will drop on the 2nd round and Peterson will drop on the 3rd round ... see the District 5 table below). It will be a few days before we know who their second choices were.
Brad Bourn has 48% on the first ballot. Should I congratulate Brad, yet? Meg Forney will need almost every single 2nd choice from third place finisher Steve Jecha to win. M'kay ... maybe I will. Congrats.
At Large ...
No clear winners tonight. Nobody garnered 25% to instantly qualify for any of the 3 seats. Analysis of how this works tomorrow.
Bob Fine is leading the pack with 22%. Annie Young is well-positioned with 19% and John Erwin is looking good, too.
Board President Tom Nordyke and Mary Merrill Anderson have got to be worried with their poor showings. They will need to be 2nd and 3rd choice for a lot of ballots to pull this one out.
Board of Estimate and Taxation Carol Becker cruised to reelection with 52% on the first ballot. David Wheeler is clearly in 2nd place with 19%, but he needs to get to 33% for the final spot. I'll analyze the math for y'all on this one tomorrow.
Charter Question 1, abolish the Board of Estimate and Taxation? Answer = Nope. With 75% of precincts reporting, this is over.
YES - 33%
NO - 66%
Mayor Oh ... I'm sorry. I forgot we even had a mayoral race. Um ... well ... that Al Flowers guy didn't do too well. But at least he did better than John Charles Wilson who is coocoo for cocoa puffs.
Elections are tomorrow in many places in the Twin Cities. We'll be bringing you results as we can through the night. Here are the cities that I'm aware of that MPP folks have shown interest:
Minneapolis: Mayor, Council, Park Board & Board of Estimate and Taxation
St. Paul: Mayor and IRV
Maplewood: Council
Minnetonka: Council and School Board
Hopkins: School Board
Obviously, we'll post what we can. Feel free to write a post about what's going on in your village. Your insights are appreciated.
I delivered over 700 GOTV(Get Out The Vote) reminders of my own design to my own dear St Paul precinct. Yet I went out in the middle of that and still did an extra GOTV doorknock with Elizabeth Glidden, Minneapolis, Eighth ward city council person. I did it because it is fun and easy. I also did it because we need to help people in other areas, if we are ever to get this state back to responsible government. I pick either great people or areas that need help. I urge you to do the same.
I worked for Elizabeth Glidden on first campaign. While I was covering the XCEL meetings on the Hiawatha project, I vowed that I would just have to keep on working for Elizabeth, because of the way she handled XCEL. During the the XCEL meetings on the Hiawatha project, the XCEL facilitator keep doing tricks like asking "Can we condense this list?" which translates into "Would you like to give up something that helps out your case?" Elizabeth Glidden would get a small smile and cheerfully say that there is nothing that we would like to have removed, while it was obvious that others might have actually done that. I love it when the good people are really smart!
So I am still feeling energetic after today, usually there is one last GOTV run the night before. Anybody have great suggestions? That Maplewood race looks interesting. Lets go help out more areas! Please list options in the comments.
Minneapolis Police Chief Dolan is currently best known for his constant struggle to change the Minneapolis police culture of using too much force. I really like that instead of hiding the issues, that he has taken the issues head on with full media publicity.
"We want people to trust that we're going to deal with things that go wrong," Dolan said. "And we're going to deal with it responsibly."
"My biggest concern is that all the good work that these officers are doing gets lost because of a few incidents involving one percent or less of the officers in the police department" Dolan said. Dolan says change within his department will start at the top.
(Fox TV
It takes courage to actually change things instead of just glossing over problems with fancy marketing. It takes a hero. And when one wonders where the heroes come from ...
More and more, health care costs are becoming the issue of all business and government. I believe it is right now the single greatest barrier to economic improvement.
This graph from Minneapolis City Council Member Gary Schiff's newletter, shows that health care dominates even the fire department. Gary Schiff is not even in my city of St Paul, yet I see him as a great leader in understanding and building good government.
This graph shows that actually the fire department is becoming the emergency health care department. The actual number of fires continues to drop.
New estimates by the City of Minneapolis finance department shows that if employee health care costs continue to rise at their current rate, health care will surpass salaries as the city's biggest expense by 2021.
Minneapolis voters know by now that there was no primary election tonight. In 2006 voters approved a new system, Instant Runoff Voting. IRV is also known as ranked choice voting (RCV). In an RCV election, there is no primary. The runoff happens instantly when voters rank their choices.
For a full explanation of IRV/RCV, head on over to Fair Vote MN.
So to educate Minneapolis voters about the new system, three parties were organized for Governor straw polls.
Final Update
Straw Poll for Governor, 2010
September 15th Majority Rules Event
RESULTS
Round 1 (rounded to the nearest percent):
Matt Entenza
3%
Susan Gaertner
2%
Steve Kelley
1%
Margaret Anderson Kelliher
34%
John Marty
12%
Doug Peterson
0%
Tom Rukavina
2%
R.T. Rybak
30%
Paul Thissen
10%
Tim Walz
1%
write in, if any
0%
Exhausted Ballots
0%
TOTAL BALLOTS
271
Candidates eliminated and votes transferred in the following order:
2012 Republican presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty doesn't care about the disastrous situation he has single-handedly created by unalloting instead of negotiating. MN Governors have the ability to deal with unexpected budget crises in extraordinary circumstances via the unallotment process. However, Pawlenty never intended to negotiate and was aiming for this all along ... hardly an unexpected circumstance.
He's perfectly happy that you're taxes will be going up this year. He has no problem with your taxes going up, because he'll be on to bigger, better things. He'll be claiming in stump speeches across the country that he's not had to raise state taxes as Governor. He'll boast about how he solved MN's budget problems without raising taxes. Minnesotans all know that he'll be lying when he makes that claim.
Hennepin County is proposing to raise property taxes next year by as much as 4.95 percent, mostly to help cover an anticipated rise in the number of uninsured people needing help at the county hospital and the loss of the state's health care program for poor adults.
"As the economy goes bad and people are unemployed, they might be able to carry insurance for a while, but then it goes away. So there's potential here for a significant increase" in the county's medical expenses, County Administrator Richard Johnson said.
Pawlenty got rid of "the state's health care program for poor adults", GAMC (General Assistance Medical Care), and slashed LGA (Local Government Aid) so that the state's budget would balance. The result local government units are scrambling to cover basic services.
It's not like the poor and the sick just went away because Pawlenty wants to be President. It's not like police and fire will start volunteering. It's not like streets will pave themselves. It's more like Pawlenty doesn't care what happens to the people in our state as long as he can stick with his "no new taxes" mantra.
So if Hennepin County raises my taxes 5% and Minneapolis raises it another 7% or so, I can probably handle a 12% increase. While I'm willing to pay extra to help the poor, keep the police force at full strength and pave my streets, what about the senior citizens on fixed incomes and single parents squeaking by?
So let's be honest with each other. Pawlenty cuts = Pawlenty tax increases. DFLers in the legislature pulled together a budget that addressed our shortfall responsibly. Their tax increases wouldn't be hurting the elderly and those struggling from paycheck to paycheck. The poor and the mentally disabled wouldn't have been thrown off of GAMC. Furthermore, they addressed the structural deficiencies that are leading us toward permanent budget crises that California is suffering.
But Pawlenty refused to negotitiate and we're all going to suffer. And especially those least able to adapt.
Let's play a little game. Can you imagine if the mayor of Minneapolis or St. Paul were a Republican? Imagine how much damage a fiscally irresponsible Republican would have done to Minnesota's two largest cities. Debt-reduction? Prudent management of shrinking resources? Keeping parks and libraries open? Forget these.
If a Republican ran either city it would be more along the lines of tax cuts for the residents along Summit Ave and around Lake of the Isles. How about reckless borrow-n-spend fiscal policy. Credit rating, schmedit raking. Who needs libraries, parks, pools and recreation centers when we have our unfettered liberty?
Now I'm not saying everything is rosy in these fair cities. Far from it. Because of 2012 Presidential candidate, lame-duck Minnesota Governor and occasional visitor to the state Tim Pawlenty both cities have a mess. Because Pawlenty used unallotment to balance the states books and shred our safety net for the young, poor, disabled and mentally ill, the actual mayors of Minneapolis and St. Paul have particularly difficult budgeting problems this year.
But they are resourceful, prudent and fiscally responsible. St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman released his budget proposal on Tuesday and Minneapolis Mayor RT Rybak released his today.
What do you all think about their budget proposals? Can you imagine what it might be like if a Republican ran either or both cities?
