Not-so-scrappy Rybak delivers recycled State of the City speech

Minneapolis R.T. Rybak set a “green” example yesterday by recycling much of his annual State of the City address from last year’s speech. Speaking under dull skies at a gleaming new corporate headquarters on what he called the site of a former riverfront scrapyard (surrounded by blocks still devoted to metal-salvaging), Rybak was his usual upbeat self but not especially scrappy.

Familiar themes — engaging the global economy, growing transit, supporting small businesses, training workers and providing public safety — simply got more or less emphasis. Talk of responding to foreclosures replaced boasts about cultural resources, and the word “depression” got uttered rather than “recession” — that was how you knew it was 2009 and not 2008 in Minneapolis.

What Rybak didn’t say might have been most interesting. This is a city election year, but he wasn’t particularly political. Partly that’s because the occasion demands leadership over partisanship, but perhaps also because Rybak appears to be a shoo-in for re-election.

Speaking only a stone’s throw from the semi-swollen Mississippi River, Rybak gave no gratuitous shout-out to communities battling the rising Red River on Minnesota’s western border — as Chris Coleman, his St. Paul counterpart and another possible contender for the governorship in 2010, did this week.

The speech didn’t include an obvious parry or thrust in the mayor’s pitched rhetorical and budgetary battle with Gov. Tim Pawlenty, who Rybak says he might try to replace in 2010.

In fact, for a speech with “State” in the title, which named dozens of partners from tiny arts nonprofits to the federal government, mention of Minnesota state government was surprisingly scant.

Rybak did announce a May trip to Beijing, China — “as the only American mayor invited to speak at the International Forum on Development of High-Tech Enterprises at the Great Hall of the People” — that could be interpreted as trade-mission one-upsmanship with frequent-flyer Pawlenty.

Rybak, who said he had been in Washington, D.C., Monday for talks with President Obama’s heads for transportation and urban affairs, perhaps was focused on matters beyond this event. One sign: On an entrance table inside Coloplast’s new building stood 156 plastic bottles — arrayed in two triangles like bowling pins — each containing 16.9 fluid ounces of Aquafina brand water.

Rybak has been at the forefront of a national fight by mayors against the bottled-water industry.