Was Maplewood Mayor Diana Longrie on McCain’s short list?
Tuesday, September 16, 2008 at 11:46 am
- 4 Comments
As the media has cast a more skeptical eye toward Sarah Palin in recent days, the revelations about her tenure as mayor of Wasilla and governor of Alaska have sounded oddly familiar. The vindictive firings of bureaucrats over petty grievances; the hiring of unqualified cronies to run government agencies; the meddling of “First Dude” Todd Palin in government business; the financial disarray that continues to roil her hometown. No, it’s not George W. Bush that comes to mind, but rather a chief executive closer to home: Maplewood Mayor Diana Longrie! As I chronicled in this City Pages cover story last year, the folksy attorney came to power in 2005 with a message of reform and immediately set about dismantling the municipal government. With the help of two allies on the city council, she ousted the city manager, human resources director, city attorney, finance director and an assistant police chief who’d once arrested her husband. Longrie then installed a longtime pal as the city manager, despite the fact that he possessed zero qualifying experience.
Not surprisingly, within two years Maplewood’s finances were in the toilet and the city was facing numerous lawsuits. Unfortunately for Longrie, she doesn’t possess quite the nimble political skills of Palin. One of her council allies was voted out of office last year, stripping the Mayor of the votes needed to continue enacting her agenda, and last week Longrie was trounced in a primary election for a House seat. Perhaps she should move to Alaska and run for governor.
4 Comments
Comment posted February 23, 2009 @ 10:35 pm
“Vindictive firings of bureaucrats over petty grievances?!?!” You mean like kicking the crap out of Kevin Berglund? Mayor Diana Longrie didn’t even know Kevin Berglund at this time.
Maplewood has been in disarray for many years. It has only come to light recently thanks to Diana Longrie (and
Paul Demko’s “cover story a year ago” was pure B.S. Why Mayor Diana Longrie did not expose Paul Demko’s lies her supporters cannot completely understand. Many believe it may have something to do with a personal goal of becoming a judge someday. And she was not acquainted with Greg Copeland for a long time nor was she his “pal.” Paul Demko is simply a rotten, compulsive liar who knows nothing (nor does he really care) of Maplewood and is trying to help his struggling newspaper by publishing sensationalism to attract gullible readers. And boy does it work.
Maplewood’s finances have been in disarray for many years and was $60,000.000 in debt when she took over the helm. Just another Paul Demko lie. And the lawsuits have not subsided despite the shift in power, so obviously this is not her fault but rather a dysfunctional city caused by politicians that preceded her. Politicians like Will Rossbach and Kathy Juenemann for example.
“Council ally” Rebecca Cave was ousted because she didn’t run any campaign at all, much less a serious one. She was completely disgusted with the evil that existed in Maplewood and wanted out of “the most corrupt city west of Chicago.” And Longrie was trounced because the DFL threw tons of money at the campaign to dethrone her. Possibly and most likely the most money spent in any Maplewood campaign of 50 years.
The real question is why Paul Demko is misleading (translation: lying) the people of Maplewood and the Twin Cities? Why does a journalist for the City Pages care in the least about Maplewood? Who’s feeding this fat, phoney, charlatan his information? Is someone paying him off? If so it is unquestionably from the WILL ROSSBACH camp. The camp that has tried to defame and misrepresent Diana Longrie, Rebecca Cave, Erik Hjelle, and Greg Copeland for the last three years(along with dozens of other citizens over more than three years).
So Secession sounds like a “silly idea” huh? Not anymore! It may be the most rational solution to Maplewood’s problems…
Comment posted February 27, 2009 @ 1:07 pm
Thanks for your opinion, JoJo, ActualMaplewoodResident and AnotherMaplewoodResident. That’s three comments from the same IP address today making essentially the same point. The fourth will be considered comment spam and deleted.
Comment posted April 3, 2009 @ 9:43 pm
everyone in this city has a bunch of hot air! let’s do something
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