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.

News of Dziedzic’s departure comes amid an atmosphere of financial desperation at the park board, due in part to decreasingly reliable funding via the state and the city. One question is how his successor will vote when controversial and politically charged plans for a hydroelectric plant at St. Anthony Falls on the Mississippi River come back before the board. (The only announced candidate to represent Dziedzic’s northeast Minneapolis district, Liz Wielinski, is opposed.) The privately backed Crown Hydro proposal, like Dziedzic, has been bouncing aroundcity government for decades. But Dziedzic has been a bulwark against the project, showing a friendlier face to Xcel Energy, the public utility that in one incarnation or another has operated a hydro plant at the falls since the 19th century. His was a deciding vote in a 5-4 action the last time Crown Hydro came before the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board. But the commissioners also left an opening for the project to resurface and signs are it will: Observers say Crown Hydro’s backers continue to attend MPRB meetings even when the project doesn’t appear on the agenda. When it does appear on the MPRB’s agenda, the political players it brings to the stage are top drawer. Crown Hydro CEO/owner Bill Hawks made news for hosting Vice President Dick Cheneyas guest of honor at a 2006 fund raiser for U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann during her successful maiden campaign for Congress at Hawks’ palatial west-suburbs “Hawks’ Nest” residence. And Walter Mondale, whom Cheney is only days away from joining among the ranks of formerU.S. vice presidents, made his opposition to Crown Hydro known by letter at the MPRB’s December 2007 meeting. That inspired Jon Olson — then the MPRB’s president, a Crown Hydro supporter and a one-time contender to succeed former U.S. Rep. Martin Sabo — to call out Mondale, who lives nearby the project site, as a “NIMBY.”

Police Chief Tim Dolan, Mayor R.T. Rybak, Council Member Don Samuels. Photo: MayorRTRybak.com

Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak announced today he is running for re-election. The announcement took the form of a mayoral message on Twitter directing people to a video on YouTube, which in turn directed viewers to his new campaign Web site, where surfers can further connect to his Facebook page. Rybak’s only announced rival (aside from perennial candidate Dick Franson) is Bob Miller, director of the city’s Neighborhood Revitalization Program.

More, including Rybak’s still-stirring gubernatorial ambitions and the mayor’s re-election announcement video, after the jump.

Rybak’s social-media rollout recalls the highly praised campaign of President-elect Barack Obama, for which Rybak was working even before its inception, during the early “Draft Obama” movement. It also punctuates a period of speculation that Rybak would get a job in the Obama administration or would instead announce a bid to run for governor in 2010. Whether that punctuation is a full stop, a comma or a dash is another question.

UPDATE: Rybak tells MPR he’s still not ruling out running for governor. 

Here’s the mayor’s re-election announcement video:

Rybak will likely announce his decision about his future plans in time for Christmas, but there’s one factor that could change all that. There’s been light speculation that Obama may tap Rybak for a spot in his new administration, as Rybak was an early friend and supporter.

So who’s interested in replacing him if Rybak moves on? Minneapolis City Council member Ralph Remington, for one. “R.T. has created a healthy and strong foundation for the city to move forward beyond his tenure, whenever that may be,” Remington told the Southwest Journal on Wednesday. “And I’m sure if he stays on he’ll continue further in that vein and if he decides to leave I would welcome the opportunity to pick up the mantle and move that forward.”

But at least one candidate isn’t waiting to see whether Rybak moves out. DFLer Bob Miller, director of Minneapolis’ Neighborhood Revitalization Program, announced his mayoral candidacay in early November. Miller has been critical of the city’s direction with NRP by centralizing the program and taking some power away from neighborhoods.

Another perennial candidate is throwing his hat in the ring too. Dick Franson, who has made 23 unsuccessful bids for office (and one successful city council bid in 1963) will run for mayor in 2009, the Star Tribune reports.

Rumored entrants into the 2009 race: Hennepin County Commissioner Peter McLaughlin, and City Council members Barb Johnson and Gary Schiff.

City Hall image via La Suprema.

Rybak made an event of installing a new battery for his hybrid car last summer.

By Tuesday, two men had tiptoed onto Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak’s turf. The city’s revitalization chief, Bob Miller, says he’ll run for the mayor’s job next year, the Southwest Journal reported. And on Monday Gov. Tim Pawlenty, citing a U.S. Conference of Mayors’ study for his new economic initiative, made a move on the green jobs territory that Rybak spent years staking out.

Miller brought into the open ambitions for Rybak’s office that others likewise harbor, but Rybak is still deciding whether to run for mayor or governor — if his early backing of President-elect Barack Obama doesn’t earn him an administration job offer he can’t refuse. Rybak’s partner in a green manufacturing study last spring was St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman, whose interest in Pawlenty’s post is another ill-kept secret.

Meanwhile, as Pawlenty gears up for a potential presidential bid in 2012, a different Minneapolis official threw his hat in the ring for governor today. State Rep. Paul Thissen (DFL) became the fourth official candidate in the 2010 race when he filed papers today.

But it was a possible Pawlenty-Rybak matchup for governor that seemed to be the subtext for what the Minneapolis mayor’s spokesman, Jeremy Hanson, said in response to the governor’s new environmental economic development initiative. Replying to a Minnesota Independent inquiry, Hanson e-mailed:

This is a good start, and it’s great to see Governor Pawlenty getting on board with a green jobs initiative. Mayor Rybak strongly believes that tremendous economic opportunity is offered by the growing green economy, which is why he launched a green manufacturing initiative with Mayor Chris Coleman more than two years ago. Mayor Rybak looks forward to working with Governor Pawlenty to grow green jobs, as he has been working with state legislators and mayors across the country. As details of the Governor’s plan come forward, we hope his efforts will be informed by the good work underway at the state’s Green Jobs Task Force and the Mayors’ Green Manufacturing Initiative.

Of course, there are concerns about attaching this plan to the JOBZ program, especially since the Legislative Auditor found that the JOBZ program was not meeting its intended goal of creating profitable, new jobs in Minnesota. The current JOBZ program should be fixed before spending millions of dollars to create another broken program.

Also, there doesn’t seem to be anything in the Governor’s plan that addresses the importance of the location of green business growth. This is important because where the business is located -– its proximity to transit, workforce, existing infrastructure, i.e., a “green site” -– is just as important as the green product made. This is exactly why Minneapolis, with its growing concentration of green jobs, existing infrastructure, strong workforce (with a stellar workforce training system), and access to transit (including bike commuter pathways), is well positioned to attract more green jobs to Minnesota than nearly anyplace else.

“If true, it is a remarkable fall for a congresswoman who, until recently, seemed relatively safe in her predominantly conservative district,” he writes.

And, if true, it might free up media for challenger Elwin Tinklenberg, who has committed only $188,000 for advertising — out of more than $1 million raised since comments by Bachmann on Friday’s edition of “Hardball.”

Update: Politico confirms — and adds that the NRCC is dropping advertising in Colorado and Florida districts as well. TPM offers independent confirmation.

A minority of the Minneapolis City Council decided Wednesday against requesting answers from Chief Tim Dolan on police actions during the Republican National Convention (RNC). And by killing a proposed staff directive in committee, four members of the council’s Public Safety and Regulatory Services Committee made sure that the seven council members not on the committee won’t have a say on the issue.

Two backers of a more expansive inquiry — Gordon (Green Party) and Schiff (DFL) — presented what they termed as reasonable additions to the scope of the police department after-action report that Mayor R.T. Rybak outlined last week. (See the five proposed points of inquiry which appear as italicized additions to the mayor’s list.) But the day found the duo falling into now-familiar Don Quijote/Sancho Panza roles as they continue struggle in vain for elevated police accountability — first by casting lone votes against putting city cops under other jurisdictions’ control last fall, then by calling for an independent, blue-ribbon review of RNC law enforcement two weeks ago.

Council Members Paul Ostrow and Diane Hofstede and Council President Barbara Johnson — joined in the end by Committee Chair Don Samuels — quickly framed the proposal as an unwarranted call for investigating police work mounted by elected officials who were overstepping their authority.

Johnson said the MPD’s internal review of an event she called “unprecedented in our history” should follow the department’s “standard operating procedure.” She ridiculed Gordon’s arguments in favor of gathering additional information as a piece with “hype” about an armed-camp environment that she termed “ridiculous.” (Although her dismissive stance was undercut by Samuels’ description of an atmosphere downtown in which “anything could happen at any time.”

Samuels pronounced his own pre-judgement of the police after-action report by proposing “success report” as an appropriate title. What no one would call the police review was an “investigation” — a term that Ostrow said “presumes that things were done that were improper.”

If, in the committee debate, “investigation” became a bad enough buzzword that it set Johnson (in her words) “a-twitter,” there was another word so outre that no one would say it: “lawsuit.”

Ostrow had Dolan repeat the news that no formal complaints had yet been filed, although Dolan, in the course of his wide-ranging remarks, said that he and others had set in motion internal reviews into at least two incidents — one being the repeated macing of a young protester caught on a widely viewed news video.

But any satisfaction about the absence of complaints filed at City Hall will only last until the day (which is yet to arrive) on which papers are served there in lawsuits that protesters have promised to file over alleged police abuses during the more than 800 RNC-related arrests.

The debate followed an earlier tussle in which Schiff and Gordon bristled at a staff recommendation that Minneapolis sign a Memorandum of Understanding allowing city cops to serve under the Metropolitan Police Department in Washington, D.C. during the presidential inauguration in January. Minneapolis sent 40 officers to the inauguration for the first time four years ago, MPD Inspector Rob Allen told the committee, and this year is one of 50 departments to get an invite.

But the timing for the request was unfortunate, Schiff said, coming as the city’s review of MPD actions under outside command during the RNC is just getting underway. Citing the deal’s fine print, Schiff disputed MPD Inspector Rob Allen’s assurances that federal agents wouldn’t direct Minneapolis officers, and that problems getting reimbursed for pension costs from overtime hours couldn’t arise. But the committee nixed any delay or alterations to the plan, on a 4-2 vote reprised soon after on the RNC report issue.

Here are seven minutes of audio highlights excerpted from the hour-long committee debate on the police report on the RNC — mostly from its emotional ending. A transcription follows below.

COUNCIL MEMBER PAUL OSTROW: … I personally don’t see a need for council action. I’m just going to be really blunt about this, because I know what the headlines are going to be. The headline is going to be: “City council calls for investigation of Minneapolis Police Department.” We don’t need an investigation of the Minneapolis Police Department when the Minneapolis Police Department itself is already saying that it’s moving forward on an after-action report. … The police department worked incredibly hard — our city worked incredibly hard — to get this right, and I think they’re just as committed to a good and solid review of this after the fact as they were to good, solid planning before that. So that’s why I’m voting ‘no’ today.

COUNCIL PRESIDENT BARBARA JOHNSON: I must support Council Member Ostrow and not vote for this. I completely agree with what you’re saying, that this is a typical action that our police department would take, to analyze an event that we’ve had of this size. The other thing — what sort of gets me in a twitter about this is some of the language that gets used. “Investigation” was used another time here, after we talked about that being a kind of buzzword here. It was just used again. The fact that the concerns come out about who is in control of the federal government, what political party is in control of the federal government. … This federal government is not run by the Republicans. It’s run by the people of this country. And that language is what sets me in a mood to say, I think the best process that we should go through is letting our professional staff evaluate what went on in this community as a result of a major convention that was unprecedented in our history … I had a call from someone — I think it was the Thursday before the convention started — and he was a radio reporter from New York City. And he said, “I hear that your city’s being turned into an armed camp.” And I said, “What? What are you talking about?” There was such hype about this. It was just ridiculous. So I would like to get down to some rationality and some professionalism about what went on here, and I think our police department has that capacity to do that, and they are doing that as part of their standard operating procedure. …

COUNCIL MEMBER CAM GORDON: I guess I’m disappointed, because I realize that without four people supporting this it won’t go forward. And we’re certainly already going to be getting some information, but we’re not going to be getting all the information that I think would be useful to me, and I would suspect to the other council members, and I would suspect to the city … I don’t think we should be afraid of information. I don’t think we should be afraid of knowledge. I don’t think we should be afraid of asking questions. In fact, I think it’s seeking knowledge and seeking truth and asking questions that’s going to get us to the best policies in the end. And so I don’t know why you’re trying to shut the door on asking questions about some of these incidents that went on. In fact, I would think you’d have more questions, you’d want to get more information … So I guess I’ll keep asking the questions and trying to seek those answers, and I’d appreciate that if council members would help me do that and try to do that in our capacity as a council but it doesn’t feel like there’s the support for it here.

COUNCIL MEMBER DIANE HOFSTEDE: I am not going to support the motion for the reasons, certainly, given. But I also want to say that I was in the downtown, and regularly am in the neighborhood, and I thought it was just an experience that almost reminded me of experiences that I had when I was in the downtown area 20 years ago. People were … on the streets, shopping and interfacing and interacting. And having a good time. And some of those people were our constituents. This is a good thing. And, yes, I did see that people were on the streets, obviously they were security individuals. But I didn’t feel threatened. And I didn’t have anybody who approached me. When I asked them how do you feel, you know what they said? You have a beautiful city. I feel safe and welcome here. I don’t think I need to say anything more.

COMMITTEE CHAIR DON SAMUELS: I’m also going to support Council Member Ostrow’s position on this. I think I was sympathetic towards the concept of a report initially with Council Member Gordon. But I think the mayor’s and the chief’s agreement as to what would be in the report initially is not significantly different enough from what is proposed here to make us have a demand or request from the council. Because it does color how this is presented, as Council Member Ostrow said, both in the press and in the public perception, that there is some kind of call to accountability here, when in fact it’s really a success report. And I would be willing to support it if it was called a success report. Because I think that’s really what it is. And I was downtown here, I was in the center watching the TV cameras, and also in the deployment area, and you could definitely have the sense that anything could happen at any time. And in spite of that we had this incredible success.

COUNCIL MEMBER GARY SCHIFF: Mr. Chair, happy to take you up on your offer. Currently this is called an after-action review. If you would like it called a success report, happy to make that motion to get your support today.
SAMUELS: Well, that was just a kind of gesture, just communicating the spirit. It was not a serious proposal.
SCHIFF: Ah, I was hoping not to call your bluff. I was hoping you were sincere. I just will express disappointment. Since this report is to be written by the police chief, I don’t know what could possibly be in the report that my colleagues could be afraid of. This is not an investigation by the city council, this is a report by the police chief. So: disappointed.

Mayor R.T. Rybak announced this afternoon that Minneapolis would conduct a series of reviews into the Minneapolis Police Department’s (MPD) actions in Minneapolis during the Republican National Convention, including a standard “after-action report” that will look into related security measures and the development of new policies for dealing with the media. A City Council member who has urged a blue-ribbon, multijurisdictional review said the mayor’s statement was “good” but appeared to fall short of “a public, independent, transparent process.”

According to a statement from Rybak’s office (see pages 1, 2, 3), the police review — which will focus on the Critical Mass ride, the Media Party, the Liberty Parade and the Rage against the Machine concert — will assess police officers’ training prior to the RNC and identify areas for improvement. It will be completed by the end of October.

Minneapolis officials will also cooperate with St. Paul in its outside review of public safety, which that city’s mayor recently announced would be conducted by attorneys Andy Luger and Tom Heffelfinger.

In addition to the police evaluation, the Minneapolis City Attorney’s Office will examine the protocols used for arresting and citing people at the RNC. It will also consult with the Hennepin County courts about the financial burden the RNC’s arrests/citations posed, given that the courts didn’t receive national security dollars to process them.

Civil Rights staff will make sure that processes for accepting complaints from the public are clearly laid out. A summary of complaints from each of these departments (plus the Office of Risk Management) along with recommendations and other analysis will be presented to city officials by February 2009. Rybak adds that “a six-month review will at least give policy makers a sense of the scope of issues to be addressed.”

Furthermore, given the “significant evolution in how the media covers stories and even the basic question of how media is defined … we think it valuable to try to develop a model policy for how to work with the media during large crowd events,” Rybak said.

The Minnesota Independent contacted the two Minneapolis City Council members who issued a call for Minneapolis and St. Paul to jointly form a blue-ribbon panel to investigate police conduct during the RNC.

Council member Cam Gordon had had a quick look at it. “It’s good we have the [mayor's] statement but it doesn’t necessarily meet what I’m hoping to get to … the kind of public, independent, transparent process that I would hope for,” he said.

“We might benefit from more of an opportunity to have a public hearing and take some public testimony,” Gordon added. “It might take Minneapolis and St. Paul working together.” He sees as “positive” St. Paul City Council Member Dave Thune’s planned “community conversation” hearing.

“The thing that gets me is this sort of a ‘National Security event,’” Gordon said. “What does that mean?” He said if the Super Bowl and baseball’s All-Star Game now fall in that category, “we need policies … to decide if we even want those kinds of events.”

UPDATE: In an email announcement Friday afternoon, Council Member Gary Schiff wrote that he supports the city’s review but hoped the U.S. Department of Homeland Security would also review federal agents’ actions. Schiff also recalled that he and Gordon had been the council’s lone dissenters last year on the city’s contract for the RNC that put Minneapolis police under the control of the feds, adding at the time that “safety should not be used as an excuse to limit a free press or stifle free speech.”

PAYBACK TIME: Minneapolis police racked up more than $1 million in training costs in preparation for the Republican National Convention, finance department staff told City Council members at Monday’s Ways and Means Committee meeting. The breakdown: $340,000 in overtime, $136,000 in comp time, and $628,000 in regular time.

That doesn’t take in labor costs during the RNC and, as Council Member Elizabeth Glidden pointed out, it also doesn’t include one particularly pesky expense line: pension payouts related to police overtime. As with policing costs Minneapolis incurred after the I-35W bridge collapsed, staff said, the city has no assurance of reimbursement for pension outlays arising from law-enforcement overtime during the Republican National Convention.

Minneapolis Finance Director Pat Born told MnIndy the complexity of an unusual pension plan for cops hired through the 1970s works against easy reimbursement for “direct costs” and makes evaluators’ eyes glaze over. That’s what happened with FEMA (whose refusal to reimburse bridge-related expenses, barring a successful city appeal, will cost Minneapolis nearly $800,000) and Born promises that eyes are sure to glaze again as the city tries to collect on RNC police overtime pension costs from the U.S. Justice Department via the City of St. Paul.

WORK OF FICTION: That issue came up in a second-quarter financial summary after a generally positive report from the state auditor on the city’s finances. But the audit did highlight areas in which city financial controls need improvement. There’s nothing, for example, stopping staffers from inventing fictitious city employees and paying them, the report says. And cash taken in by city parking garages could end up somewhere other than city coffers.

Here’s some nonfiction: So far this year, a St. Paul parking meter reader went to jail for taking home $34,000 in parking meter collections, and a Hennepin County clerk got 30 days for fixing her own parking tickets and related fines to the tune of more than $5,000. On the bright side, at least fictional employees don’t have real pockets to put stolen cash in.

IT’S A SETUP: The committee spent the better part of an hour Monday debating whether to hold a special public comment meeting on the financial aspects of proposed changes to the city’s Neighborhood Revitalization Program (NRP) — the subject of a longstanding power struggle between City Hall and city neighborhoods. Chair Paul Ostrow argued that NRP’s finances should be discussed in the context of the city’s broader budget, adding that the public would have its say at required public hearings in December and next spring. But City Council Member Sandy Colvin Roy said constituents had felt constrained at past hearings to speak only on the program’s structure. “I don’t think it costs us very much [to hold a comment meeting],” she added.

“There is a cost to this,” Council Member Betsy Hodges countered, seeming to foresee an evening rife with soapbox speeches by both council members and residents unhinged from financial reality. “It’s a setup for us and a setup for them.” In the end the motion passed, and a special public comment period on NRP finances will take place during the committee’s Sept. 22 meeting.

PORKY’S: Another longstanding flashpoint between elected officials and Minneapolis residents was the new Porky’s restaurant on Central Avenue Northeast, where fast-food drive-thru service flew in the face of zoning rules and pedestrian-oriented neighborhood plans. Porky’s prevailed last year with the support of Ostrow and Mayor R.T. Rybak, who reportedly said he “would walk across glass on my knees for Porky’s onion rings.”

Neighbors cried foul, some feeling stung enough to boycott the place once it was built — and indeed the restaurant’s spacious, retro interior often looks empty. Now bright yellow signs posted along the sidewalk indicate Porky’s is trying to beef up drive-through business by offering a 10 percent discount to customers who place their orders from their cars.

Which goes to show — to paraphrase Council Member Gary Schiff at a City Planning Commission hearing on Porky’s — it’s bad karma to mess with the city’s zoning code.

Or maybe Porky’s just needs to ditch the drive-through and put in a crawl-on-glass lane instead.

President Woodrow Wilson's china was among the attractions at CivicFest.

Among the widely trumpeted 8 billion RNC-related media impressions of the Twin Cities were a few distinctly negative impressions created by a Minneapolis Convention Center event called CivicFest. It was meant to draw 150,000 media representatives, schoolchildren, RNC delegates and other visitors to see exhibits such as a replica of the White House and to shop for Minnesota gift items.

But even after they dropped the $15 fee that might have sent budget-minded civics-seekers scurrying for low-cost alternatives, officials say attendance only reached 50,000. Event vendors want their $2,500 booth fees back, one telling the Star Tribune hours went by when no one came.

Cheryl Luger, a local government watchdog who can make any day a festival in civics, tracked the project from its inception 10 months ago as a “Delegate Experience/Community Festival,” when Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak proposed and the city council approved spending $200,000 on the event. “During a tight budget year, this matter came forward late in the game,” Luger recalls. Now she wants taxpayers reimbursed.

The plan was to convert RNC hoopla into convention center promotion, since many attending the RNC would be people “with strong influence over or responsibility for where their organizations hold future meetings and conventions.” The $200,000 outlay during a tight budget year was justified because “individuals who visit Minneapolis as a convention attendee or visitor are much more likely to have a favorable impression of our community, and more likely to want to return.”

CivicFest appears to have accomplished the exact opposite. One vendor told KSTP: ”I will never come back to a convention in this town because of being misled. They lost my business for life.”