The Minneapolis park board is planning to use $1.7 million in Metropolitan Council funds to buy a piece of Mississippi riverfront property from the family business of a Met Council member.

Met Council member Roger Scherer maintains a financial stake in Scherer Bros. Lumber Company company, though he retired as president and CEO 15 years ago. (His son, Peter, is now president.)

Scherer tells the Minnesota Independent that if the question of funding the purchase comes before the Met Council, he won’t vote on the matter, discuss it with fellow council members, or attend a meeting of the council’s Community Development Committee when it’s considered there.

That’s in keeping with state law governing conflicts of interest, according to Met Council spokesperson Bonnie Kollodge, who couldn’t recall an instance of council funds being used to buy property in which a member had a financial interest.

The 16 Met Council members are appointed by the governor. Roger Scherer is the longest-serving member, with 17 years’ service under three governors, all Republican.

Among other things, the Met Council has authority over transit, water and sewers, and regional parks in the Twin Cities metro area. Some Minneapolis parks have regional status and get money from the Met Council. The newest is known as Above the Falls, running along the Mississippi River from Plymouth Avenue just north of downtown to the city’s northern border. The park board, the Minneapolis City Council, and the Met Council approved a plan for Above the Falls that envisions a strip of riverfront parkland and a path at the Scherer Bros. location, just above Plymouth Ave. on the river’s east bank.

Scherer Bros. Lumber Company, which ceased operations at its Northeast Minneapolis yard on Dec. 31 (pdf), has been trying to sell the 13.84-acre property since at least last summer. A prospective buyer for part of the property lost interest in the fall. That’s when park board staff — who had been called in on the earlier deal due to the park board’s interest in land along the river and for a path — say they began to pursue purchase of the entire property (pdf).

The park board had negotiated an easement for a strip of land along the river with the industrial property owner immediately upstream but was unable to do so with Scherer Bros., according to minutes from the Above the Falls Citizen Advisory Committee (pdf).

At its final 2009 meeting — and the last meeting for four of nine commissioners who didn’t win or seek re-election – the park board voted to pursue the deal. The proposal hadn’t come via the usual committee process and there was no price tag attached. However, at the Dec. 16 meeting (video, starts at 1:41), Commissioner Jon Olson cited an appraisal’s “reasonable price” of $650,000 per acre, which would put the total cost for the entire site at nearly $9 million.

One park commissioner, Annie Young, abstained from the vote, citing pollution concerns. Park board planner Judd Reitkerk assured her that environmental studies had found no vermiculite, a material that in local stockpiles was tainted with asbestos, prompting massive cleanups in Northeast Minneapolis — including at the park board’s own Gluek Park only a mile upstream.

But the studies of the Scherer Bros. site show that asbestos was indeed found on the property (pdf).

A purchase agreement, including payment of $400,000 in earnest money to Scherer Bros., was supposed to be completed by the end of December. But that’s been stalled by confusion over who, if anyone, owns part of the property’s river frontage. (A triangular piece of land, possibly a result of infilling or sedimentation, comprises almost half the property’s length along the river, but isn’t included with the Scherer Bros. title.)

The company offered to finance the deal over four years at 3.25 percent interest, according to park board staff, who said other possible sources of money included the state’s new Legacy fund. The $400,000 payment, refundable if the sale falls through, would come from proceeds from the sale of parkland downstream to the Minnesota Department of Transportation for the new I-35W bridge.

Plans are for the park board to take a final vote on the deal within 90 days of the signing of the purchase agreement. The Met Council spokesperson says they haven’t yet received an application for funds for the project.

Why buy nearly a nearly-14-acre lumber industrial site — complete with buildings and parking lots, “mostly concrete, ” as described by Cristof Traudes in the Downtown Journal — if the park plan calls only for a strip of riverfront and a recreational path?

“Their interest is in selling the entire property,” Reitkerk told the park board at the Dec. 16 meeting, and the Scherer Bros. Lumber Company wanted the deal done by Dec. 31. He termed it “a friendly purchase.”

Minneapolis City Hall. Photo: Hennepin Co. Library

They are called “pre-general” campaign-finance reports, but with the general election in Minneapolis only a day away, many candidates’ reports have yet to be filed, according to a website maintained by Hennepin County. In select races that could be close and have reports posted, the money race gives an indication of how much the candidates have had to work with in the closing days of their campaigns.

For instance, in the mayoral race, incumbent R.T. Rybak has filed his latest finance report but Papa John Kolstad, a leader among 10 challengers, has not — rendering what would certainly be a David-and-Goliath comparison impossible to make before the election.

In Ward One, where the new occupant for one of three open council seats in Minneapolis will be decided Tuesday, DFL endorsee Kevin Reich had raised nearly 20 times as much money ($23,048) as Susan Howitz Hanna ($1,221), a rival DFLer who picked up the Star Tribune’s endorsement a week after the close of the filing period.

Larry Ranallo, a third DFLer with signs throughout the ward (and even as far as nine blocks outside the ward), hasn’t filed either a pre-primary or pre-general campaign finance report, according to the Hennepin County website.

Such filings are required once a campaign spends or receives $100. The pre-general reports were supposed to be filed Oct. 27.

In a South Minneapolis park board rematch between incumbent Carol Kummer and repeat challenger Jason Stone, Kummer raised more than $7,000 during the Sept. 2–Oct. 20 reporting period — almost twice the sum Stone took in.

Kummer was beneficiary of a maximum $300 gift from park board attorney Brian Rice and more from police union groups his firm represents — a donor constellation that also bankrolled campaigns for and against ballot referendums concerning the park board earlier in the year.

Another park candidate on Rice’s gift list is Bob Fine, who currently represents the city’s southwest corner. Fine is one of five current or former at-large park commissioners vying for the three citywide seats up for election. He had $6,000 in cash on hand on Oct. 20, more than incumbents Mary Merrill Anderson ($2,300) and Annie Young ($1,100).

Pre-general reports for former commissioner John Erwin and current park board president Tom Nordyke were not posted at the Hennepin County site as of noon Monday.

Nordyke was also among tardy filers for the pre-primary report deadline in September.

Minneapolis City Hall. Photo: Hennepin Co. Library

Although Minneapolis held no primary election this year, candidates for city office still had to file “pre-primary” campaign-finance reports under a new ordinance passed this summer. Yet for two weeks after the Sept. 8 deadline, confusion and other delays kept dozens of candidate and political committee reports from reaching the public.

The city’s adoption of instant-runoff voting (IRV) did away with the separate primary election in early September, long the traditional time for pre-primary finance reports that provide the public with its first peek into candidates’ campaign coffers.

So after the state Legislature took no action to resolve the matter, the Minneapolis City Council set a primary date of Sept. 15 for the sole purpose of triggering the pre-primary financial-report requirement.

The problem: In the meantime, candidates had been told there would be no financial filings until just before the Nov. 3 general election. Notices went out from both the city and Hennepin County election offices to alert candidates to the change.

Of the nearly 100 candidates who had filed for office, about a third are not registered with the county — a requirement only once a candidate raises or spends $100 — and don’t need to file financials. Most of the rest filed pre-primary reports more or less on time.

But as of Tuesday, two weeks after the deadline, the Minnesota Independent found that the county’s online records were missing pre-primary reports for at least a dozen Minneapolis campaign committees and a dozen more political-action committees (PACs). The financial wherewithal of incumbents like City Council Vice President Robert Lillegren and Park Board President Tom Nordyke remained a mystery.

Snafus and confusion

It turned out that a technical snafu had kept some reports out of the public eye. Filings by park board commissioners Bob Fine, Carol Kummer and Annie Young had been received, just not posted.

But the pre-primary deadline without an actual primary election proved a source of confusion for others.

Nordyke’s treasurer told MnIndy she’d mistakenly thought the deadline was Sept. 15, the date of the sham primary, and then tried to email her report. Veteran candidate Marcus Harcus, one of 10 three challengers to Mayor R.T. Rybak Council President Barb Johnson, also tried the not-yet-accepted method of filing electronically.

Others filed early and potentially incomplete reports. The Becker Volunteer Committee, working to re-elect Board of Estimate and Taxation Vice President Carol Becker, promptly completed and returned a report form that the county sent as a reminder in mid-August — well before Sept. 1, the final day of the reporting period.

“The notice was somewhat confusing to me,” treasurer Ted Becker wrote in an email to MnIndy. “I did not expect any [financial] activity between August 20 and September 1. However, I was mistaken.” The report from Ward 6 council candidate Michael Tupper’s campaign also appears to have been filed prematurely.

As of Wednesday, pre-primary financial reports remained missing online for at least four city candidates: Dick Franson, who is running for mayor; Charley Underwood, a Ward 12 council candidate; David Wheeler, a Board of Estimate and Taxation candidate; and Don Samuels, the Ward 5 council incumbent. County officials were double-checking records to ensure that all documents they have received are uploaded to the Web.

Late filers can face fines of $50 per day, up to $500, beginning four days after the deadline, according to Deb Bohler of the Hennepin County. Unexpected personal emergencies usually lead to waivers, whereas chronic tardiness increases the likelihood of a fine.

Of 26 PACs registered with the county as current in Minneapolis, pre-primary reports for only 14 are posted online. All are required to file, even if their bank accounts are empty or they’ve been inactive this year.

Unlike candidates’ campaigns, PACs aren’t sent information about filing rules in the first place, so they didn’t receive notice about the newly imposed pre-primary requirement. But they can keep up to date via the county website, Bohler said.

Not interested in making that kind of statement

State law also requires candidates for office in a “metropolitan governmental unit” to reveal financial details of a more personal nature, including occupation, employer, compensation, securities held, property owned, and money owed. But two people running for election in Minneapolis have so far refused to file a “Statement of Economic Interest,” according to the city clerk’s office.

James R. Everett, a Social Entrepreneurship mayoral candidate, tells MnIndy he doesn’t trust the police and other city powers-that-be with that information. “For my safety, I’m not playing by the rules,” Everett said.

Michael Cavlan, who is running as an Open Progressive candidate for city council in Ward 8, didn’t return a call from MnIndy told MnIndy he’d received an email threatening a $1,000 fine and was planning to visit City Hall on Friday, where he’d either settle up or take a principled stand against completing the form.

Gary Goldsmith, executive director of the Minnesota Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board, said cities or counties can report local candidates who don’t fill out an economic-interest statement to the board, which may impose a fine of as much as $1,000. Once elected, officeholders who don’t comply risk removal from office, he said.

Photo: tomconlon.org

When Republican Tom Conlon leaves the St. Paul School Board this summer, he’ll also be leaving Minneapolis and St. Paul with only two elected city officials not from the DFL Party. Conlon announced yesterday his resignation from the office he has held since 1991. He will leave the school board July 6 to run an inn in Asheville, N.C. St. Paul will hold a special election in November to fill the vacancy for the remaining two years of his term.

Conlon’s announcement came two days after he cast the only vote against letting Webster Magnet Elementary change its name to “Barack and Michelle Obama Service Learning Elementary,” St. Paul Public Schools spokesman Bret Johnson tells the Minnesota Independent. 

Conlon opposed the renaming as premature (an opinion in line with Arizona State University’s decision not to award President Obama an honorary degree). It was another in a long line of lonely votes Conlon has taken in conflict with the board’s prevailing DFL majority. 

With Conlon gone, two Minneapolis Green Party members — Cam Gordon on the city council and Annie Young on the park board — will constitute the remaining bulwark against total DFL domination of elective offices in the state’s two biggest cities.

Gordon appears set to win re-election this fall in a walk. His only announced challenger so far, DFLer Charles Carlson, dropped out amid a welter of unhelpful revelations.

Young is another story. She’s in competition with three DFLers to keep her spot as one of three at-large commissioners on the Minneapolis park board. Her opponents are the two other current at-large incumbents and a former commissioner — all three of whom won the party’s endorsement by acclamation at the DFL city convention last weekend.

Beyond the challenge of running citywide campaigns for low-profile seats, the at-large candidates must contend with what’s being billed as the world’s first multi-seat election to be conducted via ranked choice voting (also known as instant runoff voting, or IRV) — without computers that can do the counting.

The Minneapolis City Council heard yesterday that counting ballots in that election is expected to be so complex that voters may not learn who they elected until after Thanksgiving.

After confessing to having had nightmares about advertising banners hanging from trees in parks, Commissioner Tracy Nordstrom said she was relieved that’s not how the Lowe’s banners will be displayed. The banner ads (pictured, click for larger view) at Loring Park and Parade Ice Garden will be reduced from an original size of 8-by-2 feet to 6-by-2 feet, staff said, and would hang from buildings in positions judged to be least conspicuous: over the main entrance to the ice rink and on a side of a new Lowe’s-supplied shed at Loring facing away from neighbors and park users.

Continued: Click “Read more”

Commissioner Jon Olson had earlier expressed regret that Lowe’s (via its marketing consultant, GMR) had targeted donations for parks only in particular ZIP codes, with nothing going to parks in the north, northeast or southeast sections of the city. But on Wednesday, Olson said he was satisfied that Lowe’s would target other ZIP codes next year. Olson also emphasized that the ads will be on view for a “short amount of time.”

The indoor signs will hang in kitchen areas near donated appliances for one year and will not include proposed language directing park visitors to look for similar merchandise at the Lowe’s Web site. The outdoor banners will go up as early as July and remain through December, unless they become damaged, in which case they won’t be replaced.

But the original wording on the banner ads — “This area brought to you in part by Lowe’s” — may not change, despite drawing sharp criticism from commissioners at their May 21 meeting.  Vice President (and former superintendent) Mary Merrill Anderson asked staff to repeat what she thought she’d heard: that the banner slogan “would remain the same or” would change. Still, Merrill Anderson voted in favor of the ad plan, despite her stated fear that accepting ads in parks “can be a slippery slope until we set some guidelines.” Commissioner Annie Young, saying “It’s still a big banner,” cast the only vote against.

The park commissioners don’t have a policy on ads in parks but say they plan to craft one. Besides taxpayer support, the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board has long received donations of goods and services from corporations and individuals without swapping for ad space or similar sponsorship benefits. A recent deal with Toyota (which came via St. Paul’s parks department) broke with that tradition, and another deal with Traveler’s could happen by year’s end.

Bus windows and skyways get covered in ads; are public parks next? Minneapolis taxpayers could soon be greeted at their city parks by banners advertising a national home improvement chain that has no stores in the city proper. Lowe’s says it’s willing to donate $90,000 in goods and services to six parks. The string attached: Lowe’s wants to hang 8-foot by 2-foot banners proclaiming “This area brought to you in part by Lowe’s” in outdoor locations such as Loring Park as well as smaller signs near donated equipment reading: “These products and more are available at Lowe’s.” (You can see a larger rendition of the 8-x-2 banner by clicking on the image at top.)

The Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board’s Administration and Finance Committee voted last week to send the proposal to the full board next week, although Commissioner Mary Merrill Anderson, a former Minneapolis park superintendent, acknowledged, “We’re holding our nose.” Commissioner Annie Young abstained, saying she’d read about Lowe’s troubles and thus recognized the company’s need for a marketing boost, but “I really don’t want an 8 ft by 2 ft banner outdoors.” Commissioner Scott Vreeland questioned the Lowe’s approach of targeting parks in certain zip codes. “I don’t know if anyone actually goes to Lowe’s in Minneapolis. It’s kind of a funny demographic. I’ve never been to a Lowe’s,” Vreeland said. “If I walk into Matthews Park, and it says, ‘This area brought to you by Lowe’s,’ that bugs me. Because this area is brought to us by taxpayers.”

Several commissioners said sponsorships were the wave of the future and Minneapolis simply needs a policy for cutting deals. No policy is in place yet; Lowe’s would be an exception, or perhaps the first drip in a coming flood. “Home Depot and other stores that haven’t requested this are going to go ‘Hey, me too!’” warned Commissioner Carol Kummer. “Thinking about how beautiful the parks look, we sure don’t need them cluttered up with corporate signage. If they get really jerky about it, tell them to take their 90 thou and go to …” She trailed off but another commissioner filled in the sentence with the name of another park district: “Three Rivers.” General Manager Don Siggelkow, who is asking the board whether staff should continue negotiations with Lowe’s corporate marketing department, said Lowe’s was already seeking similar arrangements around the area.