Elsewhere in Minnesota news this morning …

STATE CAPITOL: Minnesota better get mentioned during T-Paw’s big speech. Maybe those cop lay-offs and school-aid shifts too, when Gov. Pawlenty delivers his State of the State for Feb. 11. [Hot Dish Politics; West Central Tribune]

MINNEAPOLIS: Oh, “No“! Paul Thissen charges fellow DFL gubernatorial candidate Margaret Anderson Kelliher with stealing his “Yes-No” refrain. [Polinaut]

ST. PAUL: Lucky 13. The DFL gubernatorial race sounds like so much fun, someone new has signed up. [Associated Press]

MINNEAPOLIS: City Council president defends paying for personal expenses with campaign funds. Barb Johnson’s life is a perpetual campaign, and “one bad-hair day gets published on the Internet.” [Star Tribune]

ST. CLOUD: “I’m scared of this city.” A public forum inspired by the posting of anti-Muslim cartoons could be just another in a string of “kumbaya meetings” if no action is taken.[St. Cloud Times]

ALBERT LEA: Suit filed over abuse at nursing home. The details do not live up to the name “Good Samaritan Society,” to say the least. [Albert Lea Tribune]

Elsewhere in Minnesota news this morning …

STATEWIDE: Marty Seifert picks on Rybak, Kelliher, Dayton. A fundraising plea for the Republican state rep’s 2010 guv campaign relies on supporters despising three DFL rivals. [Polinaut]

MINNEAPOLIS: R.T. Rybak talks liberally. The mayor takes aim at Gov. Pawlenty’s hunting escapade in a new video from a Dec. 3 event; another version had him dissing Norm Coleman, too. [Hot Dish Politics; The Cucking Stool; Minnesota Democrats Exposed]

FIRST CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT: Another Republican will wade into race to challenge Tim Walz. Or so they’re saying about Rochester Area Chamber of Commerce President John Wade. [Rochester Post-Bulletin]

OWATONNA: Dems will meet Dec. 28 to make pick for special election. St. Olaf College prof Jason Engbrecht announced in Faribault last night that he’ll be running to succeed retiring Republican state Sen. Dick Day. [Bluestem Prairie]

MINNEAPOLIS: “It kind of made my Finnish blood boil.” Warren Kaari filed a campaign-finance complaint over Council President Barb Johnson writing off hair care and other personal expenses; a hearing is set for Jan. 26. [Star Tribune]

STATEWIDE: Snow over Christmas. Maybe 20 inches of it in the Twin Cities. [Updraft]

City Council incumbents Don Samuels (Ward 5) and Barb Johnson (Ward 4)

So much for election night drama in Minneapolis. Despite more than 50 candidates vying for 13 posts on the Minneapolis City Council, only two contests resulted in the top vote-getter failing to surpass the 50 percent threshold required for victory under the new instant-runoff voting (IRV) system. Incumbents Barb Johnson and Don Samuels each easily out-polled their challengers but failed to earn first-choice support from more than half of voters on Tuesday.

This means that election officials will now have to go through the laborious process of hand-counting voters’ second and third choices to determine who will ultimately be declared the winner. But results posted at the Secretary of State’s Office suggest Samuels and Johnson are likely to prevail when all the electoral dust settles.

Let’s consider the math. Johnson, the city council president and four-term incumbent, was the top choice of 47 percent of voters in Ward Four. Among her trio of challengers, Troy Parker finished a distant second with support from 28 percent of voters. Johnson also received 23 percent of second-place votes and 21 percent of third-place votes. The upshot: She appears a lock for re-election.

Four years ago, Johnson faced no electoral opposition. But this year she narrowly survived a battle with Parker for the DFL endorsement and was hit by last-minute revelations about dubious campaign expenditures. Even so, she appears headed for a fifth term.

Samuels’ position appears only slightly more tenuous. The Ward Five incumbent was also the top choice of 47 percent of voters. Running second was a familiar foe: former city council member Natalie Johnson Lee, with first-choice support from 30 percent of voters. Three other challengers trailed well behind.

But Johnson Lee, who lost to Samuels four years ago, doubled up the incumbent on second-place votes, 34 to 16 percent. She also narrowly topped him for third-place ballots with support from 22 percent of voters. While this means the race will undoubtedly tighten as the other candidates are dropped and second- and third-choice votes are added, it seems likely that Samuels will ultimately reach the 50-percent threshold.

The incumbent says he has not heard from any of his challengers. But he’s not surprised by the lack of congratulatory calls considering the novel voting calculations and the lingering uncertainty about the outcome.

“The promise of ranked-choice voting is that the very unlikely is likely to happen,” Samuels says. “There’s a thread of hope out there no matter how thin.”

But for all the electoral activity and hand-wringing over the potential implications of the new voting system, the end result is this: every incumbent who ran for re-election appears likely to prevail.

Johnson charged her campaign $1,154 for hairdresser appointments and $986 for dry-cleaning during the current four-year election cycle. No other city council candidate used campaign funds for personal grooming, the article notes. Johnson also tapped political donations for cell phone bills and AAA car coverage.

Reporter Erin Carlyle asked Hamline University political science and law professor David Schultz about the legitimacy of such spending. His verdict was not flattering to the city council president.

“Campaign funds are supposed to be spent for things that are campaign-related, not expenses that you would normally incur as being a human,” Schultz said. “I would hope that hygiene is something that you would spend money on as a normal person.”

Clockwise from top left: Barbara Johnson, Marcus Harcus, Grant Cermak, Troy Parker

A member of the Rainville family has held Minneapolis’ Ward Four city council seat since the mid-1970s. First elected in 1975, Alice Rainville represented the area for more than two decades, in 1980 becoming the first woman to serve as city council president.

Barb Johnson then took over her mother’s post in 1997. Four years ago she was the only incumbent on the Minneapolis City Council not to attract a single challenger, winning re-election with 92 percent of the vote. This year, however, Johnson faces three challengers for the seat. Her opponents believe it’s time for the Rainville reign in North Minneapolis to end.

“The Fourth Ward has been represented by one family for 40 years, longer than I’ve been alive,” says Marcus Harcus, who is running as a Green Party candidate. “I respect that they’ve stood up and served the community for all these years, but the North Side needs new leadership, new faces, new ideas.”

Troy Parker is also disturbed by the political dynasty established in North Minneapolis. He initially ran (unsuccessfully) against Johnson when she first sought the seat in 1997.

“Her mom was retiring and she was the heir apparent,” Parker recalls. “I just didn’t think that was a democratic way of doing things.”

The scuttlebutt around City Hall is that Johnson is more than a little concerned about the electoral competition. But the city council president insists that a vigorous campaign is welcome.

“It really was a fluke that there was no opposition last time,” she says. “I view competition as a good thing. It makes you sharpen your message and get your information out there.”

Ward Four stretches across the northwest corner of Minneapolis and includes the neighborhoods of Shingle Creek, Folwell and Cleveland. The area encompasses blocks that are blighted by crime and abandoned houses, along with bucolic stretches that could be confused with surrounding suburbs. At the time of the 2000 census, a majority of the residents were non-white.

Grant Cermak, the third candidate challenging the incumbent, is running with the backing of both the Republican and Independence parties. Last year he took on state Rep. Joe Mullery for a seat at the Capitol, but fell well short, with 18 percent of the vote. The software engineer and small-business owner was inspired, in part, to get involved in electoral politics by the presidential campaign of Ron Paul and espouses a libertarian philosophy of municipal governance. He cites Minneapolis’ prohibition of pit bulls and restrictions on idling cars as two areas where the city has overstepped its proper authority.

“I’m very fiscally conservative,” he says. “Other than that, I kind of have a laissez-faire philosophy in terms of trying to legislate morality.”

Cermak also has concerns about civil rights abuses by police officers. He believes that the cops have been repeatedly allowed to overstep their authority without repercussions.

“I think Chief [Tim] Dolan has to go,” he says. “They haven’t been operating in a way that’s been beneficial to the community.”

Harcus is also partially motivated by police behavior. The 31-year-old says he’s been pulled over 52 times by the cops over the years, the overwhelming majority of times for no conceivable reason. In one instance, Harcus says, he was dragged to the ground and beaten with a night stick. His crime: running to catch a bus.

“My experience with police abuse compels me to pay attention to city politics,” he says.

Among the changes Harcus would like to see: subpoena power for the city’s Civilian Police Review Authority, which is charged with investigating citizen complaints against the police department. Harcus argues that Johnson is too closely aligned with the Minneapolis Police Federation and the department brass to make needed changes to police oversight.

“She’s totally biased in favor of the police,” he says. “She believes they can do no wrong.”

Johnson denies this assertion, but believes that criticism of the police is largely misguided. She notes that violent crime is down dramatically and argues that cops who misbehave are being held accountable.

“The police chief has to be vested with the authority to be strong in his discipline of officers who misbehave — and I think that’s in place,” she says. “Our chief has fired more police officers than any other chief. That doesn’t make him the federation’s poster boy.”

It’s not the first time Harcus has sought elected office. He ran for mayor in each of the last two election cycles, but garnered less than one percent of the vote in each contest. However, he insists that this election will be different.

“This time around I’m in it to win it,” he says. “The previous two times I was just running to make some noise.”

The proof of his intent: Harcus has been door-knocking in the ward since April. He estimates that he’s surveyed 800 residents about their beliefs and concerns.

Parker sought the DFL endorsement, but lost out to Johnson. He touts economic development on the North Side as a chief concern. In particular he wants to see more business growth on main corridors such as West Broadway and Lyndale avenues. Parker argues that Ward Four hasn’t gotten its fair share of tax dollars in recent years.

“The development dollars just haven’t been dispersed equally throughout the city of Minneapolis,” says Parker, who works as a pipefitter. “We can’t just lie down and allow people to take advantage of our community and our residents.”

He also believes that Johnson has failed to vigorously advocate for residents of the ward. “They just feel as though they have no representation whatsoever,” he says. “You have to give a voice to everyone in the community.”

Johnson rejects criticism that she’s out of touch with the ward and not a strong voice for her constituents at City Hall. “My roots are in that community,” she says. “I’ve lived there my whole life. I have connections all across the community, which none of the other candidates can even get near.”

This is the eleventh in a 13-part series on Minneapolis City Council races.

The full series:

Ward One: Five seek open seat in northeast Minneapolis
Ward Two: Gordon, Aigbogun and … no DFLer
Ward Three: Hofstede tries to hold off four challengers
Ward Four: Trio of challengers take on political dynasty
Ward Five: Crime and economic development dominate North Side race
Ward Six: South Minneapolis contest draws crowded field of contenders
Ward Seven: Despite full campaign coffers, lawsuit clouds Goodman’s prospects
Ward Eight: Glidden faces four rivals in south Minneapolis
Ward Nine: Schiff, Bicking vie again
Ward Ten: Four candidates vie for Uptown council seat
Ward Eleven: Three vie for Benson’s South Minneapolis seat
Ward Twelve: Colvin Roy faces three challengers
Ward Thirteen: The independent ward could see fireworks in November

Photo: Minnesota Independent

On a Saturday night last month, roughly 70 Minneapolis Hmong residents gathered at Fairview Park on the city’s North Side. They were joined by Minneapolis City Council members Barb Johnson and Don Samuels, who represent the area, to discuss relations between the Minneapolis Police Department and the Hmong community.

The meeting was prompted, in part, by a recently released study by the University of Minnesota’s Center for Urban and Regional Affairs (CURA) that documents the paucity of Hmong police officers on the force. But also shadowing the meeting were several troubling incidents involving cops assigned to the MPD’s 4th Precinct and the Hmong community in recent years. In 2006, 19-year-old Fong Lee was shot eight times by an officer after fleeing police. Then in 2007, 22 shots were fired when police wrongly raided a Hmong family’s home during a botched drug raid.

“We’re a group that oftentimes doesn’t get heard from,” says Yia Yang, a community organizer with CURA who attended the meeting at Fairview Park. “But there’s really not that much trust with the Minneapolis Police Department.”

A couple of seemingly simple proposals came out of the meeting at Fairview Park. Representatives of the Hmong community wanted to sit down with Police Chief Tim Dolan and 4th Precinct Inspector Michael Martin to express their concerns. More concretely, they wanted a Hmong-speaking officer assigned to the day shift in the 4th Precinct as soon as possible.

The CURA study seemingly backs up the need for such a personnel move. At the time of the 2000 census, the most recent period for which figures are available, there were just under 10,000 Hmong residents of Minneapolis. Roughly 70 percent of those inhabitants were clustered in the 4th Precinct, which covers all of the city’s North Side.

But MPD recruitment has failed to keep up with demographic trends — a phenomenon that certainly isn’t limited to the Minneapolis force. The 900-officer agency has just eight Hmong police officers, representing less than one percent of the force.

Further troubling to members of the Hmong community is where those officers are assigned. More than half of the Hmong officers patrol the 5th Precinct in southwest Minneapolis, an area that is predominantly wealthy and white. Just 226 Hmong residents — or roughly two percent of the city’s overall Hmong population resided in the 5th District at the time of the 2000 census.

Meanwhile the 4th Precinct, home to the majority of Minneapolis’ Hmong population, has just two Hmong officers. What’s more, both of those cops work the overnight shift. The upshot: when Hmong residents of the North Side, many of whom are recent arrivals in this country and have limited English language skills, call the cops for help there’s generally no one available who speaks their language. Shifting one of the existing Hmong cops to the day shift in the 4th Precinct seemed like a simple, common-sense means to at least partly address the problem.

“That is what the community feels would address this problem for them,” says Don Samuels. “I’m supportive of it.”

But Samuels and others realize that getting a Hmong cop assigned to the day shift in the 4th Precinct is not as simple as it might sound. MPD’s personnel policies are governed by a labor contract with explicit rules regarding assignments and shifts. In essence, individual officers bid for assignments based on order of seniority.

“We can’t tell people where they can and cannot work,” says Sgt. Jesse Garcia, an MPD spokesman. “To actually move somebody over there would be outside of the contract and basically against their rights as an employee.”

Garcia compares it to posting a job listing for a police liaison at (predominantly-black) North Community High School and limiting it to African-American candidates. “You would be staring down the barrel of a lawsuit at some point,” he says.

Garcia also points out that the CURA study relies on outdated numbers to draw its conclusions, as the 2000 census was completed nearly a decade ago. He argues that the Hmong community is no longer so heavily concentrated on the North Side. “It has spread out through the city much more,” he says.

In addition, any deal would have to be brokered with the Minneapolis Police Federation. The police union has notoriously sharp elbows and lately has been at loggerheads with police brass over the firing of officer Jason Andersen.

Andersen is the cop who shot Fong Lee in 2006. He was exonerated of any wrongdoing by the department, and a civil jury subsequently ruled that Andersen did not use excessive force in shooting Lee. But Andersen was subsequently arrested on a domestic assault charge, which apparently prompted an internal affairs investigation by the MPD and led to his dismissal.

The police federation has made it clear that it’s not happy about Andersen’s firing. Lt. Robert Kroll, vice president of the police union, told the Pioneer Press last month that Andersen was simply a hard-nosed cop doing his job.

“In the current administration, that is not tolerated,” Kroll told the St. Paul daily. “They don’t want big, tough street cops. They feel he got them negative press over Fong Lee, so they’re going to make him pay.”

While the internal-police spat has little to do with whether a Hmong cop is assigned to the 4th Precinct day shift, it might mean that the police federation will be in little mood to compromise over contractual obligations. (Calls to the police union by Minnesota Independent were not returned.)

Despite these hurdles, Wameng Moua, editor of Hmong Today, argues that the city’s leadership can get a Hmong officer assigned to the day shift in the 4th Precinct if it’s truly viewed as a priority. Even a Hmong liaison who is not a sworn law-enforcement officer would be a big improvement, he notes.

“We all know that if anything is a priority they’re going to pursue it despite any budget restraints,” Moua says. “To me it just seems the mayor, the chief, they just don’t see it as a priority to help out a big part of their constituency.”

Samuels hopes that some kind of deal can eventually be brokered.

“I think we have to broach the subject with the police and the union to see if exceptional circumstances could bring about an exceptional compromise,” he says, “because there is significant hardship in the community.”

Here are excerpts from statements issue Tuesday afternoon, mainly by DFLers.

Associate DFL Party Chair Donna Cassutt:

…Governor Pawlenty and the Republicans failed Minnesota — and today, Minnesota’s working families are paying the price of their failure. In slavish adherence to the same failed philosophy that drove America into recession — not to mention his own ambition — Pawlenty and the Republicans have embarked on the arrogant, reckless, and potentially illegal path of unallotment that will hurt hundreds of thousands of Minnesotans — and drive Minnesota’s economy even further into a hole. In the middle of the deepest recession in three decades, it is unconscionable that Governor Pawlenty and the Republicans would cut Minnesotans’ police and fire protection, damage our hospitals, kick Minnesotans off healthcare, and further dim our children’s future rather than do their jobs and negotiate in good faith with the legislative majority.

The governor admits his cuts and deferrals were ‘targeted’—sadly, those targeted clearly include our most vulnerable: those living in poverty, the disabled, children, and seniors. And Pawlenty knows it.

State Senate Assistant Majority Leader Tarryl Clark, DFL-St. Cloud:

The governor is cutting jobs and increasing taxes for renters and property tax payers. For the first time this year, Minnesotans are paying more in property taxes than income taxes, and it is going to get worse. We offered a fair and balanced solution and the governor decided he didn’t want to do his job and negotiate a common-sense budget, so now he’s continuing his attack on the things that make our state great.

The governor made a decision to raise property taxes, cut local public safety, and put our schools at risk because he wasn’t willing to do his job. Instead of working with the Legislature, he and his Republican legislator enablers have chosen to put more Minnesotans out of work. The governor has continued to attack the things that make our state great and put his own political ambitions ahead of the needs of Minnesotans.

St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman:

Minnesota communities were critically hurt today by the governor’s action, and nearly every Minnesotan will personally be affected. It could be in the form of no cop in their kid’s school, higher property taxes, or a local library that is no longer open. Many Minnesotans will think in the coming year that this is not the state they knew, or the state they want it to be.

Over the past six years, Minnesota cities have lost $750 million in local government aid, and as a result property taxes have increased over 65% statewide. This increase in property taxes, however, has fallen short of replacing the lost aid, so essential city services have also been cut back.

Former U.S. Sen. Mark Dayton:

Governor Pawlenty’s drastic unallotments show his  willingness to again sacrifice the best interests of Minnesota on the altar of his presidential ambitions.  Once again, he has chosen to shelter our state’s wealthiest citizens from paying their fair share of taxes, at the expense of schoolchildren, police  officers and firefighters, people without health insurance, hospital and nursing home patients, and others in need.

Ramsey County Attorney Susan Gaertner:

Today’s action by Governor Pawlenty … is clearly a seminal moment in our state’s history. Indeed, it is a sad day when Minnesota’s representative government cannot work together to solve one of the most pressing economic and fiscal disasters our state has ever faced. For anyone to call the governor’s action “strong leadership” would belie the essential meaning of good government and principled service to its constituents.

Clearly, these are difficult times that require difficult decisions, but those decisions are best made after a meaningful debate and within a spirit of compromise. The process we have witnessed was neither.

Today, I call on Governor Pawlenty to remain open to a truly democratic process and call for a special session…

Minneapolis City Council President Barb Johnson:

It is important for everyone to understand that cuts made by the Governor are massive and will be felt by every Minnesotan, and unfortunately those cuts still will not solve the State’s budget problem. Since 2003 the Governor has cut more than $50 million from the fund Minneapolis uses to pay for police officers and firefighters. The people of Minneapolis contribute much more to the state in taxes than we get back, and once again, the Governor has chosen to take the State’s financial problems and pass them on to cities across Minnesota. As local governments, we provide direct services to our residents and visitors—unlike the State, we can’t pass those cuts on to someone else. That’s means we’ll have to continue to make tough choices.

House Speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher, DFL-Minneapolis:

In just under an hour today, Gov. Pawlenty has done more damage to Minnesota than he has throughout his entire career. The deep cuts he proposes are one more rejection of the fair combination of cuts and revenue preferred by Minnesotans and passed by the Legislature.

State Sen. John Marty, DFL-Roseville:

The governor’s action is in line with his recent veto of the anti-bullying bill. Tim Pawlenty has become the schoolyard bully; he is picking on the sickest, most vulnerable people in our state.

While the governor tried to minimize the impact of his cuts on cities, schools and hospitals, those cuts will cause real harm to real people. But the unallotments where the governor showed the least compassion were in the cuts to health and human services. He used a long string of adjectives to decry the rapid growth of General Assistance Medical Care — even though this growth is caused by more adults losing their jobs and their health care, and in desperation are turning to GAMC.

As his own HHS Commissioner acknowledged, the people Pawlenty hits hardest are the ‘sickest of the sick and the poorest of the poor’.

Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak:

Today Governor Pawlenty has made his choices about how to cut the state budget. I deeply disagree with the governor because his choices will hurt many people. The governor has offered no plan for putting people to work, only for cutting jobs during a tough economy, and has offered no strategy for fixing a broken state budget that continues to lurch from deficit to deficit.

House Minority Leader Marty Seifert, R-Marshall:

Governor Pawlenty today did what Minnesota Democrats cannot: He made government live within its means. Unallotment is not anyone’s ideal solution, but it’s what the session came to when the other side proved they could not set priorities or embrace reform.

Democrats who condemn the governor’s actions seem to forget they had more than five months to find a solution. Had they spent more time working with us on reforms and efficiencies, and less time in committees that produced no results, this day would have been avoided.

Government employees’ unions also weighed in. Here’s what Eliot Seide, director of AFSCME Council 5, had to say:

Governor Pawlenty is wearing unallotment like a badge of honor. It’s a badge of shame that should be worn by every legislator who refused to make taxes fair. They’re willing to wreck Minnesota to protect the wealthy.

We’re the blue-collar workers who take care of South St. Paul, while Pawlenty cuts his hometown. We feed grandma, while they force her nursing home to close. We staff the emergency rooms, while they cut hospitals to the bone. We help minds soar, while they crowd classrooms and hike tuition. We need the Legislature to come back, get the job done, and help us protect strong communities where everyone can thrive.

Jim Monroe of MAPE, the Minnesota Association of Professional Employees:

Governor Pawlenty’s unallotment priorities speak volumes to the fact he has turned his back on Minnesotans while turning his attention to the national spotlight. While he cuts local government aid to communities which will delay hiring police and firefighters, or lay them off, Governor Pawlenty would rather threaten the safety of Minnesotans than lay off members of his full-time security detail who travel all over the country with him.

When it comes to education, Governor Pawlenty turns his back on the public school system and the University of Minnesota which educated him and helped him pull himself up by his bootstraps. Pawlenty’s cuts to state colleges and universities coupled with payment delays to school districts will shred the bootstraps of every high school and potential college student in this state who desires a brighter future.

How can Governor Pawlenty call himself a Sam’s Club Governor when he increases the number of uninsured in this state by 30,000 people knowing full well that every Sam’s Club member and every other Minnesotan will end up paying for our uninsured citizens?

We’ll continue to add reactions here as they come in.

The piece also mentions that among those preceding Johnson in the president’s seat was her mother, Alice Rainville. Dionne quotes Johnson as seeing in Clinton’s treatment more ageism than sexism. Johnson didn’t have to worry about either in her last election: The council president, who’s occasionally said to harbor other ambitions, ran unopposed.