Last November I began a campaign for Minneapolis Mayor by raising issues that are important to the future of our City. I wanted to bring a point of view to this election that wasn’t even being considered at City Hall. I wanted to focus attention on helping homeowners before they became victims of foreclosure, addressing the causes of crime, continuing to invest in improving our neighborhoods, providing pre-school education to every Minneapolis child, and improving the financial management of our city.

Although I would have liked to vigorously continue this effort, changes in my family situation have made it impossible for me to put forth the time and effort that this campaign deserves. I am, therefore, immediately suspending my campaign.

I’d like to thank those who supported me financially, at the caucuses, and with their volunteer hours. Your efforts have been greatly appreciated and helped to bring my message of resident empowerment coupled with responsible and responsive government to the Minneapolis electorate.

Sincerely,
Bob

In response to an interview request shortly before the DFL caucuses in Minneapolis early this month, Miller’s campaign staff told the Minnesota Independent that Miller’s availability was restricted due to a family medical situation.

But who’s behind it? … many are unsure — but they’re trying to find out. Diction is being dissected, typefaces tracked, prose pounced, and links looked at hard.

The Scoop provides some sleuthing of its own (absent the medallion-hunt’s hints in rhyme). But the Minnesota Independent was already on the case with a novel approach: asking mystery blogger “Scorned in Saint Paul” who he or she is.

I sent “Scorned in Saint Paul” an inquiring e-mail after MyMayorIsCheatingOnMe.com linked to a MnIndy post about Coleman’s efforts to keep his staff’s budget communications private. Here’s the reply I got:

I have been involved in community issues for several years and am very familiar with the Mayor and his staff as I have had numerous interactions with them through my involvement over these issues. I am appalled at the mismanagement of our city by someone who was elected on a progressive platform. Actually, any platform for that matter.

Chris Coleman has a history of being vindictive and I don’t want this to be about me (and also for me, my current employment negates my ability to be public). I want this to be about the issues I am talking about at the blog. All across St. Paul, from all sorts of groups, there is a lot of private discontent with Mayor Coleman.  This blog is about starting a public dialogue about the conversations that are already, and have been for some time, taking place in private. Chris is running unopposed in a one party town — this is not conducive to critical dialogue and creating the best city possible. If he’s on top of the City DFL hierarchy, who’s going to challenge him from within the party? My last post touched on this oligarchy. He’s also runing for a job he wants to leave behind. In every possible way but publicly stating it — he’s running for governor already. Is this the best for St. Paul? See my post regarding Arne Carlson’s comments on good governance.

So I want this blog to really address the issues: Chris not being honest about running for governor, the rnc, the budget, the hockey rink proposal, libraries,etc. A stronger and more critical public dialogue needs to take place in our one party town.

I admire the work you and others do at The Minnesota Independent.

To be clear, I am a DFL party member.  However, I am not working for any political party or for any individual campaign for office at this time.

Instead, Obama told Rybak he wanted a grassroots movement in which even his Inauguration Day would be a celebration of people beyond himself, Rybak recalled. Rybak, who is seated only 40 rows from where Obama takes the oath of office today, is sometimes said to be the first mayor to have endorsed Obama for president.

Last week Rybak announced his intention to run for re-election this year, ending speculation that he might get a new job in Obama’s administration, but pointedly not ending speculation that he might run for governor in 2010.

Meanwhile, Rybak’s chief challenger in the race for mayor, Minneapolis Neighborhood Revitalization Program Director Bob Miller, issued a special campaign email for today’s occasion:

Happy Inauguration Day! On this historic day I join President Obama in celebrating the progress we’ve made and looking forward to the work ahead. Over the next seven weeks, I will highlight my plans in key areas for Minneapolis’ future.

Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak’s announcement Tuesday that he’ll run for re-election means there’ll be a two-man race for the DFL endorsement, at least according to the other man: Rybak rival Bob Miller.

Miller’s prediction was borne out, for now anyway, by City Council Member Ralph Remington, who confirmed he won’t run for mayor now that Rybak’s in the race. (Note: Miller’s calculation doesn’t factor in perennial candidate Dick Franson.)

Rybak’s announcement surprised few, Miller included. “I expected nothing less,” he said after learning that Rybak had made it official.  ”That was the case back in November.” (Miller announced his own candidacy Nov. 13.)

As for the city’s dire financial straits, “it’s going to be pretty pitiful,” said Miller, acknowledging a looming budget gap that would cramp any mayor’s style.

But that doesn’t keep Miller from contrasting his approach with Rybak’s.

“We have differences on how we think citizens should be involved in their local government, how we would manage the finances of the city, the kinds of initiatives that we would focus on,” he said.

Indeed, the crashing economy can put their differences in higher relief. For example, Miller said, as a mayor during hard times, “you don’t put money in for consultants to try to sell your water” — a reference to Rybak’s marketing effort to sell municipal water to more of the suburbs that surround Minneapolis.

“It may be a great idea if you’ve got all kinds of resources available to you [but not now],” Miller said.

Rybak’s initiative hit one snag when the city’s water, drawn from the Mississippi River, experienced an ill-timed run of malodorousness in the midst of the marketing. And today comes word that plans for a major upgrade to the city’s water works is likely to be canceled to forestall rate increases.

Better management of public funds is one of Miller’s pledges. “I don’t think that’s fiscally sustainable, keeping on raising property taxes by 8 percent a year and raising the fees on city services,” he said.

Miller is a former Rybak backer, he points out.

“I was a strong supporter of his when he ran for the first time,” Miller said. “But he made commitments to me that he hasn’t followed through on, and that has caused me to have second thoughts.”

Rybak and the city council are folding the city’s longstanding Neighborhood Revitalization Program (NRP) that Miller now directs into a community engagement program that doesn’t measure up to NRP  in Miller’s estimation.

Despite his deep roots in neighborhood development, Miller’s campaign won’t reprise Rybak’s first run eight years ago as a community activist, he says, in part because Rybak benefited from well-heeled backers motivated to eject the power bloc then in place.

“We’re not going to be a high-buck campaign,” Miller said. “We just don’t have the resources.”

A Web site, house parties and other events will carry him through the DFL convention. Should he not prevail there, he’ll abide by the endorsement and not work against the victor, he said.

Ralph Remington

Council Member Remington was ready to weigh his own bid for the mayor’s job when Rybak announced.

“If R.T. didn’t run I probably would have taken a strong look at running,” he said. Now he’s in Rybak’s corner.

“He’s been great for the city. I’m going to support him. … The reason why I’m not running is that we’re mostly in sync on things. … Sure, we hold different viewpoints on strategies and on certain matters dealing with the police. But we’ve got a relationship built up over the last four years. I can go to him” with concerns, for example, about law enforcement.

Remington hasn’t yet decided whether to run for re-election to his council seat — or any other, he said.

“There is no other race that I’m looking at,” he said.

However, he is, like Rybak, in contact with the Obama administration and will be leaving Saturday to attend the presidential inauguration. (Council Members Robert Lillegren and Sandy Colvin Roy will also make the trip, he said.) He was invited to so many different inaugural week events, he said, he’s going to have to pick and choose which to attend.

As for any word of new job prospects for him on the Obama front: “No news,” Remington said, somewhat coyly.

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 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.