Diana Longrie

Ousted Maplewood mayor Diana Longrie attributes her loss a week ago to union opposition and the write-in candidacy of Ken Smart, but she hasn’t ruled out a run at the council seat made vacant by Will Rossbach’s win.

Will Rossbach avenged his electoral defeat from four years ago, ousting Maplewood Mayor Diana Longrie by a 51-39 percent margin on Tuesday. In the previous campaign, Longrie prevailed with 53 percent of the vote.
Rossbach will likely have a friendly city council to work with over the next four years. Kathleen Juenemann and James Llanas, both [...]

The Maplewood mayoral contest will be a rematch of the 2005 race. Incumbent Diana Longrie will once again face off against city council member Will Rossbach. In a seven-candidate field, Rossbach was the top vote getter with 34 percent of the vote.

It’s election day — although you’d be hard-pressed to find much evidence of that fact.

The most intriguing political contests of 2009 might just be in Maplewood, the Ramsey County suburb that’s become notorious for its combustible politics. “Brace yourself,” one candidate says of this year’s races. “It’s just going to get ugly.”

As the media has cast a more skeptical eye toward Sarah Palin in recent days, the revelations about her tenure as mayor of Wasilla and governor of Alaska have sounded oddly familiar. The vindictive firings of bureaucrats over petty grievances; the hiring of unqualified cronies to run government agencies; the meddling of “First Dude” Todd [...]