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.