Rep. Betty McCollum. Photo: Andy Birkey, MnIndy

Rep. Betty McCollum hosted her second town hall meeting on health care reform Monday evening, and the event lacked the fireworks that have come to typify discussions of the topic.

“I support a public insurance option that will increase competition in the marketplace,” McCollum told an overflow crowd of supporters and opponents at Macalester College. While that public option was the main complaint of many at the meeting, McCollum took heat from Democrats who said the party leadership is not doing enough to counter misinformation from Republicans.

“Over the past few weeks we’ve all seen the video of congressional hearings that have turned into unproductive shouting matches,” McCollum told the crowd.

“I welcome passionate opinions on this issue and I expect you to share yours with me. And I have strong opinions about health care that I will share.”

She read letters from constituents who had lost their health insurance, were sick, and have decided not to seek care because they could not afford it. And she outlined the problems she sees with the current system of health care.

“My Republican colleagues have made killing health care reform the center of their political agenda,” she said in her opening remarks. “The same people who spent a trillion dollars in Iraq after misleading our nation in that war now say it’s too expensive to invest in health care here at home.”

Reform opponent at Macalester chapel. Photo: Andy Birkey, MnIndy

The only potentially inflammatory aspect of the night was a young man in the front row holding up a sign of President Obama portrayed wearing the black and white make-up of the Joker film character.

Joe from White Bear Lake stood up and took offense at the sign.

“I’m a loyal conservative Republican and I would like to start by asking that young man with the sign over there to put it down. I don’t support President Obama but I just find that uncomfortable.”

The young man defiantly held his sign higher.

The rest of the evening was marked by thoughtful consideration of health care reform.

Lydia, a pediatrician from St. Paul, slammed Democrats for not doing enough. “I am totally in support of health care reform, but I have to admit I am really frightened about what seems to be the lack of leadership in the Democratic party about this,” she said. “We hear so much from Republicans. There hasn’t been enough clearness [about the health care reform plan from Democrats]. And it is just very disappointing and a little scary that the Democrats aren’t standing up and being strong.”

McCollum responded, “But there are many on the other side of the aisle whose goal is to stop health reform altogether and so the the more misinformation, the more fear they can put in the hearts of people, the more distraction they can make happen around health care reform, that’s what they try to accomplish.”

A woman named Bonnie was concerned that she would be forced to leave her current health insurance after a year and enroll in the public option.

To that McCollum responded, “I would not vote for anything that would force anybody into a public option.”

Ken, who had worked as a private physician and is currently employed by the Veterans Administration, praised the public option.

“I want to thank you for your support of the public option. I’ve experienced both sides, the private and the public sector. the VA system is the best system in the country. I’m happy at the VA. I think the federally run system at the VA is excellent and I would encourage a system like that for all Americans.”

Among the other commenters was Tom from St. Paul, who wanted the government out of health care and an end to mandates. Another man urged McCollum to vote against any bill that provided taxpayer funding for abortion. One woman, who identified as a Democrat, said she started going to Tea Party meetings because of the national debt.

(Lavverrue, Flickr)

Yesterday, St. Paul became the third municipality in Minnesota to offer a domestic partnership registry. No citizens testified against the measure, and the city council unanimously approved the registry Wednesday afternoon. Mayor Chris Coleman signed the ordinance into law surrounded by LGBT advocates at the St. Paul gay bar, Camp.

The capital city follows Minneapolis, which enacted such a registry in 1991, and Duluth, which passed a registry into law earlier this year. The entire state of Wisconsin offers a domestic partner registry and limited domestic partner benefits.

Because Minnesota municipalities are forbidden by state law from offering any type of domestic partner benefits, the registry is largely symbolic. But proponents say the new law could benefit couples and businesses for which proof of domestic partnership is needed for legal or insurance reasons.

The cost for a couple to add themselves to the registry is $20.

Elko noted a then-staggering number of RNC-related tweets: 17,000. Last week, one estimate pegged the number of tweets related to Iran’s election and the subsequent protests at nearly a billion.

A MnIndy sampling of RNC tweets showed that St. Paul’s protests had some of the same confusion and enthusiasm, if not the gravitas, seen in recent demostrations in Tehran:

Police: “You must go to the left.” Protester: “Your left or ours?” 6:31 PM Sep 4th from web

Overheard at May Day cafe: “Dude, I totally got tear gassed. It was fucking awesome.” 11:57 AM Sep 3rd from web

Overheard from excited Mpls policeman, “So I shot him with impact round a[nd] he just fucking dropped!” 6:51 PM Sep 1st from web

Here’s one area in which St. Paul exceeds Tehran, for now. The roster of arrested journalists in Iran is as yet not quite half as long as those arrested during the RNC — though with much more serious implications for the people detained.

(Lavverrue, Flickr)

St. Paul City Council members Dave Thune and Lee Helgen will be introducing a proposal for a domestic partner registry this week. For a $20 fee, couples who cannot marry (and some who wish not to) can get their relationship recognized through a city registry. Proponents say the registry will aid couples, especially same-sex couples, in securing benefits through employers.

“St. Paul is joining the rest of the country in acknowledging and accepting domestic partnerships because we respect and care about all people of the city,” Thune said in a statement.

Minneapolis has had such a registry since the early 1990s, and Duluth passed a similar law earlier this year. More than 80 municipalities in the United States offer such a service.

The proposed cuts are equivalent to 3.3 percent of the program’s funding in 2009 and 7.6 percent in 2010. Towns with populations under 1,000 are exempt from the cuts. Many municipalities in greater Minnesota with shrinking populations rely on LGA to bolster their finances, as do larger cities with high levels of poverty.

The League of Minnesota Cities has posted a spreadsheet breaking down Pawlenty’s proposed cuts to local government aid. While a city’s overall budget needs to be scrutinized in order to gauge the significance of the hit, in sheer dollar amounts here are the ten municipalities slated to lose the biggest chunks of change:

1. Minneapolis: $44.6 million in 2009; $102.4 million in 2010
2. St. Paul: $5 million in 2009; $11.6 million in 2010
3. Rochester: $1.7 million in 2009; $3.9 million in 2010
4. Duluth: $1.5 million in 2009; $3.5 million in 2010
5. St. Cloud: $1.2 million in 2009; $2.7 million in 2010
6. Winona: $531,000 in 2009; $1.2 million in 2010
7. Moorhead: $489,000 in 2009; $1.1 million in 2010
8. Brooklyn Center: $464,000 in 2009; $1.1 million in 2010
9. Owatonna, $454,000 in 2009; $1 million in 2010
10. Faribault: $392,000 in 2009; $905,000 in 2010

Photo: stpaul.gov

“Shaken.” That’s one word Mayor Chris Coleman used to describe St. Paul during his State of the City address Monday. He said “a near-collapse of financial markets” has already forced him to make “significant cuts” to city services.

Coleman also had words of encouragement, but he cautioned that “there are no shortcuts to economic prosperity” — and said those who claim otherwise are either “lying to you … [or] fooling themselves.”

Still, he reminded citizens that St. Paul’s CIty Hall was built during the Great Depression and promised that even in “excruciating times,” the city would “refuse to be ordinary.”

Signs of hope Coleman cited ranged from the quaint to the depressing: downtown flower baskets, “dozens” of people who shovel their neighbors’ walks, and a tally of vacant houses that held steady — at 2,000 — from June 2008 to March 2009 (”arguably the housing market’s most challenging period”).

Coleman stressed that transportation infrastructure investment would be the big-ticket item that could pull the city through.

Coleman characterized the Central Corridor light-rail transit line as “crucial to future of city.” Without tooting his own horn for brokering a dispute over train noise between the Metropolitan Council and Minnesota Public Radio, he said, “One by one, obstructions to the Central Corridor have been removed.”

And Coleman called a proposed high-speed rail link from Chicago to St. Paul’s Union Depot “an opportunity we will seize and we will make a reality.”

Although the mayor was a late supporter of Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, Coleman said the city is lucky to have the former Illinois senator in the White House. “We are fortunate to have a president who understands the importance of cities.”

The setting for the annual address — at one of St. Joseph’s Hospital’s ongoing expansion projects — was meant to show off the health sector as a backbone of the local economy. And he called education a “cornerstone” for St. Paul since its founding to the present day.

“Not only will our children be ready to work,” Coleman said, “… they’ll be ready to work in a global economy.” He bragged that St. Paul’s public school students speak 70 languages — a talent, he said, that employers increasingly value.

The health sector, education and the global economy were also themes for Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak in his State of the City address last month. By comparison, Coleman’s speech was shorter, generally lacked lofty policy rhetoric and was less a laundry list than Rybak’s speech. (True to its bigger-twin stereotype, Minneapolis claims that about a dozen more foreign languages are spoken in its public schools.)

Both mayors are running for re-election this year, but both have also shown interest in running for governor in 2010, using other occasions to show off their grasp of statewide concerns. But such ambitions weren’t evident at either speech.

Also not highlighted was the St. Paul’s hosting of last year’s Republican National Convention — a point of pride and shame for St. Paulites. City and Ramsey County officials have had to drop most charges that arose from mass arrests and pre-emptive raids, which dominated local news coverage.

“Safe we are but not naive,” was one standout line from a poem composed for the event that St. Paul Poet Laureate Carol Connolly recited before Coleman’s address.

Coleman had a new initiative to unveil that aims to promote greater involvement of residents in their community. The Volunteer-Inspire-Prosper Web page offers a comprehensive list of volunteer opportunities. Among them, the St. Paul Police Reserve, a group of reserve officers typically have duties like traffic control and barricade erection.

They’re wearing riot gear in London and they’re talking recounts in New York. It’s all so St. Paul, last fall.

St. Paul to London

Demonstrators, massed in the capital city to protest a gathering of people who wield political power, met police wielding riot-control weaponry. A bank’s windows were broken. Peaceful crowds were trapped by police moving in pincer formations.

It could have been the Republican National Convention (RNC), September 2008, in  St. Paul, Minn.. But it was the G20 Summit, April 2009, in London, England.

Differences: A man died in London after he collapsed in an area police had hemmed in. (Natural causes, one protester said; thrown bottles hampered police medics’ efforts, police said.) And the United States of America has a Bill of Rights that’s supposed to guarantee freedom of speech; England doesn’t.

Uncanny similarity: For their summit, the G20 leaders selected a London location that people call the ExCel Centre. The RNC took place at St. Paul’s Xcel Center.

Minnesota to New York

As Election Day turns into The Day After (and the day after that), the margin between two candidates dwindles to less than a half-percent of the total votes cast. Fundraising for a recount and charges of election-stealing ensue.

Sounds like the Minnesota U.S. Senate election, November 2008 — but it’s New York’s special congressional election, April 2009, where Democrat Scott Murphy leads Republican Jim Tedisco by a mere 25 votes.

Differences: New York doesn’t count its absentee ballots until after Election Day and gives overseas ballots an extra couple of weeks to arrive — leaving thousands of votes still to include in the canvass. (Minnesota counts all absentee ballots on Election Day and accepts none that arrive any later.) And President Obama made a last-minute robocall that could have made the difference with Election Day returns. (Candidate Obama made no such pitch for Franken.)

Uncanny similarity: The parallel universes are converging as Republicans fall back on discredited election-stealing charges from the Al Franken-Norm Coleman dispute to prime the cash pump for New York’s post-election drama. (Democrats, presumably slightly less prone to getting riled since they hold slim leads in both races, are so far making a more generic fundraising pitch in New York.)

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.

Photo: Jill Brady (via The Vigil)

FBI whistleblower-turned-activist Coleen Rowley is on a roll. She ripped into the City of St. Paul’s report on Republican National Convention law enforcement in a commentary that appeared Friday at MinnPost and today at The Huffington Post. Tomorrow, as court hearings start in the cases of the RNC8 protesters, Rowley and individuals from Women Against Military Madness (WAMM) and other groups will file formal complaints against the city, state and Ramsey County over police tactics. And Rowley’s inquiries into what she suspects was overbroad surveillance during the RNC are starting to bear fruit — or at least what she calls a first “non-responsive” response from Ramsey County Sheriff Bob Fletcher’s office.

In her commentary, Rowley cites President Obama’s inauguration as an example of a National Special Security Event (like the RNC) that police pulled off “somehow, without tear gas, tasers or thousands of people dragged off in handcuffs.” St. Paul’s Heffelfinger-Luger report, Rowley points out, avoids the question of “whether such aggressive ‘police state’ action during the RNC was actually necessary.” She concludes:

Perhaps the worst mistake made in the RNC Commission Report is falling for the notion of trade-offs between security and liberty instead of seeing them as intertwined. President Obama phrased it well in his inaugural speech statement, when he said “we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals.”

After a “Mardi Gras-themed procession” at noon on Tuesday on the state Capitol lawn, Rowley and others plan to file ”Notices of Claim” (pdf) that will contain charges like this:

In the year-long investigation and planning that preceded the RNC and the police enforcement during the RNC, Sept 1-4, 2008, the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office, along with other state, local and federal law enforcement agencies and private corporations and associations of private companies, including the “Department of Homeland Security’s (now defunct) Highway Watch” and presumably the FBI’s “InfraGard” corporate partnerships did produce faulty and defamatory “intelligence” assertions that linked the organization WAMM that I am a member of to “terror networks”. Ramsey County opened an investigation approximately one year before the RNC that provided the basis of the false claims used to defame WAMM and to violate the privacy rights of WAMM members by then disseminating this information to private corporations, associations and other law enforcement agencies.

Rowley’s public-data requests to the FBI (her former employer) and Ramsey County have so far elicited only a brush-off response from Fletcher’s office (pdf).

Her draft response:

1) If I understand correctly, any data gathered on the other organizations and groups (besides the RNC Welcoming Committee) that I inquired about—to include that gained by viewing their websites–is not contained in separate files but in the same investigative file as the one that has led to prosecution of some of the “RNC Welcoming Committee”. Is that understanding correct?

2) If you are saying that the information your Department has collected on other groups and members of other groups, is all contained in one big file, there still would be no reason it cannot be segregated out for release, would there? Since there are no ongoing prosecutions related to these other groups and members of these other groups? For example: the “Women Against Military Madness (WAMM)”; “Troops Out Now”; the “Anti-War Committee”; “Protest RNC 2008” and other peace and social justice groups are charted out in a “Social Network Analysis” and “Power Centrality Ranking” that links them to the “RNC Welcoming Committee” in a Homeland Security-Highway Watch document that has recently come to light. It’s not clear whether this “intelligence” product was only produced as a result of “viewing their websites” but even if that’s so, wouldn’t there at least be notes and copies made from that law enforcement effort of analyzing the public websites?

3) I have a hard time believing that Ramsey County Sheriff Department informant(s) reported information only on the “RNC-8”. It is precisely the other individuals who are not being prosecuted and about whom information may be contained in the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office that is of interest for the research that Mr. Cox and I are conducting. Are informant report files maintained separately?

4) Again assuming I’m correct in believing that the Ramsey Sheriff Department’s information is contained in one big file that also involves the information collected on the “RNC Welcoming Committee,” what is the name of that file? How is it indexed for retrieval and further use? Was the file opened to contain all investigative data collected in the lead-up to the RNC or was it focused solely on the RNC Welcoming Committee? If the latter, why would the information on other groups and members of groups not connected to the prosecution of the “RNC Welcoming Committee” not be releasable at this time? Can you give me an idea of the size of the file and how many other individuals and groups (not being prosecuted) are documented or referenced in the file?

5) Why did you ask for a delay when first responding to my request back in December, telling me you expected my request to take a lot of time to gather up responsive materials?

Anti-meth billboard. Photo: Matt Ides, TCSP

Good news: Demand for help to get off meth is down by half in the Twin Cities. And that indicates lower meth use, according to the Minnesota Department of Human Services, Minnesota Public Radio reports. The proportion of meth-related admissions to metro treatment programs — 6 percent — was twice what it was two years ago, and teens comprise a mere 1 percent, down from 18 percent five years ago. Is it time to call this anti-meth public health campaign (above) a success and rid urban neighborhoods of these grisly billboards? Twin Cities Streets for People says it encourages disinventment in struggling areas such as St. Paul’s Frogtown.  

From the tcstreetsforpeople.org blog (where the photo above is captioned “new billboard sign at Como Avenue and Rice Street in St. Paul”):

There is nothing better than a billboard sign to keep people out of a neighborhood. This billboard in Frogtown sends a clear message to anyone passing through: meth addicts live here. Extreme you may think, but it really does send a message that this is a place you don’t want to be. To make things even better, the burnt out auto repair place makes a nice backdrop to the billboard. Moderate and low income communities are usually the ones that get this sort of treatment.

(St. Paul has been the site of a long-running struggle over its many billboards.) 

The billboard’s before-and-after photos of a meth addict come from the Faces of Meth project of the Multnomah Co. (Ore.) Sheriff’s Office, which also offers a free downloadable poster. It’s a descendant of the American Cancer Society’s popular “Smoking is Very Glamorous” poster from decades ago.