I wrote an opinion piece that appeared in the local weekly, the Maplewood Review, a couple weeks back. I'm rather late in providing this link to it, but thankfully, the Lillie papers keep their archives available online for a very long time.

Labels: media

Posted by John Nephew on 4/27/2009 02:41:00 PM Email to a Friend | Permalink | Comments
Tweet

I have to confess, I was a little disappointed to read in the April city newsletter that Erik Hjelle is not planning to run for reelection. But I can understand it -- if he's listened to anyone beyond the protective circle of pom-poms of his small band of loyal cheerleaders, he has probably picked up on how incredibly unpopular he is. It's only natural that he would not want to put himself out there to suffer a humiliating defeat.

Of course, I've also learned that we can't trust anything Erik says or writes. (That very same column repeats his frequent yet false claim that he has never accepted political contributions.) So I won't actually believe his promise not to run until the filing period is over in July.

Labels: council politics

Posted by John Nephew on 4/25/2009 10:39:00 AM Email to a Friend | Permalink | Comments
Tweet

Today's Pioneer Press features an article about a report on the consolidated Ramsey County dispatch system. It's interesting to read in light of some of the issues and challenges we've heard about in Maplewood with respect to the centralized dispatching system.

Labels: media, public safety

Posted by John Nephew on 4/21/2009 10:42:00 AM Email to a Friend | Permalink | Comments
Tweet

Sometimes it's easy to tell that something is a prank on the first of April. Other times it's not.

My colleague, Will Rossbach, takes the mayor to task for writing an e-mail to the House Minority Leader, opposing a bill that would fund land acquisition for conservation in the Fish Creek Natural Area Greenway -- and actually opposing the very idea of buying this land from its owner.

But can we be sure that the mayor actually wrote and sent this e-mail? Even though I'm told it first appeared on websites friendly to the mayor, might it be an April Fool's joke, or an impersonation?

On March 9, we directed the city staff to work on this. The mayor even asked staff to get a written agreement from CoPar to extend the time we have to purchase the land from them. Here's the video:



At our last meeting, on March 23, the mayor herself requested that staff post information on the progress of the Fish Creek Greenway bills on the city website.



It's hard to reconcile these statements on the record with the e-mail attributed to the mayor that has been circulating.

Labels: council politics, video

Posted by John Nephew on 4/01/2009 04:09:00 PM Email to a Friend | Permalink | Comments
Tweet

Yesterday morning Peter Fischer, Dewey Konewko, and I testified in favor of H.F. 2055 at the legislature. Audio of the entire meeting is available on the House web site, but it's a huge file, so I excerpted just the twenty minutes that was spent with our testimony and then follow-up questions and discussions of the committee.



I felt like it was a positive reception on the whole. The bill was “laid over for possible inclusion,” which I guess means it's moving forward and at this point still has a shot at getting Maplewood a share of the Legacy Amendment sales tax revenues that are dedicated for conservation.

Labels: environment, finance, parks

Posted by John Nephew on 4/01/2009 11:39:00 AM Email to a Friend | Permalink | Comments
Tweet