Well, uff da. A guy has to wonder if we really need to spend seven figures to teach grown, elected officials the same things Arlene’s grandson learned in afternoon kindergarten.
There’s a long-standing arrangement up here regarding the shared dock down at the public access. For about six years now, Earl and old man Henderson have been engaged in a cold war over who is supposed to replace the loose boards on the north side. They don’t yell about it. They don’t even really talk about it. They just politely glare at each other across the bait shop counter, and eventually, somebody’s nephew gets tired of tripping and fixes the boards himself.
It’s not a perfect system, but it doesn’t cost the taxpayers a dime.
Down in Minneapolis, however, they have a slightly different approach to conflict resolution. We were sitting at the cafe on Tuesday, nursing a second round of Arlene’s dark roast, when the morning paper came through. It turns out the Mayor and the City Council are having such a tough go of it that they’ve decided to hire a consultant. They are spending $1.4 million of taxpayer money for “executive coaching and mediation.”
Now, that is a real unique way of saying the people running the biggest city in the state are going to couples counseling.
It’s a bit much, is what it is. You look at the cast of characters down there at City Hall, and it’s not hard to see why the wheels are coming off the wagon. On one side of the room, you’ve got the new, young progressive wing of the council. I’m sure they’re very bright, and they certainly mean well, but they seem to treat city government less like a job and more like a competitive debate tournament on the internet. They’ve got big, sweeping theories about tearing down the system, which is all well and good until somebody actually needs the snowplows to run or the garbage to be picked up. They’d rather grab a microphone and make a scene than pick up the phone and make a deal.
On the other side, you’ve got Mayor Frey and the old-guard DFLers. You’d hope they’d be the ones keeping the boat steady, but lately, they seem perfectly willing to jump right into the mud puddle. Instead of just taking a breath and being the adults in the room, they let themselves get entirely bent out of shape, locking horns with folks who think “compromise” is a four-letter word. It’s exhausting just reading about it.
The article said this $1.4 million contract is going to help them set “new norms.” And what are these ground-breaking, million-dollar rules? Things like “no personal attacks,” and “pick up the phone before you pick up the mic.”
Well, uff da. A guy has to wonder if we really need to spend seven figures to teach grown, elected officials the same things Arlene’s grandson learned in afternoon kindergarten.
“Yeah, no, that’s a tough deal,” Earl said, folding the newspaper and setting it next to his half-eaten toast. “But you know, for $1.4 million, I’d be willing to drive my pickup down to City Hall and tell them to knock it off. I’d even bring my own megaphone.”
He’s not wrong. Most of us are just sitting up here, watching the political circus down south, wondering how it got so complicated. Minneapolis is a great city, but fixing it isn’t going to come from a quarterly, two-day, taxpayer-funded trust fall retreat. It comes from putting your head down, doing the boring work, and realizing that you don’t have to agree with your neighbor to help them patch the roof.
But I suppose that kind of common sense doesn’t cost a million dollars, so they probably aren’t interested. Until they figure it out, we’ll just stay up here, drinking cheap coffee and keeping the peace.
Ultimately this chaos falls on the shoulders of the residents of Minneapolis – you got what you voted for, but don’t aks us to help pay to clean up the mess. We stopped traaveling to Saint Paul- Minneapolis back in 2020 – the writing was on the wall. Not unlike people who are here illegally – residents of Minneapolis and Saint Paul should stay put and work to fix the problems in their own back yard.
Functionality has been missing in Minneapolis for many years. Observers can question the mayors leadership or should it be that there is much more to consider? The City Council is a disparate body. And that body does not have leadership that can bring consensus on actions to remedy the most important issues. Instead the only result is impasse. And the Mayor has no tools to encourage or persuade Councilors to act
To add insult to injury Robin Wonsley, and perhaps other council members, did not even attend the publicly paid counseling sessions!
Just another scam wrought by commiecrat children tyrants who should not be trusted to take outstretched trash much less run a city.
Lock em all up for this boondoggle