I can't take it anymore! This pothole situation has gotten completely out of control. I've held off posting about this issue for quite awhile, trying to give the city some time to get out and work the miles of roads in our great city before complaining. I think enough time has been given, and now I'm turning my anger on the individuals that represent the Ward. Not long ago Mayor Rybak allotted an extra million dollars to be used on pothole repair. I'm beginning to think that all of that money was used to repair roads in South Minneapolis rather than the East Side.
Maybe my route to work is just the worst in the entire city but I'm beginning to think that I may need to start looking for a Lunar Rover as my next vehicle to maneuver the craters on St. Anthony Pkwy/Industrial Blvd and Broadway. I have actually seen hubcaps fly off of vehicles as their wheels disappear into a cavernous hole. The sound of your shocks and struts bottoming out is never a pretty sound, and it is something that I hear on a daily basis. I can no longer dodge the holes on my route due to the sheer number of them. I know this isn't the most heavily traveled route in the city but it's getting ridiculous.
I don't say this very often but I am thrilled when I hop on 280 and cross into St. Paul right now because they have done a fantastic job at filling every pothole, even on the very light traffic roads that I take into work. I'd like to thank the city of St. Paul for their hard work (even though some news stations would disagree with me). I'd also like to call out our Councilman, Kevin Reich, and implore him to do something about this situation. If it would help, I am volunteering to walk behind a tar truck to fill the potholes myself. I'm sure I could find more than a few volunteers for this activity. Mr. Reich, would you like to join me? Help me save our cars!
Showing posts with label City Council. Show all posts
Showing posts with label City Council. Show all posts
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Ward 1 Convention Observations Part Deux
Kevin Reich's turn...
My first observation of Reich was that he didn't make it to the convention until after most of the delegates had arrived. I figure he either slept in, was very confident of the outcome, or (hopefully) was home making phone calls to delegates.
Reich did a much better job of shaking hands, and meeting with delegates than Howitz Hanna did. His team was fairly well organized with numerous signs, and what appeared to be a good floor plan. I enjoyed the fact that his volunteers had headsets, I'm not sure they were necessary but it at least gave me a good chuckle. I wish somebody would have mentioned to the Reich campaign early on that by having a 3 color scheme they're going to be spending a fortune on signs and lit. I'm a believer of the 'signs can't vote' thinking but also realize you have to have them. Keeping them cheap should always be the goal.
Anyways, I tried finding some video of Reich's speech, answers, or acceptance speech but had no luck in my search. Since I don't have a photographic memory, far from it in fact, I'll have to paraphrase what was said. Please comment if my memory is again fabricating things, and I get some of the paraphrasing wrong. It's also good for you since it means a much shorter post.
Reich's speech was much more organized than Howitz Hanna's, and had more of a conversational feel. He spoke a lot about his grassroots campaigning in both his speech and acceptance speech. He really talked up the success of the small house parties, and how they energized the people, and allowed him to get his platform out to the public. Grassroots campaigning takes an enormous amount of passion and devotion, I just didn't get that out of Reich. He came off almost shy at times, and didn't speak with much emotion. He spoke a lot of bringing job growth to the Ward, and building up areas with green jobs. His points in the speech were on target with what the delegation wanted to hear. Though his plan was right, I didn't hear how he planned to accomplish any of those plans. As was mentioned in the previous post, the next council is going to have a real budget crisis and tough decisions will need to be made. I'm not sure what Reich sees as areas that need to be cut but it will need to be addressed soon. I realize that the 'plans' are probably out there, and I intend on doing a later post about websites and conversations with candidates that I'm sure will address these issues. This is simply observations I made at the convention.
It was a pretty anti-climactic convention, with the outcome becoming fairly obvious after the first ballot. Riech had put together a good team that was able to turn out loyal delegates in masses, and that's the name of the game. Reich's acceptance speech I thought was very good. He accepted the nomination humbly and thanked the people he needed to. He also gave me hope by talking about his plans to be at the summer events around Ward 1, and to connect with his constituents.
Losing an endorsement isn't easy but I walked out of the convention with my head up thinking the delegates had made a good choice with a candidate that would be ready and willing to take on a job that is difficult, time consuming, and stressful...
My first observation of Reich was that he didn't make it to the convention until after most of the delegates had arrived. I figure he either slept in, was very confident of the outcome, or (hopefully) was home making phone calls to delegates.
Reich did a much better job of shaking hands, and meeting with delegates than Howitz Hanna did. His team was fairly well organized with numerous signs, and what appeared to be a good floor plan. I enjoyed the fact that his volunteers had headsets, I'm not sure they were necessary but it at least gave me a good chuckle. I wish somebody would have mentioned to the Reich campaign early on that by having a 3 color scheme they're going to be spending a fortune on signs and lit. I'm a believer of the 'signs can't vote' thinking but also realize you have to have them. Keeping them cheap should always be the goal.
Anyways, I tried finding some video of Reich's speech, answers, or acceptance speech but had no luck in my search. Since I don't have a photographic memory, far from it in fact, I'll have to paraphrase what was said. Please comment if my memory is again fabricating things, and I get some of the paraphrasing wrong. It's also good for you since it means a much shorter post.
Reich's speech was much more organized than Howitz Hanna's, and had more of a conversational feel. He spoke a lot about his grassroots campaigning in both his speech and acceptance speech. He really talked up the success of the small house parties, and how they energized the people, and allowed him to get his platform out to the public. Grassroots campaigning takes an enormous amount of passion and devotion, I just didn't get that out of Reich. He came off almost shy at times, and didn't speak with much emotion. He spoke a lot of bringing job growth to the Ward, and building up areas with green jobs. His points in the speech were on target with what the delegation wanted to hear. Though his plan was right, I didn't hear how he planned to accomplish any of those plans. As was mentioned in the previous post, the next council is going to have a real budget crisis and tough decisions will need to be made. I'm not sure what Reich sees as areas that need to be cut but it will need to be addressed soon. I realize that the 'plans' are probably out there, and I intend on doing a later post about websites and conversations with candidates that I'm sure will address these issues. This is simply observations I made at the convention.
It was a pretty anti-climactic convention, with the outcome becoming fairly obvious after the first ballot. Riech had put together a good team that was able to turn out loyal delegates in masses, and that's the name of the game. Reich's acceptance speech I thought was very good. He accepted the nomination humbly and thanked the people he needed to. He also gave me hope by talking about his plans to be at the summer events around Ward 1, and to connect with his constituents.
Losing an endorsement isn't easy but I walked out of the convention with my head up thinking the delegates had made a good choice with a candidate that would be ready and willing to take on a job that is difficult, time consuming, and stressful...
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Ward 1 Convention Observations Part I
Ok, I know I'm a little late commenting on this but I figure better late than never.
Since I was running around behind the scenes for most of the convention I didn't get to observe a lot of what was going on. I did get to see all of the candidate speeches (most are still on YouTube), and was also there for the votes as well. To save time I'll only focus on my observations of the two remaining candidates, Susan Howitz Hanna and Kevin Reich. I realize Reich won the endorsement but to stay fair I think I should cover both.
I'll make this a two part entry, focusing on one candidate per post. I'll start off with Howitz Hanna.
Howitz Hanna had a very late entry into the race, and put herself at a severe disadvantage at the convention. Her 'campaign' obviously lacked any form of organization during the convention. I believe I saw 4-6 very oversized signs scattered throughout Edison. I think having a female candidate is great but to have this as your sole purpose for running doesn't make it the right reason.
Howitz Hanna's speech was one of the more interesting endorsing speeches I've seen. I'm not sure that I buy her explanation of, 'you're endorsing me,' as the real reason she was alone on the stage. I think the 9 votes on the first ballot back up my thinking as to the real reason she was up there alone. I'm usually a fan of the 'casual' speech, the kind where it seems the candidate is talking directly to the people. However, it's a real art form to be able to do that, and until somebody has that ability they need to stick to the tried and true method of writing things down, and practice, practice, practice.
During her speech, Howitz Hanna focused very heavily on building up Central Avenue. I agree that Central could use some help in the development arena but to focus only on this area is unfortunate. If you want to talk about potential business growth in NE there are so many other areas that can be lumped in with Central...Shoreham Yards, Johnson, Mid-City, the list goes on. I think she would have been better to just talk about creating growth in Ward 1 as a whole, rather than just on Central.
I did like her points on Wants vs Needs. The next council is going to come in with a serious budget crisis and will need to make some very tough, and unpopular decisions. It was apparent from Howitz Hanna's speech that she is willing to weigh her options, and make some of those tough decisions. I'd be interested to hear a lot more about this since in her speech she lacked a lot of real examples but if she has some cost saving ideas I'm open to hearing them.
I'll follow up with post-convention activities in a later post but this is about all I can offer from the actual convention since she sat for about 90% of it, giving me little to talk about other than her speech.
Since I was running around behind the scenes for most of the convention I didn't get to observe a lot of what was going on. I did get to see all of the candidate speeches (most are still on YouTube), and was also there for the votes as well. To save time I'll only focus on my observations of the two remaining candidates, Susan Howitz Hanna and Kevin Reich. I realize Reich won the endorsement but to stay fair I think I should cover both.
I'll make this a two part entry, focusing on one candidate per post. I'll start off with Howitz Hanna.
Howitz Hanna had a very late entry into the race, and put herself at a severe disadvantage at the convention. Her 'campaign' obviously lacked any form of organization during the convention. I believe I saw 4-6 very oversized signs scattered throughout Edison. I think having a female candidate is great but to have this as your sole purpose for running doesn't make it the right reason.
Howitz Hanna's speech was one of the more interesting endorsing speeches I've seen. I'm not sure that I buy her explanation of, 'you're endorsing me,' as the real reason she was alone on the stage. I think the 9 votes on the first ballot back up my thinking as to the real reason she was up there alone. I'm usually a fan of the 'casual' speech, the kind where it seems the candidate is talking directly to the people. However, it's a real art form to be able to do that, and until somebody has that ability they need to stick to the tried and true method of writing things down, and practice, practice, practice.
During her speech, Howitz Hanna focused very heavily on building up Central Avenue. I agree that Central could use some help in the development arena but to focus only on this area is unfortunate. If you want to talk about potential business growth in NE there are so many other areas that can be lumped in with Central...Shoreham Yards, Johnson, Mid-City, the list goes on. I think she would have been better to just talk about creating growth in Ward 1 as a whole, rather than just on Central.
I did like her points on Wants vs Needs. The next council is going to come in with a serious budget crisis and will need to make some very tough, and unpopular decisions. It was apparent from Howitz Hanna's speech that she is willing to weigh her options, and make some of those tough decisions. I'd be interested to hear a lot more about this since in her speech she lacked a lot of real examples but if she has some cost saving ideas I'm open to hearing them.
I'll follow up with post-convention activities in a later post but this is about all I can offer from the actual convention since she sat for about 90% of it, giving me little to talk about other than her speech.
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