Scott Persons: Corporate Tool
The Minneapolis Ward 10 primary is coming down to two frontrunners: Ralph Remington and Scott Persons.
Persons has the best funded campaign and came out strong at the DFL Ward 10 convention in April. His supporters dressed in identical yellow shirts, leading one wag to dub them the Persons Pod People. However, Remington charged to an upset victory, scoring 44% to Persons's 35% on the fifth and final ballot.
Since then, Persons has continued to rack up the bucks from developers while Remington scored a number of union endorsements. Remington refuses to accept money from people who do business with the city.
The race has gotten pretty heated, but even so I was disappointed to see Persons label unions a special interest:
"If Ralph is concerned about conflicts of interest, is he going to not take PAC money from labor unions?" Persons asked. "You'd be voting on labor contracts at the City Council. If you are really concerned about conflicts of interest, then you should forego those contributions as well."
Remington said he has been a theater union member for 15 years, and taking union donations is different from developer donations. "I have always stood up for the rights of working people," he said. "I am one of them."
Labor unions are special interests? That's some way to talk for a member of the party that claims to represent working people.
Then I found out that Scott Persons started a "community" group to support the 35W Access project as-is. The current design of this project expands Lake Street to seven lanes. This is appropriate for Woodbury, not the heart of Minneapolis.
I can understand feeling ambivalent about a project that's a done deal. I can understand coming to terms with the project and trying to make its damage to Lake Street as minimal as possible. I can even understand wanting a rationalized 35W exit system for South Minneapolis, and working to make it as good as possible.
But forming a group to support 35W Access as-is? Who is this guy?
I know that Scott Persons would be an effective City Council member. Unfortunately, he'd be very effective at getting things done in Ward 10 that I disagree with. Has he ever seen a new development he didn't like? Scott Persons is the developers' best friend.
posted by Luke Francl @ 6:45 PM |
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4 Comments:
Oh it doesn't matter. The city is doomed anyway.
But the idea that unions aren't special interest groups is just ignorant.
_censored
In the Democratic-Farmer-LABOR Party, LABOR is not a special interest.
Workers are not a special interest, they are 80+% of the population. It's like calling "men" or "women" a special interest.
Republicans call labor a "special interest" to demonize that. I refuse to let Democrats play that game. It only helps the Republicans win.
Labor is a special interest by definition but it is a special interest that DFLers support.
However, I do wonder about the future of labor now that so many companies that have a unionized workforce are getting hammered because of the astronomical cost of the pensions, benefits, post-retirement health care and guaranteed pay. GM has thousands of idle workers that have no incentive to find a new job because they are still getting paid $26/hour for doing nothing. I would love to have that deal. The free lunch doesn't last forever though.
Development isn't evil in itself. Minneapolis is the vibrant city it is because we didn't shy away from development like St. Paul did. You can't keep Minneapolis' neighborhoods like suburbs. The push for density is strong and there should be more density in the city. Development is especially welcome if no public funds are involved.
That's my take.
Both Persons and Remington would make fine City Council members but I would rather have Remington because I would like to have a city council member who does at least look at the plans and asks questions.
Democrats need to take a new look at business and development and see the positive role those play in our lives.
Scott Persons has the most personal stake in opening up Nicollet Avenue (he lives on it). Not surprisingly-the vast majority of the crime that still takes place in the neighborhood is on the Kmart stretch of Lake Street.
For this reason alone-he gets my vote. He did a great job on the LNA board helping turn around the Lyndale neighborhood from a crime infested s**thole to a decent place to live.
And unlike Remmington-Persons has pursued a Masters Degree in Public Affairs and actually has city/neighborhood planning experience as a 6 year volunteer to the Lyndale Neighborhood Association. Versus Remington, who is a theater flake who has no civic experience (paid or volunteer) and can't even balance his own checkbook-much less the city's.
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