urbanMSP

I was browsing through wikipedia looking at the history of Minneapolis mayors, and saw some interesting things. In a (slightly over) 2 year span from December 31,1973 to January 1, 1976, Minneapolis had four mayors, two of them being the same guy serving nonconsecutive terms. It went Stenvig, Erdall, Hofstede, Stenvig. And then Hofstede again after. Also, fun fact: Charles Stenvig was once on Family Feud, where his family faced the Tuck family. The Stenvig family lost 422–0. 422-0!!

Submitted for review.

https://youtu.be/r3SMhnEj3NU

Yeah I watched that live yesterday and was in disbelief over the disbelief.

I'm guessing she'll have some legitimate opposition in 2017?

So I was wondering about that. I saw Cano's facebook post about it and she made it sound like she waited through the whole meeting before the discussion was postponed. I figured, yeah, I'd be pissed too. But in the video Bender says she notified Cano ahead of time that it would be postponed. Did I hear that correctly? Is there any way to verify whether Cano knew ahead of time?

Is there any way to verify whether Cano knew ahead of time?

http://www.citypages.com/news/alondra-c ... 01-8241043
(I told y'all a month ago that it was all true)

I don't see how that's an answer to my question.

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Cano threatens to retaliate if council members publicly vote to affirm ethics complaints: http://www.startribune.com/ahead-of-eth ... 394453571/

Getting real...

"It's no secret that I'm one of the most progressive council members here," Cano said.

She's definitely the most something.

If you're being accused of unethical behavior, I don't see how basically trying to blackmail your way out of it will help your situation.

I just really don't understand how she doesn't end up looking petulant and/or vindictive here. And if she has actual evidence of wrong-doing on the part of other council members (the examples used didn't seem unethical to me, but maybe I read it wrong), she should report it regardless of her own ethical situation.

I haven't really thought this through, but following the line of thought above, could this actually be criminal? Doesn't the e-mail suggest that she is offering to bury evidence of unethical behavior in exchange for the political favor of voting to disapprove the ethics vote?!?

MNdible of December 2013 totally saw this coming:

Cano, Frey, and Yang are on MPR Roundtable this morning. My lord does Cano have a chip on her shoulder...

It's hard to point to any one thing, but it came across to me that she was heading into the Council with a patronizing attitude towards the incumbent CMs, looking for a fight.

My impression was that she really thinks she's something special.

I haven't really thought this through, but following the line of thought above, could this actually be criminal? Doesn't the e-mail suggest that she is offering to bury evidence of unethical behavior in exchange for the political favor of voting to disapprove the ethics vote?!?

I can't find it now, but I did see a tweet a couple days ago pointing out that this is basically the textbook legal definition of blackmail.

Can't find, didn't look, whatever.

https://twitter.com/brsomogyi/status/779021594140119041

The tweet references the statute covering sexual and labor trafficking crimes, so perhaps not relevant. I did a quick search and found the statutes covering coercion, and it appears Cano comes close, but probably avoids illegality. Although the political aspect certainly may mean something else. I think (5) covers it below. The catch is she's threatening to expose ethics violations, which at this level I don't think would be something that would 'cause to be made a criminal charge'. I don't think (3) or (4) are relevant, because Cano's threat (revealing ethics violations) would not otherwise be unlawful, nor are the things she says she has secrets.

EDIT: although I suppose it could be considered a threat to 'expose any person to disgrace or ridicule'

609.27 COERCION.
Subdivision 1.Acts constituting. Whoever orally or in writing makes any of the following threats and thereby causes another against the other's will to do any act or forbear doing a lawful act is guilty of coercion and may be sentenced as provided in subdivision 2:
(1) a threat to unlawfully inflict bodily harm upon, or hold in confinement, the person threatened or another, when robbery or attempt to rob is not committed thereby; or
(2) a threat to unlawfully inflict damage to the property of the person threatened or another; or
(3) a threat to unlawfully injure a trade, business, profession, or calling; or
(4) a threat to expose a secret or deformity, publish a defamatory statement, or otherwise to expose any person to disgrace or ridicule; or
(5) a threat to make or cause to be made a criminal charge, whether true or false; provided, that a warning of the consequences of a future violation of law given in good faith by a peace officer or prosecuting attorney to any person shall not be deemed a threat for the purposes of this section.

Gotta assume she's going to have trouble capturing the DFL nomination next spring. That requires a legitimate challenger to emerge though. If she does capture the DFL nom, this would be the ideal year for a Green Party candidate. Wouldn't even have to specifically run "to her left", but just be a focused, mature adult in the room. Remember this is the ward where Alondra "the most progressive" Cano barely defeated an actual socialist in 2013.

So, stepping back for a moment here, of all the ways Cano's original tweets were inappropriate, why is the "using public resources for political purposes" the specific ethics complaint? Why is it inappropriate to publicly disagree with or even rebuke citizens who contact her on political issues that she has to take a stand on as an elected official? She should definitely do that without shaming/naming them, but these are just random citizens, not political rivals, so I don't see how this crosses the line.

For the record, I am not arguing that she is handling this situation well.

For the record, I think Cano's latest email was stupid and juvenile. But I'm surprised that no-one seems at all bothered by the fact that Barb Johnson is waging a shadow campaign against her in the press which--gasp--itself involves leaking private city emails.