urbanMSP

Lake Elmo employees forming a union because of council turmoil.

http://www.twincities.com/2016/02/09/la ... 1455064400

Doug Grow tackles the special strain of crazy in Lake Elmo.

https://www.minnpost.com/politics-polic ... nt-america

Does this level of elected insane affect property values?

New Brighton rebukes council member and removes her from positions.

http://www.startribune.com/metro-briefs ... 377702071/

New Brighton's censured council person situation is raising tension to Lake Elmo levels.

http://www.startribune.com/tensions-run ... 382554641/

Lake Elmo fires their $200/hr parliamentarian.

http://www.twincities.com/2016/06/26/ou ... mentarian/

Failed experiment to keep the council from being a total train wreck? What would it take for the city's rates to go up?

But a campaign at City Hall to encourage more engagement in civic affairs has turned into an episode akin to “The Jerry Springer Show.”

http://www.startribune.com/roseville-s- ... 393003131/

Orono descends into Lake Elmo incivility?

http://m.startribune.com/city-leaders-c ... 395918171/

Lake Elmo's election: a referendum on civility? http://startribune.com/lake-elmo-s-elec ... tion=local

New Brighton continuing with airing of grievances.

http://www.startribune.com/after-electi ... 403150926/

New mayor and some on the city council seemed to desire a new city manager, so the current city manager resigned.

http://www.startribune.com/west-st-paul ... 409710635/

I'd like to hear about the history that brought such a conflict. The news report says the city manager had conflict with the Coon Rapids city council in the past. Any West St. Paul peeps have insight to share?

It's going to cost the city $115K to dismiss the city manager.

http://www.startribune.com/ouster-of-we ... 410322025/

Lake Elmo isn't settled down yet.

http://www.startribune.com/lake-elmo-ne ... 412361843/

Can anyone who lives in a city without a DFL city committee, so any city other than Brooklyn Center, Brooklyn Park, Duluth, Maplewood, Minneapolis, or St Paul, explain how party endorsements work for city races (if there are any even)?

Can anyone who lives in a city without a DFL city committee...

Additional question: what is a DFL city committee?

A city-level organization of the DFL party. Political parties in MN are mainly organized by State Senate districts, or sometimes by county in rural MN. For example, I live in SD63, so that is the organizing unit for party endorsements for all state and federal elections.

However, we also have county, city, and school board races which don't follow senate/house district lines, so there are separate organizing units of the DFL for those races. There's a "Minneapolis DFL" and a "Hennepin County DFL". Most suburbs do not have city-level DFL organizations. I think for most suburbs there just wouldn't be enough people to organize and operate a party structure. You'd probably have the same dozen people participating in everything. That would be bad. Also, municipal races are officially nonpartisan elections, and I think in most purple-ish suburbs, many candidates would actually want to avoid being stuck with a party label.

Can anyone who lives in a city without a DFL city committee, so any city other than Brooklyn Center, Brooklyn Park, Duluth, Maplewood, Minneapolis, or St Paul, explain how party endorsements work for city races (if there are any even)?

In Richfield, I'm not aware of official endorsements for City offices -- although anybody involved in City politics knows who the DFL-aligned candidates are. (Of the current Council: Garcia and Howard especially, Regan Gonzalez more loosely.) When door-knocking for various candidates, I was never sure how to answer questions of if they were a Democrat or a Republican -- they were Democrats, but not in their capacity in this race.

I'm not a fan of party endorsements for non-partisan races -- so, an endorsement at a party convention, but no actual primary. This happens for County Commissioner races.

Saint Louis Park considering dumping primary elections and going to ranked choice elections.

http://sailor.mnsun.com/2017/04/26/prim ... ouis-park/

I am a supporter of ranked choice (particularly for partisan legislative/congressional/executive elections), but wouldn't support that here. Nonpartisan "Top 2" primary elections are fairly ideal. What cities in MN ought to do to save money (instead of ranked choice) is to simply not hold the general election if a candidate reaches 50% in the primary, much like the elections in Georgia and Louisiana.

What's the harm in ranked choice elections? Maybe require a small petition to get on the ballot to ensure you don't get flaky candidates (I'm sure there are plenty of people who would pay $50 to file for office but are too lazy or disengaged to get 50 residents to sign a petition for the same thing).

I'm also a strong supporter of RCV, but I do feel that things break down when you have more than, say, four legitimate candidates. (See the last MPLS mayoral contest, where you'd typically have seven candidates at most debates, and therefore never had time for more in depth discussions because you had to give everybody enough time.)