urbanMSP

Posted: **April 27th, 2017, 12:58 pm**

I think we can all agree that both RCV (no primary) and "Top 2" nonpartisan/"jungle" primaries are WAAAAY better than the current system we have for state and national partisan elections (first past the post, choosing the lesser of evils, reluctance to support 3rd party candidates, etc.) We need to kill the "first past the post" election system and either go with RCV or "Top 2" for all elections.

The questions that remain are which one is better (or has the least flaws), which one is more efficient, which one is better understood by the public, and which one is easier to sell to the public (or less controversial). One of the theories behind ranked choice is that it's cheaper for taxpayers, but I'm not sure that has been proven. With "Top 2" you still have to run a primary (assuming more than 2 file), but in many elections you could also skip the general/"runoff" election if a candidate reaches 50% in the primary. If we were going to go with a single system for all US elections, I'd pick "Top 2" as the one that could be more easily sold to the public and less controversial.

In partisan elections, this could possibly have the effect of electing more moderates/centrists. In very left-leaning or very right-leaning districts (of which there are many), it is quite likely that two Democrats or two Republicans would finish as the "Top 2" in the primary and advance to the general. Voters of the party which has no candidate in the general election would be likely to vote for the more "centrist" candidate of the other party, hopefully leading to fewer extremists in Congress and state legislatures.

Posted: **May 9th, 2017, 7:00 am**

Forest Lake voted to disband their police and contract with Washington County sheriff's department for law enforcement services to save money.

http://www.startribune.com/forest-lake- ... 421693743/

A city of 18,000 and a petition from residents signed by 6,000? That's a huge number for the city council to ignore.

Posted: **May 9th, 2017, 7:46 am**

I had a few friends posting about this on Facebook last night who live in or grew up in that town. It sounds like the root of this is likely a personal dispute between an elected official and one or more people in the P.D.

Posted: **May 9th, 2017, 7:41 pm**

I read about FLPD... article said that the expectations and budget for the PD was growing astronomically and the argument for going to the County was better service. But then I read about stories where a city is under county service and they have ZERO officers assigned. I don't get it. There has to be some happy medium. How do the local small cities make it work with combined forces? Would we be better if all these critical services were done on a county level?

Posted: **May 10th, 2017, 7:11 am**

Arden Hills, Gem Lake, Little Canada, North Oaks, Shoreview, Vadnais Heights, and White Bear Township all contract with Ramsey County. They have zero assigned officers. Seems to work okay.

Posted: **July 4th, 2017, 10:29 am**

Shakopee rising up the ranks to challenge Lake Elmo in shenanigans.

http://www.startribune.com/shakopee-str ... 432372843/

Posted: **September 13th, 2017, 2:36 pm**

Shakopee definitely achieving Lake Elmo levels. Well done.

http://www.startribune.com/shakopee-cit ... 444262883/

Posted: **October 6th, 2017, 10:12 am**

Luckily it’s just a candidate forum, but this deserves to add my beloved Hopkins to the thread.

http://www.citypages.com/news/hopkins-m ... /449735583

Posted: **October 9th, 2017, 9:24 am**

Given how poorly he did in the last mayor election getting less votes than then the number of write-ins, I have a strong suspicion that most of them where for the old mayor Eugene "Gene" Maxwell as a desperate attempt to get him out of retirement.

Posted: **November 6th, 2017, 8:01 pm**

Help! Can someone suggest a good path to rebut the below opinion piece posted in the Press Pub? It was written by Rep. Linda Runbeck (R, Circle Pines) and I find it terrible to have inaccurate info posted to the paper.

http://www.presspubs.com/shoreview/opin ... f5a71.html

Her views are anti transit. I believe she voted to defund Metro Transit.

Her bio: http://www.house.leg.state.mn.us/member ... p?id=10575

Committee Assignments
Chair: Transportation and Regional Governance Policy
Capital Investment
Transportation Finance

No wonder we don't have good progress on funding.

Posted: **November 8th, 2017, 4:53 pm**

I think we can all agree that both RCV (no primary) and "Top 2" nonpartisan/"jungle" primaries are WAAAAY better than the current system we have for state and national partisan elections (first past the post, choosing the lesser of evils, reluctance to support 3rd party candidates, etc.) We need to kill the "first past the post" election system and either go with RCV or "Top 2" for all elections.

The questions that remain are which one is better (or has the least flaws), which one is more efficient, which one is better understood by the public, and which one is easier to sell to the public (or less controversial). One of the theories behind ranked choice is that it's cheaper for taxpayers, but I'm not sure that has been proven. With "Top 2" you still have to run a primary (assuming more than 2 file), but in many elections you could also skip the general/"runoff" election if a candidate reaches 50% in the primary. If we were going to go with a single system for all US elections, I'd pick "Top 2" as the one that could be more easily sold to the public and less controversial.

In partisan elections, this could possibly have the effect of electing more moderates/centrists. In very left-leaning or very right-leaning districts (of which there are many), it is quite likely that two Democrats or two Republicans would finish as the "Top 2" in the primary and advance to the general. Voters of the party which has no candidate in the general election would be likely to vote for the more "centrist" candidate of the other party, hopefully leading to fewer extremists in Congress and state legislatures.

Apologies for digging this out seven months later but I think this is literally the first time I've clicked on a thread named "Suburban [x]" since I discovered people for some reason don't consider St. Paul a suburb

I agree completely with you on this post. I was an adamant proponent of RCV in Minneapolis, but now think that although RCV is a clear improvement over typical first-past-the-post systems, it's not a clear winner over the runoff system (what you call "Top 2") that Minneapolis used before. Arguing for RCV to become the replacement for FPP at a broader level would be tough, while runoffs do make intuitive sense to most people and would go a long way toward improving the system because it forces temporary alliances among moderates, and guarantees that moderate candidates can stake out a path to victory if they explicitly try not to alienate moderates of the other "side".

Of course, for that very reason there will be a certain reluctance to change the system among some currently-invested people, and it's a difficult fight to argue that local governments should have to spend more on elections, especially when voter turnout is already low with a single real election. Those are the selling points for RCV, but its opaqueness for many normal people is a major drawback.

Posted: **April 18th, 2018, 12:40 pm**

I'm not a fan of top-two because you end up with weird strategic voting incentives. Sometimes it works great--for example, the Senate election in California was great, because you were never going to have a Republican win that seat, and the end result was a competitive general election between two people with a real shot of winning. But there are other scenarios where it breaks down. There are a couple House races in CA where there are like 15 Democratic candidates and 2 Republican candidates, and there's a real concern that the total votes for Dems will outnumber the total votes for Republicans, but the Dem vote will be split so many ways that none appear on the general ballot.

IMO RCV is not that hard to understand. The vote tallying is a bit less intuitive, but completing a ballot (list your top three choices) is dead simple. People put their personal preferences in order all the time--when they're choosing a restaurant, or buying a car, or lots of other daily tasks. It's a natural way to think, and the polls suggest voters have broadly gotten used to it and like it in Minneapolis. The need under top-two to vote on two different dates, and the possibility of not having a race on Election Day at all if someone does well enough in the primary, is a bigger barrier to participation IMO than the different ballot format.

Incidentally, the reason I'm bumping this thread is that St. Louis Park just adopted RCV! Good work, SLP!

http://www.fairvotemn.org/news/saint-lo ... ice-voting

Posted: **July 14th, 2018, 8:04 pm**

Anyone live in St Paul ward 4? Have you heard/read the news this past week about David Martinez? What is this guy thinking?!?! He’s unstable.

Within a few days:
- Banned from library for swearing and going absolutely crazy
- kicked out and banned from Target Field for jumping the moat
- assaults his wife and she gets restraining order on him (his reaction is to post her topless on his campaign site)

https://www.twincities.com/2018/07/14/s ... o-of-wife/

Posted: **July 15th, 2018, 5:22 am**

You missed his radio interview. https://wccoradio.radio.com/articles/op ... fall-apart

I think he unironically could need some help.

Posted: **July 15th, 2018, 12:39 pm**

Yes, it seems like a real mental health crisis. It's sad, because people in that situation literally are not themselves. His wife's comments indicate he got to some kind of breaking point. People don't just start a pattern of destructive behavior for no reason.

Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk

Posted: **July 16th, 2018, 5:20 am**

Thank you everyone for the empathetic discussion thus far. I struggle with mental heath myself and I appreciate that this conversation isn’t demonizing the council member and is instead recognizing that he appears ill.

Posted: **July 18th, 2018, 10:00 am**

He was released from jail today, presumably because no charges were filed in the 'revenge porn' accusation. This is definitely the right call in my opinion. It appears the picture he posted was likely taken in public (on a beach?), and the portrayal of breasts should certainly not be considered de facto 'sexual' (unless, perhaps, one aligns themselves with the Trumpian anti-breastfeeding crowd). Classless, certainly. Illegal? No way.

Hope this guy finds the help he needs. As pointed out above, mental illness is really, really tough. Having had friends and family suffer from mental disorder, you want to help those in need, but you also run the risk of pulling yourself into the orbit of the destructive behavior and often need to balance their needs with your own well-being (which sadly seems to have caught up with Martinez' wife). Of course that makes it even less likely for them to get the appropriate assistance. A very vicious cycle.

Posted: **July 18th, 2018, 11:27 am**

What the hell is wrong with you, posting someone's naked photo without their consent should absolutely be illegal.

Posted: **July 18th, 2018, 5:31 pm**

What the hell is wrong with you, posting someone's naked photo without their consent should absolutely be illegal.

She wasn't naked.

If posting pics of women who go topless in public places should be illegal, so should posting pics of topless men. I'm sure there are literally millions of men who would prefer their man boobs not be photographed and end up in the background of a nightly news report covering the recent heatwave from a local beach. But if those men are at that public beach? Tough s&*t.

Female breasts are not primary sex organs any more than male breasts are. If breastfeeding in public is not 'dirty' why are breasts alone 'dirty'? There's no expectation of privacy when you expose skin in public. Take your pic of reasons why this should absolutely be legal (and it is specifically exempted from being a crime in the Minnesota statute, which is almost certainly why he wasn't charged). Your attitude is remarkably regressive and prudish. Welcome to 2018.

Posted: **July 18th, 2018, 5:49 pm**

Look at this disgusting sexist pig that just actually wrote all those words defending the act of posting a naked picture of his ex wife with the explicit purpose of shaming and embarrassing her. Your attitude is remarkably sexist and abusive. It's 2018, have some basic human decency.

urbanMSP

Local politics, shenanigans

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