urbanMSP

Barb officially announces she has votes to retain Presidency. She also says she is supporting Glidden for VP, Goodman will remain as chair of CD, Quincy will chair W&M/Budget, Reich will chair TPW. Interesting choice for W&M/Budget given that Quincy is currently Vice-Chair of CD. However, since it looks like Glidden will be VP, they have to pull someone from outside the W&M/Budget committee to chair. Hopefully Glidden will stay on the committee, though.

http://www.startribune.com/local/blogs/237301931.html

W&M is a powerful/prominent committee for someone who has done approximately nothing for the last 4 years. Unfortunately this is very much an expression of Old Mpls: keep your head down and eventually you'll get promoted.

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

That's exactly what I was thinking. I had a lot of grimacing moments between her and Frey.

At the very least, she had too much coffee. And she had every right to be pissed after the MPR host called her "Caño"

http://www.startribune.com/politics/sta ... 42101.html

I've always known the new council is pro-density and pro-bike/ped, but reading these profiles confirms those views post-election and make me very excited for the future!

http://www.startribune.com/politics/sta ... 42101.html

Bender wonders why bustling Hennepin Avenue S. has so many newer, single-story buildings.

Amen!

So, I became a bit obsessed this morning with Port Authorities and the MCDA, which led me to stumbling across this article from City Pages, published in March of 2003.

I'm reposting it here as a salute to RT Rybak on his way out of office. Please do give it a read.

A lot of people on the board may not have been around town back then to remember how badly messed up the city's finances were at that time, and may question why the city isn't more aggressive in spending to pursue city goals. It has literally taken 10 years of clean-up to get the city's finances back to the point where we can find some spare change in the city budget to spend on nice things (like stopping the deferment of basic maintenance on our infrastructure). The fact that a good chunk of that improvement came during a massive nationwide financial meltdown is especially remarkable.

So cheers to RT, for getting us to where we are today, and may the new CMs not forget the discipline and pragmatism that it took to get us here.

(While you're at it, this City Pages article from May of 2002 is another good one. Remember when CP used to do actual journalism?)

Prayers for a speedy recovery for RT as well.

Livestream the inauguration ceremony here: http://www.ci.minneapolis.mn.us/tv/79

Lisa Bender is now chair of Zoning & Planning. Awesome.

Read my full recap and analysis regarding the Council's organizational meeting:

http://www.degersblogg.mn/blog/new-minn ... ounci.html

Interesting composition of TPW Committee. I'd have thought Andrew Johnson would want on that, but they probably had to leave him off for geographic disparity (too many southsiders). This looks to be a pretty progressive group (transportation-wise), even if I'm not thrilled about the choice for Chair. I have nothing against Kevin Reich personally, it's just that the area he represents can best be described as Lower Columbia Heights. Most of his ward is pretty low-density/car-dependent. I would have preferred someone from a denser, more multi-modal part of the city as chair of this committee.

To explain my "progressive" comment, out of this group I could only see Kevin Reich and Blong Yang from this group voting against protected bike lanes or a woonerf or something similar. Cam Gordon and Lisa Bender will fully support initiatives to increase biking and walking, followed by Linea Palmisano and Elizabeth Glidden.

EDIT: OK, further comments. It really seems like Alondra Cano pretty much talked her way out of any meaningful committee assignment. She's on CD and is Vice Chair of Intergovermental Relations...big whoop. Besides CD, she isn't on any of the remaining Big 5 (TPW, Z&P, W&M, and Public Safety). In contrast, Lisa Bender is Chair of Z&P, while also serving on TPW and W&M. Jacob Frey also got a fairly light plate of duties outside of being Vice Chair of CD, not serving on any other important committees. OK, he's chair of Elections...they have some work to do with the filing fee issue, but otherwise it's not a huge assignment.

EDIT2: Fixed my contradiction, which was caused by over-editing...

t really seems like Alondra Cano pretty much talked her way out of any meaningful committee assignment. She isn't on any of the Big 5 (TPW, Z&P, W&M, CDR, and Public Safety). She's on CD

Isn't that a contradiction?

She's also on the new Health, Environment, & Community Engagement committee. These assignments might be just right for what she wants to do.

And IGR isn't something to scoff at. It's pretty powerful to be able to interact with county and state leaders in an official capacity.

I really appreciated the extensive write up, degers.

I consider myself a farily close watcher of city politics, but I have to ask: Is the power of Council committee chairs vastly overstated? It's not like in the House or Senate, where a powerful committee chair can bring home the bacon for their district, or bottle up a bill they don't like. They don't set the agenda, they can't prevent somebody from talking, and they're not going to punish somebody who votes the wrong way.

So why do people think they have so much power?

I was also surprised that Abdi Warsame isn't on the new Health, Environment, & Community Engagement committee.

If anyone ever makes a biopic on Rybak, Patrick Dempsey's your guy.

Sorry, but Patrick Dempsey's eyes aren't dreamy blue enough.

Patrick Dempsy, Dylan McDermott and Dermot Mulroney would all make great a great RT Rybak.

Quincy was the 7th vote for Johnson for council prez, and ended up chair of Ways & Means. Coincidence?

http://www.minnpost.com/politics-policy ... uncils-dyn

Karen Boros does great reporting for MinnPost. It's always a pleasure reading her articles.

I'm not wholly convinced the Karen Boros article was entirely accurate. It's all here say. I'm sure if you ask other council members I'm sure you'll get a different answer on who decided and in what order.