[Mpls] 10 Nov Park Board Meeting Highlights and Lowlights, Part 1

[Chris Johnson]

Part 1 of several

The running joke that the elected commissioners represent us, the taxpayers, 
continues at the Park Board.  Last night's meeting once again made clear that 
certain commissioners are only there to further their own personal agendas, 
and that no trick is too low for their grasp.  They've surrounded themselves 
with hirelings of equally poor ethics as they continue to fleece the taxpayers.

At 5pm, the Legislative and Intergovernmental Committee, chaired by 
commissioner Walt Dziedzic, met to hear reports on lobbying efforts at the 
state capital on behalf of the Park Board by Maryann Campo and counsel Brian 
Rice.  The committee had half an hour of time scheduled.  First to speak was 
Maryann Campo.

Campo has acted as a contract lobbyist for the Park Board since 1999.  She had 
a handout with some details which was given to the commissioners but which I 
did not see (and don't believe the rest of the public got to see, either).  No 
doubt there is some significant differences in skill sets uses in lobbying and 
in presenting a report to a board of commissioners, but to the extent that 
they overlap, the Park Board is clearly not getting its money's worth.  Campo 
is a terrible speaker.  She said very little of substance, and was incapable 
of stringing several complete sentences together, um'ing and ah'ing often.

Dziedzic would have been reprimanded by the judge in a court of law for 
"leading the witness" with the amount of prompting and directing he did, 
sometimes actually interrupting Campo to get his next suggested reply or 
leading question in.  He variously called her "Miss Campo" and "Maryann" at times.

Dziedzic asked Campo if she wanted to continue working for the Park Board. 
She answers yes.  He asks her if she wants a 3 year contract.  Yes.

Commissioner John Erwin asks Campo about the hours she worked for them in 2003 
versus 2004, the latter provided on the hand-out.  Campo begins her answer by 
saying she was not prepared to talk about 2003, implying she had not been told 
anyone would ask her about it, it seems.  With some prompting she is finally 
able to say that with the much longer legislative session in 2003 that she 
would have worked many more hours in 2003 than 2004 for the Park Board.  [One 
would think that when asked to report on one's work to one's boss that one 
would spend a little time and actually be prepared for simple, obvious 
questions like year to year comparisons.  Or at least this one would think so.]

Counsel and lobbyist Brian Rice then got up to make his presentation.  He 
starts out by laying on the flattering praise to Campo, saying it's been 6 
years they've worked together and that Campo is "just as young looking now as" 
when they started.

Commissioner Carol Kummer interrupts to say "It was just so much fun!"

Rice continues in his usual sonorously droning style [thankfully he has a 
pleasant baritone] mentioning tidbits of history and dropping names of people 
here and there but without really giving a clear picture of anything.  He lays 
on the praise to the commissioners for their help in lobbying, the praise on 
Campo for her work, etc. etc.  He talks about changes in LGA (local government 
aid) and something about money from LCMR.

At which point Dziedzic interrupts to get him to define what LCMR and other 
acronyms are.

Rice says LCMR is the legislative commission on Minnesota resources, which at 
one time got half a cent tobacco tax as a revenue source, but mostly depends 
on a share of the state lottery money now.

Rice also has a handout given to the commissioners that the public does get to 
see as far as I know.

Rice mentions working with Dziedzic and butters up Kummer for pursuing some 
legislative issue.  He says he can't emphasize enough that it's a team 
approach and a bipartisan effort.  He says his firm wants to continue as 
lobbyists for the Park Board.

Commissioner Annie Young asks why she does not see work the charter on the 
handout as lots of hours were spent on that.  [Are these billed hours not on 
the previous bill of $327,619.51 for legal work and $76,383.02 for lobbying 
from his firm?  The former add up to over 3700 hours of billed work in a year 
-- 2 full-time people -- and the Park Board is just one of many clients.]

Rice says charter work is under legal.  [but I see no "charter" category there]

Young says a lot of the charter work is wheeling and dealing, so isn't it sort 
of both legal and lobbying?

Rice compliments Young and then goes on.

Erwin has another handout that only he has a copy of at this point that has 
the charter work billable charges on it.

Dziedzic interjects some commentary about the charter changing so that instead 
of a 13 to 0 city council vote to change it, it would only take a legislative 
vote of 7 to 6 at the city council.  Not clear what he is talking about.

Commissioner Vivian Mason wants to wait until the Park Board budget for 2005 
is set before taking action on rehiring both Campo and Rice.

Someone makes a motion to adjourn the meeting.

Kummer asks about the lobbying contracts.  Rice answers that he is by 
appointment so it can start and end whenever, but that he believe Campo has a 
contract that ended December 31, 2003 or more likely, ends December 31, 2004.

Young makes a point of order -- that the motion to adjourn needs to be voted on.

Vote is called, motion fails with Mason voting yes, and others voting no.

Commissioner Jon Olson, president, who is not on this committee, asks Campo if 
there is a chance that she will not be available for the Park Board to hire if 
they delay until after the budget is set on December 13.

Campo says there is a risk that she might not be.  [It all sounds reasonable 
but the truth is this is just a ploy to get Campo rehired before the budget is 
set against Mason's request, and Campo is unlikely to have anything remotely 
as lucrative as her Park Board contract -- well except maybe for representing 
the Lorillard Tobacco Company trying to stop those anti-smoking ordinances.]

Olson "strongly recommends" the committee move it along to "retain the 
excellent services" of Campo.

5:25pm

Erwin wants to discuss and wants to move it to the full board at first meeting 
in December (Dec. 1).

Commissioner Bob Fine also wants to move it to the full board.

Erwin and Fine clarify a mutual position.

Commissioner Marie Hauser, who is not on this committee, also wants to urge 
the committee to move forward.

Erwin moves that decision and issues be moved to full board December 1.

MOTION CARRIES.

Mason is concerned about contract terms.

Committee is ADJOURNED.

5:27pm

Committee of the Whole is called to order by Olson.

First item is a staff overview and then a public hearing on the interim 
superintendent's Recommended 2005 Budget.

Assistant superintendent Don Siggelkow outlines the budget and next steps, 
reusing the slides from his presentation at last week's meeting.

5:35pm

General manager Mike Schmidt gets to be the water boy and sounds very nervous 
to be on the spot in trying to defuse the public's anger over proposed cuts to 
the Summer Playgrounds and Environmental Education programs.  He says most 
questions on the budget have been about those 2 items, and the staff and 
commissioners have received a lot of calls.  [And the audience is packed with 
upset parents and kids with posters and placards...]

Schmidt does his best to explain what exactly the proposed cuts would affect 
in those programs and what they would not, and likewise does his best to CYA 
the Park Board with high fog-factor obfuscatory phrasing.  He uses such 
verbal, Jon Gurban-esque* gems like the "thought process about the thoughts" 
on how it could be done differently.  Schmidt appeared to be sweating bullets, 
metaphorically speaking.

*[Interim superintendent Jon Gurban is given to such unique turns of phrase as 
"we were developing some plans for developing some focus groups within the 
staff" and "there are plans and diagrams starting almost with backs of napkins 
  and progressing through more diagrams and that, of how..."]

5:39pm

Olson says they discussed these 2 items at the last meeting.  He asks if the 
staff has worked on ways to restore funding completely to these 2 programs.

Schmidt says they talked about options and other program they could cut.

5:40pm

Public Comments

[I will no doubt butcher the spelling of some people's names, my apologies.]

1. Barbara Milon, Executive Director of the Phyllis Wheatley Community Center 
(http://www.pwccenter.org/) in North Minneapolis talks about the critical 
needs of inner city youth for structured activities and supervision.  She says 
the Park Board needs to use out of the box thinking to solve the problem of 
funding these important programs and gives an example of that thinking.

2. Greg Langeson[?] of 27xx Grand St NE, chairman of the Marshall Terrace 
neighborhood association describes how the proposed 50% reduction in the 
Summer Playgrounds program will essentially eliminate the program in Marshall 
Terrace and elsewhere.  He refers to the Park Board's stated mission and goals 
regarding recreational activities for children, and that such are a community 
value.

3. Joanne Odette[?] of Main St NE near Hi-View Park felt confident that her 7 
year old grandson was safe going to the park, especially safe from bullying, 
because 2 park staff were there [this past summer].  She mentions that she has 
never been to the Park Board HQ building before and comments that it is 
"nice."  She states maybe supervised recreation activities for children are 
more important [than the HQ building].

4. Norma Hill[?] of 2nd St NE near Hi-View Park.  She ticks off the litany of 
public facilities they do NOT have in that neighborhood, e.g library, rec 
center, lakes, etc. [it's wedged into a corner by the BNSF train yards]. 
Without the Summer Playgrounds program they will have nothing.  She then reads 
a letter from a child who uses that park named Amanda Whitaker.

--
Reported by Chris Johnson, Fulton