[Mpls] Murderapolis: Time to Move Beyond Triage

[David Brauer]

On Jul 1, 2005, at 8:42 AM, gemgram wrote:

> David Braur's request, on the Minneapolis Issues, for a Peter  
> McLaughlin finance plan to hire police officers fails to  
> acknowledge that for months Peter McLaughlin has offered a proposal  
> for badly needed new revenue; State aid worth $24 million for the  
> City's closed police pension fund.  That's REAL money that would be  
> available over time to provide REAL  relief to the City's General  
> Fund.  The primary source of funds for the Police Department.


Two things on this:

1. It's $24 million in debt reduction over 30 YEARS. At $800,000 per  
year and $50,000 a cop, that works out to about 16 new cops today.  
Not a big boost.

2. Th city's current leadership - and I include RT and Peter in this  
- has agreed to a pension reform deal that's being held up at the  
legislature. So soon, this "source" of revenue will be a non-issue:  
it will be available to whoever wins.

I think Jim's analysis of RT's caving on this is right; we've written  
about that, too. However, he's accepted the pension plan, which again  
is not the silver bullet for funding more cops some claim it is.

And going forward, the bulk of the original question for Peter  
remains:  how you gonna pay for more than a few new cops, all those  
new promised firefighters, and the implied city worker raises above  
the mayor's and council's 2 percent cap?

> I think David Brauer  needs to ask the Mayor what he's going to do  
> about the spiraling murder rate, since the Mayor's last plan (not  
> engaging in "dangerous behavior") has proven to be such a failure.  
> As I typed I heard there were two more shooting victims on Lake  
> Street last night. Perhaps Mayor Rybak believes that we ALL should  
> move out of Minneapolis because he believes we are engaging in  
> "dangerous behavior" by staying in our own homes. Perhaps it is the  
> Mayor who is engaging us all in his "dangerous behavior"!

It's a fair question, and one I referenced in this week's editorial.  
Again, though, beyond the still-unfinanced promise, Peter's campaign  
also needs to say what it will do differently in this regard.

David Brauer
Kingfield